Creative with Craigslist

The living room furniture has been picked up to be returned to the store, and it's now time to start considering a new direction. I'm kind of at a loss for the moment, so instead of looking at new furniture, I've been scanning Craigslist to see what the community has in store. I came across a few decor doozies and now I just need to work on opening my mind.

Barrel furniture...so eco-friendly!

And wait...a matching dining room set. Bonus!

"Excuse me, but is that your hand on my ass?"

And a beautiful side table lamp of a guy licking a woman's stomach.

And the pefect panther artwork.

Done and done.

Opinion Time: Too Big, Right?

Furniture came today, and I think it's too big. Shane is sort of feeling the same way, but as the night goes on he said it's growing on him. We have 30 days to return it without any extra cost or loss of money, so I need some help. Should it stay or should it go? And if it goes, what should I do instead? I'm thinking just two chairs and a table or an ottoman now. Something like this. But I don't know. The room is so narrow. Ugh.

(Poor lil Dex. I woke him up from his night nap by turning all the lights on.)

Prepping for the "Brown Room"

Ah...the living room. How long have I been talking about painting this room? Two months? Four months? Longer? I don't know, I've lost count. But it doesn't matter because the time has come and the living room is getting painted this weekend! Woo hoo!

I'd like to say that I planned to decorate this room monochromatically (is that a word?), but I did not. And somehow, it's now become the brown room.

Here is the couch from the furniture set we just bought (there are two chairs that go with this). We wanted leather, we knew that, but I was leaning more in a contemporary direction. We searched and searched, and we just couldn't find a set we liked. When we saw this traditional set, we knew the search was over. So this brown furniture has led to...

...brown paint. The color is Behr's "Toffee Crunch." We wanted the paint to coordinate with Behr's Gobi Desert in the dining room, which is right next to the living room. And we wanted to keep the room neutral feeling since I often like to change out the decor.

If you recall, I already have the above brown curtains from our apartment, and I'd like to use them again. I'm hoping that from the curtains is where the pops of color will get pulled. The curtains have red, orange, blue, and green in them. The dining room has dark red curtains. I found matching red sheers at a garage sale (brand new from Pottery Barn!) that I'm thinking of using them under the brown curtains above. If that works out and I like the way it looks...

...then maybe I can get an area rug that plays up some of the red and orange in the curtains. I like the above one from Target, but I'm still not positive if it's what I want. However, since everything is so solid, I like the idea of going bold with the rug.

And then some more color can come in throug a couple of pretty pillows. All of the above examples are from Pier 1.

Oh, and here's a quick look at how I'm thinking of laying out of the room. (Here's a link to room planner...lots of fun!) The piece in the bottom right corner is an antique buffet. On the opposite side of the room is the dog crate...not something I'd consider a "design element" but Dex needs to sleep somewhere. He used to sleep where the buffet is going to go, but now he's getting moved. Poor puppy.

So that's that. More pictures to come later once the room starts to come together.

Free Flor Contest!

Shane and I are days aways from painting the living room...finally! Yes, we've been talking about it forever, but we were gun shy because we didn't have furniture. We kept looking for furniture and coming up with nothing. But that all came to an end this weekend, when we finally found a nice leather set that is both pretty and comfortable. Now that the furniture is on its way (coming at the end of next week), we were able to pick some paint. But paint is the point at which my head starts swirling, because it means all the other decor needs to come together. I think I have the curtains ready to go, but I need a rug...and dang are they expensive! So La Dolce Vita's Flor Giveaway couldn't come at a better time! I need to win a 5x7 set of my choice. However, me wanting to win doesn't stop me from sharing the chance at wealth with you. Head on over here and learn all the ways to enter!

Writings by the Talented Miss Therese!

My gal-paly Miss Therese recently started freelance writing for Re-Nest (part of Apartment Therapy). They always feature some of the coolest houses and spaces on their sites, and now Therese gets to jump in and play in the game. For her first two stories, she's written about houses owned by two of my co-workers. I feel strangely excited that I've been in these houses...I know. It's weird. And there's no good reason for it for those feelings. Still, it is what it is.

First up is Miss Camela's farmhouse. There are a few pics below, but you can see them all and read the great story in the Re-Nest post.



The second is Miss Jennifer's house. And for the rest of the pics and the great story, head over here.



Good job, T!

Bedroom Makeover

Shane and I are back on the house decorating bandwagon. Woo hoo! We spent this past weekend painting our master bedroom, installing a new ceiling fan, and hanging our TV. Let's take a looksie:

Before
If you recall, this room had one full wall of ugly wallpaper, and then a border that went all the way around the room. The ceiling fan hung down more than 19", which was basically like having a third...very dangerous being..in bed with us. The walls were a dirty ivory color, and the ceiling was an even dirtier white.

After!
The color is Behr's Verdigris (in the Ultra Premium Plus line of colors). The ceiling fan is a low profile, so no more feeling like we'll be decapitated if we accidentally sit up in bed while the fan is on. We still need curtains (since I hate blinds!), a new bed skirt (in white), some lamps for the end tables (I want to do something with a bold color base, like orange, dark coral, or yellow...but we'll see what I can find), and some art for the walls.

Here's another view.

On the bigger dream to-do list, we'd like to change the wood floors to be a darker color and change the trim in the room (and the whole house...ugh!) to be white. For now, I think this is way better than what we had!

Holiday Exchange: Sweet Snowmen

At work we do a holiday "ornament" exchange, which is actually more like holiday ornaments and decor. Last year I knit this little sweater ornament, but this year I couldn't find anything that I wanted to knit. As I was searching online for non-knit inspiration, I came across this funny vintage snowman bottle on Etsy (actually, it was through a blog first, but I can't recall which one...sorry!).

This is from littlethings1's shop.

