The Comfort Cozy

Crazy life

2011-02-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

It has been so long since I have posted on here.

I worked really hard on getting my business going. I got items made, drawings rendered up, business names figured out.... This took months to get to where it was.... and then I found out I was expecting AGAIN with my THIRD daughter in less than 3 years! I was very sick & everything came to a halt. I will still & try & do something with the business, it just may not be right now since I won't have a lot of time to put into it with 3 tiny (busy) girls.

But... Because of the new addition, we have LOTS that we are going to be doing to the house & rooms we will be changing!

My computer is pretty much dead! It became severly infected & we don't know if it can be saved or not. It has all of my pictures on it & is the only way I have to download pictures, but I am hoping that something can be figured out so that I can show what we are doing. I am very excited about all of it. I have started moving things around to change rooms & it is a VERY big undertaking for one person that's pregnant & limited on what I can lift along with doing it with 2 tiny kiddos.. always an adventure around here!

Business Idea

2010-07-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

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.....

2010-06-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

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......

2010-06-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

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 ??????

2010-06-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

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......

2010-06-03T20:26:00.001-07:00

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

2010-06-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-05-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-26T10:23:00.001-07:00

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!!!

2010-05-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

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.......

2010-04-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

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).

????

2010-04-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2010-03-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

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!

Living Room dilemmas

2010-02-27T14:54:00.000-08:00

So, I was at Walmart a while back and I saw this pillow.

I thought "hey, this matches my living room drapes. Maybe I should get one to go behind some other pillows on my sofa and bring that pattern over to the other side of the room". Well, I didn't buy it at that time, but I saw it the other day and it was on clearance so I couldn't pass it up.

I got home and put it on the couch and because of the shape of the arms, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to put a lot of pillows on the sofa and have it look good. I decided that I just wanted one pillow in the center of the sofa and I am not sure if this is the pillow for the sofa now. I am afraid that it is all to matchy now and that I should find another pillow to go on there........

Sorry this picture is really dark, but I want to hear what you think about it. Is it to matchy or does it look alright?

Then..... I was sitting on my funny little chair holding my baby and contemplating whether I liked that pillow there or not and I got this wild itch to see what this room would look like with a different furniture arrangement.

If you remember back in this post, I showed 3 different possible furniture arrangements for this room. After living with the third option for awhile, I have found 2 things that I don't like about it; 1) I think that it feels like an alley way that dead ends at the window with the furniture facing each other and 2) It bothers me that the chairs aren't centered with the sofa and it will really be emphasized if I put a rug on the floor.

SO.... I got up and moved the furniture!

I moved the furniture to the second arrangement I had on that post and I love how warm and inviting it is.....

BUT.... there are 2 things that bother me with this arrangement; 1) I don't like how the brown chair is so close to the sofa. I had my husband sit in the chair while I sat on the sofa and we were playing footsie with each other (of course we like that but I don't think that others would like it to much :) and 2) I really don't like that the sofa is in front of the window. I won't ever get to open the blinds there if I leave it because this sofa fades very easily.

So.... what do I do? There are things that I like about both arrangements and there are things that I dislike.

Which arrangement is more appealing to you? Please let me know, I really am kind of stuck on this one!

Tip of the Week - Living in REALITY!

2010-02-23T10:08:00.000-08:00

So often we look at homes in the magazines and see how perfect they are and wish that our homes could look like that.

Everything is in it's place and perfect... I don't know about you, but I don't live in that world. I live in reality where I have an 18 month old daughter, a newborn, and a husband who works from home.

My husband is in the process of finishing part of our basement so that he can have a private office down there. If you remember pictures of my office from before, it is way out in the open and isn't practical for him to work in with my girls always being so loud.... SO, he has turned our bedroom into his office! What does this mean for me... I don't get ready until 1:00 in the afternoon because my daughter is to noisy to be in there while he is on the phone and she is always where I am.

More of my reality....

This is how my coffee table looks in a perfect world....

This is how it looks in my reality. I finally I had to move everything off because my daughter thought it was fun to climb up on it, sit on the books, and dig her fingernails into the candles!

Here she is climbing on the baskets under my console table.... She usually pushes the baskets off and puts all of her toys on the shelves.

Here are her DVDs stacked up on the console table because she gets inside the baskets and tries to pull the DVDs out of the their cases and breaks them.

Here she pushes all of the buttons on the equipment........

and here are her toys on the floor, (along with my husbands weights).

I took these pictures all within 30 seconds and she ran from place to place to place... this is our life everyday!

And we can't forget all of the newborn items that come with having a baby...... (notice the measuring cup on the floor, Brooklyn loves to get into all of my drawers and pull out my cooking items.

This is my reality everyday! I try to keep my house as clean as possible, and at night, I make sure that it is clean and I can feel good about it. But everyday, my house has toys on the floors and pillows in piles.... and you know what, I wouldn't change it for the world.

This house is lived in, which means it is loved in! It may not be perfect for a magazine cover, but it is perfect for me and my lifestyle. I have kids and that is shown in my house, you don't question that when you come in, and that is OK!

I hope that you guys don't look at your house and wish that you could change all of these things about it. Make it the best that you can for the situation and lifestyle you have and be happy with it. That is sometimes easier said than done, I know.

You may not have toddlers like I do, or even have kids. Maybe you have pets or a family member in a wheelchair. These are all things that shape our home and how it is lived in. Design it to what works with your lifestyle and what is perfect for you.... Don't compare it to what others have, they don't have your life and circumstances!

BE HAPPY! :)

K E N I D I

2010-02-18T14:28:00.001-08:00

Accessorizing Kenidi's room has been kind of slow but I did get her name made and put up above her crib. It has been amazing how hard it is to get things designed around the house... not necessarily because of my girls (but that is part of it), but I can't really leave the house to easily and so I can't get items that I need to get to make things.

But here is her name that I finally got put up. It isn't anything original or that you probably haven't seen before, but I really wanted to put her name up on the wall. Her spelling is so different from the original spelling of Kennedy that I wanted to highlight it in here. Her spelling is actually after my spelling, Lindsi instead of Lindsay or Lindsey.

Now Here is how I made it.

I went to our local craft store and purchased the letters for $3 each and painted them with

this brown paint from Home Depot. (Did you know that Home Depot now offers a sample size paint! I so wish they had these when I painted murals!)

Then I purchased 2 spools of ribbon, green and red, and staple gunned them to the back and tied bows on top.

Now hanging this is something that I had to think about for a minute (and of course I forgot to take pictures while I was doing it).

First - I found the center of the wall and marked it

Second - I laid a ruler on the floor and starting with the "K", I laid in on the edge of the ruler, where it ended I measured 2" from that and placed the "E" and continued through the whole name. When I was done, I saw that it ended at 27 1/2". I took half of 27 1/2 which is 13 3/4 and placed that point where the center of the wall is. By doing this, I knew that I was going to be centered on the wall.

Third - I had my husband hold the level with the ruler on it while I placed each letter in it's spot and nailed it in the wall.

I hope that makes sense if you decide to do one of these on how to hang it centered. I had every intention of taking pictures through the process but as I got started on it, I totally forgot.

We are building a beadboard cornice box for the window, so I hope that I can have that posted next week. Things just don't get done as quickly as I would like with 2 babies now.

Tip of the Week - Real or Fake?

2010-02-15T08:27:00.000-08:00

Are your's real or fake?

Get your mind out of the gutter people... I am talking about house plants!!! :)

Some people wonder what should be used in the home for decorating... real plants or fake plants.

Here is my opinion and tip on the subject and that is all that it is, there is no rule on this subject, just personal opinions.

In my own personal house, I will only use REAL plants. However, I definitely have used FAKE plants in my designs and have nothing against them.

Here I have a real plant on my kitchen table (but that has since been moved into my spare bedroom)

And here is one behind my reading corner in my Family room.

I LOVE real plants in a room because of the life and energy they add to a room. There is something very livening about having a real plant in a room.

I'm not completely gung ho about Feng Shui, but there are a few things that I do follow and real plants is one of them. They say that the oxygen that real plants let off add some positive energy and agree with it. I personally just feel better with real plants versus fake plants.

BUT.... Not everyone has a green thumb! Some people are really intimidated by real plants and that is fine. If you are one of those people, by all means use the fake plants... but I do have a tip for you to follow.

Notice in this picture above that it is in a pot!

Now this plant is also fake but is in a basket.

Which one screams FAKE to you?

Obviously you wouldn't have a real plant in a basket, so always try and get your fake plants in a pot so they can at least give people something to wonder about for a few seconds instead of knowing it is fake right off the bat.

I LOVE plants in the home, they are great corner fillers. I would have a real plant in every room if I didn't have an 18 month old daughter who likes to eat dirt! Plants have to be strategically placed in my house!

If you do have fake plants, make sure to clean them regularly, silk plants tend to get really dusty & give a fake look.

So let me know, What do you prefer?

* If you are looking to sell your house, real plants are a much better idea to have on display vs. fake ones. Because fake ones do tend to collect dust, they are a distraction for the eye & you definitely don't want that when selling.

Tip of the Week - FlyLady

2010-02-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

I was on my cousin's wife's blog the other day and she had posted about this FlyLady. She had some links on there and I decided to check it out.

This lady has a whole website teaching people how to create routines to keep their house clean and be productive through out the day.

I had more time today to really sit and read what she has posted on her website and she has some GREAT tips on there. Some of these tips I already do, but she has some stuff on there that will definitely help me out even further in my life. Now that I have another little baby in the house and a husband that works from home now, it definitely doesn't stay as clean as I would like. I am going to start taking some of these tips and applying them to my life and my daily routine to help me create a more clean, calm space for myself and I thought that maybe there are some people out there that read this blog that could use this in their lives also.

After all, if your house isn't clean and is in constant CHAOS, what good are my design tips going to be! If your house is in order and clean, then the fun design stuff comes into play..... and when the fun design stuff is going on, you want to keep your house clean! :)

Check out her website http://www.flylady.net/

This next link is the part of the website that I think is brilliant. I have always had it in my head of creating a weekly plan like this but haven't really done it, now I have something to follow and am more likely to get it done..... now my goal is to get my husband on board with me and keeping up on the routine..... I can't work on this routine and have him not be a part of it and making things dirty...... just wish my girls were old enough to jump on board with me, they seem to dirty EVERYTHING up around the house! But you gotta love them :)

http://www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons_Routines.asp

Cupboard Organizing

2010-02-02T18:47:00.000-08:00

A while ago, I decided that I had had it with my baking cupboard.

This is what it looked like...

It was such a mess and I couldn't take it anymore.

I was at the dollar store and found these containers & decided to organize my cupboards.

of course I got my pet, the label maker out.

And then I had to do my pasta & rice cupboard.

Do you have a cupboard that could use some an overhaul? Once again, the Dollar Store is a great place to find containers for really cheap to help with that organizing problem.

Crib and Bedding

2010-01-29T12:19:00.000-08:00

I am starting to learn that if you try something out for a while, you might actually start liking it.

I really was not sure about this crib once we got home, I thought the color was WAY wrong, but I have to admit that the more that I am in the room, the more I really like the crib.

We paid $150 for this crib. It was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but it is a good quality crib.... once she told me that she would give us the rocking chair to go with it, I was sold on the idea.

I have a rocker recliner that I used with my older daughter for nursing, but it is a bit large for Kenidi's nursery and Brooklyn loves to sit on it, so I loved the idea of having one in both rooms.

We purchased the changing table first for $60. I loved that it was a dresser/changing table and that it had a hutch on top for extra storage. It is a darker color than the crib and rocker and that is why I wasn't sure about the crib at first. I have decided that I don't really care that they don't match perfect, it is growing on me.

Here is the rocker. I have to give a HUGE shout out for my neighbor Dave. This rocker was GROSS!!! The fabric cushions were covered in gross stuff. Our neighbor Dave works for a carpet cleaning company and he took these cushions to work with him and completely cleaned them up as a gift to us. They look AMAZING now and you would never know how gross they were when we got them.

Bedding is a big deal in any bedroom and the nursery is no exception. Something that I personally love to do in my nurseries is have original bedding. Don't get me wrong, they have some DARLING crib bedding out there that I would buy in a heart beat, but crib bedding is VERY expensive. Something that a lot of people do that I am personally not to fond of, they make the mistake of buying the bedding, then the matching lamp shade, the matching diaper cover, the matching window treatment, the matching wall hanging... you get the idea.

Now my complaint about this is... there is no originality to it! I want to walk into a room and feel like it is a one of a kind instead of feeling like I purchased it from a retail catalog.

With that being said. I love the bedding that I did for Kenidi's nursery and it isn't anything fancy at all.

