An American Sun Room

For some reason, in all the years I dreamed of doing this for a living a sun room never even crossed my mind. So you can imagine my excitement when Rene e-mailed me about doing her 4-season sun room. She wanted a simple but fun room that would be a great place for her two pre-teen daughters to hang out in with her husband (watch tv, play games, etc). She also wanted something with a little bit of an "Americana" theme (in honor of her husband and fathers long standing service in the military). This is obviously not my normal color scheme, but it was really fun to put together...Rene's sun room is quite large at 20' x 16'. It has light tiled floors and was to be the perfect hang out space.This is what we came up with...

The daybed is from West Elm (Found here), and is perfect for this space. For one, covered in pillows it is super comfy (I know it doesn't look like it, but we shopped for one of these for our guest room awhile back, and it was beyond comfortable), for two it's great for summertime sleepovers (easily fits two), and since it's metal it's indestructible, and if anything is spilled on the mattress, you only need to buy a new cover (instead of buying a whole new mattress/sofa).  The red garden stools are great for spaces like this because they can be used as seats, a place to prop up your feet, or a place to sit a soda and popcorn. We found these on clearance at Pier 1 but you can find them practically anywhere (in fact, I just saw some great ones at World Market on sale for $50). The Moroccan style rug is from Overstock (where else), and the white chairs are these from Ikea.  The great navy and red throw pillows are from here. Those awesome nautical red lights, are actually outdoor lights, but too cool to not go in this "non serious" indoor/outdoor space and we found them on Ebay. The sunburst mirror was from Target.com and I actually have it in my own home (it was on clearance but is apparently sold out now). The black pedestal table is perfect for playing games and is from Jcpenneys believe it or not. Find it here, although it was on sale, but it looks like it's not anymore :(. The white upholstered chairs are the exact opposite of what I originally wanted for this space, but in the end something comfortable was our number one priority, and these definitely are comfortable (got them on Overstock.com for $100 for the set). The vintage brass stencils were from Ebay and are a nod to this family's love of scrabble :). The small blue lanterns are the "Casablanca Lanterns" (great name) from Zgallerie. Find them here. The large blue dressser/buffet was from Pottery Barn kids and has tons of game/dvd storage and is to be used as a tv stand. The red pendant light, she already had, and it works perfectly! I was a little afraid it was too themy, but in the end I don't think you can go too far with the red,white, and blue :)...and Rene loved it (and from what I heard, her husband loved it too)...In the end, we created a comfortable and fun room for her girls and husband, that I think everyone loved.
And now, in true Friday fashion, some eye candy for you...

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Have a good weekend!

Someday I'll be a millionaire...

Someday I will buy a storage unit and fill it with vintage furniture that I will buy simply to reupholster in pretty fabrics...and I will make millions...or actually probably no money since it costs a fortune to have vintage furniture reupholstered....in fact this hobby might break us... In any case, I would love to spend my days scouring vintage stores/flea markets for beautiful furniture to make my own. Oh how I would love all of these great pieces...

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This is what I call, "granny chic" with those floral prints and shabby coffee table....love that blue couch...

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You know how much I love an impractical white couch...And the gold legs...forget about it...

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Why do I feel the need to drink scotch and smoke a cigar in a night robe to own this couch....none of which I've ever done...

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Love the mid century clean lines...I could totally live on this couch...

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Oh that blue....and an acrylic coffee table...this one's definitely my favorite...come to mama...
...yes folks...someday I'm going to be a millionaire...or I'll end up broke, living in that storage unit....and probably single...because Race would leave me...

A Patio for a Party..

First off on this beautiful Monday morning, for my daily readers I want to apologize for the ridiculous number of changes on my layout and design. It's been a real headache (literally, staring at all the different styles gave me a legit headache) trying to get any background/template to work and to get the design to where I like it/where it looked right. I finally figured it out and am happy with the new design...For any others out there who are having trouble, try reverting to the old blogger interface....they must still be getting the kinks out of the new one. Now onto the fun stuff...well for me anyways :)
So a couple weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Marcie...a teacher, wife, and hip mother of four (yes four..ranging from 7-18 too...strong woman)...Marcie wanted some help in her patio, she basically had nothing but a black table and matching chairs out there, but wanted a "sprucing up" before her oldest son's graduation party in just a couple of weeks. Here's an excerpt from one of her e-mails...
"We love eclectic style, modern but traditional, classic but fresh, hip without being too trendy, and comfortable"
Yes, I would call that eclectic...while most are probably a little confused by her description of their style, I totally get it....in fact I probably understand better than most. I would call my style eclectic and a little trendy generally, but I have a serious respect for all types of design. I can look at something country or shabby chic, two styles I would never use to describe myself, and still be like "I would love this in my house"...Basically, I love it all. So she definitely came to the right place. In the end we decided based on her inspiration pictures, her style was definitely more modern and fresh, but less traditional than she thought. Her backyard is huge and basically has two separate spaces on her patio. We decided to create both a dining area and a living area. This is the basic idea:

Marcie already had that dining table, it's simple and black, but large enough to fit six people. Neither of us loved the matching chairs (she just didn't like them, I didn't like that they matched :)), so I reverted back to Leesa's office, when I fell in love with the silver metal tub chairs, and luckily she loved them too, but we went with the white this time, and found them on overstock so we got them for an even better price, along with the outdoor black and white chevron rug. We found the lanterns, sofa, and those amazing garden stools all at Zgallerie (that's right people I have a serious Zgallerie problem). That awesome metal planter and two white chairs were all CB2 finds, and I actually went to look at the chairs (they are much better in person, trust me). These pillows are not the exact ones we are going to use (she's going to make them herself with a great fabric we found with these same colors), but they are almost identical. I am obsessed with these trunk side tables, but the prices on them are truly ridiculous ($150?!...Really west elm?!...do you know it's part of a tree?...do you?) so I found a DIY version and sent it to her and her hubby (I was a little nervous about that FYI), and they were super excited to give it a try. In the end, we only had to come up with one option for this space (as great as that is, it almost made me sad, I was having fun working via the interweb with this fun couple). I can't wait to see pictures of the final space..
I've also made a few random changes around our own abode...pictures coming soon...