Master Bedroom

We've finally gotten the master bedroom (mostly) back in order after starting to paint it SEVERAL months ago. A huge thank you to Melissa for making this whole room possible (since I may have stolen the comforter and the really cool yellow things on top of the bookshelf from her...)
Also - wouldn't this dresser look so much better in yellow? Agreed.

Still in the works are a framed photo collage, curtains (if I could find the right color/fabric combination), lamps for the bedside tables, probably some sort of sitting area, shelving on the walls, and an art project I hope to start on this winter. But it is nice to have a room that is starting to sort of look finished.

Two Years

Feels like yesterday...

Dining Room Ideas

So - I've been trying to come up with plans to improve our house's first impression (mainly the dining room). Since it is one of the first rooms people see, it really should be one of the first rooms we focus on. Also, I'd like to get into the habit of entertaining, and that's more challenging when you only have two chairs. So I've come up with a sort of Dining Room Mood Board to get myself started.
A little more about the items I've included:
1) This is our current kitchen table, and pretty much the only thing that would need to stay (and right now, pretty much the only thing in our dining room).
2) Some generic color ideas. The beige is already kind of the color of the dining room - and since the area is kind of large it would be a bit of a pain to repaint. The blue and yellow I've pulled from what I've already got going on in the kitchen.
3) I don't know exactly where I would put this, but I found it on Anthropologie's website and fell in love.
4) The chairs are from Ikea, and though the legs aren't the perfect color, the chairs are significantly less expensive than similar styles ANYWHERE else.
5) As noted previously, we need a rug for our dining room. Partially to warm up the space, and partially to prevent the table from scratching the floors. I'm liking something like this from Crate and Barrel that will sort of blend in with the floor.
6) There is an awkward amount of space on each side of our sliding glass door that I thought would be the perfect spot for some extra storage (I may have an obsession with cookbooks...). I'm looking for something like this from Ikea for each side of the doorway.
7) The chandelier from Z Gallerie may not even fit with the rest of the items...but I really love it. So I tossed it on there in part just to see.
8) I own two of these knobs (again from Anthropologie) and have been looking for just the right spot to put them. I'm thinking that adding them to the white cabinet would add a little character to an otherwise plain storage solution.
9) I bought these two tea towels from To Dry For last year, and framed them when we were in our old apartment. I'm not entirely sure where they will go once the shelving is in place, but I'm hoping to find somewhere to display them.

One area where Brandon and I disagree is on rugs. I tend to be a little more plain - simple colors and minimal pattern. Brandon on the other hand has this whole theory on rugs that I'm not going to get into, but he likes them to look more ornate. So, out of compromise, I've included a different option below...with a more ornate rug. (Note: Brandon didn't pick the rug below...I did. And when asked about it he said "I guess that is closer to what I like between the two". So not a ringing endorsement, but he also didn't hate it.)
The only difference between the two options is the rug, which I found at Pottery Barn.

I'm still not exactly sure which route we'll be going, but at least this is a start.

Sad Dining Room

One of the first rooms you see when you walk into our house is the dining room. That wouldn't be a problem if our dining room didn't look like this:Part of the problem is we haven't fully unpacked yet...but even taking that into consideration it still doesn't give the first impression I'd love our home to give. You know...the impression that adults live here.

One thing I love though is the table. It was my grandmothers, and then my aunt and uncle had it for a while...and now it's mine. I love the legs - and the fact that it can be extended to the point where we could have large dinner parties. Unfortunately, the fact that we only have two chairs means either everyone would have to stand...or my husband and I could just sit at opposite ends of a really long table. Some days that doesn't sound like the worst idea...
In addition to not having enough seating (this is a whole house problem...not just a dining room problem) the two plastic covered chairs we do have leave a little something to be desired.
As does the bare floor that makes the room look feel a little cold.

But luckily, chairs and a rug are relatively easy fixes, it's only a matter of finding ones that we can both agree on...which is a little harder than it sounds (both finding and agreeing), but not impossible.
Another idea I've been tossing around is putting some sort of tall bookshelves on each side of the sliding glass door, and moving the wine storage into the living room (since I'm pretty sure that much warmth and sunlight isn't good for the wine anyway). This would solve the issue of my cookbooks living in the family room, as well as fill a kind of awkward space. It does create a problem of needing to find a new place to hang the framed tea towels (the yellow one above and a blue one that is still sitting on the floor in the living room)...since our dining room and kitchen have a serious lack of wall space, but I'm fairly certain the extra storage would be worth it.

Signs of Fall

(Alternate title: Why I need to go on a diet...)

I love comfort food...

Happy Labor Day!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic long weekend.

I'm loving that the extra time off lets me do things I never have time for during the week. Like actually making breakfast...


I'm not loving my husband's use of his free time...


(Yes, that's my Christmas present T.V. hooked up as a computer monitor...)

I guess we all relax in our own ways...

First Home Project

I was worried when we moved in that it would feel like we were living in a stranger's house, and it wouldn't feel like home. I was surprised however, how quickly it felt like home. I think this had to do in a large part with the neutral color scheme left by the previous owner. It was simple for our stuff to move right in...with the exception of the master bedroom.
While there wasn't anything wrong with the master bedroom, I'm really not the biggest fan of green, and so I knew that would be the first thing we would update.

I had decided that the new house would be a perfect excuse to change up our previously brown decor for something a little more me (yellow). My husband, however, didn't seem thrilled with an all yellow room, and I had to agree that maybe it wasn't the most relaxing color choice. So instead we decided to go with grey - accented with yellow. Marriage is all about compromise.

One of the keys to getting my husband to agree to a change in color scheme (since I had only bought the brown bedding a year ago) was to come home with free grey bedding (THANKS MELISSA!) (note: bedding from Melissa not posted here...)

Anyway, we picked 3 greys from the paint store and got to work...

We tried them out on two different walls to see how they looked in different lights:
Then we looked at them with some of the yellow accent pieces that we planned to bring into the room (conveniently stolen from Melissa's "donate" pile)
We picked the middle color, and began painting the room. Quickly, Brandon realized my painting skills were...sub par, and I was kicked off painting duty (for the record, I've also been kicked off dusting duty...my goal is to be told I'm no longer allowed to do dishes next...). So we (Brandon) painted the room, and I came in every once in a while, danced around and talked about how amazingly perfect it looked...

And then we got close to finished, and I realized...it looks blue. Not in all lights, but enough to start to bother me. Sometimes it's the perfect grey...and sometimes it is clearly blue.
So what do you say to a husband who has painted pretty much the whole room by himself? (and who you may also be in the process of trying to convince that you should get to paint his dresser yellow?) I don't know. I said "it looks blue we should repaint it..." which was apparently the wrong move. So instead, we're going to live with it for awhile, and start to decorate it as planned, with the hope that once the walls aren't bare, it will look a little more grey. Otherwise I'm going to plan on keeping the shades closed, because in the dark it looks totally grey.