Friday, April 27, 2012

Like I said in my first post, I loved the idea of starting a blog simply to keep me accountable. I have a list of things I would like to accomplish around this little home of ours and I'm hoping this blog will put some fire under me to get them done faster. With, that being said, here's a quick list of some things I'm hoping to accomplish around here before the end of the summer..and it's kind of a doozy..
Office/Guest room
Right now this is my first priority, because I NEED a workspace, other than my dining table
  1. Paint
  2. New art
  3. New office chair
  4. Prettier office supplies
  5. New throw pillows for pull out couch
  6. MORE ORGANIZATION AND STORAGE!!
Outside:
  1. Paint front door
  2. Furniture for patio
Living Room/Dining Room:
  1. Something for the corner where the slowly dying plant is
  2. Something for over the fireplace
  3. A new (and working) lamp for the bookcase
  4. New throw pillows
  5. New rug for under dining table
  6. New dining chairs
  7. Possibly a new dining table
  8. New prints for the entrance photo collage

Yeah, I'm dizzy just from reading that...Wish me luck!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

This is where we live...

I have dreams...big dreams...and most of them surround around my living room. Right now I feel like my living room is a little too "model home." It's very matchy matchy, which sometimes can be good but also can be stale. It doesn't have that "collected over time" look that I love, mostly because we've  only lived here for 3+ years and bought most of our furniture at the same time....Oh, and I'm 24 so there's been no time to collect. I definitely need a shot of inspiration to make this space more "us."  I have been very drawn to Emily Henderson's style lately, she's eclectic and vintage, with a little quirkiness that I love..
So, without further ado, this is my living room as it stands today...Remember that these are "in progress" photos, that happen to also be very bad quality pictures...I'm actually extremely embarrassed to be publicly posting these awful pictures, and considered waiting until I had better ones, but I had already picked up the room and taken the time to take them so you are GOING to see them...But I promise as soon as I can I will take new ones with a good quality camera, and those can go on my home tour page....Okay, it's time for all of you annoyingly judgmental people to leave now...

 And just to show you I really tried, a couple pictures at night, if anything I think you can see the colors more accurately...


                    
I love the high ceilings, white molding, and large patio doors. For the most part I love how this rooms coming along, but I really wish it reflected me and Race more, it's a pretty straightforward space. With the exception of a couple small animal print pillows and the backing on my bookcase (that's more me not Race BTW), it really doesn't reflect our quirkiness or personality as a couple. There are several things I'd like to do in this space..
1. I need to get rid of the slowly dying plant in the corner, more than anything because my very large, clumsy, lab knocks it over with his tail on a weekly basis. I'd love to find a small, fun round table for that corner.
2. We have extremely high ceilings, but right now I feel like your eye kind of stops at the top of the fireplace or the top of the tiles, so I'd love to hang something over the fireplace (and over those metal tiles) that will bring your eye up...and since I'm completely obsessed with the new white ceramic animal head fad, if anyone wants to send me a ceramic deer head for that spot I'd be eternally grateful... you might want to send a super tall ladder too, since I have no idea how to get it up there :)
3. I definitely want some new throw pillows, something with more color and pattern...I need to find a new fabric store, since my favorite one in downtown Lawrence is sadly going out of business..Let's take a moment to grieve..
4. Make some art for our dining area..I'm no artist but I also can't spent $300 on a painting I don't really understand, so DIY art is the way to go for us..
5.We will eventually need a new sofa..I love this one, but it's almost 7 years old and starting to show some serious wear, part of me wants to go buy the exact same one again, it's a perfect scale for our living room and gives us plenty of seating. I wouldn't mind a different color though, maybe a gray even..
6. A rug.. I go back and forth on how I feel about rugs on top of carpet. Usually, I'd say ugh..no..that's so cheesy, but lately I've been seeing it all over the blog world and am kind of loving it. Besides, I need a new rug in my dining area, so if all else fails I can move it there.
Notes worth noting...
Yes, I know from a design point, all of my wedding and vacation pictures are probably not the best choice. And I know, from my couple months of design classes, that family pictures in the living room are usually considered tacky or cheesy...but guess what I don't give a rats patoote (I don't know how to spell that word so I'm going to just say I don't give a rats ass)... So all of you designers and Kourtney Kardashian can bite me (I'm just kidding I love you Kourtney Kardashian). This is my home and I want to surround myself with things and people I love. Someday I will have a separate living and family room, and then I will hang beautiful art in the living room but for now there is a picture on my bookshelf of my two best friends kissing my husband on the cheek and that makes me happy...

