Bamboo is Bettah!

Before:

 After:

Bamboo is bettah!

(Checkin the clearance rack for bamboo blinds has finally paid off.  I got these for $10 each at Bed Bath and Beyond!  In my size, only 4 left.)

I want twin beds...

After seeing this picture I want twin beds...

...and to basically have this exact room in my house!

credit unknown.

I wonder if Chris would go for it...

*This has always been one of my favorite color combinations!  Navy and fire colors (yellow, orange, red-orange).

The cow has landed...

I think the cow has found a cozy home.
It's not in our dining room....or our study.

It's in our living room.

Check it out...

(it was about a week before i noticed, my cow skin is accompanied by a cow painting)

Before cow:

(I love this kilim rug in here, but cow needed a good home.  

this rug is now in my dining room!  I'll post pics of that soon.)

After cow:

Thanks for checkin in!

What lies beneath...

Started scraping the paint off the ceiling of our front porch...because it was basically falling off on it's own...

And I discovered, that beneath this chipping paint lies awesomeness...

I had to call in for back-up.

(Which involved Chris making an emergency run to Lowe's for legit paint scrapers)

I mean, really, I'm basically in love with the thought of our hole porch ceiling look like this... 

(minus the leftover grey paint, of course)

Roughly three hours of labor and we're only this far...

Feel free to send encouraging postcards, letters, or presents...because it's gonna be a LONG hard journcy scraping this whole thing...but it WILL be worth it!

Check back...in four months...for the results!

This Funky Junky

BeiBei spent the weekend at my sister's house, while we were in New Orleans for a wedding.
She blogged about the weekend, here.  She is has a great blog called "This Funky Junky".  Read it!

Fixin' Up the Fixer Upper...

We've FINALLY been getting some real, professional, non-DIY work to our house this week.

We needed some fixin' on the brick on our house and had some rotten wood to replace.

So I left for work on Tuesday morning, and returned to this...

Wow.

Day 2 was about the same.  

But Day 3 is actually kinda nice...

We added a nifty little door so we can store things under the house.

The good news is...now that all the rotten wood has been replaced...we can paint our house!!!

The bad news is...we have to scrape the old paint off first....

by ourselves...

like with scrapers...

:(.

But I'm not going to think about that.  Instead I'm dreaming of what it will look like when it's done.  

A.

(lighter top, darker bottom)

or 

B.

(darker top, lighter bottom)

I'll remind you...the house currently looks something like this...

Except all my plants are dead.

...as a doornail.

Which one do you like best?

A, B, or something different altogether????

Come on....chirp up.  We need a little help.

We're going for awesome resale curb appeal, so you're opinion counts!

Decorating a Room from Scratch: Part 3

Some things are starting to come together since I left D.C.
( see Part 1 )
( see Part 2 )

The pair of chairs were delivered...

The sofa came in, and it looks great flanked by the lamps we found!

The pie safe I found in Birmingham was delivered and will be great in her dining room!

 I love this mirror over the fireplace.  It's a little tall...but I think it looks cool overlapping the trim.

Still gotta get rid of that painful light fixture.  That big armoire has now been sold via Craigslist...yay!

New paint color.  The doors will be painted the color of the mantle.

We are still waiting on...

The rug to come in

Removing the light in the middle of the room

draperies & pillows

bamboo blinds

ottomans

tv console

dining area table, chairs, buffet server, chandelier

art & accessories!

These are the fabrics...

(sofa, chairs, drapery, ottomans, pillows)

I put together this image to help myself visualize how it will all come together...

Can't wait to see as it continues to unfold...

Thanks for checkin' in!

Bei is growing up!

And now, 9 months old....just about full grown!

 She's about 55 lbs.  

I love her a little too much.

Decorating a Room from Scratch: Part 2

Read up on Part 1, first....

"So that's what you missed on"...my blog.

So after arriving to D.C., with a headstart on steps 1-3, I continued on in the process.  

3.  Fabrics & Upholstery (continued...).  I still had a few upholstered pieces to track down in D.C. The client was definitely tired of sitting on camping furniture, so we were really hoping to find a pair of chairs somewhere that we could purchase off the floor. Because her husband loves to put his feet up, we were also hoping to find an ottoman to use for a coffee table. To be honest, I had low expectations for meeting these goals. Finding chairs and an ottoman that are: ready on the floor, the right size, the right body style, fabric that works with our other selections, and the right price in one weekend was going to be very tricky. I shopped all day Saturday with a friend (my client was in meetings) and we had no luck, and I was definitely discouraged. At the very end of the day, we made one last stop and found this pair of chairs:

They looked great with our other fabrics, and they swivel!  The swivel was something I had wished we could get, because of the position of the chairs to the TV, but it was usually too pricey.  These chairs were in our price range and a great body style to compliment our sofa.  I was also hoping to find skirted chairs since our sofa is not skirted.  