I showed earlier how I made this quilt and I am seriously in love with it. I spent HOURS on the thing so I should love it, right!

I paired it with the simple brown skirt that my mother-in-law made and I purchased a cream colored bumper and sheet from Burlington Coat Factory that is a Carter's bedding basic. These are the exact same that I used for Brooklyn's crib just in the cream instead of pink. The quilt in both rooms is what makes it original and unique..... One of a kind!

I have the main structure of this room together, now I am gearing forward with the accessories and window treatments..... I have it all in my mind and I have some of it purchased already, all I need to do now is find the time to get it done!!!!

Beadboard Process

2010-01-29T09:05:00.000-08:00

I have found that this project isn't for the faint hearted. It was so much more work and time consuming than both my husband and I were anticipating but when all said and done, we are both VERY pleased with the results and I think we would do it again !? :)

Here is what we started with. Basic tan walls and a very small bedroom.

I went around the room and taped off just the top section of the room since I was only needing to paint the top of the room with the beadboard covering the bottom half.

I chose this peach color for the top half. The color is called Warming Peach from Sherwin Williams but I had Home Depot mix it in a Behr paint. (did you you know that Home Depot has other companies colors on file and they can just select the color and mix it without having to do an actual color match? I had no idea until they did this color.)

Next we took the 4'x8' panels of beadboard and cut them in half so that they were 4'x4' squares or down to whatever size we needed for each section and glued them down with liquid nails glue and then nail gunned them down to secure them.

Then we took a 5" baseboard and turned it upside down and ran it along the top to finish it off.

Some of the areas didn't butt up perfectly so my husband went in with wood filler and filled in the gaps and used a small nail to create the little grooves to make it look like the rest of the beadboard.

Here at the window sill we had a section that wasn't covered so used wood filler once again to make it look like the beadboard.

Once everything was in place and nail holes were filled, seams were caulked, and wood filler was sanded down, we laid drop cloths and tucked them under the base boards and taped the painted area off. We used this great product that had the tape and this plastic already attached together, well worth the little extra money.

Then we borrowed a spray gun from my husband's best friend and spray painted the beadboard.

We needed to match the color of the existing baseboards & closet doors, so we took a bathroom door into Home Depot & they were able to create a perfect match. I had them mix the paint in a paint-primer in 1 and in a semi-gloss finish so that it is easier to wipe up.

Now, I was taking votes on whether or not I should glaze the beadboard and most people said that they liked the glaze. I was planning on glazing but letting myself just have the baby and wait a while until I could do it right..... but, I have to say that the more I am in there, the more I am falling in love with the solid, classic white look and I don't know if I want to glaze anymore. I think that the glaze would look amazing, but I am starting to think that the classic white look might be a better choice to go with because it is easier to grow with when she gets older. Beadboard is NOT easy to paint unless you have a spray gun so I don't want to repaint it down the road if I get sick of the glazed look.

I think I am going to get the accessories in the room and the window treatments made and then we can see how it all looks together and I will decide them whether I want to glaze or not. As of right now, I am perfectly happy not doing it, I think my husband did an AMAZING job with it and I think it is beautiful just the way it is!

* We have 6" baseboards plus the beadboard which is 4' and then a 5" baseboard turned upside down on the top, making this almost 5' tall. This is taller than your standard chair rail style beadboard. I opted for this height so that it would clear the height of the crib and make a nice backdrop for the crib without cutting into it.

Take it back

2010-01-26T12:19:00.001-08:00

So my daughter is here and she is doing fantastic!!!! She is absolutely beautiful and we are loving every minute of having her here with us.

So I have to take it back! Not the crib, but what I said about the crib. We went to Lowes and told the guy that we bought a crib on KSL and just told us to come this way. I guess it happens a lot that people purchase cribs and they don't get the right hardware.

Anyway, we found the right hardware that we needed and were able to get the crib put together great and now that it is up in the room, I actually REALLY like it. It is a beautiful crib and the orange color has grown on me. We got a good price on the crib and now that we got the correct hardware, I guess it wasn't to bad to have purchased the crib used. Oh, and did I mention that the lady that we purchased the crib from gave us the matching rocker/glider and ottoman for FREE!

I will post pictures soon and show you what it all looks like, but her room is still a work in progress and I will show it along the way..... lots of projects to show.

Crib purchase

2010-01-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

So my daughter has decided that she just doesn't want to come out! I am now 3 days overdue and am not quite sure when she will come.

This past weekend we purchased a used crib from ksl and it didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped! We got the crib home and it was the wrong color! The changing table we purchased is a dark cherry wood, really quite a pretty color and the crib is a very orange cherry.... then to add to the disappointment, the lady gave us the wrong hardware so we couldn't get it put together. We have to go out again today to go and get the hardware from her.

I am definitely disappointed at the way it all turned out and I have decided that I need to wait to design anything else until after I have this baby, I am questioning my abilities these past few days... I think I am trying to rush things and I settled on a crib just wanting to get one in there.

Oh well, we will either make it work or we can sell it and start over.

Now I have purchased 2 used cribs and I have to say that I don't know if it is the best way to save money. We have had hardware problems with both cribs so I am now thinking that it is worth spending the extra money on a new crib and getting the one you want as well as knowing you are getting the correct hardware and it is safe.

Just a thought if you are in the market for a crib anytime soon.

Consensus

2010-01-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for your responses today!

So the consensus through out the day with emails, texts, facebook responses, and comments was that more people seemed to like the glaze.

My decision.... I really like the glaze and I believe that I will do it, but I am giving myself permission at this time to not have everything ready and perfect before she comes! I am exhausted and I think I need to just allow myself to rest and get ready for her.

Glazing can be done at anytime and I want to make sure that I do it right and that I don't just rush the job just to get it done. Because my husband spent so much time on the beadboard, I want to make sure that I do the glazing right and that I am really happy with the job that is being done.... So, as of right now, I am leaving it white and down the road I will probably decide to glaze once I feel like I am settled in my new life with another child.

Plus... I decided that I need to slow down a bit, otherwise I might just get my house all designed and run out of things to post about! :)

HELP!!!! Beadboard dilemma

2010-01-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Please, Please, Please HELP!!! I need everybody's opinion on the beadboard. I was hoping to keep the wall color a surprise until later but I am in need of some serious help.

Here is a picture of a sample board that is glazed and then the actual wall beadboard painted the plain white.

I can't decided which to do. My husband has spent SO much time on this beadboard that I am scared to glaze now because I don't want to ruin it or make it look dingy. Please give me your opinion now that you see the Peach wall color with the bedding and both options.

AND... I need to know soon!!! I need to decide if I should glaze it today or not.

So Torn..... Please Help and give me your input..... you guys aren't tied to the hard labor that was put in, what do you think honestly and truly looks better?

Before & After No Cost Spare Bedroom "Updo"

2010-01-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

So my spare bedroom is probably the least important room in our house. it doesn't get used much and as you can see in the pictures, I quite often will use it as a storing ground until I find a place for certain items.

I didn't want to spend any money on this room but it has been driving me crazy with how bland and boring it is!!!!

I sold some old bedding on our local classifieds and I took that money and bought this simple brown bedding from Overstock.com when we first moved in. I had the orange and green pillows from years ago and thought I would use whatever I had so it didn't cost me anything. Everything looked so drab that I had to do something about it.

I went down to my paint selection in our basement and I pulled out the leftover red/orange color from my family room and decided to paint 2 walls in the spare.

I painted the back focal wall behind the bed and the window nook. I pulled out some chocolate brown pillow shams I made years ago and wasn't using as well as the small brown pillow. I did purchase this throw blanket at Costco... mainly to fulfill my soft blanket obsession and I moved the wreath from the far right wall to above the bed to fill the void.

Here is where the wreath was before and it was looking quite sad.

I added a little bit of spray paint to the wreath to make it darker... it blended in with the wall before.

Here is the messy room before with the window nook.

Here it is painted the red color. (I still have to add drapes, cover that bare pillow, and hang the magnet board still sitting on the floor).

Here is our old dresser that will stay here until we figure something else out.

Here I just added a live plant that I had and it seemed to warm up the dresser and take away from how unattractive the dresser is (it was a hand-me-down from my step-dad).

But I have to talk about the dried arrangements flanking the mirror.

If you notice in each of those last 2 pictures, I had dried "floral" type stuff in each but they were different.

I literally went out and pulled WEEDS..... Yes WEEDS people and dried them.

I started off with these wheat looking ones that worked fine, but they kind of got lost against the neutral wall....

so I changed them out with these orangey colored weeds.....

I know that may seem weird to some of you, that I would actually go out and pick weeds... but it worked for what I was looking for and it was FFFRRREEEEEEEE!!!!

I liked the color of the second ones better with the wall color.

Like I said before, this room is NOT my priority and I know it still needs a lot of work, but I definitely can tolerate it a lot more with the walls painted and it was just with stuff that I had in the house.

*OK.... I know you can see my NOT SO PRETTY self in the mirror reflection.... I was still in pjs with my glasses on, hair pulled back, in my husband's sweatshirt and probably 8 months preggo! Please don't judge me off of those!!!!

Kenidi's Crib Quilt

2010-01-11T19:34:00.000-08:00

Now remember these fabrics that I purchased for Kenidi's crib quilt and nursery inspiration?!

Well I worked INCREDIBLY hard and long hours to get it finished and it is finally done!

(Normally I would show you the finished piece here but I didn't get a picture in here so I am just going to go through the steps of how to make the quilt and you can see the end result at the bottom! :)

The first step you need to do is pick out your fabric and have a pattern in mind. The next thing that you need is a Rotary Blade and cutting mat.... this makes it SO much easier than cutting with scissors. I made my squares 6"x6" but you can go bigger if you would like. I purchased a 1/2 yard of each fabric (in flannel) and I have 5 different fabrics and then bought 2 yards of the cream fabric (also in flannel) which is my backing.

After the many hours of cutting (it was very time consuming!) I laid them out into the pattern I wanted and then labeled each column by numbers to keep them in order.

Next I took some quilt batting (I happened to have some in my stash already) and cut 5"x5" squares and sandwiched them between the cream backing and the front square.

Then I took each of my labeled piles that were in order with the batting sandwiched between already and started sewing an X pattern through the squares. My sister gave me this little idea to sew on part of the X and then just start sewing on another square and create this chain, then I cut the threads between them, stacked them back in order and did the same thing to the other part of the X. Doing it this way made it go so much faster and I didn't waste as much thread.

After each X in sewn on all of the squares, then you need to sew all of the squares together in order with the seam facing the front of the quilt. After each row is sewn, you need to sew the rows together. Like in the picture above, you need to pin the seams together on each square so that you can make sure that they match up (again, make sure that the seams are facing outwards so you can see them in the end).

Here it shows the rows all pinned together and ready to sew.

After all of it is sewn together, you need to sew around the outside edge and finish those sides off. Then, the not so fun part of cutting the seams begins.

The picture above, shows part of them cut and others not cut. You should cut about every 1/4 inch or so to get a really nice frayed edge.

Here it shows what the outside edge should look like, you also need to cut the outside edge.

After all the seams and edges are cut, you throw it in the washer and dryer and you have a frayed Rag Quilt!

And here it is all finished!

The close up of it.

It turned out super cute and I am really happy with it, but I have to admit that it was WAY more work than I was anticipating but it will be so cute in the room.

Also, it shrunk a bit after I washed it. It is still a good crib size since I made it a little big in the first place but be aware that is will shrink.

So now seeing the quilt all made up and you know that I have beadboard on the bottom of the nursery that we have been working on, does anyone want to guess what color I painted the top part of the walls? It may actually surprise you.

Living Room Drapes Hung!!!

2010-01-09T08:37:00.000-08:00

I am in LOVE!!!!!

I am so excited to finally have my living room drapes hung up! These are what really make the room since I designed everything around these and you couldn't really tell where I was going without these.

I have to give a disclaimer..... My camera does not take good pictures when there is sunlight in a room, it creates this weird glow so of course these pictures don't do it justice! But it gives you an idea... I will post better pictures if I can get them as I progress in this room.

Here they are!

You can't tell real great that there is red in them... love the red!

We live on a corner lot and get a ton of sunlight in this room so it really is hard to get a good picture when the sun is shining in here pretty much all day.

This is a terrible picture I know (window on each side) but I wan't to show the pillow that I made on the chair with the drapes.

These drapes were purchased at Target and were about $22 a piece. The thing that makes these look so great and more high end is the fact that I didn't sheer them onto the rod, I purchased rod rings for them. I have said it before and I will say it again, rod rings add length as well as a more high end look as opposed to sheered on their.

