Life

Yes life gets in the way a little bit sometimes. I have been on the rampage getting everything cleaned up and colors picked out when my sister in law said she needed some help revamping an apartment. My eyes got big and was so excited to try everything that I would love to do on my house on a little smaller scale. The apartment is small. kitchen, family room, two bedrooms. It doesn't have a ton of light so of course we want it to be fresh and open. The cabinets are painted black and I really want to paint them white. I don't know if I have enough in me to do it, but hopefully. Here are some of the inspiring things online. Check out their websites. Love these colors. See a theme here.

http://www.realhousewivesofbuckscounty.com/

www.recapturedcharm.com

www.houseofsmiths.com

www.vintagerevivals.blogspot.com

www.decorpad.com
I seriously love gray and it will be in my house. LOVE. Pictures to come shortly.

Budget

Too much going on. I have been putting together a budget. It kind of sucks. Why? Because I really just want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. It's true. Whatever.

Well I have been getting ready to do the board and batten in my entry, and living room. The only problem is the ceilings. I don't know if I should just leave them their creamy color or try and paint them white. I have to do the ceiling first. So I have to decide on my gray. It is between a couple of colors.

They are very similar. I just don't want a gray with a tone of blue, or purple. Thats hard to find. But I have realized that I have to first figure out the ceiling part of it. I don't want to hire someone to do it. UGH. MONEY Remember the whole budget thing. This sucks.

YOUR House YOUR Home

I always thought that I would have a driveway like this for my house. When I was young and we'd be on the farm that had long dirt driveways, I would pretend I was laura Ingles. Good times. My house that I have now does not have a driveway like that. I wish. It made me start thinking about what I would like my home to be like. I want it to be mine and do what I want in it. Sometimes I worry about if my house is up to snuff for other people. Why do I care. When I am in other people's houses I check out their decor and see what they have done. Somethings are cute and somethings are absolutely not for me. But as you look at people's houses or are just in a house for a moment you can sometimes see their personality in their house. Sometimes I wonder if they are just decorating their house like every other person. Now that doesn't mean that you have to have a purple house just because someone else has a black one, but I think there are so many places out there to purchase items for your home and everyone does so there is just so many similarities in homes. I kind of feel stuck in that mold. I'm in a brown, beige, black mold. I love black and white so why in the heck don't I have it more in my house. Well I want my house to be me, not what I think people will like, but completely me. Making my house our home. This journey is crazy, because you are trying to keep life normal while you change things. But I like the fact that my family is always so willing to let me try some crazy stuff.

Furniture that??

I love bold furniture. And old furniture. But these items just make me giggle.

Birthday and Valentines Day

This week I've been MIA. Feb 13th is my brothers birthday. But also it is the day that he died. So that day we always try and remember him and watch a video of him. Then of course Valentines Day. Decorated my 13 year old son's locker. He's in 7th grade. Put some of his favorite treats in his locker. He's so cute. He came home and said he never thought it was some girl he thought Oh mom, so funny. Then we had a candle light dinner with the family at home. I love low key Valentines day. So I have been playing with the family.

On a decorating note...I'm obsessed with owls. I think they are so cute to decorate with.

Cute stuff. My little 3 year old would love this.

Stripes

I have three rooms that I want to do stripes in. My piano room, The little girls room, and my 11 year old's room. Is that too many stripes in one house? I say NAY!!! I love the look of stripes. On one of my favorite blogs isabellaandmaxrooms, she talks about how stripes are the in thing right now. Check it out. I want to do black and white stripes in the piano room. like so

I do like the wide stripes vs the thinner stripes. Definitely horizontal vs vertical.
In the little girls room this is the plan.

Love. I then want to do the houndstooth accent. Then for my 11 year olds.

The gray stripes are in my 11 year olds room. So too many stripes or can you just not have enough?
I say you can't have enough. I'm painting up a storm. Pictures to come soon.

Nook or no nook

I wanted to show the progress of the girls room, but the hubster took my computer to work. Actually it is his computer but he lets me do all my photo work on it. I have a computer at home, but I don't put any photos on it. I like them all in one place. So I will have to remember to get all the photos on here tonight.

I have a butlers pantry. Thats what they call it. Weird. It's not like a butler stays in there. It's a little walk through that usually has a warming bin, but we replaced that with just cupboards. Why would I need a place that is a foot away from the kitchen to warm my food, plus we didn't make that extra room our "formal dining room" We put our piano in there. Here are some pictures. This isn't my house...it's the model home. But it gives you an idea. It's that little room in the right middle back.

I want to take that cabinet out and the glass cabinet on the top and make a little reading nook. Like these.

They are suppose to read every night. They like to stay up in the kitchen area, so I thought make this place a little more functional instead of a catch all. Stay tuned. Hopefully I can do this.

