Business Idea

I haven't even been thinking about my house or this blog lately because I have a business idea that I am SO excited about!!! It is taking me A LOT longer than I would like to get it going but I am really, really, really (are you catching my excitement) thrilled about the concept of it and I can't wait to get it going!!! To give you a sneak peak idea..... it has a lot to do with this

involved with a lot of IDEAS and some new things I am building...... I just hit a total halt on the building part because I don't have the tools that I need and the people we usually borrow them from aren't calling us back... hhhmmmm...... Anyway, if you are having a baby anytime soon, stick around and see what I am coming up with :)

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures.....

I have said it a bazillion times and I will continue saying it until the end of time....... PLEASE decorate your home with PICTURES!!!! I have shown you some picture collages from my own home and our cabin, but I haven't shown you the ones from my sister's gorgeous home.

The place that people NEVER think to hang pictures is in the bathroom.... but these pictures above are in the half bath of my sister's laundry room.... SO CUTE!

I have to tell you this little story about pictures in the bathroom. In my last house I had pictures of my husband and I hanging above the toilet. We had fall pictures done and the colors in that bathroom were fall colors so I thought WHY NOT!..... well, I didn't think about this, but my brother was over one day and walked out of the bathroom and said, "Nothing like going to the bathroom and having you and James staring right at me!" Totally thought it was funny.... so maybe hang them on another wall than the one above the toilet if you so choose to do :)

This is her collage above her stairs of her family. I love the vinyl lettering on the glass and framed! This is a great arrangement if you have a really large wall to fill.

Then a simple arrangement in the hallway with a quote. Such cute boys ;) Kind of funny, this sister has all boys and me and my other sister have all girls..... not sure who the lucky one is ;)

When people walk into your home, do they know who lives there?

You Will NOT believe this......

I have kind of been putting off this post because I am a little embarrassed over this one! A week and a half ago I went and stained my mom's "bonus" room (as we call it). This is her 4th floor... yes that is right, her 4th floor of her house (if you count the basement). Anyway, I am finally getting to posting the pictures and showing you what I did.

Here is the before picture that I have shown you before. Notice the not so lovely wood trim that goes around every... single... set of closet doors.... it was definitely a bit much and an eye sore to say the least.
(this picture is out of place but this is showing the stairs which I will talk about in a minute)

Here is after the trim got all painted by 2 of my brothers, my oldest sister and myself.... and here is one of my little helpers as I was taping for the second layer... isn't she such a doll!
and then mommy's little helper #2! They came up with my while I taped.... I promise they weren't in the room when I started staining.
Now here is the official picture of the room with the fresh coat of white paint on the walls and the trim. Isn't it just a breath of fresh air from the wood trim around the doors? I love it already.....
I am so happy to see the white trim in there..... or should I say I am so happy to NOT only be noticing the dark trim around the doors!

So here is the part that I have been SCARED to show you!!! I got started on the staining and was just finishing the first wall when I went to go move the ladder and.........

OH....... (I don't swear so none of those words came out.... but I was thinking crap)

I dumped almost the ENTIRE qt. of stain on top of me and the carpet!!!! I KNOW!!!

I swear it all happened in slow motion and I just couldn't get to it fast enough. My first thought was to run downstairs and get my mom..... but then I realized that I would get stain ALLOVER her almost white carpet so I stopped myself, then I realized that I couldn't stop staining or else I would be stuck in the same boat as I was here so I knew I had to just keep going. I took my rag, wiped off the stain from my legs, ladder and carpet and kept going.... FYI.. It took me 2 showers of HARD scrubbing with a loofa to get it off my skin.... NOT FUN! Need less to say, my pants went into the garbage after that!

But here is how it turned out in the end.