My husband picked out the rod hardware all by himself and I think he did a fabulous job! Once again, notice the rod is a thicker rod which is more substantial looking and makes it look more expensive and higher end.

My funny little $10 ksl chair is starting to make more sense in the space isn't it? I just want to get the wood stained to a darker color and I will be happy with it.

I still have to get some stuff on the walls, pillows on the chair and sofa and some tables or build an ottoman or something..... I am still trying to figure out the best way to layout this room since the furniture isn't centered with each other.

But.... I am loving going into this room now with those drapes up and I LOVE how they completely warmed up the space and made it very inviting!

Making Of - Block FAMILY sign

2010-01-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

When I was in Colorado for Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law gave me a kit to make this Block FAMILY sign.

All it is is some 2x4 blocks cut, painted and then some vinyl lettering stuck on. Such a super simple project and can be done for very inexpensive.

I actually worked on this up at my cabin about a month ago. I can't stand just sitting and not getting things done so I decided to take this project up there so I felt like I was accomplishing something.

Here is how I did it.

There are 2 different sizes of blocks that were cut out already. I sanded them down and then I just grabbed some green craft paint that I had already in my stash.

I painted all of the blocks green like I show here on the left block and then I took my sand paper and sanded the edges down like I show on the right.

After they were sanded down, I took an old rag and some leftover wood stain (that was used to satin my walls) and loosely rubbed on the edges and over some main areas of the blocks (I didn't want it to look to uniform, kind of messy if you want to use that term).

After it was all dried (I let it sit a few days) I put the vinyl lettering on that was already cut out when my mother-in-law gave it to me.

I was originally going to put it in my office since I already had my Family framed sign down in the main living area but when we went to set it out, my daughter ran right for it.

We decided to put it down in the family room anyway on the console table where my daughter can't reach it (yet!)

I really like the extra step of the stain over the paint but you don't have to do that step... it would look good without it, but I am very happy with the way that it turned out...

I hope my mother-in-law likes it too since she could have kept it and put in her own home somewhere....

Thanks Judy!

Master Bathroom Paint Color

2010-01-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

I have been getting a lot of people wanting to know the paint color I used in our master bathroom.

The color is Fresh Baked Pumpernickel GL030 from Glidden at Home Depot. I am not a huge fan of the Glidden brand so I had them mix it up in a Behr brand paint with a Satin finish. Some people like more sheen on their walls so you can go with a glossier finish but I wouldn't go lower than a satin.

I promise I am still here and alive but we have been SO incredibly busy with quilt making, beadboard hanging and everything that goes with that that I honestly have not had time to get pictures posted of things lately. Stick with me and I will get some posted hopefully soon of some projects I have been doing and have done but haven't posted about.

Before & After Master Bathroom Painting

2009-12-30T11:10:00.000-08:00

So our master bathroom was in some serious need of some TLC!

The towel rod was in the middle of this wall

& when we were moving in it was hanging off on one side and had ripped out part of the wall.

My husband patched it up as you can see in the picture.

The tile isn't straight along the tub due to a really poor tub installation job and has always bothered us.... along with grout all over the wall. We have debated on ways to make this not so noticeable such as trim it off with a small trim, but we decided to paint it and see what it did... I didn't take very good pictures so you can't see how bad it really is...

But here is the after picture.... once again, you can't really see it but it is amazing what the world of difference the paint made.

Here is our "Water Closet". I bought these wreaths for my last house for about $2.50 each and I really like them in here....

But now I love the color in here also.

The color in all of the pictures are looking a bit more orange than it really is. The color is a bit more caramely in person.

We had a towel ring holder here that also ripped out of the wall and my husband had to fix it.

Here is the wall painted.....

And here the towel ring is hung and functional once again.

Excuse the mess as I was just starting to pull everything up and start taping.... (my husband is more embarassed about the mess than I am.... who are we kidding if you let everyone think that our house is spotless all the time!)

Here it is clean and painted! AAAHHH!!! So much nicer!

This kind of shows the crappy grout and tile job...

And in the next picture, the paint pretty much hides all of that!

I am so happy that this is done so that I can enjoy this room once I have my little one in the next 2 weeks! Accessories will come later, I just wanted to show the paint job that we did!

You will hear it from me non-stop on here.... Paint your walls and don't be afraid of color! I love how warm my bathroom feels now and I actually want to just sit in the bathtub now! (my husband has never sat in the tub until we painted the walls... I think it cozied it up for him too!)

Busy Life

2009-12-29T19:06:00.000-08:00

We have been super busy the past couple of days with painting our master bathroom, drawing floorplans for our basement, getting materials, painting my daughter's nursery, framing the basement, and now we are going to be hanging beadboard in the nursery. We have family coming in town tomorrow so we are trying to get a few things done before they come so I haven't had time to do a post. When I have more time to get pictures on the computer I will show what we have been up to.... I am hoping I can get one done tomorrow but I can't promise anything. Lots going on which means lots to post eventually :) Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas

2009-12-26T18:53:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas!

I certainly did but I have so much to do before my baby comes that I wasn't sad when it was over. My husband scored with me big this year because he bought me my living room drapes! I am so excited to have them.... he didn't think about the rods though so we are going to go get some this week.

I have a paint color all picked out for Kenidi's nursery and we are going to get the beadboard as soon as we can find a table saw to borrow from someone. (anyone close to us have one?)

As of right now, I need to go finish painting my bathroom!

Lots to do and you know I will post pictures along the way!

Happy Weekend to everyone!

Kenidi's Nursery Inspiration

2009-12-23T11:16:00.001-08:00

For those of you who don't know, I am expecting my second daughter in about 3 weeks and haven't even started on her nursery yet.

A while back I posted this picture as my Inspiration Piece for her nursery, but

I tried and tried to find fabric that would coordinate with this and bring in the teal and I couldn't find anything really at all.

After looking around and seeing what there was out there, I sat down and cut out some paint chips and came up with another color scheme.

These are the colors that I pulled out and I thought they would be kind of fun and different to do. I want this room to be very cute but I don't want it "girly" with pink and purple.

Yesterday I was running errands with my husband and we drove by a Joann Fabric Store and I told him to pull over and let me go look at fabric's really quick to see if I could find something for Kenidi's nursery.

I told him I would be quick but I ended up finding some fabrics that I was in love with. We had to run to meet someone really quick and I told him that we had to go back and he had to let me know if he liked them.

Of course he didn't really care but he let me get the fabrics to start on a quilt for her.

And here is what I got!

I am still going to use the brown bedskirt that my mother-in-law made and I am going to put some beadboard on the walls and then I found these fabrics that unconsciously have all of the colors from the paint chips in them. I honestly didn't even think of the paint chips when picking these fabrics out, I just loved them and could picture how darling the room would be.

I wasn't planning on having the green in the combination but when I got playing around with different fabric combos I just loved the green and thought that the green polka dot was much cuter than the teal one I found.

I am going to take these fabrics and make a large rag quilt that can be made into a comforter when she has her crib into a toddler bed.

Here is the picture with the fabrics and the paint chips. The paint chips aren't exactly the same colors as the fabric but they are pretty darn close.

I am only going to put beadboard about 3/4 of the way up in the room so I need to figure out what color to paint the top 1/3 of the room.

Maybe I will have to have a vote on it. There are so many great colors to choose from and I am not sure what direction to go.

I am SO EXCITED that I found these fabrics and am completely in love with the direction that this room is going.

Tip Of The Week - Making what you have work!

2009-12-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

I went up to our family cabin with my husband and my baby girl for the weekend!

We have to snowmobile to get into the cabin during the winter and that is always fun, not quite as easy when you are 8 months pregnant though :)

While I was up at the cabin I came up with this weeks Tip of the Week.

How many of you out there have something in your room that you can't get rid of and you don't like all to much? Example: cabinets, carpet, sofa, etc.

My family purchased our cabin about 4 years ago or so. This cabin was built in the mid 90's I believe and came with Teal carpet! It is not the most attractive color of carpet but it was in good shape and we didn't want to replace it.

I decided to take that color as my inspiration and make it work in the space.

The room I am going to show you is our basement t.v./ping pong room. I really made sure that in this room, the carpet looked like it was intentional instead of an old outdated choice.

Here is the carpet with the rug that was chosen.

We started with the sectional which is a reddish leather and we worked from there.

We found this rug that had the reddish color as well as the teal color in the design and it was the perfect starting off point to bringing our colors together.

Next we found these pillows at Target and brought all of the colors in with 3 different pillows but coordinate very nicely with each other.

Here is a better view of the pillows on the sectional,

and here is a picture showing the pillows on the sectional with the rug and the carpet.

Above the sofa we did this arrangement and once again, everything has all of the colors in them, even a hint of the teal color which brings that carpet in once again!

Here is a close up of one of the pictures. You can see that there is small flecks of the teal color in it and works perfectly with everything.

Here is a floral arrangement that I made and I intentionally brought in these teal pods to bring in that color once again.

The fabric for these window valances did not have deal in it but had the other colors in it, so we decided to take a small teal ribbon and sew it on the fringe to bring it in.

We found these vases

and plates that happened to have all of the colors in them!

We were quite lucky to find so many accessories with the reddish color, peanut butter color, and the teal all them and help coordinate and tie in everything.

I actually love the way that this room turned out and it actually makes you like the carpet when everything is taken in. I actually liked this room so much that unconsciously I realized that it was one of the inspirations for my living room that I am working on right now. The drapes are that I am using are the same fabric as the checkered pillows on the sofa, so I am bringing in almost the same colors to my living room as this t.v. room.

That's a good sign :)

If you have something in your home that you aren't quite sure about, see if there is a way that you can make it work and maybe become a piece that you love.

The best way to do this is probably to think about the colors that you are pairing it with. I don't want to go into a lot of detail here on that because it could take me all day to get into the color coordinating and to be honest, every room is different in how I would approach it. But there are ways to make something stand out or you can choose a color to help blend it in and not be so noticeable. This can be a really great way to save money to not have to replace that one thing in your house that you consider an eye sore. You may just fall in love with it :)

Making Of - Living Room Throw Pillow

2009-12-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

Last week I decided to make this throw pillow for my living room chair.

I am very happy with the way that it turned & it didn't cost me a thing!

This pillow in all reality would have cost anywhere from $50-$100 with how expensive this stuff is individually, but I have my ways :)

Here is the stuff that I started with: I had a pillow insert that I had purchased years ago for another project and never used. This pillow is a down filled pillow and is a great pillow. The gold fabric was a sample fabric from my old work at Bassett that I had in my fabric stash and would have been probably $20-$30 a yard if purchased. The peachy, gold fabric was a fabric memo that I purchased back when I was in design school. I had a project that I wanted some nice fabrics for, I went to a local designer fabric place and purchased this memo (a fabric sample about 3'x3') for $10. I hate to admit this but that was probably 7 years ago. This fabric is probably anywhere between $50-$100+ a yard!!!! It is such high end silk and is a Beacon Hill brand which is one of the most expensive! Anyway, I got it for the $10 and just had to use a small corner of it for my project so I had a large section of it left over. The red trim was left over from some pillows that I sewed for my family cabin and I believe that it was around $20 a yard.

Here is how I made the pillow:

I took some printer paper and created my own pattern to cut from.

I cut the 2 sides in the peach fabric and then I sewed them to the gold fabric.

I wanted a pleated center so I needed to make the gold fabric larger than what the measurement was.

*I found the center of the gold fabric on the back side and marked it with a pin.

*I measured 2" from each side and ironed it over with wrong sides facing each other.

*Then I measured 3/4" from the ironed edge and ironed it with right sides facing each other.

*From that last ironed edge, I measured 1 1/4" and ironed wrong sides facing together.

You can see a pattern here. Basically you are making an accordion fold but making them overlap a bit so that you can see each individual fold.

Here is what it looks like all finished on both sides pinned down.

After the front was all pleated and pinned, I pinned the front to the back which was 2 pieces overlapping each other to create a pocket.

In each corner, I cut a tassel from the red trim I had and pinned it in each corner.

Now I hope I am not the only one who does this!.... but I pinned the wrong side of the fabric to the back and when I turned it right side out, the wrong side was facing forward!.... So I had to unstitch the whole thing a resew it!

Here is the back side. You can see that I didn't make my flap big enough but I honestly don't care when it is the back!

And here is the close up of the tassel and the pleating.

