Tuesday, November 23, 2010

My rug purchase

I love the colors of this rug, and I really need to get it cleaned at some point. However, I would really like to get an idea of the history of the rug. Anybody, somebody -help me out. Is this rug anything special?

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Master bedroom paint colors

The master bedroom is a little it in shambles. I am ready for an update. I have been debating paint colors for a really long time, and decided to go with a version of teal.

Glidden Totally Teal- A little less intense. But reads a lot lighter blue than Teal.

Martha Stewart HOSTA.  


I still have to figure out what the perfect Teal is. Masculine, strong but delicious all at once. What is your favorite teal color?

Friday, November 19, 2010

Master Bathroom

For the most part, we have completed the master bathroom. We still need to install one light fixture, do some painting and hang some artwork.


There was a lot of drama trying to gut and re-configure the bathroom. Our initial problem was that while my husband was gutting the bathroom he discovered that there was concrete underneath the old ceramic tile. There was A LOT of digging involved. We also re-configured our large master bedroom to give more room for a shower and a laundry section in the new bathroom.

    
Shower with Carrara marble and multi-shower head that I found at a builder's sale.

















Large Rainfall Showerhead and a little 'nook' for shampoos, soaps etc. Would eventually like to replace the shower curtain with a glass door.        






Tub - Vintage tub coated in black and legs restored.




Another view of the tub


Sink. Purchased a dresser and had it retrofitted to fit a sink on top.

Tons of storage



Mirror. Old mirror that was meant to be 'temporary' while I found 'the one', but is working out OK as 'the one'.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Lighting

I was reading through some blogs today and saw this question on lighting. I don't have an exact answer to the question, but wanted to share my lighting philosophy.

My  cheap, money-conscious side has always been blown away by how expensive light fixtures and lamps can get. As a result of that, there are a few things I always pick up at thrift stores/building supply stores when I see them- specifically- lamps, lamp-shades that are in good shape and more modern and unique light fixtures. As a result- here is some of our collection. (The other batch is in the basement and waiting on when we actually work on the specific rooms)



Spray painted in Red. Was brass with 'green shades'. Will likely paper the shades once I get the right fabric/paper.

  Spray painted brass fixture to white.


Lamp from thrift store. Shade from different thrift store. Fabric from Tonic living. 




From LeGeudewill.

Was resistant to this one. It had a hideous orange film. Hubby removed film and cleaned it up.

From Shadesoflight.com. Was on sale.






Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Did I show you my powder room yet?

Grey tile from the builder's auction. Eggplant color walls. A salvage light fixture from Le GeaudWill for $10. A $5 mirror that I picked up at the 43 mile yard sale. And the original toilet and sink from the old bathroom that used to be in the middle of the dining room. Still waiting to hang some art work.

Monday, November 15, 2010

The dressing room

I am incredibly fortunate that we have a small room in the house that we have agreed to change to a dressing room for me. It makes me very happy.

We started off with a plan to convert this room to a place that would accommodate my gazillion dresses (yes, I only wear dresses, even during the winter time), my yoga pants (because that is what I work out in), and my shoes (because I love shoes)- as well as a 'dressing table' to do make up, and space for a laundry basket.

The room had yucky carpet to start with and peeling plaster walls. Mission one was to remove the carpet.


After removing the carpet, I painted the 'little closet' turqoise. This is my 'shoe section'.






We painted the rest of the dressing room a soft pink from Martha Stewart paints. The color is cal;ed 'Ballet Slipper Pink'.


My hubby had 'salvaged' (more like picked up from the alley garbage) someone's left over hardwood floors. We debated whether to install these of to install some Cork flooring that I purchased at the ReStore for a whooping $10 total. We also decided against the yucky laminate that we had salvaged from our kitchen renovation earlier this summer. There was not enough of the hardwood unfortunately- and so Cork it is. Here is the finished floor.



After this was done, I got all my stuff in. A big 'commercial rack' to hang my clothes until I have some money saved for an Elfa system from the container store- plus, I am waiting for it to go on sale. Old IKEA cabinets I own  for folding space for my yoga pants and purses. An IKEA Trofast storage piece for the unmentionables, scarves, gloves etc. An old crate and barrel bookcase/desk for a 'dressing table' that I can use for make up etc. An old container store 'rolly' for t-shirts, night clothes and etcs. And this is the 'final-for-now' look.




All that is left to do is to change the light fixture and hang some art-work.  And I do have some fun art work planned for the room.  It feels nice having my clothes out of boxes.

