too much of a good thing?

Mary McDonald

Good Monday one and all. How's everyone today? Both of the girls have the next two days off school, so I'm pulling some tricks from my hat to entertain the crowd. But while I'll be coloring another picture of Elsa from Frozen and making playdough, I'll really be thinking of this room from Mary McDonald.

Can you ever have too much of a good thing in a room? I love red (I know I'm in the minority) and pink, which is really just 'diet red', so of course I think this room is heaven. Great mix of pattern, shades of the same hue, texture etc. But with all the upholstered pieces, curtains and accessories in shades of red/pink, would you grow tired of the mix?

What do you think? Too much or just right? Would you feel different if it was shades of blue instead of red? Do you have any idea why the girls have two days off in the middle of October? Yeah, me neither.

i want to hear from you

Ok people. It is put up or shut up time. I've been working on my home office for quite some time (you can read about it here, here, here and here) which is obvious by the number of 'here's. You know the drill - I start, life happens, and it gets pushed down the list. Then I start on it again and the vicious cycle continues. Blah blah blah.

Well since we are headed into Labor Day, I'm going to Labor on my office and get this sucka done. Get it, laboring on labor day for my labor space. Ha. Forgive me, I'm punchy on cold medicine.

So anyway, I've got my list and I'm ready to get started but I do have one thing that I need your help with.

I have a wonderful antique demilune table that I'm going to use in the space but I'm not liking it in its current, chipy white state. The dingy white against the crisp white walls make it look, well, dingy.

What color would YOU pick?

Keep in mind two things:
-  it has to be spray paint as I have no intention of loosing my mind by brush painting a wicker table. My children have already laid claim on the cause for my loosing my mind moment(s).
 - the top of the table is a beautiful stained wood that I plan to keep so that part won't be painted.

So with all of that in mind, what color would you pick? I'm wide open people (that's what she said). And you know me, I love color so I'm no afraid.

What say you?

colorful shower curtains

Obviously I've got bathrooms on the brain as this is the second time this week I've written about them. All those pretty pictures have inspired me to do a bit of a refresh on my loo.

Full disclosure, I've already painted. (I'll share that soon) But I want to do more. For those who might not have seen it before, or who don't remember, we are talking about a rather petite space - check it out here - and it is our single solitary bathroom. That's right, go ahead and shed a tear for me.

So it will remain rather clean (in theory) and simple but I love the idea of giving a little pop with the shower curtain.

Natalie Clayman

Design Manifest

Bailey McCarthy via Rue Magazine

Kristen Ewart

You can barely peek at that wonderful pink herringbone shower curtain, but you can see how it finishes the space. Its also the bathroom in one of my all time favorite houses btw.

Tobi Fairley via Pinterest

via Pinterest

Jonathan Adler

M.E. Beck Design

Anna Spiro via Pinterest

So what do you think? Would you inject some color and (gasp) pattern into your shower curtain? Or do you like the classic crisp look of white? Are you a one curtain person, or a one curtain on each side kind of house?

spin the color wheel

If you could paint my dining room bench any color, what would it be?

Would you go neutral?

source

Green?

source

Or maybe pink?

source

Orange possibly?

source

Of course, there are also a million other wonderful colors out there as well. As you all know, I'm no chicken when it comes to color. So I want to know - what would get your vote?

industrial sleepover

I've been in need of a new bedside table. The one I used in my bedroom reveal was on loan from my daughters' playroom. Turns out, they didn't think it was as wonderful next to my bed as I did. So back downstairs it went and the hunt was on.

At least though I knew what to look for because that table taught me I need more space. I don't know about you, but I keep a lot of crap important stuff by my bed and as dreamy (ha, no pun intended) as cleaning off my night stand on a regular basis sounds, it's not happening.

So more storage was needed. But also, I wanted something different. Something certainly different than anything I had. Nothing that screamed 'hello, I'm a bed side table. Won't you lie down?'