I love that I was able to create this with stuff that I already had and it didn't cost me a dime (recently). When I get other things done in my living room, I will show a picture of it on the chair with the full affect of everything else. (whenever that happens). Until then, I will enjoy my one pillow in that room :)

Christmas Confession

2009-12-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

I normally LOVE Christmas decorating and I was really enjoying myself setting up the week before Thanksgiving..... but I think that the fact that I am 8 months pregnant and still want things permanently done in my house has made it to where I kind of gave up on the Christmas part of decorating and have been trying to get walls painted before I have this little one.

If you are looking for some Christmas decorating inspirations, check out the links on the left hand side column under "Other great design sites".

The Thrifty Decor Chick and The Nesting Place have great Christmas ideas as well as a ton of links to others who are decorating for Christmas.

Sorry if you were looking for more Christmas Inspiration here, but I decided that if I was going to spend any money at all, it would be towards something permanent in my home and not on something that will only be up a few weeks.

When I feel that my home is pretty much decorated, then I think I will be fine spending money on holiday decor.

I can't believe that my baby is due in one month from tomorrow! I feel like I have lots to do still. I went to Home Depot today and bought some paint for my Master Bathroom and the paint guy came up to me and said "I hope you aren't planning on painting" I told him that I was and that I had been painting my entire pregnancy and made sure that I had a heavy duty mask on..... It is kind of funny to see people's reactions when they find out that I have painted my entire house pregnant. I do think that I may have to recruit my husband with this one though, it is getting harder for me to climb up on things. I am hoping to have it painted before Christmas next week so I really need a burst of energy to come my way! :)

Tip Of The Week - Does Your Home Express Who You Are?

2009-12-14T19:35:00.001-08:00

When people come into your home, do they know who you are right away?

This is something that I think is very important for each person to incorporate in their home.

Every single room in my home plays a part in expressing who I am as well as my whole family.

First off..... when you first walk into my front door, you see this sign....

If you can't read it, it says "Aloha, Please remove your shoes, Mahalo."

I am very big on people removing their shoes inside of the home so I found this sign in Hawaii a couple of years back and had to have it to let people know that is what is expected in our home and that we would appreciate them following it. :)

The next thing, and I think it is the most important thing(s) to us in our home are our religious beliefs and expressing those in our home.

Now I just want to state that these are things that are important to us and that we express in our home and are not intended to offend anyone if they believe otherwise.

But the very first thing that you notice when you walk into my front room is the large picture of Christ that is hanging above my sofa.

This is one of the few pieces of that we spent a lot of money on in our home and it was very important to me that it was placed basically front and center in our home. I want people to know that when they walk into our home, it is a Christian home with Christian values and we would appreciate it if everyone respected that when they came into our home.

When you walk into our family room, right in the corner against this red/orange wall is our Christus, so once again, a reminder of what is central in our home.

Here are some scriptures that are dear to us from our religion.

and a Proclamation to the Family that was put out by our church.

and here is a picture of where my husband and I were married.

All of these things are incorporated in our main living areas to remind us as well as let others know what is important to us as well as what is "expected" if you will, in our home.

In my living room I have this framed saying on my wall about being an Extraordinary Human Being

it is great for anyone to read as well as a reminder to myself.

Now you have seen this in a previous post before,

but one of the most important things in my life is my family and I want to make that known so I created this framed picture of it.

Now this is something that is in my kitchen window sill now and is a great reminder every time I go to the sink.

As you have seen in previous posts, I have pictures of my family all over my house as well as pictures of my travels up in my office. These are also great things that are up to show what is important to us and expressing who we are.

Because this tip is such a big deal to me in my own personal life, I don't really hang up a picture or something on the wall that isn't something that fits into being important to me or expressing who I am. I do not have any art work up in my home anywhere, I would rather have a picture of a family member or something dear to me than a random store bought painting that means nothing to me..... that doesn't mean that I am against having those in the home, I definitely use them when I design other people's homes if it calls for it. I just prefer in my own personal home having something that is dear to me.

Have you walked around your home lately and analyzed what people are seeing of you in it? If you haven't, I would suggest doing that and making your home personal and expressive of who you are.

Model homes or Parade of Homes type homes are great and beautiful, but every time I go through them, they lack that personality and personal expression touch that I personal believe that every home needs.

I love going into people's homes and seeing who they are. What's important to them... Who's important to them.

Don't be afraid of letting people know who you are..... Your home is meant to be your own personal sanctuary.. right!

Oh Christmas Tree... How I love thee!

2009-12-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are return readers, you have probably already seen my post on my Christmas Tree.... but I have decided to join a Christmas Tree Party with the Thrifty Decor Chick so I am posting a few pictures once again.

For you "New Visitors", here is my tree! Pictures don't do this justice but they never really do.. right!

If you want to read more about how I do my tree, you can visit my full Christmas Tree post further down.

I am really big on Christmas Tree Toppers so I have quite an elaborate one but I LOVE it!!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Laundry Room Reveal

2009-12-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

I am sure that my husband and I are one of the few couples that still share a computer but that is about to change. My husband is working from home now and it has made it pretty much impossible for me to have computer access but his boss is buying him a new computer so that should change in the next week or so!.... So if you have been wondering why my posts have been far and few between, that is the reason.

But.... I am still busy doing stuff around my house in the mean time so I do have stuff to post.

Right before taking off to Colorado for the Thanksgiving holiday, I broke down and decided that I wanted to get my laundry room done and can I just say that I LOVE the way that it turned out!

I think I am one of the few people out there that doesn't mind doing laundry and I think I have figured out why..... I only do laundry once a week and I have discovered that most people laundry everyday and that is why they don't like it!

Well, if you are doing laundry a lot, you are spending lots of time in your laundry room and that is a great reason on why you should decorate that sad room in the corner of the house! :)

Here is my laundry room!

Once again, the pictures don't do it justice.... the paint color isn't very good in the picture but it is a fun light green color.

AND... Once again, I spent pretty much NOTHING!!!!

I bought the green paint for a project I will someday do on my staircase and knowing that I wasn't going to use a full gallon I decided to paint my laundry room with what I knew would be left over.

Here is a picture without the flash.... wall color looks worse in these pictures.

So I have to talk about my words on the wall! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these! I painted these on... I have the equipment to project these on the walls and paint them and customize them the way that I want so it is easy for me to do this. You could use the vinyl lettering but I am too cheap for vinyl lettering :)

Don't you just LOVE the saying?

I showed a couple of sayings to my husband and he started laughing and said "I think you know which one I want".... Of course we both agreed with "Drop your drawers here"! We both love some humor in our lives so we went with that one.

The paint, both the black and red, were left overs from other projects.

The black boxes were purchased years ago and have been used in various spots for storage. This shelf seemed like the perfect spot in this house.

The red basket was given to us as a house warming gift in my last house and I decided to put toilet paper in it so that it is up high enough from my daughter ripping it apart!

The basket is used for my dirty rags and towels from the kitchen and was purchased years ago at Roberts for about $.13 (yes that amount is correct) and has been sitting in my basement unused.

This shelf was from my last house and was painted with left over red paint from the family room.

Wreath was purchased a while ago also for like $2.50 from my favorite wholesale place Taiwan.

I haven't finished the accessorizing on the shelf yet but I figure I have time for that. The things that are on there are just things I had.

Remember my Inspiration Piece... the rug, it is in there also as well as my $1 waste basket!

So you may remember this mirror from my fall centerpiece. I decided that I wanted it in here instead and hung it up over the existing mirror with some ribbon I had and it just hung on a large nail and I am absolutely in love with the affect!

I did purchase the towel just for this room and it cost me a whole $3.50!

So... if you count up the cost of items recently purchased for this room... that would be a whole $3.50 for the towel and $1 for the waste basket if you want to add that in (I guess the paint also but that was already purchased for another project).

So cheap! And I have to tell you that I love to go into my laundry room now!

Like I mentioned once before, this room is also our one and only bathroom on the main level so I am no longer embarrassed for people to come in here.... I wouldn't be surprised if I leave the door open just so people will want to go in there and look if not to use. :)

*Side note - notice that the ceiling over the shelf is painted the same green color as the wall. I followed the same rule here as I would in a bay window and I am so happy that I did. If I would have left it white, it would have completely distracted from the fun painted words and boxes and I don't want that!

Tip Of The Week - Painted Archways

2009-12-07T14:39:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season thus far! It has been snowing here most of the day and has really brought the Christmas season with it!

It is good to be back home after spending over a week and half in Colorado with my husband's family and now I need to get in gear and get some stuff around my house done.... both Christmas decorating and regular decorating!

My tip for this week is something that I thought of while I was in Colorado. My mother-in-law has redone a big chunk of her house these past few months and I noticed that she followed this one rule perfectly through out her house and I thought I would share it with everyone in case they didn't know this little tip.

How many of you have an archway or a door type opening like this picture?

I know it is common for people to come to these when they are painting and not know whether they should paint it or not if they are doing an accent color and both walls on each side of the doorway are different colors.

Here is the rule *Paint it the same color as the wall as the flow of traffic goes.

So basically, if you were to start at your front door and walk through the rooms, your archways should be painted the same color as the wall you are looking at.

I happen to have a DON'T example of my last house!

I wanted to paint the archway and my husband didn't like that idea, I let him win this argument because I was lucky that he was even letting me in the first place. It really bothers me that it isn't painted here.... after I painted this, I did officially find out that it is a design rule and I should have gone with my designer instinct and told my husband it was a rule.

Oh well, we weren't there long and I have made up for it in this house.

Here is my living room when I painted the base color. Notice I painted the archway the same color as the wall.

Then here it is stained.

What you don't see is that the back side of this wall is the burnt orange/red color. This just really helps with the flow of traffic and is much easier on the eye as the eye looks around.

If you notice on the very top picture, there are 2 archways. The first archway is white because that wall is white.... the back archway is the warm chocolaty color to flow with the back wall color.

Hopefully this is useful to others since we happened to make this mistake in our own house at one point.

Out of Town

2009-12-02T18:58:00.001-08:00

I am in Colorado with my in-laws and will be here for the next couple of days. I don't really have computer access here so I haven't been able to do a post.... I promise I haven't forgotten about all of you who are interested in having posts, I just don't have my computer to post pictures up.

I was hoping that while I was here I could get some pictures of my mother-in-laws decorations to show some ideas and because my daughter is such a stinker with getting into things right now, my mother-in-law decided to wait until we left to get them up. Definitely can't blame her, but that means no Christmas pictures from this house.

I hope you all had a Great Holiday!!!!

Tip Of The Week - Photo Gallery

2009-11-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

In honor of the Thanksgiving this week, I wanted to do a post based around families!

I am HUGE on having family pictures in every room of the house and really displaying your life in this way.

People often struggle with how to hang pictures on the wall and how to display them so I thought I would show some examples.

Now here is a full on photo gallery. This is a wall next to our ping pong table at my family cabin.

The pictures on here are all in sepia tone, the frames are all different but they coordinating with each other.

The way to create a gallery like this, map out a section (square) that you want the pictures to stay within. We measured on both sides the same square section and had 4 frames create the 4 corners of that square. Then you just fill in the center of that with your remaining frames.

*Always lay your frames on the ground and map out how you want it first before you start hanging!

I really do love it when there are a ton of frames clustered together, they make a BIG statement and they show people what is important to you.

Now here is the photo gallery in my office. I had these 3 shelves sitting in my house from buying them at my neighbor's moving sale and I knew I wanted them in my office and I new I wanted them worked into a photo gallery. After contemplating on it for months, I finally came up with this arrangement.

It obviously isn't completely finished since there are frames still empty, but when I said and done, I opted to create more of a triangle shape with my pictures and that entirely came down to the very top painting of Cabo San Lucas that we got on our trip and I wanted to display it.

This gallery is entirely focused on our travels. I have to get a lot more of our travel pictures up, but I wanted to show people the things that we have done and have it as a constant reminder to us of our fun travels together.

The great thing about this arrangement is that not all of the pictures are hung. Why not lean them on a shelf and why not layer them on top of each other? Potterybarn is the master at photo galleries and I looked at a lot to kind of get an idea of how I wanted this one to be. The great thing about layering, you can usually get more pictures in a small space.

People LOVE looking at pictures when they come into your home so it is a great thing to have out on display.

Something that makes this work well is that because I wanted to keep all of the pictures in their original form and have color to them, the black frames help keep it consistent. If I had colored pictures and different colored frames, it would look really busy and take away from the pictures.

Now here is something a bit more simple.... 3 of the exact same frames clustered together in a row. Once again I opted for black frames (just worked in my home) and I framed pictures of our new little family shortly after my daughter was born.

These pictures are in my front living room so people can come right in and have something personal to look at.

Now on the same wall but in the family room I have this family picture hanging. I wanted to show you this to give you an idea....... Only hang a single picture if it is in proportion to the wall. So many people will hang a single picture like this on a wall and the wall will be much to large for that one picture.

