Dining room ooomph.

After living in the house for a few months, and getting things in their places, I realized our dining room was lacking some oomph, and that needed to be changed asap!

Here's what it started out as. 

A large table, that I love love love and 2 paintings that the hubby and I brought back from a trip to Paris 4 years ago.  Wow, 4 years.  It feels like yesterday.  Anyway, back to the issue at hand.

I dug around the house and found a brand new table runner I hadn't even unwrapped yet (can you tell I like blues yet?), and an old shallow bowl.  Easy.  Though it looked really weird empty, so while at Ikea one day I found these funky rattan like balls to put into it.  Simple and cute...and cheap!  I was content.  Finally, the room was done.  Simple, clean, and colors that make me happy.  

And that's when it happened.   Tidymom , posted this:  

Family Room Makeover

Remember how I said I was content?  Well, that flew right out the window!

I took one look at those glass shelves, and knew right away that  I needed one in my dining room.

I had an entire wall, just begging to be filled.  The metal frame, the glass, it would keep the room from feeling too "heavy" but it would finally get some oomph!

The next day, literally, I hopped into my car and got myself over to Ikea.  The 10 minute drive was almost too exciting to handle, yes 10 minutes!  I feel kind of lucky :D  I was on a mission.  I didn't bother going upstairs but made my way over to the warehouse, grabbed my giant box and headed home.

Now,  I don't have any before photos of the dining room without the shelf, or with the shelf completely empty, but I finally got it decorated the way I want.  I think.  Other than the photo frames needing photos, and the plants needing cute planters, I'm done.  Right?  

I have to admit, I'm a bit worried it's too busy, but I love all of the pieces on there,
so I'm not sure how to make it not so cluttered.  The painting, my daughter did, and she doesn't like it, lol.  Too bad for her, I do, and it matches my coral on the top shelf and the glass vase filled with sand and shells.

Oh and notice those AMAZING framed prints?  Those are from Gingiber and they are the perfect nautical addition.  All three are fun and unique, but that Narwhal.  Oh my!

My next task...clean/organize/decorate the study.  Yikes!

Entryway dresser update

Remember my little dresser from Craigslist?  Gee, I start a lot of posts with, "remember my"...I should work on changing that, huh?  Okay, back to my post :D

So I've been slowly finding things here and there for it, and it's starting to come together nicely.

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, I love the colors red and aqua, oh and yellow, and pink, and green, and...oh, but yeah really red and aqua.  It's in a lot of places around the downstairs and I'm sure it'll creep upstairs a little too once I start focusing on that part of the house.  A long, long, long time from now.

Okay, without more babble, here is the before, the before after, and the after :)

I still haven't found a chair that I absolutely must have, so the little shoe bench from our old house

is still sitting there.  It's working for us beautifully storage wise though, so I guess I'm not quite in a hurry to replace it just yet.

Oh right, back to the photos.  Here they are...

Ikea frames, LOVE them, especially the one in the back.

The little Dachshund statuette, from Hobby Lobby,  looks so much like our pup that I had to have it,

and the fake grass and red planter, thanks again Ikea!

The lamp is a temporary one, $10 on clearance at Target, is actually going into my son's room, though not that shade because it's oh so sparkly and I'm thinking he wouldn't be a fan, ha.  

An old mirror that my daughter's no longer had space for, some word art from Hobby Lobby ($10),

and a DIY letter W canvas/wood art.

And voila!  Now I just need a chair.

Oh and totally keeping it real, there's a backpack next to the dresser and about 7 pairs of shoes

shoved into that bench.  Two of which may or may not be mine :D

So there ya go.  I don't think I'm quite done though.  I think once I find a chair, this

small space will once again evolve.

Bedroom pillows, I can't stop!

After I made the new pillow covers I lived with them for a while.  Remember these?

I liked them, a lot.  But then, I brought in a painting that I hadn't unwrapped from the move, and the pillows just didn't...fit.  Too plain, too muted.  I needed red!

I began my hunt for that something special fabric and ended up at Hawthorne Threads and voila!  There it was!  An entire collection of the perfect colors, exactly what I had envisioned when I started my search.  Actually, no, even better than I had imagined.  

I tried to find them locally,  because delayed gratification isn't my strong suit, and managed to find a couple of the prints here, but not the two main ones that I absolutely HAD to have.  So I ordered my 2 fabrics and waited, not at all patiently.

They arrived last week, and today, on this very cold (for Texas) sleet filled day, I got to work.