And in the same store, we found this super cool ottoman:

I immediately loved the color and the shape!  They only had one in the store, but they would be able to order a second.  Although we had really envisioned one large ottoman, two ottomans is so much more fun!  One can have a tray for drinks, and her husband can put his feet on the other.  

They had a sofa in the store that was fairly similar to the one we had selected in Birmingham, so we set up a little "scene" for the client to see so she could get the idea of how it would all look together.  

The sofa already had those pillows on it, and the second I pulled up that orange ottoman I knew I had stumbled upon a super fun color scheme...orange and turquoise!

The client met us at the store and LOVED our little pretend living room scene!  I had forgotten that she and her husband are Tennessee fans, so she was pumped about having orange ottomans.    

  

4.  Furniture.  (Non-upholstered).  When designing a room from scratch, next you should find your wood furniture, which will fill in the spaces between your upholstered pieces.  The measurements of your floor plan and your upholstered pieces will determine the allotted measurements for your wood pieces.  

The only piece of furniture the client wanted to keep was this little table which would fit nicely between a pair of chairs.  

So our shopping list in the wood department was...

-Something long and skinny to put the tv on.

-A few storage items for the dining area...a buffet and cabinet.  

I found this piece for the dining area at an antique store in Birmingham.  It's a primitive Pie safe circa 1880.  It is perfect to store their china, without displaying it, which is what she wanted.

During Day 1 of shopping in D.C., we came across this amazing old work bench, that I thought would be awesome for her to put her TV on:

It was love at first sight for me and this table!!!  However, it was just too rustic for the client, so we decided to keep looking.  (And in retrospect, it was probably a little too rustic for the other furnishings we had selected).  

So on Day 2 in DC, we continued our search for something to put the TV on.  

We were excited to hit up two of D.C.'s biggest flea markets:  The Georgetown Flea Market, and The Eastern Market.  However...we woke up to a muggy rainy day!  Although we still went to the flea markets, there were very few vendors there and we didn't find anything.  While we were in Georgetown, we wandered down to Restoration Hardware and spotted this table:

It is a great size for our space, wide enough for the TV and a lamp, has a lower shelf for TV components, it has an industrial feel which will be great in front of her exposed brick wall, but it's still clean and contemporary enough to go with our other furnishings.  I knew instantly it was a good option, but we still kept our eyes open in case we found something else.  

  

5.  Lighting.  Begin selecting lamps, and making decisions about lighting for the room.  These choices will affect the overall mood of the room, and dictate what sort of paint colors will work best.  Although you can do a lot with good lighting, you can't control the natural lighting that a room has.    

On Day 3 in DC we went lamp hunting.  We drove a little ways out of town to some outlet stores.  

We needed a pair of floor lamps to flank the sofa, a table lamp to go next to the TV, and a table lamp for between the two chairs.  

At the Restoration Hardware outlet we found this fabulous pair of lamps (minus the shade):

They were half the original retail price...which was great!  I think these lamps will feel edgy in the space, but they are a very classic shape and will stay in style and could transition into any room.  

We didn't find lamps for our other two spots.  Our plan is to go cheap on one, and splurge on the other.  That way she will end up with one fabulous lamp, and one that she can replace in the next year...with another fabulous lamp!

6.  Paint Color.  There is a paint color for every color in the rainbow, so this is probably the MOST variable aspect of your room.  You should select this last to best compliment the other decisions you have made for your room.  

We wanted to do a neutral, especially since there is so much color naturally in the exposed brick wall and her warm toned floors.  

The stark white trim just felt too uptight and formal for the space.  So we decided to select a nice neutral wall color and paint the trim the same color as the walls.  The trim in this house is not original, and so some of it seems out of place, so I decided to neutralize it instead of accenting it.  

7.  Accessories & Wall Decor.  Don't try to accessorize all at once!  Do you want your room to look like it fell out of a box?!  Collect items that you love overtime for a "collected" look.  Bring in a variety of textures and pops of color that reflect your fabric choices.  This step could be approached along the way, especially if there are specific accessories or art that know you want to incorporate from the start.  For instance, a large piece of art may dictate the size table that you place on a wall beneath it.    

We found one accessory while I was in D.C.  We found this old toolbox from a junk store that is the perfect size for DVD storage!  

We also saw this bull head....

Unfortunately, we just didn't have a good spot for it.  Too bad huh?

I arrived to an empty room and left a basically empty room...but there was much unseen progress.  Most of the things we picked out would be delivered to them after I left.  

Thanks for reading, I'll keep you posted on the progress...