Yikes, Stripes......

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before & After No Cost Spare Bedroom "Updo"

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!!!!

Tip Of The Week - Bedrooms & Bedding

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.