a project

(the living room - FYI: a flat screen LCD will be next to the yellow vase)

So, dudes, allow me to impose upon you my interior design experience as of late. I REALLY dislike sitting in front of a computer all day, and since my job normally consists of that said activity, I jumped at the opportunity when my boss nominated me to furnish our corporate apartment because "Elizabeth is the only one around here who could do a good job at this". Yee ha!

(the master bedroom - I really love this duvet from IKEA)

The next week and a half was spent at 3 different trips to IKEA, 1 trip to Wal-Mart (hate it), 1 trip to Costco, 1 trip to Best Buy, almost 7 hours of overtime and $2,700 of reimbursement on my credit card. I had to recruit David to come to the apartment until midnight so he could help me assemble furniture (dang IKEA! sweet husband!) and then spent several hours alone in the apartment while I fretted about the mysterious footsteps on the 2nd floor - convinced that there was a "bad guy" lurking in one of the bedrooms. I stress myself out. Anywho, it was surprisingly hard to furnish an entire 2 bedroom apartment on a $2,000 - $3,000 budget from furniture to lamps to rugs to mops and cleaning supplies. However, I think it turned out pretty cute and not to "girly". All in all, it was a much more enjoyable work week and very fun for me to decorate on someone else's tab.(the guest bedroom - very cheery, don't you think?)

I really love living in my house. Here are a few reasons why:

1. My pyracantha bush is lovely. One huge advantage of living in a 30-something year old house is having mature plants. This bush acts as a buffer from the street and makes a nice little enclave around our house. In the spring, it fills with these blossoms and then in the fall, it produces darling little red berries for me to make Christmas centerpieces.
2. My rose bush . . . I've never loved roses terribly but it's one of the few flowers that grow in an excess here in Arizona. My bush has sadly been neglected by myself but they survived anyway. (Don't mind the disgusting weeds behind or the run-down fence) I also planted some zinnias so I'm hoping they'll bloom soon!
3. The vines that grow around our front window. I just love how they've kind of overgrown around our window sill. It feel so nice on our patio.
4. My pot of herbs. It is so nice having chives, thyme, mint, parsley and cilantro right at my finger tips. My mint is freaking out and growing like a weed but I don't mind.
5. I love opening the doors and shutters this time of year and letting the natural light fill our rooms. The weather is perfect and the breeze feels so refreshing. Plus, it's always a pleasure to have fresh-cut flowers to display somewhere in your home.

Me like-y redecorating. What is better than taking a fugly piece of furniture and making it lovely? Oh dear, I really love doing that!

Example A: Take this stained (with who knows what? - mind you) chair from Salvation Army. I do believe the cost was $10. It was a might stinky and very, very dusty. However, it had a great shape and once I took a wet rag and a bottle of Febreeze to it - it was good enough to be covered in this red and olive fabric and brown rope trim. Result: comfortable and functional.






Example B: These chairs are of excellent quality. David's grammy passed away in September and we were given her dining table and chairs. The table and chairs are very sturdy and in excellent shape. I don't just LOoooVE the stain of the wood - but you know what they say, "beggars can't be choosers". So, I recovered the seats. I'm not as crazy about this fabric as I was when I recovered them but Amy Butler is pretty great. I'm thinking that in our next house, I will cover these in a stripe or just a plain color. Maybe like this or this or this. Dear Restoration Hardware . . . will you marry me?







Example C: I love getting things for free. Moving into our old school house was good to us. The previous tenants left this trashy bookcase and so after much deliberation, I decided to paint it "English Bulldog Black" and cover the back with some awesome green brocade scrapbook paper. Voila! Mod Podge is the bomb.








Example D: I do enjoy a good filing cabinet now and then. Putting my receipts and tax information in one secure place is so gratifying! This piece of junk was rusting, coated in dust and a very boring color of cream slightly dotted in old, crusty pink bubblegum. So, last Saturday, I sanded this sucker and spray painted it "Arctic Blue" (couldn't the "spray-paint-color-naming-people" come up with a better one than that?) and now it sits in my new guest room/office.

Remember when I decided to re-decorate? Here's my new coffee table and pillows. I moved the piano and the couch. I like the sofa in front of the window so much more.











Then, I FINALLY finished the guest room/office/sewing room/craft area. We inherited a queen sized bed so here she is! I copied Design Mom's idea and put up my ribbons on the wall. Isn't it fun?