I just love the vintage quality to this little guy. However, I wasn't about to go out and scour the antique stores for supplies (that's what I call "Christmas laziness"), so I made a slightly more contemporary version using existing supplies.

They're heads are made from paper clay. Once it dried, I painted them white, painted on their face, put spray adhesive on, and sprinkled with glitter. For those of you who know me, you know I went the extra mile when you see I used glitter...I HATE glitter. I always feel like I need to be powerwashed after using that stuff.

I also used a little glitter inside the glass and then filled the jar with polyfil. I used sticker letters for the front of the glass jars, which are from the Dollar Store like 10 years ago! The rest is just pipe cleaners, pom poms and hot glue. I like how they turned out.

Dear Santa, I'd Like This Chair

Through Whip Up, I found a link to an old project on Design*Sponge that I'm now officially in love with. I'm not sure how I missed this project as I'm sure I scoured the the Design*Sponge blog on numerous occassions, but now that we've found one another, I must have it for my craft room (which has not yet been started...but a cute chair is always a good jumping-off point. Sigh...I love you chair. Someday maybe I'll make another one of you to live with me.



Today's the last day to enter the birthday giveaway!

7 Days to Go...Another Garland--MINE!

Well kids, we're down to the final week. How did that happen? Fall has been flying by a little too fast for my taste. I think time flies when you dedicate so much energry toward a puppy and painting. But despite those distractions, I buckled down and decided to make a garland of my very own instead of just talking about how much I would like one. It's nothing super fancy, but it helps to dress up the hearth.

Festive, right?

This is in the living room, which is now not going to get painted until December. This room is basically a holding area for furniture and excess decor, so it was nice to have a little nook to make prettier. You can see the fireplace from the dining room table, which will be nice on turkey day.

Paint Preview

Shane and I...well, really more Shane right now...are getting ready to paint the living room and dining room this weekend. Nothing like family coming up for Thanksgiving to light a fire under us. Actually, it seems that just about every Thanksgiving once the turkey is in the oven, we start hanging pictures on the walls. I'm convinced that our past condo would've had nothing on the walls if it weren't for visitors. =)

But I digress...back to the paint. I want to keep the colors in these two rooms relatively neutral and somewhat related since the two rooms open into one another. We're going to be using the Behr Premium Plus paint, which has the primer built in. I'm also hoping it just means one coat...but we'll have to wait and see.

Above is the living room color. It's called Ryegrass. The room in this pic has a lot of white accents, but our living room has a lot of honey oak trim. I'm hoping that the room ends up feeling warm and earthy.

If you recall, these are the curtains I had in the apartment. I'm going to use them in the living room with the ryegrass, which is actually one of the colors in the embroidery of the curtains. I found red sheers (another color in the embroidery) to go underneath (which means bye-bye blinds!).

In the dining room, we're using Gobi Dessert. And I'm going to take a stab at painting our ugly wood and brass chandelier red. I think the two colors will play well off of the Ryegrass and the browns and reds that I'll be decorating with in the living room. But it's also still neutral enough to allow me to change up my tablecloths...as I so often do.

I'm thinking of going for very neutral window coverings as well. This is French General's new fabric and I was thinking of turning it into roman shades. However, I also found the below curtains--not neutral--that I really love, too, and play off the colors in the living room really well. (Sans valance.)

Decisions, decisions.

Birdy Bedding

I think it's obvious by now that I like birds...especially owls. I'm sure it's a phase, but I've always been drawn to 60s and 70s decor, so maybe it may not pass anytime soon. With that said, I've been stuck on decorating ideas for my bedroom. I had one really great idea with black and white, but in the end, I think it is way too dramatic for me. So then I started to lean back on what I always do--whimsical, which led me to birdy bedding. I still don't know that I'm settled on anything, but I am really loving some of these. And one is on sale!

This is from West Elm. It's so pretty...and on sale!

Another view of the West Elm bedding.

And here is Garnet Hill's, which is a little more silly...making me love it more.

Here is a slightly closer look. It reminds me of a painting that Miss Jessica's now husband made for her of birds wearing winter hats.

And here is Alexandar Henry's Spotted Owl fabric that I could use to make my own duvet cover.

I don't know. Maybe birds don't even belong in my bedroom. Hmm....so hard.

Bathroom Mini Makeover is Underway!

While Shane is patching walls throughout the house, I was able to get started on the mini makeover in the bathroom. I still need to patch and paint the walls, and then I can do some decorating. But for now, the vanity is painted and the mini-blinds are gone (thank, god!).

Before

After (so-far)

The vanity. I painted the outside yellow, and painted the hardware a light silver.

The fabric roman shade. I went with the polka dot fabric. I think I'm going to use the floral fabric as a valence once the walls get painted.

Mini-blinds before.

Mini-blinds after (the back).

A Mini-Mood Board for a Mini-Makeover

As hard as it was, I actually made a decision on the fabric I'll use to turn my bathroom mini-blinds into a fabric roman shade. I ordered and now have in my hot little hands new Amy Butler fabric from her Midwest Modern 2 line. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this new fabric is going be all pretty and all alone in my ugly bathroom. And ugly bathroom doesn't appear look like it's going to be getting the big overhaul anytime soon. So pretty fabric led to wanting to paint my vanity, which led to wanting to paint my walls, which led to the need for mini-mood board. I'm hoping this is going to be a pretty cheap little makeover since I just need a wee bit of paint (I already have the towels and the fabric now), but one that makes me not hate getting ready in there in the mornings. The paint is Behr's Gobi Desert.

Below is the ugly bathroom in it's current state. I'm planning on painting the vanity the yellow color pictured in the mini-mood board. Now if only I could do something about the ugly medicine cabinet that had really bad lighting. Hmmm...I suppose that can wait.