This is a lighter and warmer color than I used in my house but it is a nice color for a room that doesn't get much light..... SPEAKING of light.... this little window in the picture above is getting an OVERHAUL!!! We are very excited! We have decided to rip this window out and replace it with a larger window so that we can get more light and see the AMAZING backyard my parent's have (I will show you that another day)

Now I'm not finished with the walls yet since I ran into another issue. I went to go stain the wall above the stairs and it turned out the my stairs ladder doesn't work on these stairs since they are shorter and steeper.... So... I have to rig something up that is not what I would call SAFE by all means but I don't know what else to do.

I am going to stretch my big ladder across the stairs opening, lay a board on it and put the smaller, lighter ladder on top of that. I told my husband that he had to be there watching me for safety sake... so I haven't done it yet........ SO, once again I will have to try and match up the stain but at least this time it is only about 8 inches.

Aren't you so glad that you have me to make all of the mistakes for you and that you can learn from mine....... I know seriously...... :)

I forgot to mention, my mom came up shortly after I spilled everything and just started laughing (after her jaw dropped)!!! It is a good thing we were planning on replacing the nasty purple carpet already. I'm glad my mom has a sense of humor :)

Brown and ??????

You know what I find very interesting, before 10 years ago, you NEVER saw brown used in the home. Now within the past 10 years (or less) it has become such a popular color. Do you know what I love most about the color brown.... it looks good with EVERY color out there.

Here we used it with purple and green

Green, peach, and red

Some people may be afraid of color, and this is a great way to add some drama without adding color. This is what we call a monochromatic color scheme and works great with the chocolate brown adding some contrast to the tans and creams in the room.

Here I used it with pink and red. Pink and brown is SUCH a HUGE trend with little girls rooms right now that I wanted to throw in the red to add something new and different. I kept this room fairly simple and really does suit the personality of my almost 2 year old.

Brought it in a different way with using it on furniture in my living room.

This room is my 2 nephew's bathroom. I LOVE the color combination in the room. A little bit different take on a beach theme.

I absolutely love the teal/sea green color and the brown.

I honestly can't think of a color combination out there that wouldn't look good with brown. It is a great ANCHOR color to any space and is softer than using black. (I still love black though :)

Nursery Beadboard

Remember back in this post I asked for a vote of what people liked, classic white beadboard or stained/glazed beadboard in my daughter's nursery? The majority vote was that people liked the idea of staining it and adding that brown to it.

This is the way it is right now, I did the sample board with the glaze over it and even I have to admit that in person, the sample looked AWFUL! I did not like it at all, it looked dirty and cheap.... what I was going for was this....

My nephew has the stained beadboard in his room and I love the way it looks. We were wondering what it would like if we left the top trim and the baseboard white and this is what it would look like. I love the look of this and would really love to it..... BUT..... I showed it to my husband and he still wasn't sold. He prefers the classic white look and doesn't want to stain it :( Kind of bummed about that but it was he hard slave labor that made the beadboard possible and I don't want to do it without his blessing. Looks like I have to find other ways to add dimension to this room. I pretty much haven't done anything in here since I hung her name on the wall... I am just having a hard time picturing everything since my original design in my head called for stained beadboard........ still thinking!

Yikes, Stripes......

OK, I know you couldn't resist singing it!!! Or, maybe I am the only one that remembers jingles from FOREVER ago! Remember the commercial "Yikes, stripes, fruit striped gum, the yummy fruit part hee hee hee ha ha ha?" That really doesn't have anything to do with my post, other than I do want to talk about stripes...... and TEENAGERS!

Honestly, were you one of those teenagers that had posters plastered all over your walls of your favorite celebrities? The boys that you thought were SO HOT! I was TOTALLY one of those girls in junior high. My walls were not a sight to be seen (in a design point of view... I would have argued that they really were a sight to be seen with all of the hotties). As a designer now, I REALLY struggle with the whole teenager bedroom scene.

This past weekend while I was at my sister's house in Idaho, I was staying in her teenage sons bedroom. I decided that I had to post about it and give a tip on it since they did a good job creating a compromise of a teenagers room and not making it look so cluttered like teenagers tend to do.

