Our House – Page 2 – Snapshots & My Thoughts by Ailee Petrovic

Our House January 4, 2019

My New Elfa Office Closet

Ahh, The Container Store Elfa systems – truly what my dreams are made of! Each of the girls (including Georgie!) have Elfa systems from The Container Store in their closets. In fact, one of my most viewed blog posts is this one which shows the different Elfa components in Emi’s closet at our old house. I absolutely love how easy these solutions are to install and how helpful they are in keeping me organized and maximizing space.

My ‘office closet’ at the old house was the playroom closet, and after it got a serious organizational makeover by Meggie of Organized Life Design, I was finally able to find things I needed for shoots, lifestyle photos, crafting, events, etc. It also made transitioning all of the goods (per se) over to my new office closet so much easier. I am fortunate to have my dream office now, and I have a nice-sized walk-in-closet for storage. It is an odd shape though, as part of it goes underneath our stairs.

Décor January 3, 2019

Isla’s New Big Girl Bed & Casper Mattress

As part of the move to our new house, Isla’s got a whole new bedroom set. I wanted Isla to have a queen bed, as we will likely use her room for guests who come to stay with us. She used to have a full bed, which Emi has now inherited (typical second child!). As soon as I saw this flamingo wallpaper, I knew it would be the center of the design for the room.

I wanted to design a space that was more grown up than a toddler room, but still young and whimsical. I am so happy with how it’s turning out! I still need to add personal touches like photos, art/prints, etc. (and a ficus, because every room needs one! Sorry, Sasha!), but it’s getting there.

Since we were upgrading her bed, we needed to buy a new mattress. I did a ton of research, and I was dying to try The Essential Mattress from Casper after reading and hearing great reviews. Sasha was more dubious about a mattress that arrived in a box, but once it was unrolled and on the bed, he was sold. It is truly so comfortable, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen asleep on it while putting Isla to bed at night so far. Whenever friends come over to look at the house, I always tell them to sit on her bed to feel how comfy it is. I want one for every bed in the house. At $600 for the queen sized mattress, it’s hard to beat on price too. It’s the perfect transition mattress from toddler to big-girl, and Isla couldn’t be happier (can’t stop her from bouncing all over it!).

Thank you to Casper for partnering on this post, and thank you for supporting the brands we love! Also, special thanks to Megan Hermis for her help designing the room and the fun pillows/chair!

Room Sources:

Décor June 7, 2018

Fearless at Thirty with Olay (Plus, a Giveaway!)

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Olay. The opinions and text are all mine. Comments submitted may be displayed on other websites owned by the sponsoring brand.

In February, I celebrated a big milestone birthday when I turned thirty. I’d been planning a trip to Paris with friends for years, and it turned out to be everything I’d ever dreamed of. It’s funny, because when I was in high school, thirty seemed so old. As I neared my thirties, people constantly told me that their thirties were the best years of their lives. I believe it too. Every year on my birthday, Sasha asks me what my favorite thing was from the past year and what I’m looking forward to in the coming year. This time, he asked what I was most excited about for this new decade. I would love to have one more baby, I want to continue to grow my photography business and spend more time teaching, I want to be involved in the girls’ schools in whatever capacity is available, I want to take a few trips with girlfriends, I want to go on more dates with Sasha, and last, but not least: I want to spend more time loving the skin I’m in. As I mentioned, one of my main goals is to continue growing my photography practice. Since I started my business three years ago, I have dreamed of having an in-home studio space where I can photograph clients and also teach classes. I currently just have a desk setup in our master bedroom (Sasha does too!). I used to have so much self-doubt when I started my photography business, and it has taken a lot of confidence and courage to get to where I am today. I wanted to teach classes for a long time but was worried nobody would sign up to take them!

Fortunately, this hasn’t been the case so far, and I’ve gotten such an adrenaline rush while teaching them. Being fearless has taken work but is way more fun than being nervous about what others think of you and Olay has been empowering women for many generations and I’m excited to share with you how being fearless and thirty has led me to accomplish a big dream of mine. My dream of having an at-home studio a reality in the house we’re building, and I’m incredibly excited for this room to be complete (very soon!). I chose wood paneling which I have painted Sherwin Williams Alabaster White, there are two big windows for natural light, and I am having a custom table built that seats up to eight people. In this space, I can teach classes, but also roll the table over and take headshots and portrait sessions thanks to the amazing natural light. In the fall, I hope to teach four or more classes every month! Below you’ll see the plans I have for this room.

Décor October 13, 2017

Emi’s Closet Organization

Earlier this week, @ProjectNursery posted a photo of Emi’s closet (taken before she was born!), which is always exciting to see. As a result, I’ve gotten a lot of emails asking about where I got various organizational products. When I posted her nursery photos earlier this year, they spurred many of the same questions. Since I bought most of the items in-store at The Container Store, it wasn’t very easy to find them on site, but I finally tracked everything down and it’s all linked below!

I am not the most organized person, but since this closet is hyper-organized, it has been so easy to maintain. Everything has it’s proper place, so when I’m putting things away, I know exactly where to put it. Bottle components on the right, diapers, shoes on the left. Swaddles, swaddle sacks, baby-wearing in the tubs, clothes hung up by size. It’s also easier for me to put things away now that I’ve put away all newborn to six month clothing. I love Emi’s little room and her closet – it calms my OCD soul! Ha. I hope the links below are helpful! Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions.

Components of Emi’s Closet

1) elfa utility Medium Basket White // 2) Blank Closet Rod Divider // 3) elfa utility Large Mesh Basket White // 4) Men’s Drop-Front Shoe Box Translucent // 5) Kid’s Huggable Hangers in Ivory (some with Ultra Slim Finger Clips) // 6) elfa utility Small Basket White // 7) elfa Utility Media Rack White // 8) elfa utility Square Box Translucent // 9) 3-Drawer Storage Chest (I didn’t add the wheels) // 10) 77-3/4″ elfa Mounted Standard White with elfa utility Residential Overdoor Hooks White Set of 2

Another amazing The Container Store find – 24-Pocket Mesh Overdoor Shoe Bag White – for our bows!! I got a lot of questions about this when I posted it to Instagram as well!

Décor August 22, 2017

Isla’s New Butterfly Bedding

I have recently shared tons of photos of sweet Emilia’s nursery on Instagram and here on the blog, which may be the reason I’ve had people email and direct message me asking for details about Isla’s bedroom. Truth be told, I don’t share a lot of photos in her room, but that’s due to two big reasons: 1) Despite how bright the photos may look below (super, super high ISO used), Isla’s bedroom has by far the least amount of natural light in the whole house due to a covered patio being right outside her window. This makes it less than ideal for photos. 2) When we moved Isla into a big bed (this Land of Nod one!), it was around the time we bought our new lot to begin the house building process (a very, very long one!). I didn’t want to spend a lot of time and effort re-vamping Isla’s nursery into a big girl room, knowing that I’d redo it when we moved house (already have grand plans for this!). So we basically kept everything the same, just moved her crib and glider into Emi’s nursery. Alas, most of the items from her room are those from her nursery (post with now-cringeworthy photos here).

I had purchased white bedding from Target last year during the transition, but it was very dirty by now, so yesterday, we put this new butterfly bedding on her bed as a temporary refresh! She was ecstatic about this $37.99 purchase! Ha.

So here you go, a few photos of Isla’s bedroom, pre-‘big-girl-ification’ next year! I love all of the memories that have been made in this space – it’s going to be hard to leave the house we got engaged in and brought our two girls home to from the hospital (more like three, because Milly came here from the hospital too!).