{recap and a bookcase}

I know it's been a while . . . and it's probably going to have to stay like this for a bit. I need to focus on life without computer for a time. I've forgotten how much I miss my "spare time". I've accomplished so much! I've read 1 1/2 books, cut and painted my guest bedroom, reorganized my craft area, cleaned my laundry room, purchased new bed linens (twice), slept and cuddled and repainted a bookcase. Speaking of the repainted bookcase, here's my journey to a much cuter version of the above. When David and I moved into our home, the previous tenants had left behind a battered, cheap bookcase. I mean, the one from Wal-Mart. I mean, the $15 one. With veneer. Peeling off. Anyway, I hated it. I mean, REALLY hated it. So, after over a year of hating, I decided to not be a hater anymore and bought some primer, "French Bulldog" paint, scrapbook paper, modpodge glue and went to work. I put on two coats of primer and then anxiously awaited the time that I could put on the dark blackish blue paint that I love so much. While I waited for the bookcase to dry, I set to work on the back. I layered the adhesive onto the back of the 12 x 12 scrapbook paper and glued the corners to keep it down. Someone suggested that I spray a clear coat on top but I couldn't wait that long. I did 3 coats on the bookcase and nailed that bad boy behind it and voila! I'm so happy with it. What do you think? I'll show you where it goes the next time I blog. I'm trying to get the guest room ready for M's arrival in two weeks. I can't wait!

{how about orange}

I found this blog today: How About Orange. I kind of love it. Correction: I REALLY love it.

Great DIY projects. In fact, I'm going to use this one this week for my craft room/guest room/office.

Picture from How About Orange. Thank you Jessica Jones.

{organizing hearts}

I heart organizing. I especially heart organizing at work because I can order all the supplies that I want free of charge (for work use, of course). It is glorious. One system that I think is the bomb is Smead Viewables. I love it because you can color coordinate (an organizing favorite) and it formats your labels for you using software rather than trying to find the right label template. I also love this system because it is top-viewing so that you don't have to sift through each folder to see what you are looking for. Plus, it is fairly cheap.
I also love all things at The Container Store. How I wish there was one in Arizona! Their elfa system rules.

If we ever live in a small apartment (which is likely if we move to California) then I will definitely invest in this IKEA wardrobe or something similar. For $299 it would be just dandy (and it matches our dressers); however, a nicer more expensive version would be exceptional too. I hear you Restoration Hardware!

And most recently, I was inspired by Design Mom's office renovation. I mean, I wasn't surprised that she could pull off such a cool project but it was so "do-able" for me. My office is also my craft/guest room. I especially love the look of distressed metal mixed with pretty things. She used Martha's How-To for these stripped tin boxes.

Other favorites (from Martha) include these spice jar labels, luggage tags and handy kitchen charts.

Does anyone want to share their organizing hearts?

{rules to live by:decorating}

Two things I've learned from redecorating my living room: One lesson is from Domino Mag and one is from my charming sister-in-law, NieNie.

The first is that the placement of a sofa can do a great deal of good in a room. I moved my white sofa from against the wall to a great open area in front of our exceptionally large window. The natural light bounces off the white fabric and makes the room seem so fresh. I also noticed that all the pictures that I like of family rooms all have a coffee table of some sort. I especially like the bold fabric on this one.

NieNie and I shopped together for a few fabric selections when we were both set on recovering some upholstered chairs for our homes. I felt so lucky to have her there for her opinion and as we walked through the aisles of fabric, she looked through anything and everything and picked very different things. When she had selected a few seemingly "uncoordinating" fabrics, she asked what I thought of them to which I replied, "Well, they are very cute but they don't really match." And then NieNie's secret to her lovely decorating style came out. She said, "Oh, I don't really pick things that go together. I just pick things that I love." That's when I realized why NieNie's home is so wonderful. When you walk in, you feel something that you love but you can't put your finger on it. It's stylish, whimsical, charming and very pretty but it's also very lived in and very loved. Every piece of furniture, every piece of fabric is loved. She loves her home like she loves her family and you feel it when you enter her Dutch door and see the silhouettes hanging on the wall, the delicious green kitchen, the red armoire that my brother made, the leather couch that the children jump off of onto piles of blankets, the fireplace hearth where they sit together as a cozy family, the larged framed Family Proclamation on the wall showing their family beliefs, the uncovered windows leading to the backyard with orange trees dressed in lanterns and the soon-to-be Mulberry Bungalow. It's a very comforting sight for anyone. No matter who you are, you feel at home. I don't know about you, but that's how I want my home to feel. So, I bought a coffee table and purchased a few things that don't necessarily "go together" but I love them. I'll post some pictures after I complete a few finishing touches. Does anyone out there have a few decorating tips that they live by?

{the rearranging mood}

I am in desperate need of some redecorating. I take after my mother in a lot of ways and the need to move furniture around is a trait that I developed from living with her for many years. It seems that every year while we took the Christmas tree down and moved the sofas back to their original places, my mother and I would look at each other and say, "Well, why don't we just try moving this sofa over there?" and then the rearranging spiraled into moving chairs, art work, tables, books, vases and the like.
So, anyway, I have been in that kind of rearranging mood lately. Nesting perhaps? I wish. With the prospect of taking the Christmas tree down, I'm thinking what I'll do with our living space. I've been annoyed by my sense of style lately so I'm trying to decide the best way to make a change. These are the things I've noticed that I need to mix it up:

- Something in the room with some height. My furniture is all the same level and my art work is bizarre and placed strangely throughout the room. I would love a tall bookcase. We have ZERO room for our hundreds of books but we just can't afford one. Anyone know where to find a tall bookcase at a reasonable price?