What is the one thing that pretty much ALL boys like?...... SPORTS! Well my nephew likes one team in particular....

Now this is where my whole striped song comes in. I love how they painted the stripes horizontally around the room in the teams colors. This adds some sophistication to the room as well as some playfulness.

Then in these last 2 pictures, you see that he still has team memorabilia all over the walls, but with it framed and the stripes behind it... it doesn't look like a typical teenagers room. It some how makes it feel a bit more grown up.

Do you have a teenagers room that could use some sophistication to it? I know mine could have used it back in the day...

Tip of the Week - Decorating for the Seasons

I hope everyone had an awesome Memorial Weekend! I know I did! I went up to Idaho to visit family and celebrate my niece's 9th birthday and my nephew's High School Graduation! It is always fun to get with family.... not to mention that my little 21 month old daughter had an absolute hay day with all of the animals that my sisters has.

Anyway, while I was at my sister's house, I took some pictures to do some posts and now I can't find my camera!!!! I really hope it pops up somewhere... and if I left it, I hope my mom saw it and is bringing it home with her since she stayed up there longer.

But, it really does crack me up how a lot of us designer think the same on certain things. Ever since summer has come around (technically we are still waiting for it here in Utah, it doesn't seem to want to stay warm for longer than a day before the rain or snow starts up again) I have been getting the itch to lighten up my house. As I have mentioned before, I don't really have the cash in my pocket to work on getting things finished in my house yet alone to add a second design to each room. By second design, I mean that with each of the seasons changing I would change my home with it. SUMMER and SPRING I would add whites and creams to the house and then for the FALL and WINTER, I would add the darker colors back in to give the warm cozy feel. I was on The Nester's blog this morning and she blogged about this very thing that I have been thinking about.

We have very different design styles, her home is very clean and fresh and on the cooler color side where my home is more cozy and dark with the warmer colors, but her home is absolutely beautiful and I love her colors and what she has done with it.

I have 2 rooms in my home to be specific that I really want to lighten up. The first one being my office.

I have mentioned that these blue chairs are driving me batty! Now I want to correct something, I don't hate blue in general.... I just hate this blue! This blue seems to be quite masculine, and that is not the look that I want to go for.

Something that I have changed in this room since this picture was taken is that my husband took the black office chair out to use as his work chair so I had to bring up another blue chair.... Yes people... 3 of these blue chairs that I can't stand!

This room definitely turned out darker than I had visualized with the rich caramelly walls and then the massive black desk and these blue chairs just appear very dark also. So I am wanting to recover all 3 of the chairs with a white or off white slipcover and add some window treatments that will have white or cream in them also to help lighten this room up..... I think it will be a breath of fresh air.

The second room is my bedroom!
Now this is a room that I would like to change out with the seasons. I like the bedding I have ( I have also changed it up a bit since this picture was taken) but in these warmer months, I would like to change out my main comforter for an off white/cream comforter and some matching shames, change out the lamp shades and add some lighter pillows to the loveseat. I also have another idea to lighten up that hopefully I will post when I get it.

Do you have rooms that could use some adjusting with the seasons?

Enjoy what you do?

A few weeks ago, my husband and I had the wonderful opportunity to go in for an Audit!!! Ok, so I am totally lying, it wasn't wonderful at all! It was an Audit for our 2007 taxes... this was a CRAZY year for us! We built our spec homes (we are living in one of them now) and I started up my Mural and Interior Design business. At the end of 2007, after 6 years of trying, I found out that I was pregnant with my first daughter! Because of this, I did not continue in pursuing my business.