Use your good judgement as to the size of the frame as to the wall.

Another thing to notice when hanging pictures..... Where you are hanging it. So many people will hang their pictures to high or right smack dab in the middle of the wall.

There is a rule that if you divide your wall into thirds horizontally, you should hang your picture somewhere on the top line.

Now I have created a rule that works great for me in my house.... James is a good amount taller than me but I have found that if I hang my pictures a bit high for my eye level and bit low for his eye level, it is a perfect height for us.

Hopefully in the future I can do another post on this and show more examples because I know that it is something that a lot of people struggle with.

Have fun with your photos and displaying them..... people really do love to see who you are on a personal level when they enter into your home.

My Office - Preview

2009-11-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

I was really hoping to have my office finished by now but that just hasn't happened and probably won't happen for a while.

SO..... I decided I would give you a preview of what I have done already.

The amazing thing about this room... It pretty much cost me NOTHING!!!!

And that includes the furniture!

I really did get lucky with this room. This desk we got a few years ago for Christmas, it was a gift from my parents (I know, what an awesome gift! It was actually money and we chose to get a desk with it). The desk chair we got for free, my husband's work got new chairs and they let him bring his old one home!

The paint in this room was leftover from the accent wall that I painted in the Living Room. I tried to do the really cool leather technique that my sister did her wall, but it looked HORRIBLE on my wall... I think I used to dark of stain... I had to think really quickly and I decided to just take my oiled rag and quickly spread it around and made it look like my other stained walls. I was so lucky that it worked and that you couldn't tell anything different.

This room is right at the top of our stairs as you walk up so it is open to everything. You can see in the front of our desk that we have some glass cubbys and we have a tradition of purchasing a picture frame on every vacation we have and putting a photo of us while on that vacation. We put the frames in these cubbys as well as a few on the desk.

And here are the infamous blue chairs that I believe I am going to keep blue. If you haven't read here before, these blue chairs were given to me by my step-dad. They were chairs in his old work office so again they were FREE!!!! My pictures have a lot of blue in them and the top diamond picture is a painting we got in Cabo San Lucas that is blue so I think blue will have to stay.

I will talk more on picture displays in another post but I love the way that this one turned out. The 3 shelves I bought at my neighbors moving sale and cost me $1.50 for the 3. I had a lot of the picture frames already, but I bought some also at the DI for $1-$2 each and spray painted them all black to coordinate. I still haven't ordered a few of the pictures that will be displayed here so it isn't quite finished. Notice my $5 table between the chairs that I spray painted... I haven't put anything on it because of my daughter, but these picture albums work perfect in the bottom and she doesn't bother them because they are pretty heavy. I got the albums at Potterybarn a few years back with a gift card.

Now please excuse the massive mess on top of the filing cabinet, it is all stuff that still needs to be filed away and I can't do it until my husband helps me since it is his work stuff (as well as the garbage can that my daughter likes to get into :) This filing cabinet was also given to us from my husbands work so was once again FREE! The lamp base was FREE also and I have a curtain rod that was given to me for FREE that I spray painted black and will get hung up as soon as I get hooks to hang it on.

All I need for this room is some fabric so make some drapes and some pillows and I am pretty much done.

I am pretty happy with the way it has turned out so far and I love that it hasn't cost me hardly a dime. Now to just find some fabric that I like with blue in it.....

The best part about this room are the memories that fill it with all of our travels!

Christmas Decorations - Part 1

2009-11-19T07:17:00.001-08:00

I am not done putting up Christmas decorations (it's a slow process with my daughter), so here is part 1 of my decorations. I have a few things up and I wanted to show some ideas before everyone else started getting their stuff out.

Here is a picture of the shelf that I would normally hang stockings from,

since my daughter will pull on them and hurt herself, I decided just to decorate it with the ornaments that I couldn't put on the bottom third of the tree since she pulls them off.

I bought the runner from Back Home Decor when they had their open house, I had every intention on using it on my dining table but decided that it would be perfect for the shelf.

I took some floral and greenery stuff that I had and spread it out on the back and then just arranged the ornaments in front of that.

These 2 white vases were on the shelf before and I just filled them with fun gold floraly stuff I had and then I put my stocking hangers on each end to help weight the fabric down so it didn't slip and make everything fall.

Here is the close up of it. I love how this is something totally new to me this year but didn't cost me anything but the runner which I had purchased a bit ago for $7.

Now, I had shown a fall centerpiece that I made a while back and said that I was going to just change a few things up and keep it for Christmas..... Well, I wasn't feeling it for Christmas so I decided that I need a sparkly centerpiece.

Once again, the pictures don't even come close to doing this justice. What I love about this piece, it is an asymmetrical arrangement and isn't a typical kind of arrangement.

I took a glass vase that I had in a cupboard, grabbed some floral stuff that I had in my Christmas stash,

and took these orange glass beads that I had in a bag and put it all together. I placed it on top of this platter that I had on an easel in the corner of my kitchen and bunched up some fabric that I had in my stash left over from wedding almost 8 years ago.

Again, this cost me nothing but is something brand new that I haven't done before.

Now of course you have to have a nativity for Christmas!

My mother-in-law over a course of a few years got me this Willow Tree nativity, it was such a unique set that I loved and had never seen before.... well a few years later, almost every store was selling it and I was a bit bummed about it.... but, my stable is a custom made piece made out of old barn wood so at least I have that that is different from others.

I decided to take a stand of lights and staple it to the back of the stable as well as a few in front and then strand the whole thing of lights underneath this fabric that was left over from the Fall Centerpiece project I did. (This is a very light, airy fabric that I'm not too concerned about a fire hazard... . I will be watching it close and I don't leave it on all day, only at nights.)

I love the idea of getting old fabrics out and using them underneath displays... it really softens everything.

These are decorations that I LOVE!!! I don't know if you have ever seen these glass blocks before, but these are ones that either I or my mother-in-law made.

This one my mother-in-law made out of a corner glass block. She had some letters cut out and put on it and took some of my ribbon and a few snips of my Christmas ornament sticks and created this for me a few years ago.

And here it is all lit up.

These ones I made out of the textured glass blocks.

They are fairly easy to make and I think they are such awesome decorations. I don't like the way I have them at all in these pictures so I am going to change it, but I wanted to show you how cool they are.

If you are interested in making these, all you do is purchase the glass blocks and a glass cutting drill bit. Drill a hole in one of the small sides of the block. Once the whole is drilled, clean it out of any glass shards there may be, take a strand of lights and cut off the end with the plug that doesn't plug into the wall and shove the strand inside the hole. Wrap it up like a present with fun stuff and you have a cool decoration.

Like I said before, I don't have much out yet. I have to sample and test everything out with my daughter and see if it is going to be something that she will mess with and if she does, I have to try and come up with something new.

I am leaving for Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws and will be there for 10 days. We are leaving in less than a week so I may get another Christmas post up but I may not get one up until after I get back. I am finding it hard to decorate when my Living Room isn't finished and I have no where to set decorations.

Things don't always come to me right away.... I think that sometimes people think that just because you are a designer, ideas just pop to you instantly.... Sometimes they do, but a lot of times we have to think on things just like everyone else. I am a feeling person, I have to sit with something and see how it makes me feel. So that is the same way with my Christmas Decorating.

Christmas Tree Reveal!

2009-11-18T12:31:00.001-08:00

It is time! I have finally gotten pictures taken and up of my Christmas Tree. I absolutely LOVE my tree but I have to give a disclaimer.... Nothing looks as good in the pictures as it does in person. I have one word that describes my Christmas.... GLITTER!! Everything has glitter on it so it makes it hard for it to take great pictures. With that said, you can still see why I love my tree.

I have chosen a bit of non traditional colors with my orange and chocolate choices, but I still definitely have the traditional green, red and gold in there.

I love the skirt! It is just a big thing of sheer fabric bunched up and wrapped around.

So I have to tell you my funny story with this tree.... James and I had been married probably 4 or 5 years before we got a tree. James decided that the year we bought our first house, he would surprise me with a Christmas tree. He ordered it online, and when it came it had multicolored lights on it instead of white lights!

I spent an ENTIRE day undoing all of the little plastic things that hold pre-lit lights on and re-stranding white lights. It totally stunk but I was just grateful that he surprised me with a tree :)

This tree will end up as our "Charlie Brown Tree" (that is what I call trees that have homemade ornaments or your kids ornaments on it... I don't mean it in a rude way), and will get a fuller tree for "my" Christmas Tree.

Something that I think people don't think about much when decorating their tree is the topper. This is something that is huge to me and it can totally take your tree to that next level.

Now my topper may be to much for some people, but I love how full and colorful it is and it makes me smile just looking at it.

I also do a really cool topper for my mom's tree that I use a HUGE ribbon/fabric piece and great a fun topper with some stuff kind of like mine in it also.

So here are some steps that I take to do my tree.

I ALWAYS start the decorating process with the ribbons, beads, etc.

This year I found this gold snowflake ribbon in my ribbon drawer and decided to pull it out and try it on my tree. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, but I absolutely love it on there.

I also use this tulle type gauzey fabric. I bought this just like this, but I thought if you wanted something like this for your tree, you could go to Walmart and buy some tulle for $.97 a yard in whatever color, cut it into strips and spray paint a little bit of gold on it to give it a shimmer. SO CHEAP and easy.

Here it is with just the ribbons on it. I have 4 different strand items on here, you don't have to use that many, I just like the variety.

The next step would be to take your larger ornaments and start with them towards the bottom and work your way up. The larger the ornament, the closer to the bottom it should be. That helps with the weight/balance of the tree.

Remember the Dollar Store ornaments I purchased?

Well this green snowflake is one of them as well as the stick thingy coming out right next to it. I told you that you wouldn't even notice my Dollar Store finds next to my more expensive ones!

Do you just find ornaments in the store as they are and just put those on the trees? Why not try putting things a little bit out of the ordinary!

Here I picked up some of these cool stick thingys! They are WAY awesome looking and they are so fun.

On the left of the picture, you can see it in the tree. When I use sticks like this in the tree, I stick them in UPWARDS and not downwards. I want them to fall with the tree, not against the tree. If it is a topper, then I will put them in more downward obviously.

This fun drapey stick.....

was the base of my topper and adds so much movement and sparkle to the tree.

I have so many fun ornaments on here but of course I can't sit and go over all of them.... that wouldn't be very interesting anyway.

If you notice carefully, the bottom third of my tree doesn't really have ornaments on it. My 14 month old daughter isn't making it very easy to get the Christmas stuff out this year.... BUT, I will show you in my next Christmas post what I did with the ornaments that were supposed to be on the bottom. They didn't go to waste and I love what I was able to create with them.

Tip Of The Week - Hanging Stockings

2009-11-16T09:04:00.001-08:00

Picture from HGTV.com

How many of you are thinking of getting your Christmas out already? Or how many of you already have? (like me)!

I am in the process of getting my stuff out and decorated and I am always looking for some new ideas. But how many of you have the same dilemma that I have every Christmas, we don't have a fireplace to hang the stockings?

In my last house, I had a shelf (same idea as this picture from the net) that acted as the perfect faux fireplace mantel and that is where I hung my stockings. Well this year in my new house, I have that same shelf hanging in my living room this time and it would work great to hang my stockings, but I have a 15 month old child in the house this time..... if you are a mom, you see the problem.... the stockings would be hanging within reach of my daughter to pull on them. Not a safe choice to go with. I have decided to do something else with that shelf for Christmas (which I will show you when I get my laptop back from my husband to upload pictures.. he's on a business trip with it)
But now I am trying to think of a way that I can hang some stockings.... I had the thought of hanging them from the curtain rods and just having them be part of the window treatment... the problem with that idea... I don't have window treatments in my living room yet so there is no rod to hang them from..... so I need something else to resort to this year...

Here are some ideas that I pulled from the internet

If you have the right kind of house, hanging them on the stairs is a great idea! It doesn't work in my house all to well, but I love the idea none the less.

I loved this idea, having a stand that you can hang the stockings on and then you can put it anywhere. If you have something around the house like this, that would be awesome!

Now here is an idea that is an alternative to stockings! I thought the mugs were a cute idea and something fresh to add to the mix. The only problem... you can't fit as much candy inside :)

Now here is something that I think is a great idea.... creating your own wall hook to hang the stockings from. This is such a creative idea... I am wondering if I can create anything like this somewhere in the house.
My only thing is trying to hang the pole without creating damage to my walls.... I hate making new holes in my walls when I won't have something there at all times.

I am still going to have to toy with some ideas and figure something out, as well as get new stockings this year (don't have any for my girls).

