Lacking Lighting

Maybe like most homes build pre-1960s, my house is lacking overhead/ceiling lighting in ALL our bedrooms and in the Living Room.  I love how lamps can add style to your house, but we are in need of some major lighting help, and lamps are just not cutting it.

Have any of you dealt with installing ceiling lighting, fans, etc - anything involving electricity?  My husband wants to do this himself... Which scares me, a little.

But more fun...  Picking out the source of lighting... Hubs wants ceiling fans all around (I draw the line at in the Living room).  I think they are useful, but just hate the way they look.  I am thinking a form of Recessed Lighting for the Living Room and would love a pretty pendant or chandelier light for the bedroom...

What do you guys have in your homes? Ceiling fans or Pendant/Chandelier/Recessed Lighting?

Lemon & Lime.

Remember when I was envious for a fabulous green room?   Well, I finally got my own.  My very own pretty green room - kelly green with a touch of chartreuse. The actual paint is by Behr and color is Pepper Grass. The room is my lime.

And I am the Lemon.

{Yellow cardi - J.Crew; Floral dress - Gap; Leopard belt - Target; Black tights - Target; Black wedges - hand me down from friend}

Look at my NEW leopard belt! I love it so much, I wore it with this gray and white dress. I liked the mix of patterns and that it was a bit clashy!  I'll probably be wearing this belt a lot...

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Day 30 {Whooo-Hoo!}

Day 30!  See that.  30 days of wearing the same 6 pairs of shoes, 3 skirts, 3 dresses, 2 pairs of pants, 11 tops, and 5 sweaters.  And seen.

Ending with my brights out in the melting snow.

I started this Remix Challenge out at the beginning of my home remodeling projects.  I had to pack up my entire closet (clean out the whole upstairs - every little thing), so a perfect time to pick out what I needed for the next few weeks, while the rest of my closet got stuffed in various parts of my house.

But 30 days later, and the house is still under hostage by our painter. We're close, I think, to being done... but not close enough.  The wood work in all 3 bedrooms takes awhile.  And that is done.

Next, it is down with the wallpaper (this crazy gross wallpaper) and fresh painted walls!  One room will be navy and the other green.  Our room is already blue, but will be touched up.  So lets hope this will not go on for another 30 days... Now I have to go dig out some more clothes to wear while I burn all these (I mean, wash).

Good Luck to everyone else still remixing!!

Envious of Green Rooms

I'm so envious of these beautiful green rooms, that I am just going to go and make myself a green room!  That's right.  I see what I like and I am gonna do it. I have SO many home updates coming up, that I don't know even where to start.  You all have seen my Guest Bedroom mood boards, and how I'm going for Navy Walls with White & Orange accents.  That is still in the works, but we have another room.  One that you've not seen.  You haven't seen because it's hideous.

 Technically, it is a little green - but the sick kind, nothing to be envious over!

Well, we're doing a lot of work all at the same time!  Our floors were recently just finished (more on that to come) as you could see the hanging tarps in my Remix outfit day 1 post, and yet we're still living, breathing, sleeping & eating in our living room.  That's because now our painter is baaaaack to do white trim, doors, window panes (etc) in all 3 of our bedrooms and paint the Guest Bedroom walls Navy (see how it was before) & our 3rd room GREEN (our Master Bedroom already was painted blue - so just need the white trim/woodwork)!

Oh but what color green.  Here are some rooms I'm loving...and considering.

Citrusy Green {Erinn Valencich's room}

Kelly Green {Design Dazzle}

 Moss Green {Best Home Gallery}

Leaf Green {Fresh Design Interior}

What do you think about green rooms?  I think green is a very versatile room and can be transformed throughout the years...

Barefoot on a Cold Floor

...because I'm having the hardest time picking FLOR carpet tile for my bedroom!!  Last month I was looking at 4 yellow/off white color options and you all helped me get some samples, so they came and I was not impressed.  They looked like they belonged in a basement:

Just not right.... I had higher hopes for the top one, that larger, has yellow floral pattern - but the background color is just ick.

So I went back to the drawing board by myself and went safer.  Grays.  New samples:

You can't really tell from the small samples - in person either - so they weren't very helpful. Here are the 3 above options in the FLOR styled photos:

{#1 - Feelin' Groovy; #2 - Walk the Line; #3 - Two of Hue}

I'm leaning toward #2, the mixed thickness stripes (and laid all mix directions like that)....