- I want to move my sofa in front of the large window. I've always liked the feel of light shining in the room and I think it will look so bright and cheery with the sun on my white sofa. The only problem is the location of the television. It can't be moved to a different spot because of the cable and if I move the sofa in front of the window, then not only will we not be able to watch television on the sofa but the room will be off balance. Hmmm. That's a dilemma. I'll have to think about that one.

- We have a large living room but it's kind of like a hole. I have a sofa, two armchairs, one ottoman, an upright piano, a very large dresser and a (too) small bookcase. You'd think that I would have been able to fill up that space, and I have, but the middle of the room is bare. I've been aching to buy a coffee table or a beautiful rug and I think I may have found one that we can afford. In fact, I think I'm going to buy this one this afternoon.

- I love that I painted our walls a cream color to offset the white trim and the beautiful white shutters. (I love our shutters more than anything in the world.) However, with the white sofa, cream walls, neutral carpet, cream drapes and white shutters - it's feeling a little blah. I want to add some grey, yellow and red to the room but I don't know where to do it. I want to find some delicious oversized pillows. Recommendations anyone?

{a home office}

My mom's house is very yellow. Not, like bright yellow or even mustard yellow, but a very muted and hardly noticable yellow. It's very pretty and I've always liked it. The outside matches the inside and it's happy and cheerful - just like my mom.

My mom is repainting her yellow house. Guess what color she is having it painted? You guessed it - yellow. However, I think I successfully convinced her to paint one of the guest rooms a natural spring green and her home office a light blue (think the color of my bedroom).

When we had dinner over there on Monday night, my mom and I did a little rearranging and some brainstorming about her home office. I know I've seen some great ideas out there for organizing a home office but I can't seem to locate any of the websites that held that inspiration. Can any of you help?

Well, readers, here are my chairs and Halloween decorations as promised.

Hurrah! My chair fabric came yesterday! It is as beautiful and perfect as I imagined. I am very impressed with the eBay shop I bought it from: The Fabric Bolt. I highly recommend it.

Sorry I don't really have time to blog lately but I have a ton to do at work and then I'm going home to recover those chairs so we can sit on them. I can't wait! I'll post pictures of the finished product as soon as I can (and all my Halloween decorations that I've already had up for a week! It looks spooky!)

delicious goodies from grammy

As I said before, David and I inherited a lot of Grammy's things yesterday. Here are a few of my favorites:
I love this lobster pot. Inside is a steam plate to steam lobsters, crab and other seafood. It's sectioned off to cook your ingredients separately, like for a seafood stew or something. David's mom, Cindy, said it was a wedding present from the 60's that she had received two of and gave the other to Grammy.













I'm crazy about this rocking chair. It looks amazing in our bedroom. I love how simple and wide the back is. It's pretty old but it still rocks like a gem.
















I like this embroidered table cloth. I like that it is black and white. It has a lot of detail that you can't see very well from this picture but it is really nice. I don't know how often I'll use it, but I like it.









Grammy embroidered these two pillowcases years ago for each of the grandchildren. I love the look of "paper dolls" along the border.











When David's mom said I could have these glasses, I almost jumped for joy. I love them!

















And, of course, the infamous dining table. I have not been able to describe it very well but it looks so beautiful in our house. For how long she's had it, it's pretty amazing that there isn't a scratch to be seen on this solid wood table. As you can see, I really need to update the upholstery fabric.









Since it's fairly easy to recover chair covers, I figured I can really do something trendy and "right now". I'm not worried about it being traditional because I'm not going to have it for a long time. In a couple of years, I can change it to something else to suit the next place we live in. For now, I think I'm pretty set on this fabric:
As those of you who have been to my house know, I have some pictures framed in this same yellow with this same green around the area in ribbon. I just love it. Thanks to whoever suggested Amy Butler fabric.

When I woke up this morning, it was around 70 degrees outside (a HUGE improvement). It felt soooooo good and I was almost a little bit chilly getting into my car. It got me thinking about how badly I want a porch to sit on and enjoy the nice weather overlooking my beautiful yard . . . kind of like this covered terrace.

Do any of you have a lovely porch I can relax on?

Do yourself a favor and buy these Anthropologie measuring spoons like I did. They are very fragile but awesome.

four legs and a leaf

We inherited Grammy's dining table this weekend. I'm excited to have this sturdy, "tobacco" stained, East Coast-made, solid wood table in our home. Since we got married, we've been borrowing my sister's awesome round table with a "lazy Susan" and we have loved it but I'm happy to have something of our own that's a little more formal. The 6 chairs are upholstered and need new fabric. It's quite outdated so I'm wanting to find something like this.

Unfortunately, this is wallpaper (wish it were upholstery fabric) from Brocade Home. Does anyone know where I might find some great upholstery fabric that resembles this?

New "little ada treats" are up!

Check them out here!

2 bedroom changes:

1) Do you like my new headboard? Isn't it perfect, flawless and clean? Thanks. I painted it myself.





2) I thought some words painted on the wall might be nice. Check out how sweet they look. I love my last name.