I hope this helps give you ideas if you don't have a traditional fireplace setting. And try something new this year with your Christmas design... don't do EVERYTHING the same as you did last year!

Questions & Answers

2009-11-13T13:28:00.000-08:00

*Do you have some tips on how to make your home flow?

This is a question that I was asked of my good friend Melinda and even though I sent her an email with the answer, I thought it would be a good question to post on here in case other people had the same question.

Keep the colors through out your home similar in each room - This doesn't mean that your house has to be boring and have only a few colors in it, but if you keep all of the colors in the same tones or hues, than you will create a flow.

Here is an example from my own house;

Here is my Living Room: (and yes it still isn't finished, I need more money for this room! :)

But you can see that I have Chocolate Brown, a Golden, Peachy Orange, Red, and Black accents in this room. All very warm colors and on the similar side of the color wheel.

And my Living Room is open to my Family Room:

My Family Room is done in the same warm tones but different colors. Both rooms have red in them, but the red from my Living Room is a bit cooler tone and more of an accent and the red in my Family Room is more of an orange-red and is the dominant color.

I brought Green in the Family Room as an accent along with the same Chocolate Brown and Black.

Then my Family Room is pretty much part of the same room as my Kitchen.

The Kitchen is done in the same Red and Tan on the walls as the Family Room and has the same accents of the Green, Chocolate, and Black.

Now here on the right of this picture you can kind of see a black bench ( I haven't gotten to taken pictures of this area yet) but this is where you walk in from the garage. On this black bench I here, I have 2 pillows. These 2 pillows are done in the same Red, Green, and Black, but I decided to add just something a bit more to them and I added Purple. Still completely flows but I threw in just a little surprise with an addition color with the Purple.

My Laundry Room is also just off of here (I am in the process of doing this room so there should be pictures in a few weeks.) But I am painting the walls Green and accenting with the same Red and Black and I am going to bring in a touch of Golden Yellow.

This is the best way that I can explain to keep a flow... Subtly bring in 1 or 2 news colors while keeping a few of the other rooms colors.

*Rules to be broken - So I believe in keeping in with this rule at all times except in the bedrooms or at least the kids bedrooms! I do believe that a kids bedroom should be reflective of them and should have their personality in it so don't keep with your general home colors just to keep the flow. Let their room reflect who they are.

2. Don't paint each individual room entirely a different color as the next - I think it really helps to keep a flow if you have a general color that you use through out your house and then bring in painted accent walls.

By now, everyone knows that I LOVE stained walls! This is the general paint I have used to keep the flow in my home. I didn't care for the basic light tan that was through out my whole house, so I decided to cover it up with stain and it does go through a huge chunk of my home. Every area of the main level has it except for the laundry room. I will have a bit of it on my stairs in a whole wall display/creation I am doing, as well as the office section of my loft area. ( I didn't do my whole upstairs loft area because I don't want to be on a huge ladder on stairs while 7 months pregnant) But I also did my master bedroom as well as I am going to do some in my spare bedroom.

Again, each room has it's own feel and colors (somewhat), but they are all tied together with this staining that I have chosen for my home.

Then of course I have my accent walls through out with the red, green, and even painted stained walls.

If each room is painted a totally different color, it creates a choppy feel and not a smooth transition.

I hope that this gives somewhat of an answer on how to create a flow in your home!

Tip Of The Week - Bedrooms & Bedding

2009-11-09T09:44:00.000-08:00

If you are in the market to redo your master bedroom or a bedroom in your home, here is a tip before you get started.

* Always start your bedroom off with picking out your bedding for the room first!

It is so much more difficult to find the bedding you love that will coordinate with a wall color you have already chosen than it is to find bedding that you love and then pick the wall color based off of the bedding you have chosen.

I pulled some pictures from the internet to show some examples of this.

HGTV.com

This picture above is a picture I pulled from hgtv.com. Even though the bedding is a neutral color, you can tell that they designed the room with the bedding in mind first because of the pattern that was created on the red wall. Because the bedding is neutral, they were able to go boldly on the walls and I think it looks great.

PotteryBarn

Here is an example from PotteryBarn that is opposite of the last room. The bedding has some bold color and pattern to it so they opted to go with the white walls. I love that the white walls aren't just plain, bare white walls, they still have texture to it.

phoenixmetro.com

In this bedroom, they did the walls a neutral color that they could have gone with any bedding really, but they coordinated the accessories with the bedding very nicely.

bedzine.com

This wall color is one that you would not take into consideration lightly, but because the bedding was pre-designed and picked out, it goes very nicely with the wall color and the wall color doesn't appear to be scary at all with the bedding chosen.

Restoration Hardware

This rule applies for any bedroom and that also goes for a nursery. In this room, they took the same color as the bedding and put it on the walls, something that you definitely would need the bedding first before choosing.

This is such an easy tip that can save you a lot of headache. Pick the bedding first, then design everything around that.

Bedding can be a very costly item in a bedroom, if you are wanting to redo your bedroom but don't have a lot of money, try searching these websites for some killer deals.

www.amazon.com

www.overstock.com

www.ksl.com (if you are in the Utah area)

These places offer bedding at a discount and you can get some amazing deals. A tip when searching these websites for bedding; Always search for a comforter set or bed-in-a-bag package and here is why. The two options give you most bedding for your buck. You can find a set for $60 sometimes that has a comforter, bedskirt, shams, and a few throw pillows. If you choose a duvet cover, you are usually purchasing all of the pieces individually and the cost ends up higher.

It is possible to design a bedroom on a budget, you just have to be willing to search out the best deals online when it comes to bedding. Other than your furniture, bedding will usually be your most expensive item in the room, but if you search these websites, you can get such a steal on a bedding set.

Fun for Kids!

2009-11-04T08:07:00.001-08:00

Some of you may already know that not only am I an Interior Designer, but I am also a Mural Artist. (At least I was before I started having kids)

Murals are such a fun thing to incorporate in a room for kids.

They can either be very grand like this Winnie the Pooh Mural I did.

And this Hot Rod flame room I did.

Or they can be something simple like painting a border like I did here.

Or something decorative over a window like here.

This Madagascar Mural is painted in a kids t.v. room and made to look like a framed picture hanging on the wall.

Or, maybe you have a playhouse in your backyard

and the inside could use that fun, special touch.

Or do you have a play area under your stairs that you can make into a fun play house?

There are so many ways that you can incorporate some decorative painting into your kids lives, either big or small. I can't wait to have our basement finished so that we can make the basement into a fun kids area and I can paint one of these murals in my own home.

If you would like to see more mural pictures, check out my mural picture slideshow in the right side column.

Tip Of The Week - Drapery Placement

2009-11-03T07:37:00.001-08:00

This is a tip that I honestly thought was common sense and after looking at some pictures online this week, I am discovering that it isn't, so I thought I would share.

I wish I had other pictures to show you but I am lacking in the drapery panels in my house at the moment (haven't gotten that far in most of my rooms).

Tip #1 - Drapery Panels should ALWAYS come to the floor!

This is a picture of when I had just made these window treatments in my old house. I am actually doing what we call "puddling" here (where the drapes puddle onto the floor). I guess I didn't realize that people didn't know this, but you should never hang your drapes to high to where they don't at least skim the top of the floor.

Unless you are planning on a flood parading into your home anytime soon, please follow this rule. It is definitely something that can completely ruin a beautiful drape.

Tip #2 - Always hang your drapery panel at least 12"-18" past your window.

The drapery panels in this window are completely functional, they are intended to screen the window and keep the light out.

What you don't see in this picture, is that when these are open, NONE of the drapery is blocking the window (sliding door) so that light can come in entirely.

Here is a perfect picture to show this. The right side of this drapery panel just touches the edge of the window.

People want the most sunlight in their home during the day, and if you hang your drapes in front of the window, you completely lose the light as well as the beautiful picture of a window.

This rule also goes for valances. Hang your valances higher to where they don't come down and cover the window. The only exception to this is if you are hanging it inside of the window frame. If you are doing that, you just need to be careful, each situation is different there.

Like I said before, I wish I had better pictures to show you but I don't want to take people's pictures that I have seen online and post them here of what not to do.... just wouldn' t be kosher.

Christmas Already!

2009-11-02T08:07:00.001-08:00

I don't know about you guys, but I am chomping at the bit to get my Christmas decorations up! On Friday I was at the Dollar Store looking for some Kitchen Storage Containers and they didn't have what I was looking for.... so, of course I went wandering around and I fell upon the Christmas decorations section. Normally I would totally be thinking "How great can decorations be at the Dollar Store" right... But holy cow, they have some great stuff there that definitely should not be looked over!

In my last house, my Christmas Tree was in the corner of our Family Room, which means that I technically only needed to decorate half of it. Well this year, I am putting my Christmas Tree in my front window which means I will need all four sides decorated.

A few years ago I went on a shopping rampage for tree decorations at my favorite design wholesale place Taiwan Imports. This is a place that only people of the trade can go to. I bought some gorgeous stuff, and even though I still got them on a great deal, they still cost me a bit of money. Well since I have more tree to decorate this year, I needed some extra decorations to fill in all around and I was excited when I came across these!

They had quite a bit to choose from but these are things that will go great with what I already have for my tree.

I love these gold glitter twirl sticks! I actually got these for my moms tree a few years ago (for more money may I add) and they are so fun in there that I wanted to get them for my tree. These red glitter balls were 12 for $1!!! How can you beat that! I bought all of this for $7 and I guarantee that when you see it all in my Christmas Tree, you won't be able to tell what was from the Dollar Store and what is my nice stuff. I am so excited to get it all out and put together, but I guess I should wait just a few more weeks! :)

If you are needing to add some things to your decorations this year or want something completely new, definitely don't shut out the idea of the Dollar Store. I am amazed at some of the things they carry!

Cheap and Simple - Side Table and Basket

2009-10-31T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have posted a Cheap and Simple post before and I decided that I was going to do a "series" of these posts, which will be projects for under $10 (usually less) and don't take much artistic skill at all.

A few weeks ago, I was in the DI thriftstore and came across this table.

It was marked at $10 and I was kind of considering it. The bottom tray shelf was broken and needed fixing but I knew I could do that. One of the workers saw me looking at it and approached me and said "If you are willing to buy this, I will mark it down to $5. I need to get the floor cleared for Saturday." He ran out and grabbed his price gun before I even had a chance to answer. What the heck I thought, can't beat a $5 table.

My husband of course thought I was crazy with seeing the broken shelf and told me "you know most of this stuff will just be coming right back here." I looked at him and said "have a little faith in me would ya"

I have pretty much turned our unfinished basement into a spray paint gallery. I took the table down there and fixed the shelf with some Gorilla Glue and then took this left over black paint that I had from a furniture refinish I did years ago.

I got started painting it and realized that I didn't have the patience to sit and paint this whole thing with a few coats of paint and do a good job.

I did a quick cover with the paint and decided to pull the spray paint out!

And here is the final reveal of it. I am going to use this in between my 2 chairs in the office and I am really happy with the way that it turned out.

My husband was even impressed with the way that it turned out and I think that even he would agree that it isn't going back to the DI anytime soon.

I will show it all put together and with the chairs next to it when I show the full office reveal.

I absolutely love these cheap and simple projects and I know that my husband loves that they cost him almost nothing!

Now here is another project I did. On the same DI run as the table, I found this basket. I have been wanting a basket by my front door so that people know to take off their shoes and put them in there. I found this basket for $3 and thought that it would be perfect.

I took some brown spray paint that I had and coated it up (baskets always take a couple of coats from different angles to get inside the weaves) and then after that dried I did a very light coat with some black spray paint at a distance to tone down the brown.

After I got it all sprayed, I realized that if I used the basket for shoes, it would probably take all of the paint off, so I decided to use it for my blankets instead.

I was actually able to do BOTH of these projects for under $10 and I had the spray paint lying around in my basement already. SO cheap and simple!

Office Dilemma

2009-10-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Remember in my Inspiration Post I mentioned how this fabric was my inspiration for the office? Well, I am having a serious dilemma and I'm not quite sure what to do!

My step-dad gave me his chairs from his old work office. There are 4 chairs, I am only using two in my office..... Here is the BIG DILEMMA for me..... They are BLUE!

Do you see any blue in this fabric? And if you read my Paint Post a while ago, you know my feelings on the color blue in my own personal house.

Here is the thing, I can use this fabric and make green slipcovers for the chairs, but to be completely honest, there are a lot of other projects that I would rather spend my time and money on. I also have a lot of pictures and objects from our travels that have blue in them.

I have fought and fought putting blue in this room and I feel like I am losing the fight.