What do you think? I know it's a lot of grey...

Bedroom Carpet Options

By carpet, I mean Flor carpet tiles.  A couple months ago I posted about some options of all sorts of colors and textures for my bedroom.  I've now narrowed down the color I want, but still need your help!  Please vote by commenting to this post...I'd really appreciate your feedback.

The Flor Carpet Contestants...

 Photos from Flor

The room it's going in...

This room was designed around no real theme or solid ground, but a collection favorite colors.  It started with the bedding - hubs and I finding something we both liked (a feat).  Then moving into our home and painting the walls a light blue color (another agreement) and slowly the painting all wood furniture, which will modernized the room. The light blue walls, dark brown furniture and steel colored duvet/pillows looked cool together, but also felt a bit too cool.  So I started trying to add some other accent colors to warm up the space, like green (DIY headboard) and yellow.  I think yellow flooring around the bed will add a pop of warmth to the room - what do you think?  What yellow (bright, muted, etc) Flor Tile do you think?

Thanks for your help!

Another Photo Canvas...

I'm loving photo canvases as home art for all my blank walls and Groupon (but that's a whole other story).  Together, I've gotten 2 great deals on Gallery-Wrapped Photo Canvases from CanvasonDemand.com, as you may have seen me tweet about.

You might remember my first canvas for my grey hallway wall.  See that beautiful photo here!  And then I saw another Groupon (I follow a few different cities that I visit sometimes, and often times there are online redemption discounts) for Canvas on Demand.

This time I used a photo that a friend of mine took in San Diego.  He is a talented photographer and you can check out his photo collections here (then click on the flickr logo).

I welcomed this pretty thing into my bedroom this week:

It has a surfers - 70s vibe to it.  This photo was taken from my bed.  I love being able to see it, as it's a very calming photo.  I'm lucky to have a talented friend for this new piece of art!

DIY Headboard

I've alluded to the DIY Headboard I was meaning to get around to doing for the last few months, and this past weekend I finally did it!!  It was just as easy as I've heard, but it does take 2 people, a bit of thinking (and planning it out) and a couple of hours.

I think it adds so much to our room!  Here's before and after, and then the process I took to do it.

Here is the step-by-step process I took:

1. Measure your bed.  Mine is a queen, and I wanted the headboard to be a few inches wider.  I then used painters tape to visualize the measurement and make sure I would like the size:

2.  I mapped out all the measurements and figured out exactly how much batting and fabric I'd need.  For the batting and fabric, you want to add 3 inches onto the headboard measurements all around.

My Road Map:

3. I got all my materials:

-Fabric: ordered from Fabric.com and got Waverly Parerre Grass

-Quilting batting from a hobby store, mine from Hobby Lobby

-Cushioning foam - got a twin size bedding foam from Walmart and trimmed to size

-Ply-wood - cut the base to size at Lowe's and used the extra pieces for the legs on the headboard

Tools needed:

-Staple gun & staples

-Circular saw (to cut the legs to size - you could have the hardware store do that instead)

-Nuts and bolts to adhere the the legs to the base & headboard legs to the bed frame

4. Start assembling.  Take the base of the headboard (the cut to size ply wood):

and find a working space.  We used two saw horses for our workstation.

5.  Attach the legs to the base.

6. Use the Staple gun to fix the twin-bed sized foam to the ply wood (we stapled it right on top since we were covering this up with batting and fabric) & trim off the extra foam:

7. Wrap the batting around the base.  This is where 2 people come in hand.  Pulling the batting tight, staple it on the backside (wall facing) of the headboard. 

8. Now, the same thing for the fabric.  If you have a patterned fabric, like we did.  We got it in place by doing a few staples with the front side up, so we could make sure we were keep the fabric in place.  Though, using the stable gun this way, is not super safe. You should probably wear goggles/face protecting gear if doing this.

9. After getting the fabric in place, we flipped it over to secure the rest by stapling the fabric to the back side.

10. Dealing with the legs.  We did the base first, and around the legs, cut slits to corner off.  I took extra fabric and batting and added it to the legs.  I overlapped the fabric from the base with the added fabric to the legs and we stapled it to the back side of the legs.

End result:

Now with the addition of the lime green patterned headboard (and the 2nd newly refurbished nightstand), I'm thinking the yellow FLOR rug option - what do you think?