P.S. I am really not this bad of a photographer, these pictures were taken on my old point and shoot digital camera on a rainy day..Sadly my old DSLR went to camera heaven a few weeks ago...enter sad, whimpering face here...and then a moment of silence...


Monday, April 23, 2012

Just putting holes in the wall..

"Oh just putting more holes in the wall," this is what my response was when my husband yelled from the dedicated "man cave," when he heard banging around in our entrance way.
Our house doesn't have a formal entry, you basically walk in and bam your in..That being said, our entrance (or lack thereof) was looking pretty plain and a little boring. On top of that, because a different table used to be there, the shelf was hanging way too high, and had been like this for almost a year. We needed some impact as well as better scale...
 
  (I am going to warn you now, this post has probably the worst quality pictures you've ever seen, but my camera was dead so most were taken with my cell phone)
I was super inspired by this photo...
This is Emily Henderson's old living room, and I am completely in love with it (and her), I love the eclectic collection of frames with fun prints mixed with the asymmetrical order.

This is how my entry looks now:



Still not done, I would really like to replace some of the pictures with some fun prints or art (the hubby thinks it looks like we are too full of ourselves (or as he puts it "all we need are some candles and we'll have a shrine")..I would also love to find a vintage map of New Orleans (our honeymoon spot), for my map obsessed hubby. Race if you're reading this I am totally lying and will never buy you another present again...but I digress, eventually I'll find some cool prints or art but for now it is what it is.. But for anyone wanting to do something similar here's my horrible tutorial..for a much better one go here 
Now to start off you should probably be drinking wine and have a great movie in the background (my choice was The Nightmare Before Christmas, and yes this was in April).
I started by laying out a bunch of frames on the floor (I would definitely like to replace some of these frames soon, but I had these at home so this was a $0 project) to decide with arrangement I liked.
Then I used newspaper to make templates for each frame...don't feel bad if you don't have a leopard print pen, I didn't always have cable....
Next, I measured and marked on my template exactly where the hanging apparatus (aparatus? aperatus? hmm.)  was with an x. Then, I just hung up the newspaper on the wall with tape until I got the exact arrangement I wanted in the right order. Then I simply hammered nails into the x, removed the template and hung the pictures, making sure to use the level to make sure they were straight along the way.
Wow that's a bad picture...yikes
There were moments like this...
Yes, the picture would not hang flat, so I tore the back off, in hindsight not a great idea, but it may have been the wine sitting next to the frame that caused this over reaction...Eventually I got here...

Also it's worth noting, that in the pictures some of the pictures look crooked, but I promise they are not, it must be the weird angle I had to take the pictures in mixed with the quality of a camera phone..

I'm pretty happy with the theory of this project, but definitely want to bring in some color in those pictures. I would also like to replace the small gold frame on the bottom with some antique keys...hint Jon and Candace...What is it about antique keys that makes me happy? hmm..Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes that is a random postcard with a peacock on it, and sorry but no matter what anyone says to me it's staying..he/she makes me smile. The white elephant, was my great grandmas, it was pink, purple, and red and it pained me to spray paint it white, but I wanted to actually be able to display it in my home. Oh, and the random blue tray on the ottoman, I know its not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it is where I put my keys, because this lady loses her keys EVERY day and I mean EVERY day...I was going to take it out for pictures, but figured I should try to reflect real life...or I forgot. Plus it has a great blue Moroccan print on it that I love. The bird print is from here . It's personalized with our wedding date and initials, and was only $5. I'm not usually cheesy enough for things like this, but I have a weird thing for birds (and peacocks apparently), not real birds by any means, I actually hate them, but pretty ceramic and printed ones. The small brown candle holder is from my sister and she got it in Greece, because she's that awesome. Oh, and the great pictures of my baby boys, Harley and Dakota were a gift from the hubby. 
And just for those of you who happen to be as ridiculously clumsy as I am, I should tell you that picture frames are made of glass (who knew..right?), and when you drop one, but try to catch it before it falls to the ground, while leaning from a kitchen chair (even though, as your husband points out, there is a step ladder in the garage) it can cause deep lacerations. If you're lucky though, you will have a sweet man around the house to take care of you...
...why yes that is a batman band-aid...jealous much?...I'd love to blame that on the kids, but as most of you know, we don't have kids....
Any fun projects you guys are up to this week? Any balancing acts result in a pinky injury?...Talk to me people...I'm off to shop Etsy for maps and great prints..

P.S. I definitely need a new camera and am now accepting donations :)
P.S.S. I'm of course kidding....kind of