I have been putting together my photo gallery for the office ( I can't wait to show you how great the picture displays are looking) and I was going through my travel pictures and came across these pictures of my daughter in her Hawaiian dress.

I got looking at the colors and thought maybe this dress would work for my inspiration! It has navy blue in it along with orange and green. My walls are an orangey, caramel color and I have a lot of green items that I was going to put in the room as well as paint an accent wall on my stairs green. I would need to see if I can find some fabric that gives the travel feel for my drapes and pillows for the chairs. I need to go do some hunting, but just maybe I can come to terms with blue in my home and make this office look fabulous still!

Stay Tuned to see the final reveal..... Hopefully it will be coming soon!

Tip Of The Week - Bay Windows

2009-10-26T08:50:00.001-07:00

I know that this is something that people will appreciate knowing. This is something that even my husband questioned me on and I will stick strong to this tip.

How many of you have a bay window or a jetted out window like I have here in this picture?

I know that when people are painting their walls and they come to this window, they ask themselves "Do I paint the ceiling in here or do I leave it white?" People usually will leave it white because it is a ceiling, right?!

Well don't!..:)....Please, Please, Please paint the ceiling area of your window the SAME color as the walls!!!

I really want to emphasize this. I really wish I had a DO NOT example but I don't.

If you look at my window, you notice the window! That is the goal, right!

If you leave the ceiling area white, that is what you are going to notice right away and that isn't where your attention should be going.

I hope this tip makes sense to everyone and that they can understand and appreciate it. I hate seeing people have a little bit darker color on their walls and this white ceiling area in their window and all you notice is the ceiling area because it stands out.

Please trust me on this one!

Inspiration Piece

2009-10-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

When I posted about Brooklyn's nursery, I mentioned my Inspiration Piece.

This quilt was my inspiration piece for that room. I pretty much design every room that I do in this very same way. I won't start designing a room in my home until I have found that piece that inspires that spark of ideas to flow to me.

If you have ever seen Color Splash with David Bromstad on HGTV before, he designs in this very same way and I love that he does it. It is amazing what ideas can come to you when you have that one piece that you love for that room.

Here are some more of my inspiration pieces that have helped spark those ideas for my own home.

Kenidi's Nursery:

I have been working on my baby-on-the-way's nursery and I wanted something different (of course). I was given this brown bedskirt that my mother-in-law made for my twin nephew and niece that they were no longer using. I found this beadboard picture frame at the DI for $2.00 and I loved it just the way it was, and then this is my favorite shirt that I can wear being pregnant (the color is so pretty and I have always wanted to have it in a room).

If I can find a fabric with all the colors in it, I can get started on this room. I have this room designed in my head and it is going to be GORGEOUS but I need to find that darn Inspiration Fabric so I can get her bedding going.

Family Room/Kitchen:

The inspiration for this area was simply the wall color. I found this color and just had to have it. I had all neutral furniture so I could start from scratch and this was the color that I wanted in my home.

Living Room:

The checkered drapes were my inspiration for getting this room going. I had found the sofa and chair and since they were chocolate, I could put anything with it. I wanted something that was different than my family room but that would flow. There are similar colors in each room but they are very different feels. I fell in love with the checkered fabric and I was able to pull the accent wall color from it (the wall behind it) and I was able to go through my fabric bins and I pulled out the peachy and gold fabrics and thought they would look great incorporated in pillows, and then I found the red fabric at the DI for $3.00 and I am going to create a bench/coffee table upholstered in the red. I am way excited for this room to come together but because it is my front room and I want it a little bit more formal, it is taking me longer to get it together and paid for.

Office:

We like to travel a lot with my family and we wanted our office to represent that and showcase all of our pictures. I wanted it to flow with the rest of my house but still have the fun side of traveling and I found this fabric. I actually found this fabric back years ago and I never did anything with it. I pulled it out a few weeks ago and it inspired the whole pull together of my office.

I have a big gorgeous black desk in my office that is VERY Potterybarnesc and I wanted to tie that in with black picture frames. I got this palm tree statue from Mexico and I took this lamp from a Hourder's house (someone who has an addiction to shopping and just buys for the sake of buying and just lets everything stack up in their home). When I pulled this fabric out, all of those ideas started popping out and I am in the process of putting this room together. You can see in the background that I have got the walls painted and stained, I have just been waiting for them to not be tacky anymore so that I can move forward. Can't wait to show you the final product.

Master Bedroom:

There were a few things that actually contributed to my master bedroom. First off, this greenish/bronze colored bedding. This was old bedding of my sister's that she let us take and use while we were finding some bedding that we wanted. Well, it turned out that my husband really liked it and didn't want to get rid of it. I on the other hand, needed more color. I had this red blanket that I had gotten a year or so earlier and wanted to use that. I decided that I needed to compromise with my husband, so I kept the bedding that he liked, but then I added the checkered bedding that I have on there. It is a very layered affect, but it is something that makes both him and me happy. (I know there is a lot of red on my bed, but that will be dispersed throughout the room once I get a sitting area put in.)

This is also something that was important for me to use in the room. These are candlestick holder's that were my grandmother's. I haven't found a spot for them yet, but you can bet that I will try and find a creative way to use them in the room or in the master bathroom.

Spare Bedroom:

I haven't really done anything yet with this room, but I have had these pillows for years. They have been sitting in a box and I decided that I wanted to use them as my inspiration pieces for the spare. I have a lot of orange items that I don't have anywhere to put in this house, so I thought they would work well in the spare bedroom. I am still waiting for that flood of ideas to come from the pillows though! :)

Guest/Kid's bathroom:

My favorite season of the year is the Fall time. James and I had these pictures taken a few years ago and I loved the colors so much that I wanted to incorporate those colors in a room. Well, it went to the bathroom.

I found this shower curtain that had all of the colors in it. I have a few other accessories up in there but the room is so tiny that I can't really do a whole lot with it. Plus, because it is my kid's bathroom, I also have to be practical.

Laundry Room:

I bought this rug a couple of years ago for my front door. It is really flimsy so we didn't want to use it there in this house. I decided to put it in my laundry room and I think it will work great in there. My laundry room is actually our only bathroom also on the main level so it gets seen more than laundry rooms should. Since you can't see the rug colors real great, they are rust orange/red, olive green and golden yellow. I have actually bought the paint already and we are going to paint this room green. I can't wait to actually get going on it and make this room look presentable for people to use it.

Well, there are my inspirations for my house. Do you have something that you love that has helped sparked those ideas. I have found that this is the best way to start off designing a room. Go out and find those Inspiration Pieces that you can use in your home.

Open House for Home Decor

2009-10-22T07:35:00.000-07:00

BACK HOME DECOR

Back home decor is the company that I spoke about in a post of mine a few days ago. These two, Katie and Karen, offer home decor at a fraction of the cost of retailers. They have some great every day home decor, but they have some darling holiday items right now. If you have Christmas on the brain like I do, they have some awesome things that can be used in your Christmas trees (beady thingys which I LOVE in Christmas Trees), as well as cute Halloween and Fall decor.

If you are interested in going, send me an email or leave a comment and I will give you the exact address.... I didn't want to leave their home address up on the blog. Here is the invitation.

Check them out! You can do some early Christmas shopping!

Type:

Party - House Party

Date:	Saturday, October 24, 2009
Time:	1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location:	Lehi UT 84043

Amazing Home Decor at discount Prices! Come get all your Holiday needs.
Open House
Katie & Karen are starting a business where we are selling Home decor Items at almost half the cost of what are in stores.. We have been selling online and in California and wanted to share our savings with our friends and family.. We have cute Holiday and Everyday home decor. Come and visit we'd love to see you all!!
Great prices on Home Decor, also decorating Ideas and info.
Kids are Welcome so come at any time!!
C-ya There

Cheap and Simple - Waste Basket

2009-10-21T10:09:00.001-07:00

I was at the dollar store and ran into this everyday basket.

I looked at that and thought Waste Basket! I don't know about you guys, but I have had an 8 year old yucky, ugly waste basket in my laundry room/bathroom and I was sick of it. Sure it was functional, but I wanted something that was attractive, and have you ever gone and looked to purchase a nice waste basket at the store? They can be extremely pricey and who wants to pay that for their trash?!

So... I took my handy dandy black spray paint and sprayed the thing down, bought some little garbage bags to put inside and wala!...

A new, more attractive waste basket

And the best part.... I only cost me $1 people!!!! I am thinking that I am going to go purchase another one for my master bathroom now. How can you pass up such a cheap and simple thing as that?!

Purchasing an Online Consultation

2009-10-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

If you are wanting to purchase an online consultation this is what it en tales.

Each consultation is on a per room basis and is $25 per consultation. If you select Online Consultation and Add to Cart, it will take you through a Paypal purchase. Once I have received your purchase, I will email you a questionnaire with the information that I need from you and the list of digital pictures that I will also need from you. If there is any other additional information that I will need from you, you can let me know that with the questionnaire.

I will basically help you with whatever you need help on in that particular room. If you need help picking or changing a paint color, accessory ideas, drapes, pictures, adding details, etc. The list really does go on and on. Let me know what your questions are with that room.

I will take the digital pictures, and based off of what you have given me, I will put together any sketches and pictures and present them to you in an email. If there is something that you are unsure of or aren't quite happy with, let me know and we will change it to what suits you best.

I will not be doing any detailed drawings for any consultation, if you are wanting detailed drawings of a floorplan or elevation, that is a separate purchase.

Please let me know if there is anything that you do not understand with the purchase of a consultation. Thank you for your patience and your input, I have done in home consultations for years, but I am still trying to get the details together for online consultations.

Lindsi Gabler

Making Of - Fall Table Centerpiece

2009-10-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

I am not one to really decorate for the Fall or Halloween, I would much rather spend my money on something that is more permanent in my home year round. But I really do love it when people do the seasonal decorating.

I did decide that I wanted to do a centerpiece on my kitchen table that can be used for the Fall and then switch a few things and it can be used for Christmas also ( I do LOVE Christmas decorating).

I had seen this idea back years ago and had wanted to do it, but I am not much of a glass vase type person so I couldn't picture it in my house..... Well, I was on another girl's design blog a little ago and she had this idea on there that she did for her dining table and covered the vases with fabric. BRILLIANT! Why didn't I think of that?

This whole thing cost me less than $25 and I love that I can just switch things out and have new centerpiece for Christmas and I already have the stuff for the Christmas one.

How to Make it-

Start off with any mirror. I bought this one at the DI thrift store for $2.00.

I didn't like the gold frame on it so I spray painted it black with the leftover spray paint from my Family frame project. (Make sure that you tape it off completely before you spray paint so you don't ruin the actual mirror)

After it dried, I took some metallic copper paint I had (I bought at Walmart for $1 something) and rubbed my finger over the raised ornamentation to highlight it. (In this picture, the corner and the side had been done but the top had not)

Then I took 3 vases. I had the large one for the center just sitting around, but I had to buy the two side ones and I got them at Walmart for $2.00 a piece. I also bought the fabric at Walmart for $1.50 a yard. ( I bought 2 yards and I don't even think I used half a yard for these 3 vases but I wanted extra just in case.) Line the edges up and cut it to size

Get some double stick tape and tape it down, roll the fabric around, fold the edge in and tape down and then tape the folded edge over the first edge that was taped down.

I bought some little pumpkins and gourds at Walmart for $.78 a piece (bought 5), 3 beaded candle rings which were $2.99 a piece from Back Home Decor (I am going to do a whole post on Back Home Decor in an upcoming post. These 2 have awesome home accessories for inexpensive that they sell out of their home, that means they can save you money compared to the retailers!), and some fall leaves from the dollar store ( I bought 1 bunch and then just cut it apart with a wire cutter and placed it all around).

I put glass votive holders in each one and purchased 3 votives from the dollar store and lit it all up. Of course the picture doesn't do it justice, it really is a cool little piece and you can see the reflection in the mirror underneath.

So this is my one little thing that is fall that I have in my house. If you would like some other ideas for Halloween or Fall decorating, check out this girl's blog

http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/

She has actually made me want to start decorating for Halloween and Fall and I have never really cared about that before.

Online Consultation Giveaway Winner!

2009-10-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

I would really like to Thank everyone for helping me spread the word about this blog! Even if you don't need a personal consultation with me, I love being able to share the projects and ideas I have with people, and knowing that people are coming here and reading the posts makes me want to do more.

The WINNER of the first Online Consultation Giveaway is....

ANNA STODDARD!!!

Thanks Anna for spreading the word to your friends and family and helping this blog become more known by people.

Please email me so that I have your email address and can get you the information that you will need to move forward with your consultation.