Considering FLOR

Before winter comes and leaves my bare hardwood floors ally chilly - I'm considering FLOR Carpet Tiles for a custom area rug - starting with my bedroom (for when I get out of bed in the morning)!  Has anyone ever used FLOR?

The site describes them as a modular carpet tile - easy to customize, move around, replace and environmentally friendly.  It is said to "hug" a hard surface floor and the adhesive (FLORdots) rounds hold the squares together without touching your floor.

I'm considering a few different styles for my bedroom, and probably going to go ahead and order some samples...but my one concern is that this carpet and it's "hugging" won't harm my wood floors in anyway.  I haven't been able to find anything about that.

Here are the options I'm leaning towards, but first where it will go:

Right in front of that dog (whose bed no longer lives there) and around the corner of the bed, leading to the bathroom (in front of the window); aka my side of the bed.

The Options:

Graphite - might blend to much with the bedding

Thick and Thin Striped 

or more solid and bold to bring some color in - Lime or Yellow.

So, have you heard anything about FLOR, especially with hardwoods you don't want ruined or have them yourself?  What do you think about the tile options with my room? 

Sneak Peak: Furniture Refurbished

After about a year of delays on painting the bedroom furniture - I finally got the first (of four) pieces done!  The first is the hardest, I think, because it was a lot of trial and error, and getting all the materials down!  And now I can zip on through the others...

For now, I'll show you the piece I did, but boy will the entire room look great once all the furniture is painted!

Before

After

What I did:

- Sanded off the original finish and then primed it.

- Painted it with Behr Black Suede (a brown, that is almost black)

- Sealed it with 3 coats of Polycrylic

- New hardware

So as soon as I get done with all the other pieces, I'll have a full room photo!  I'm excited for that day... :)

New House: Master Bedroom Furniture Painting

So, awhile ago I posted the mid-stage of where our bedroom was at.  You can remind yourself here. :)  Well...today, it's still the same.  But I'm getting back to it now.

I had a slight detour with staining the first piece of furniture. It just came out with way too much red in the brown.  So I had to re-sand it down and now I'm just thinking about paining it (vs. staining).  My current plan is to get it a really dark brown - almost black paint to go over the 1970s reddish brown with a pattern to it.  But now I'm starting to second guess myself and thinking maybe white is the way to go?

This is where you all come in!  I need your help, once again...

Keep in mind:

1. There are 4 pieces: 2 night stands, 1 long dresser and a tall armoire. Which is all probably too big or too much for the space, but oh well.  We have a lot of clothes.

2. Sometime soon, we'll be painting all the current sandy 1950s wood trim and doors white, so that will help open up the space more.

3. I'm STILL planning to make a headboard with a fun lime green pattern to add a splash of color and interesting visual.

4. I got this HUGE (estimated 4'10' long x 2'6' wide) mirror from HomeGoods (only $100!) for above the dresser (yet to be hung) that will also really open up the room.

 
Now, the bedroom with the furniture as it is now:

 

The options:

1. Paint the furniture Dark Almost Black-Brown, a la...

 The cabinets in this kitchen:

Benjamin Moore Bittersweet Paint Sample

Too chocolaty?

The vanity of this bathroom:

Behr Espresso Bean

Any other good dark brown, almost black, paint recommendations?

2. Or do I lighten way up and go with white paint for all this furniture??

I think then, I'd need to change the curtains (maybe to match the color of the headboard I make?),
as that would be too much white...

So what do you all think?  Brownish-Black or White paint for the furniture?  
Your help is appreciated!

Light Blue Master Bedroom

So, we're far from finished on our house, or even one room of it, but I've come a long way on our master bedroom. Let's take a look at where we started:

Before moving in, we painted the bedroom.

And now we've got it pretty organized...

We got curtains up today - that was fun! Really brightens up the room. I need some more lime green accents - maybe in some art, a throw blanket and/or small area rug (we don't have a ton of floor space left, after Chuck)...

The big projects left:

Paint the door frames, doors (bathroom, entry, closets), and window frames and sills white.
Stain current bedroom furniture a dark chocolate brown stain - anyone know of any good really dark stains, or would painting it chocolate brown work better?
Art/Mirror on the walls
Make headboard
New hardware (door knobs and light & outlet covers)

So there is still a lot to do....not to mention the rest of the house. But there is a big difference from where we started - so that's fun to see!