Springtime!!

Spring has officially arrived! (…and the crowd cheers). Saturday was the official start and the weather gods must have been told because it was a beautiful weekend. I tried to spend most of my time outdoors even though a lot of it was in stores. But I did get some time to work in my plants. Everything has survived the winter and I’m going to have some blooming tulips in the next couple of days, as long as they weren’t too damaged by the workers who, when edging(more like digging trenches) yesterday, covered them in dirt. I’m so excited by the way my plantings turned out. I was just looking at a photo from before I bought the place and compared it to now, what a drastic difference. It looks like someone actually lives there and cares about it. Once all my plants get their leaves I’ll have to take another picture and do a before and after. What fun!

My shopping goal for this past weekend was to finish buying items to decorate but I either didn’t find things I like, or didn’t want to pay what was being asked for them. Instead I bought more dishes and some bath towels. And I did buy a coffee grinder to grind my espresso beans. Now I can make a pretty darn good latte. I even did a little hosting. Aaron came over to help me change my headlight bulb in my car so I treated him to some freshly made cookies and an espresso. Me, myself, I have another latte. It was a big caffeine day. But I was glad I got to host because I got to use some of my pretty dishes I just purchased at Home Goods.

I was thinking about it how I’m doing all this research and shopping to find things to use for entertaining, but I’ve only had one official dinner and a few casual gatherings. What’s the point of wasting my time and energy if I’m not actually entertaining? Maybe I’ll actually entertain more once I have the place complete, like have my desk and finish my photo wall and paint my lamp base and my chandelier.

Below are some photos that Marci told me about from Southern Living. It’s such a bright and cheerful dining room. I might also use the bar cart idea in place of my random tv tray I have in the one corner. And the last image is one that I found where someone mixed and matched vintage plates and it turned out so well. It's what inspired my dishes purchase from the weekend. They don't match but they work so well together. Just wish HG had more than 4 plates.

I might even uncover my dining room table for the summer. Will have to see what condition the wood is in though.

Evolving

So I know it’s been a while since I posted but I’ve been trying to focus more on work while I’m at work which results in me having less time to (a) find pretty things online to post about and (b) take time to write about my place.

But over winter break Mom and Marci helped me install curtains and blinds in my living room and a chandelier above my dining room table. But I’m still waiting on my desk to get here that I bought over Thanksgiving.

I also hung more frames around my tv and this past weekend I put real photos in them as well.

All of these projects however, still are not completed yet and I didn’t want to post pictures until they were so you could see the final look. But I decided I would give you a snippet so you could see how my place is evolving.

Sarah Richardson

Since being back at work I think I have become addicted to researching Sarah Richardson. I just had to close out of my browser windows because I just kept getting in deeper and deeper.

I had admired Sarah's interior design style for a few years when I was able to watch Design Inc. on Fine Living and was very sad when I no longer had Fine Living as a channel. At which point in time I stalked her projects online. So obviously I was delighed to hear that she had a new show coming to HGTV US called Sarah's House. The first and second episodes aired on New Year's Day and we get to follow her as she buys a house to remodel and sell. So far she bought the house and redid the baby's room and home office. Each episode she will be tackling a different room and we get to follow her from start to finish. And it's fun to watch her baby bump grow!

Once back to the office yesterdayI decided to check out more of what Sarah had been up to since I last saw her and apparently she's been a busy woman. The Sarah's House we're seeing now in the US is the second house she has done. HGTV US did not air the first house. And the next remodel show, Sarah's Cottage is now airing in Canada. And She's currently filming Sarah's Farm. I learned all this by checking out her new and very fun website where she shows great photos of the redos and gives a lot of advice. I would copy and paste the link here but that whole copy and paste into blogger thing still isn't working.

But while checking out the Sarah's House now and trying not to look at the final outcome so I'll be surprised when I watch each episod, I looked at House 1. It's so great and is so much of what I love about Sarah's style.

Here are some selected photos from House 1 that I wanted to share.

I think you should check it out! She has so much talent and is involved in so many projects to write about.