Making Of - Brooklyn's Ribbon Picture Frames

2009-10-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

In Brooklyn's nursery I have 3 picture frames hanging above her crib and here is how I made those.

First I bought these picture frames unfinished at Roberts Crafts. I actually went in there 3 separate times with a 50% off coupon so I could get the discount on each frame. With the discount, they cost me about $4.00 a piece.

The ribbon I purchased at Joann's Fabrics for $3.99 a roll and I needed 2 (with quite a bit left over).

The first step is to paint the base coat which was a red brown color with cheap acrylic paint. Let that dry, then paint over it with top color which was a pink color that I created with a pink, grey, and white acrylic paint.

After that has dried, take a very fine sand paper and lightly rub on the edges and in various spots on the front to wear the pink off and show the bottom layer of the brown through.

When those have dried, take the ribbon and measure in your desired spot on the back of the frame, angle each side inward and staple in place.

To do the 2nd and 3rd frames, I laid them over the first frame so that I could get the angle exactly the same on each one.

I tied the bows, making sure they were the same length, and hung them up on nails. Once again, this was such a cheap way to make a big impact and focal point in this nursery and I love how it turned out!

LAST DAY for GIVEAWAY

2009-10-15T12:23:00.001-07:00

Today is the last day for the GIVEAWAY, so tell your friends and family and have them leave your name in the comments section!

HURRY, HURRY..... Don't Delay

Making Of - FAMILY Sign

2009-10-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

Remember the small wall from my glazing video? Remember how I said that eventually something would be hanging on that wall? Well I finally put something together and I am so excited to show it to you because of how incredibly INEXPENSIVE it was!!!!

Well Here is what I made!

How to Make:

The first thing I did was go to our local thrift store, Deseret Industries (the DI) and purchase this picture frame for $2.00!

You can see from this picture that it was a bit beat up.... Nothing some spray paint couldn't cover!

I sprayed the frame with this black spray paint.... This kind I got at Walmart for $.97! And I was able to use it for other projects also.

first I printed out the letters on the computer and cut them out...

then I went over them with a black marker on the front and sides..... Spent all of this time getting it all cut out and finished.... Then my husband told me that you can still print on big paper if you create a custom size!

So, after spending all of this time on it, he PRINTED it out for me straight on my paper and saved me the hassle of having to spray glue it down! Wish I would have known that before I spent all the time cutting those things out!

Because my picture frame opening was 16"x6", I needed to go buy some special paper that was big enough. This is art paper and it cost me approximately $2.50. I took the glass out and with my exact o-knife, cut around it.

I took some chalks and a little cotton ball and colored around the edges to add something to the paper.

I used a light brown, dark brown, red brown, and a red layered on top of each other to create the edges to look like this.

And here it is finished on my wall. This project cost me approximately $5.00 and it is a good size, not a small dinky picture. I am so glad to have something on that wall now and that the empty void isn't staring at me every time I walk into the kitchen.

The nice thing is, you have left over paper and spray paint to use for another project!

Making Of - Brooklyn's Balloon Shade

2009-10-12T07:18:00.000-07:00

I have been asked how I made Brooklyn's balloon shade in her nursery, so I hope I can explain it well enough for everyone to understand. This is such a simple window treatment to make and I think it is such a cute alternative to the standard nursery valance that usually comes with the crib bedding sets.

I did not have my blog started when I made this so I don't have step-by-step pictures.

*The first thing that you need to do is measure your window. My window was pretty much a perfect square window I believe at 47". Since my fabric was only 45" wide, I had to purchase more fabric and lay it lengthwise to fit. I cut 2 separate pieces, one that is on the top above the ribbons, and the main full piece. I wanted it to hang about 2" over on the sides and the bottom to make sure that is blocked out sunlight, so I measured an extra 2" on each side plus an additional 1 1/2" - 2" for the hem on the back. The top piece needs to be an additional 4" for the rod pocket on the very top. The fabric I used was a flannel type fabric, I wanted something that didn't wrinkle terribly when tied it up.

*I wanted my shade lined for black out purposes for naps so I measured the liner 1/2"-1" shorter on each side so that the hem wasn't to bulky when folded back and sewn.

*I bought 2 spools of 12' ribbon and just used one roll for each side.

SEWING

*Take the large bottom piece and lay the liner on the back side of the fabric.

*Take the ribbon off of the spool and fold in half, mark with a pin. Do this to both spools of ribbon.

*On your main fabric, measure in about 12"-14" from the sides and pin the ribbon on the top of fabric at the center point where you pinned earlier.

*Place the smaller fabric (that is the top section) on top of the main fabric and ribbon. (Half of your ribbon should be hanging out the back side.

*Sew straight across.

* Hem the 2 sides and the bottom, folding over about a half an inch and then folding over again so give it a cleaner look. Sew

*After the sides and bottom are sewn, fold the top down a half an inch and then approximately 3"-4" and sew straight across, this will create the pocket for the rod to go through.

*I bought a cheap $5 rod at Walmart, this is just a real skinny one. I knew it would be covered by the cornice box.

This is such a simple project, it probably sounds more difficult than it really is. I hope I explained it alright. In the future when I make treatments, I will either take pictures of the steps, or I will make a video of what I do.

Questions & Answers

2009-10-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

I get asked questions on my comments and I figure the best way for me to answer them is to do a post of all of the questions that I get for the week. So if you have asked me a question, check back here on FRIDAYS to see what my answer is.

Also, if you do have a question for me, can you please EMAIL it to me instead of leaving it under the comments section of that post? Sometimes I may not see the comment and won't get your question answered. Send me an email to budgetdesigngirl@gmail.com and if your question is about a certain project, leave me the title of the post.

Now, onto this weeks questions!

*What kind of stain did I use to stain (glaze) my walls? What prep work did I do?

I did absolutely NO prep work people!!! I can't explain to you how incredible simple this is. My walls were painted a very simple light tan already when it was built and I just went straight over it as it was. I didn't even wipe it down, I didn't want to take the time to do that. In my living room, I did paint one wall before I glazed over it because I wanted an accent color. I painted this wall 2 days before I stained over it to give it a curing period. (This wall did take a little longer to dry after I stained it, just so you know) Don't be surprised if your wall is still a bit tacky for a few days.

The stain that I used was an OIL STAIN by Minwax. Here is the thing with the stain..... I am sure you can use water base stain and it would turn out fine. If you are afraid of doing this and it is a big step for you, I actually would probably use water base and here's why... If you use an oil base and want to paint over it, you will more than likely have to use an oil base primer over it before you can repaint your walls! I don't think that a water base paint will adhere to an oil base stain. But, I don't know if you will get the sheen with a water base as you will with the oil base. The oil base I used was also a sealant so I have a beautiful sheen to mine and I believe it is more durable on your walls than a water base.

An IMPORTANT note on Oil Base vs. Water Base..... Oil base is VERY smelly!!!!! When I stain my house, I open up all of the windows surrounding the area and then we avoid that room like the plague. When I did my master bedroom, we went and stayed at my parent's house one night and then slept in the spare bedroom another night just to be safe. Make sure that you wear a mask when doing this and that you wear gloves to protect your skin so that it doesn't get into your pores.

So..... now that you know the pros and cons of each, you decide what works best with you.

*What is KSL?

I have mentioned this before, but for those who have just recently started following this blog, KSL is a local classifieds website that you can buy/sell pretty much anything you want. I have an addiction to it, I buy and sell stuff on here all the time. You can find some amazing deals, you just have to be patient waiting to find that perfect deal. F.Y.I....I live in Utah, so this is a local website for Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.

This could actually be compared to Craigslist, but I don't like Craigslist as much as KSL. If you live in another state, check around to see if you have something similar to this in your area.

*How do I work (mainly paint) on my home with a baby?

For those who don't know, I have a 13 month old daughter and I am 6 1/2 months pregnant with my second daughter. (If you find me talking about Kenidi in any of my posts, that is my daughter on the way). This is definitely not an easy task but I get A LOT of support and help from my husband (and mom).

Everything that I do is in sections. I pick a small area that I can work on either in an evening or on a Saturday morning. My daughter goes down around 7:30 for bed, so I usually will try and paint a small area while she is sleeping. (lighting isn't always the greatest but I haven't had a problem so far, also, it goes much faster if you can get your husband to help you :)

If I need to STAIN a little bit larger area, my husband will take my daughter out and run errands or go for a hike on a Saturday morning or my mom will take her on a day that she doesn't have anything going on. On days that I stain, I keep my daughter out of the house ALL DAY just to be safe that she isn't breathing anything toxic. When I paint, I keep her away from it but I'm not as worried about the paint as I am the stain.

I definitely couldn't do what I do around the house without the support of my husband and my mom, but I am bound and determined to get every room painted and stained the way that I want it before I have my second little one. I can do the decorating with a little one, but it would almost be impossible to get the walls done the way that I want with a newborn.

Organizing-using what you have

2009-10-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Something that I love to do is organize things. I know, I know, that is probably weird to some of you, but I can't stand it when things aren't organized. I am sure that all of us would like all of our cupboards and drawers to look like something from Martha Stewart but that doesn't always happen. I would LOVE all of my cupboards to have matching little storage boxes that color coordinated, but that just isn't practical and cost effect in my life right now. However, I can have organized closets and cupboards just by using things that I have around the house. Let me show you some things that I have done.

Here we have a very basic Potterybarn box. I was given a gift in this box and I held onto it because I loved that it had a top that closed.

I needed to store some fabric samples that I have, so I took some ordinary gallon ziploc bags and organized all of my fabrics by color and stored them in the box. This is something that is so simple to do and doesn't really cost anything, but I LOVE having everything organized in the bags and not just thrown into the box.

Here are my larger fabrics that are folded up and stored in this box and bin that I had lying around. They are separated by neutrals and color fabrics.

Now this is my PET!!! I love this little thing to death! My trusty label maker. People who know me really well have to joke about this because they know how much I love this thing. Every household should have a label maker. I use this all the time.

Here is a closet that is my general closet in my upstairs. My office is in the open upstairs so I need to use this closet for normal linen closet things as well as office things. Everything in here is organized in it's box or designated area and labeled. It doesn't look like a Martha Stewart closet, but it is very organized and is storing the things that I need it to.

Here are some bins that I have had for years and they are storing all sorts of things (mainly my paints) but each one is labeled and I don't have any problems finding what I am looking for.

Now this is something that some may look at as weird, but I think it is very functional for me. I had this spice jar rack thing that I got for my wedding years ago. I did not like the look of it so I bought cute spice jars to display. I didn't want this thing to go to waste, so I turned it into an office supply caddy and I store it in one of my office closets. Each jar is of course labeled, but it stores, paper clips, staples, push pins, velcro etc. Sometimes you need to look at things in a totally different light.

Now this is one of my FAVORITE organizing tools ever! Simple energy drink boxes that have dividers in the middle. I used to buy a lot of these drinks and had a lot of boxes lying around and I decided to put them to good use.

I use these things to store socks, nylons, belts, scarves, tank tops rolled up, hair products, pretty much anything that will fit in the small little holes. I even use one to organize my blasted $500 markers that I have, each section has a different color organized inside of it.

I dare you to go through your house and see what random things you have lying around that can be used as storage bins. I have a lot of different things and I am sure that I will end up posting again on different ideas that can be used.

If it is out in the open, definitely find more decorative ways to store and organize, but if it is in a closet behind closed doors, by all means use things you have and save the money for something that is seen all the time.

Giveaway

2009-10-06T11:08:00.001-07:00

I am going to start doing Online Consultations. All you need basically is a digital camera to be able to take pictures of your home and send them to me. I have decided to give away my first Online Consultation!

How do you win????

SPREAD THE WORD!!!

Who ever spreads the word the most, wins the giveway!

Here's How: Become a Follower of my blog to enter your name for the first time. Click on the follower link on the bottom of the right side column. (You must do this for your other entries to qualify)

-For your other entries, post a message on facebook, your blog, or send an email to those who would be interested in this blog and ask them to leave a comment with your name mentioned in it under this post. Whoever I get the most entries from (with your name on it) will win the giveaway. Please help me spread the word and make this blog a fun place for many to visit.

Sample Post for Facebook, Blog, or Email:

Enter Online Interior Design Consultation Giveaway!

Please leave a comment under the Giveaway post with my name (Your Name Here) mentioned in it & spread the word yourself.

http://www.lindsigabler.blogspot.com/

Giveaway will end on October 15, 2009

* Each consultation will be based on individual rooms. Separate rooms will be separate consultations.

I will give more detail on how to purchase an online consultation and what is needed from you as the client in a future post.