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?