We were sitting down with the Auditor and he asked me what my business was. I told him that it was a mural business and Interior Design. He had to ask (as a lot of people do) what a Mural was. I told that I painted on walls :) I painted pictures in kids rooms and play rooms. So he asks the question "Do you like what you do?" What kind of a question is that? Would I try to start up a business if I didn't enjoy doing it? I told him "yea, I enjoy doing it"...... because I enjoy doing my Interior Design that I went to school for and I enjoy painting Murals, he didn't consider it a real business!!!! So apparently if you enjoy what you do, it isn't a real job! We were so ticked at the guy after this. Because I did not continue the business in 08, he doesn't consider it a real business pursuit and he wouldn't let me have the tax write offs. GGGRRRRR! He asked me why I didn't pursue it after I had the baby..... I GOT PREGNANT AGAIN! Now I know you can still do things when you are pregnant.... but how would it be if I'm on a ladder and needing to throw up while at somebody else's home... not a pretty thought! It just boggles my mind that because I enjoyed what I was doing, it wasn't a business..... it was a hobby to them.

Yes, I LOVE Interior Design... that is why I chose to go to school in it!

Yes, I love painting Murals. It is so rewarding to step back and see what you created and see how excited little kids get when they see it and it is just for them. It is definitely hard on the body, and that is the main reason that I didn't pursue it while pregnant.

I love being creative with my hands and creating something beautiful!

(Side note - the bottom picture is of a flower arrangement I did for grandma. All of the children and grandchildren gave her a silk flower for her 80th birthday and I created this arrangement to represent her posterity... such a cool idea... it wasn't mine, I just created the arrangement)

The truth of the matter is, I LOVE Interior Design, Murals, being creative, and I love writing in this blog and giving people FREE advice on how to make their homes beautiful with out spending much money..... but to be completely honest with you (whoever is out there still reading this) I don't have the money to throw into my house right now. I desperately wish that I had the time and money to work on my house every single day and give ideas to everyone out there. I yearn to be creative in my daily life and it just doesn't happen. I love it when things come into my life for FREE. I appreciate them greatly and so I can only assume that other people appreciate getting things or advice for FREE also. Please let me know you are there and reading this. If there are people out there who do appreciate the free things that come into there life, I will find ways to still post tips and pictures on here. I may have to find other people's homes to post on here..... maybe my neighbors will want some design advice if I can post the projects they do on here... I guess I am a social comment snob! I assume that people don't read this blog if they don't leave comments, but I know that isn't true because I read certain blogs daily, but hardly ever leave comments.

I don't pretend or claim to be a great blogger or writer.... actually, I know an English teacher would just gasp at the way I write.... I sometimes tend to be a blunt person and I may offend people (but that is NEVER my intention), I just like to say it how I see it. I have a lot to learn on how to blog and make it better. I now know that there are a lot of great blogs out there and I really would like to make this blog into one of those great blogs. That is my wish... now to find a way to make it really happen....

Thank You to those of you who have stuck with me through my indecisiveness of what to do with my Interior Design passion and my lack of blogging skills and money to my own home.

Mom's Bonus Room

This past weekend, I along with some siblings, painted my mom's bonus room. We just painted the entire room an off white color and I can't even tell you what a breath of fresh air it is already!

This is the before picture of it with the wood trim. I couldn't stand the wood trim anymore, so we decided to paint all of the trim in the room the white and it looks so amazing already! It lightened the room immensely, but of course I didn't get a picture of it after it was finished being painted. (I will get that soon)

Next week I will be going back by myself and staining the room. We are going to leave the doors the off white color along with the trim and I will just be staining the walls around it. We aren't doing inside of the closet, do I decided to climb in the closet and do a sample of the stain on the back side of the wall. I am using a lighter stain than I have used before and I think I picked out the perfect color for this room! It will be the perfect shade to blend the white trim and doors to the dark headboard. I can't wait to get it done... then we will be replacing carpet and finishing up with furniture. Oh, we will also be replacing the railing sometime this year with a nice wrought iron rail.... can't wait to show pictures of the progress.

Sitting in my Master Bedroom... FINALLY!!!

I have been wanting a sitting area in my Master Bedroom ever since I moved into this house almost a year ago. A long time ago I did a post on space planning and showed options of a sitting area I could do in my bedroom.