Pillows galore

I was on a sewing kick recently and decided to make some pillows for my living room. I ordered some fabric from tonicliving.com. Most of the fabric was reasonably priced at about $8.95 a yard.

With the help of youtube and a few google searches, I figured out how to make a few different pillows.
This one had turqoise piping. I bought the button during my trip to NYC.






This one has ruffles. Similar buttons.


My favorite one. I bought an old man sweater at the goodwill. Cut it and sewed a pillow. And I love the buttons.





And here is Cooper enjoying the pillows.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

The red door

A few weeks ago, I went to NYC to meet up with some friends. My husband picked me up from the bus station and told me he had a 'small surprise' for me when we got home. I got home and there it was- THE RED DOOR!!

We went from this: (the only picture I can find of the old front door)



















To this:


My sweet, sweet husband had gone to the ReStore while I was away, picked up the door and painted it RED.


And I love it!

Friday, November 12, 2010

I am back- sort of....!

I am really bad at keeping up with blogging, but I will try and do better :)

We are settling in nicely into our house and have even hosted a few parties. Here is a picture of the FALL FIESTA that I hosted for my friend Julie. We served coffee and dessert and mulled wine and dark chocolate since it was a late night event.

  
FALL FIESTA.



Thursday, August 12, 2010

Love the 'home' your with

This morning's lovely surprise was a flooded basement. We have been having some weird storms that last literally 10 minutes but take down trees, causes power outages etc. After a brief meltdown, I settled in to remove buckets of water with my super duper tools- 2 empty yogurt containers and an old paint bucket.  

Minutes into it- it made me think of all the people whose homes have been destroyed by extreme weather/quakes/fires. In the bigger scheme of things, a flooded basement is a drop in the bucket (no pun intended). 

So today, my prayer that displaced people everywhere find the solace that 'HOME' brings somewhere.

In other news: my fellow thrifter buddy Jess and I are going to this. 
43 Miles of HAPPINESS (yes, yard sales make me happy).  We have our truck ready, some red bull and lots of water and cash!

Monday, August 9, 2010

Today's purchases.

I went to get some grout today, and decided to stop by my favorite RESTORE.


Side table for my couch $10. Lovely 'Robin-egg blue' lamp- complete with shade: $6. Sixteen dollars later-tres, tres happy.

I love the spindle legs on the side table. And I love that it is a little higher.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Real Housewives of DC-home edition

Yes, I admit- I watch TRASHY TV, and yes, I am watching RHODC.

Thought I would share some pictures of their homes.

Mary's house:  I like her bathroom. As for the dressing room that needed CIA technology to get into- hmmmmmm.... (its cute, but seriously, a special lock?)

Stacie's house-    Her kids rooms are adorable.

Cat's House - Ohhhhh catty-cat. This is my favorite house- so much yumminess!

No butter after all

So after going back and forth on a paint color, I finally painted the dining/kitchen combo. We did not end up doing the 'color-of-butter'. We picked Benjamin Moore's Horizon Gray. For some reason it shows like a Sage-Gray. But I still love it.


Also, we got started on the backsplash. We chanced on this carrara marble subway tile at a tile closeout place. They had about 9 boxes left, so just enough for a backsplash. Conversation went something like this:

Me: How much would you sell me the 9 boxes for?
Sales guy: $100
Me: That is too much
My contractor: That is too much, give us a better deal
Sales guy: $75
My contractor: $50
Sales guy: $50 and you buy me lunch
My contractor: $50, and we will bring you McDonalds.

Sold!!!! and saved probably 85% OFF the actual cost of the tile. It is still wet- hence the gray hue, but it will dry closer to white.

In other news.....

We got some plants and furniture on the front porch. Cooper is enjoying it.











My contractor's wife told me that frogs bring good luck to your home, so I got some frogs :)

More plants on the ledge. And here is Cooper with a cone! He has been scratching a scar that he has, and that had to stop so it could heal.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Kitchen Part three

I love bridge faucets in general, but did not want to spend $400 on one. I also like having a separate spray spout. I was able to find this faucet on Overstock for $138. The same faucet retails for twice as much on other websites. So far I love it.




I wish I could get a better picture of these light fixtures. They are yummy. They are substantially heavy parisian style pendants. I bought them from here while they were on sale for $49 each. I bought three, but after hanging the first two I figured three might overwhelm the space. (Hence the open hole on the ceiling). I still have not decided on a fixture for the middle of the kitchen, and I am not sure if I will be doing recess lighting.