Girls room

My two little girls share a room. There room is a very light tan color, with white beds, white bedding, and then Black and red accents in pillows and on the wall. I think their room is cute, but it never felt quite done. Maybe looking at the wall with the picture frames...with no pictures was the part that made me feel not done. :) I just want to do their room in a way that they can grow with for a while. So no there will be no huge mural of dora on the wall. I am planning on painting their room a yellow/gold stripe with white. Like this picture.

Since these two sleep together I decided to take away their two twin beds and put a full bed in their room. The bed frame is white and glazed brown. So then for their accent colors in the room I am placing two large houndstooth pillows on the bed.

With the houndstooth I want something else in their room with that in it, whether I stencil it in their closet so when you open that, or stencil it on a dresser. Maybe reupholster their little chairs in it. Here are some ideas.

The other color that I thought I might be able to pull into this room would be...

I don't know about that green. We will see if it all works together. I need to hurry and finish their room. They are in kind of limbo. Good luck. mwah

Just pick one

I have these two three ok maybe like 10 projects going at once. I'm working on the board and batten, on the main floor, I'm getting ready to paint the girls room, I'm ready to paint the piano room, I am trying to figure out if I want to tackle the painting of the entry and family room. Their ceilings all go up to the 2nd floor. I'm afraid of heights so me no likey the thought of painting that high. But we'll see. Then I realized how much furniture I have in my garage. I went out there and found two of my favorites. These two beauties.

Ok a little dusty, but still beauties. The first one is just a cabinet. It is adorable. It's so pretty I want to display it somewhere where I can see it every day. Now where would that be....Main floor somewhere, but I am still trying to figure out where. Once I figure out where I will know what color I want to paint it.

The 2nd piece is for my girls room. I have that armoire with a long dresser and actually two end tables...and a coffee table. I'm trying to figure out what I am using in their room. I like the armoire and they need the long table. Maybe I will keep the coffee table and end tables together for maybe the family room, or living room. I don't know.

I guess instead of having my hands in too many projects I should bust a move and get one of them done. Ok Ok...mwah

It's the camera again

I got my camera fixed. Yayyyyyy. Only 150 dollars later. But I figure that camera cost me around 1000 dollars so to fix it for 150, I'll take it.

I took some pictures of the projects I am doing right now. Well the card that the pictures goes on is not one that can just fit in my computer so I have this thing that connects to the computer and then uploads from the card. Well now I have misplaced that stupid little thing. The search and rescue are out today looking for it. I hope that it turns up. I don't want to buy another one of those.

When we built our house back in 2005 there were things that I thought I was making a good decision on and then now I think why did I choose that. There were things that we chose that we knew we could change out one day that would be super easy, but others we upgraded on so that we didn't have to worry about that. Well one of those things that are hard to change I want to change. My railing. My railing is a normal railing. (I promise I will get pictures) but I want to change it. I have this obsession now with it either being all black or a black white. Now when I say all black I mean stained as dark as I can get it. This however is a bigger project than I think. I am doing my research now to figure out if I can even pull this off without it looking really bad DIY er. But here are some inspiring pictures that I love. mwah!

I have 4 minutes

Ok it is 11:56. I have 4 minutes to post something for Friday. Sorry my day was taken over by a crazy person. NO it wasn't me. Ok I saw this and am sooo doing it in my house. Check it out.

Seriously it changes the spaces. Love Love Love. If you want to check out her website it is www.recapturedcharm.com She has such good ideas that inspire for days. mwah!

Gasp

Looking at this made me want to paint some cabinets. My hubs would kill me. We painted the cabinets in our last house. Red. It was beautiful, but they were old oak cabinets. The cabinets we have in our house right now are knotty Alder. Although he is always sweet and said....well it's your house too. I know...very sweet, but that would be a huge decision. So I think I will just do my other stuff first and then if it comes down to that then there you go.
But I think these before and after pictures will inspire you.

I know the kitchen isn't the exact same shot, but thats the same kitchen. I love this. I love the white. It makes everything seem so elegant. Well we'll see if this makes me want to paint cabinets or not. This was done at Isabella and Max's rooms She is amazing. Mwah!

Freakin excited

I'm so stinkin excited. I have officially decided on a color scheme for my entry way and my great room. It has seriously taken me like 6 months to decide. But here we go. In the entry way I will be having a stencil on this one wall that goes up the stairs. I have to decide between a couple stencils. Hopefully it doesn't take me as long as it took for the colors. But here are a couple that I love.

Now remember I have a color scheme and so the colors with the stencils are not the colors I will use. Ok get ready because this is the color scheme for the entry way.

Tell me you love it. I DO!!!!! Ok so then you can see my great room from my entry way and so the color scheme in there will be these 3 colors. Remember I have orangey brown couches.
The gray will be in there, and a hint of the turquoise but then these two.

Ok if you just gasped they aren't exact colors. But they are the color scheme. Let's watch the magic happen. Tomorrow I will pick up the colors. I will be painting the girls room white. Then while that is curing a bit I will be working on the entry way. I'm so freaking excited. Mwah!