This is the one that I liked the best, mainly for the functionality of it in my life. I looked and looked and looked and looked.... you get the idea.... everyday for probably 8 months straight trying to find a loveseat (on my trusty KSL Classifieds, of course I look for used). I originally looked for neutral ones and realized that it wouldn't look good against my neutral colored walls. So I decided that I wanted a greenish color, after an extremely long time of looking I got impatient and almost found myself settling for a chair .... was definitely open to a chair and half... I just wanted SOMETHING in there!!!

My husband found an ad on KSL for a FREE chair and ran out and got it. It was a chair and a half and I was so excited to finally have something. It was late at night when he got home with it so we had to wait until the next day to go out and look at it...... It was free for a reason! They had left this chair outside and the weather had gotten a hold of it. It was stained and faded from the weather and I was so DISAPPOINTED! It is a GREAT chair but I don't have the time or patience to make a slip cover for this thing. My husband and I played with options for a bit and we realized that we would end up spending $50 or so on fabric and that we could find something better with that money so......

The day before Mother's Day my husband found an ad on KSL for a green loveseat and ottoman and it was literally down the street from us! He jumped in the Suburban and went and picked it up! This is what he got....
Now.... my original plan was to have it angled into the room and use the 2 storage ottomans at the foot of the bed (that my husband and I made from scratch) as the ottoman for the loveseat. Well this green ottoman came with the loveseat so I wasn't going to pass that up but it is WAY bigger than I was originally having in there..... so we decided that we should push it back into the little look we have there.
As you can see, we have a lot more work to do in here but I have been waiting FOREVER to get the seating in here and then work around it. YES I know that the wall behind the loveseat still isn't fixed (missed it... check it out here) and yes the tape is still on the ceiling because my husband refuses to take it down since he thinks he is going to fix the wall sometime soon (it's been like 9 months already).... And the lovely old filing cabinet.... UGLY I know! But I needed something to put a lamp on since in the evening it is so dark in that corner. I will eventually get a sofa table or small dresser along that wall so that I can have a lamp on it and some storage. I don't like to store my clothes in a dresser so it won't be used for that purpose. It is still a work in progress but I can't even tell you how much I LOVE having a place to sit in there now! My husband and I sit in there every night and read together, play SUDOKU together and I now have a comfy place to nurse my baby in..... LOVE IT..... now to decorate the walls and the rest of the room so it looks complete!

blue chairs.......

I have tried living with these blue chairs in my office and they are driving me NUTSO!

I think that I am just going to have to break down and make some cream slip covers for them. They don't have much shape, so I don't think it should be to hard.... right? The blue just isn't working with the color scheme and I have an AWESOME idea for the 2 story wall in my stairwell area.... I just have to figure out how to make my idea come to life, and it isn't going to be easy, but I think I can do it for cheap...... now to just find the time!

Mom's Bonus Room

For Christmas my oldest sister and I decided that we would "give" my mom our time and help her refinish her "Bonus Room". My mom has a massive house and the 4th floor is what we call the Bonus Room. This room is used as an extra bedroom suite as well as the play room for all of the grandkids.

She would be absolutely appalled if she new I was posting these pictures but they are the only ones I have of this room on the computer. But....

We had a custom headboard built in quite a few years ago that holds 2 beds. We now have 2 queen size beds along with gorgeous bedding on each one.
The sofas have been taken out and will hopefully soon be replaced with some chairs, sofa or something nice to sit on. (these ones are UGLY) It is obvious that the grandkids had a hay day in here when I took the picture a while ago.

Anyway, on May 22, my sister is coming down from Idaho and we are going to take a weekend and paint this room, get rid of all the wood trim and paint it an off white color and then I will more than likely have to go back after it all dries and stain all of the walls. We are also getting rid of this HIDEOUS purple carpet!!! We have been wanting to do that for years! (it was in the house when they bought it)

I am excited to finally be moving forward with this project that my mom and I have been wanting to do for years.... we have just been waiting for the nod of approval from my step-dad and we got it. I can't wait to show you a new room when it is all done.... (and no, this room is not going to be done on a budget like I normally do).

