a bedroom before & after

welcome to our bedroom. the one room i have never felt "fit in" with the rest of the house or my style. when mike moved in two summers ago, he brought a lot of furniture and house stuff with him {just take a moment to picture mike and i carrying everything he owned 30 feet across our tiny street from his old house to mine}. a lot of it went straight into storage in the basement, but some big pieces like the couches, kitchen table, and this bed became part of our new decor.

to be honest, i never liked the bed. for some reason i felt like he really did, so we put it up in our room. it definitely did not fit in with my beachy, shabby chic style at the time, but i figured that it was time to embrace change and try to work with it. i never really got there. the room just looked plain old weird between the whites trim and accessories, beachy light blue walls, and the color of the wooden/metal bed. it was the one room i didn't like taking pictures of or showing people and i always had it in the back of my mind that i wanted to re-do the bedroom someday. 

well, i finally did. it's really nothing super special, but we took the bed down, brought back the headboard that i made when i first bought the house, and turned the room into a very neutral, linen on linen haven. 

the new paint color {ps who the heck am i with a shade of TAN?!} and the different neutral tones just totally bring everything together and look so much more relaxing and soothing. 

the bed looks tiny {it's a queen}, but i love it. and i especially love how i was able to use some sepia toned photographs from our trip on each side of the bed. they make me so unbelievably happy. 

the room finally feels "pulled together" and really cozy...  it makes my OCD decorator brain much, much happier!

instant gratification

i have been wanting to paint the workout room ever since i started erasing the rest of the colors from the first floor of this little casa. it was the only room down here that was still a bright color, and i have just been feeling "over it" for awhile. so on wednesday, when i heard about the snowstorm that was headed our way for friday, i went to lowes and grabbed some paint chips to try out in the workout room. i knew i wanted a grayish color, but lighter than the artichoke that i painted the living room and the hallway stripes. 

yesterday, after finding out school was cancelled for today, i stopped at lowes and grabbed a gallon of the paint color i picked so that i would be all set for my little snow day painting plan. i think it's funny that i chose valspar's color called frappe for the workout room. 

but isn't it just beautiful?

so the first three hours of my lovely snow day involved coffee, the jack johnson pandora station, and a little painting spree. 

some people think i am crazy, but i love painting rooms. i think has to do with my need for instant gratification, but it works! check out the transformation...

i am pretty obsessed with the new color. it is just so creamy and relaxing, compared to the bright yellowish green that it was. i don't even know who i am anymore with these grays... should i be worried about my mental state??

next project: get mike to help me carry the giant mirror (another piece from my vovo's house) that was leaning behind the workout room door upstairs and hang it in our bedroom! i'll let you know how that goes ;)

holiday decor 2012

hi guys! i hope you all had an amazing christmas... i definitely did and i have a bunch of pictures {taken with my new camera!!!} to share with you! but before i do that, i wanted to share some pictures of how i decorated our little casa for the holidays. 

here is our pretty tree...

and some of the presents wrapped in shipping paper and tied with twine.

two prints that i made {inspired by elf and my friend kelsey}

our stockings hanging on the fireplace...

and the sleigh my dad made me for all of our christmas cards. 

and i just love this shot of the beautiful plant my friend gave us the other night with all of the pretty stuff in the background...

the pups discovered their stockings and the temptation was just too much for them! there was no way ruby was going to reach...

so brutus came in to assist... 

so that's what our house looked like for the holidays! i surprised myself this year by adding a lot of red accents {you will not find red anywhere in my decor}. but for the holidays, the red looked really pretty with the new dark walls in the living room, so i was glad i stepped out of my decorating box!

what was your holiday decor like this year?? did you surprise yourself with any new colors or do you keep it pretty much the same every year?

do you have stockings for your pups? what do you stuff them with??

sneak a peek

full details & lots of pictures of this new look coming next week!!!

a serious case of the stripes

as soon as i painted the living room all dark and moody, i knew the little hallway was next in line for a big change. it was painted a shade lighter than the old living room color, and i just thought it would be the perfect little space to really funk up a bit. after thinking about a bunch of different color options, i did some browsing online and decided on vertical stripes. with all of the cool patterns in the living room (curtains, lamp shade, etc), i thought the sweet little hallway nook could really use some fun, too. so here's how i did it!

step 1

paint the walls white (or whatever background stripe color you would like). i used valspar's du jour, which is a very white white, which i love. 

step 2

measure the width of the stripes you would like all the way around the space, with multiple markings going vertically. this part stinks, but it is SO helpful when it comes to lining up the tape so that all the stripes will be nice and straight. my stripes were 3 1/8 inches wide, but depending on your space, they can be any width you'd like. i think the thinner stripes look better in this small space.

step 3

apply the tape. this project deepened my hatred for painters' tape... every type i have ever tried does not keep all the paint out. i obviously had to use it for this project, and it was definitely not perfect, but it did the job... just don't look tooooo close if you come over and visit ;) 

step 4

paint the white spaces! i used the same color that i painted the living room with: artichoke by valspar. i cut in at the ceiling and floor of each stripe and then used a small roller to roll the paint on. it dried really fast, but it definitely needed two coats over the bright white paint. 

step 5

peel off all the tape and you're done!!! this was a two day project because i had to paint the base white, but totally worth it for the dramatic change. i am in love. 

and i love the way it looks from the living room. and the street. and the bathroom. and i could go on and on.

what do you think?? have you ever painted stripes in your house?

what about painters' tape? love it or hate it?