My Friend Ebay

So I was seriously distracted for the past hour on Ebay. Not Christmas shopping, but fabric shopping. I never thought of purchasing fabric online just because I prefer to shop in person so I can get a real feel for the texture and color of fabric. But after visiting Aesthetic Oiseau's site (in blog list) she mentioned how she found great fabrics and trims and vintage prints on Ebay. So I checked it out first for some prints to work above my headbord in my bedroom but didn't know if I should go the butterfly, bird or foliage route. Then I moved onto trim for my soon to be curtains and found great things. And then I switched over to searching for new pillow fabric. I was astonished to find Mimi's Sewing Boutique. She has a lot of great prints which all coordinate of course and I got sucked into trying to pick the three best coordinated ones for my living room. I ended up with these by using colors from my rug.

But then I went to the bathroom and regrouped and decided that I would not make this impulsive purchase no matter how much I love the fabric. The colors in the main multi-print are very strong and are a little too bright for my rug. And I don't want to get into the same situation as I'm in now where I love the prints but the colors are just a bit wrong.

So I will take a trip to JoAnne's and buy a yard or two of several different fabrics to make things not so matchy-matchy and maybe a little more subtle but I still want a pop of red/burgundy to pull out the red in my rug and also to take my decor a step away from beach cottage.

Curtains

My blinds from Overstock came yesterday. Overstock is so quick on their deliveries. Ballard Design could learn something from them.

I recieved my first issue of Better Home and Gardens yesterday and as always there are some great articles in it. And so as I was deliberating my curtiain situation I also took note of a few bamboo blinds. It seems in a lot of photos people have chosen a thin, lighter bamboo blind (like ones in photo below). This of course got me rethinking the ones I got. But I don't know wherer the other got these blinds form because all I can find are the ones like I bought. So I reassured myself that I made a good decision and purchase and that these lighter bamboo blinds wouldn't add enough contrast to my decor, or something like that.

So I also decided to buy my curtains and curtain rods from Ikea. I, as you can assume, have been going back and forth on this as well. Do I want curtains with a rod pocket or ones that use those rings. I have decided on rod pocket. I don't have much space between my top windowsill and my crown moulding. So I think it will be best to keep it simple up there with a rod pocket curtain.

I have the ring system in my bedroom and can't figure out how everyone else hangs their curtains so only like half of the ring is showing. My bedroom curtain shows the whole ring and the clip too. I'm not sure what the others clip the clip onto to make it only show part of the ring.

So I'll avoid that issue all together and get rod pocket curtains. But maybe while I'm at Ikea I'll see if they show how the ring curtains are hung just so I know for my bedroom.

So I decided to go with simple white cotton curtains for my living room. And as I mentioned in a earlier blog, I might one day, add some ribbon detail to spice them up.

I spoke to Mom last night and told her about all the projects I'm going to have for her and the aunt(s) to do when they come down over Christmas break. I'm excited to show all the closer to being finished pictures when everything gets put together. I even found cheap chandelier shades at AC Moore last night. I'm thinking about dressing them up with a little ribbon on the top and bottom of each shade. How cute!

Window Coverings

So earlier this week I bought my living/dining room blinds on Overstock. LOVE OVERSTOCK! I wasn't going to buy my blinds until after I got my tax return back but my first choice in blinds sold out so I went ahead and bought my back ups before they sold out as well. Here she is...Ginger.

And since I have my blinds on my mind I've been thinking about curtains. I originally wanted to make my own banned ones like the picture below. So I've been searching for the best deal on linen fabric and doing all kinds of math as to how to make it all work. And then I was thinking about making the header/footer out of print fabric which made my choices even harder. Then I had to find instructions online as to how to make pinch pleat curtains and then add in the cost of materials to make them and it just gives me a headache.

So then I was thinking I would just do solid off white/ivory curtains, but still with pinch pleats. Ikea has very inexpensive and very long curtain panels that I thought about using as my base and then just altering them to make into pinch pleats. But still that adds on more money and time. Then I was looking online for some sort of simple curtain inspiration and found these few images on Ballard Designs and Pottery Barn of solid curtains hung by hooks on the rod.

So I think I have decided to just buy the simple curtain panels from Ikea for like $16 a piece and be done with it. And then down the road if I want to add on detailing like fringe or ribbon or something I can do that as well. But I'm jus tired of thinking about curtains so much.

Pillow Talk

So I think I need to recover my living room pillows. They have the potential to work well my my decor I have going on now, but I think their colors/prints are just too strong to coordinate with my rug. I will have to find some more neutral colors and prints. And I'll pull some of the reds and greens out of my rug (without it being too christmasy) and that will hopefully make my living room look less taken over by blue as well.