????

Last summer, I moved into my house and had a fresh clean slate to start with. Since I had so many projects to do, I thought "why not create a design blog that shows my friends and family what I am doing and give a few tips along with it." I started the blog thinking I was doing something new and helpful..... I honestly had no idea when I started this that there were SO MANY other design blogs out there! I had never heard or seen a design blog before starting this and now I am realizing that my idea wasn't so original and there is nothing that makes it stand out.

I haven't posted for a long time because 1) I have been so busy with my girls that I haven't really had a second to take pictures...... actually I haven't had time to work on my house at all.... and 2) I am starting to feel that this is just one more blog out there. It makes me kind of sad that there are so many design blogs out there but I can't believe that I had never seen or heard of any before I started this.

I guess for right now, I won't be posting much on here. If I do big projects, I will more than likely document it on here and how to do it... but I won't be posting regularly on here like I have in the past. I guess I feel that I need to put my energy into other things right now.

I'm still here

It has been a long time since I have posted on here!

My husband went out of town for a week and a half for work and that left me all alone with my girls which meant Absolutely NO Time to do anything else.

I have some things that I want to post about but they won't happen today.

I'm still here, just really busy & will hopefully get something posted in the next few days.

Professional Pictures

I am sure that you have guessed that this is my sweet baby Kenidi!

My neighbor and friend Haylie Lyn did some pictures of her 2 weeks ago and I just got to see a sampling of them on her blog tonight.

What an amazing job she did!
I can't even express how much I LOVE this picture.... they don't get much cuter than this :)

I can't wait to get all of the finals and hang them up on my walls..... in about every room in the house :) You know how I LOVE my pictures.

Check out her blog to see the rest of the sampling of my sweet little girl

http://haylielynphoto.blogspot.com/

Thanks Haylie!

Tip of the Week - Design your Laundry Room!!!!

You know when you have one of those moments that you look at somebody else's home and you have that moment a jealousy?

Well I had that feeling the other day!

(Lindsi, didn't you just do a post about not being jealous or envious about what other's have and just being happy with what you have? Why yes, yes I did.)

So I let that feeling only last for a split second and then I decided I wasn't going to feel that way and that I was just going to be happy and excited for this person.

My neighbor posted some pictures up on her blog of her Laundry Room Redo that she just finished. I say redo but it was more like an OVERHAUL!

I have mentioned before in this post that you really shouldn't forget about the laundry room when designing your house.

Don't get me wrong, I love my laundry room! I love that it didn't cost me anything and it is still cute. It puts a smile on my face when I walk in there (and it should)!

But I wanted to highlight my neighbor's laundry room and hope that it inspires you to want to do something to your laundry room.

Her name is Amanda Skinner and she did this project with her husband (the best kind of projects)!

Here is her before picture and I bet this is similar to a lot of homes out there.

After finding a great deal on a front loading washer and dryer, she was motivated to redo the entire room. And here is what they did.

Does it not look amazing!?

They built the platform to raise up the washer and dryer. I think this is a GENIUS option to the pedestal drawers. I have the front loaders and I love them but I also have the pedestals. My mom however, she doesn't have the pedestals, and when I do laundry there, I sit on the floor to put stuff and in and take it out since it hurts my back to bed over. So I love that they built the platform so that they wouldn't have to bend over.

The cabinet on top, they purchased from the Habitat Restore. They purchased just the left side and her husband built the shelves on the right side. She painted it all the same color and then glazed on top of that.

She purchased the baskets at Walgreens and then made the liners to go in them.

The thing that I love about this whole redo.... She says that she LOVES to do laundry now and she loves to be in there!!! That is how everyone should feel. Laundry is an inevitable task for everyone, why not do it in style and enjoy what you are looking at while in there.

It doesn't matter what size of laundry room you have, there something you can do for any size of laundry room.

I dare you to go into your laundry room and see what you can start with.... You won't be sorry!