Can I just say, that I am in LOVE?  

This pillow make over is spurring a deep urge to start looking for furniture for my room and to get it just the way I want. The only thing stopping me?  I just don't want to spend the money.  

Like, at all.

So, for now, my two little uber cheap Ikea side tables, my ooooolllldddd black chair, and the bed are it. Although, maybe a quick peek at craigslist...a dresser, some paint...oh the ideas!

From ugly duckling to...

I've still got some work to do on this cute little dresser, but for now, I've found it's spot in the house :)

Remember it started out like this?

One day there will be a cute comfy chair in place of that shoe bench, but for now, it works for our busy family.  I added some pillows with some covers that I made using the left over scraps from my other pillow covers, and voila, much more inviting, don't you think?

Please excuse the paper towels under the dresser, lol.
Need to remember to buy furniture pads for the feet!

I need a pillow cover intervention

So first I made pillow covers for the couch pillows and today, I made some for my bed.

The backs are "envelope" style rather than a zipper, and they aren't perfect by ANY means so don't look too closely :D

I haven't updated my bedroom in several years, and despite that we don't have furniture in our bedroom currently other than our bed, a black leather chair, and our tv stand, I wanted to spruce it up.  I'm sure once I buy something for the bedroom, furniture wise, I'll be making more changes :D

I started out with these, that I bought from Target a million years ago:

These are the covers from the original pillows.
I loved them when I bought them...at full price, GASP!

In an effort to "step outside of my box", I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and paired 5 different fabrics together.  This was panic inducing, yes, panic.  I know you're laughing, and that's ok.  I was laughing at myself too.  I mean, it's only fabric.  It isn't permanent, so what's the big deal right?  

Okay, so without further babbling, here is what my bed looks like now.  I'm not sure how I feel about all of the different patterns, but I'm going to live with it for a few days.

Now, pardon me, while I go rearrange the pillows...again.

Let the projects begin!

You know what happens when you visit the blogosphere?  

You start wanting to do all sorts of crafty projects, spending as little as possible, and then finding even more things to do after you've already compiled a huge list of things.  It's a viciously wonderful crazy circle :D  So.many.projects!

Here's my first one, well, the beginnings of one.  

I found a small, $20, chest of drawers on craigslist, that I knew needed to be mine.  I saw the paint color in my mind even before it was mine, and the perfect place for it in the house.

First things first...cleaning it up.  Lysol wipes were my friend during this process and a heavy duty vac to get the little webby things hanging around on the underside <shudder>.

Then, it was time to get rid of those darling little flowers that had been painted onto the dresser.  Cute, but so not for me or what I had in mind.  

I primed all of the drawers, the entire chest itself, and now I wait for the primer to dry.

Tomorrow, I apply the first coat of paint :D  

I.can't.wait!

Stay tuned for the finished project...

All moved in!

We closed on our new house, Jan.7th and were moved into it on Jan.8th.
It's been a whirlwind of a fall/winter, and I'm SO happy to finally have it winding down.

1/20th of the boxes we moved over :/

We still have a lot going on since we moved in when the house wasn't completely finished, but the work that's being done now, is so minute that it's not a big deal.  Slowly but surely, it'll get taken care of :)

I've been a crazy woman and unpacking boxes left and right.  We are almost completely unpacked, other than a couple of rooms, that won't be done until we get our storage situation taken care of (builders are coming in to install shelving soon).  I've even "organized" our pantry, which is easily 4 times bigger than our old one, by using various baskets I bought at Target and Ross.

I've started decorating too and wow, it's FUN!  I'm pushing myself out of my little box that I've felt the need to stay in for a long long time and really making this new house more US.  I want color, and fun, and comfort.  I want the house to be pretty but functional, and browsing the internet for ideas has sparked my creativity!

I bought an antique refinished table at a local antique mall for the living room, in a color that I would never have normally considered, a cool grayish blue.  I then found a darling lamp at Ross for $30 (lamp base and shade together), and 3 fun, non matching, on sale, frames from Target.  After that, my couch looked plain, and a big for me change was made.  I decided to sew some pillow covers, for our family room couch, in a fabric that is completely out of my comfort zone, and yet I completely love them.  I'm working on mixing patterns, and colors, but for now this is the first step.  Is it hard for anyone else to step out of their decorating comfort zone?

Now to work on getting those picture frames filled with photos of our family.  Kind of awkward staring at random people ;)