A tall order but nothing I can't find after a little digging. And right around my birthday, this table was found at a local shop, by the same name actually - found. Happy Birthday to me! It had plenty of storage and an industrial/vintage feel. This sucker can take a beating. Not that I'm particularly abusive with my furniture, but you know.

Getting this table for my birthday ment I've had it since July. So why haven't I posted about it until now? Because I wanted to live with it for a while. See how I liked it and get a feel for what I would want to do to it, if anything. I was waiting for my table to talk to me.

And now that I've lived with it I'm thinking I want to fresh it up just a bit. Specifically its color.

Ever since I picked up this orange greek key tray in Florida, I'm thinking orange might be the way to go. Pretty surprising I know since we all know my fears about orange. I must be growing. Or drunk.

So, what say you? Know of any good orange spray paint colors? I've got to have spray paint - can you imagine brushing this sucker? Any other color ideas?

color my world inpiration

I've had such fun following the Color My World series that several of my favorite ladies have been participating in over the last several weeks. Today is the last day of the series and to celebrate, they are having a link party. Being the party girl that I am, I thought I'd jump in on the fun.

Although it might seem a bit predictable, my 4-year-old has become rather vocal about her room lately and she demands PINK. I've wanted to add pink somewhere for quite a while and I'm totally in favor of using my children for my own gain. Don't worry, social services has already been notified of my poor parenting. So pink it is!

My mom gave these wonderful watercolors to my youngest for her birthday and I immediately thought, 'this is my chance'. So I took some old black frames and a can of Rust-oleum Berry Pink

Hello beautiful.

I was loving the color so much I decided to repeat it on the other side of the room. It was the perfect chance to add that mirror my 4-year-old has also been begging for (primping starts young in this house). So I gave the Berry Pink treatment to an old mirror.

Along with some pink laquered boxes from The Container Store the room is now a bit brighter and we are all...tickled pink. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Make sure to check out all of the wonderful women who rocked this challenge over the past month. You are going to be craving color in no time!

The Blooming Hydrangea

 A Newfound Treasure

Our 5th House

Primitive and Proper 

Dutch.British.Love

Black Tag Diaries

Pawley's Island Posh

Hyphen Interiors

Shine Your Light

Trapped in North Jersey

Life on Mars

Perfectly Imperfect

Crazy Wonderful

Saved by Suzy

Living Savvy

Worthwhile Domicile

Like me Some... 

seeing spots

We don't have a lot of art in our house.

Correction.

We have a lot of the crayon/marker/glue and dried pasta variety. However, we don't have a lot of grown-up art. Tons of pictures, a few prints and one etching (fancy I know) but not much art to speak of.

So I find it funny that I have a whole board on Pinterest dedicated to that very thing. Lots of paintings - abstract, landscapes etc. A whole bunch of things I absolutely love but would never in a million years be able to create not to mention the fact that they aren't very budget friendly.

But what good is Pinterest if it doesn't inspire you to get off your arse once in a while and try something new. Can I get an amen?

So with a perfect blank slate just waiting to be 'arted' (I don't think that is a word but I am here by declaring it a verb. I'll alert Webster's.) I decided to give it a shot.

I've always loved this painting by Damien Hirst (Opium). So with the ignorance confidence of a novice I uttered those famous 5 words, "how hard could it be?"

Luis Bustamante via Pinterest

I went to Michael's with my coupons and a list of colors I wanted to use. First big break, the canvas was on sale. I went with a 16x20 so as not to overwhelm myself with a big vast white board screaming 'ok, so make me beautiful ms. know-it-all.'

Picking out the paint colors was a huge time suck. Apparently I don't craft enough as I had no idea how many shades of every color in the rainbow there was in the world of craft paint. Luckily at $.60 a bottle, I stayed within my meager budget. Two packs of small round stencil sponge brushes to create my circles and I was armed and read to create.

Maybe it was the fumes from all of the craft paint but I was psyched. I couldn't wait for nap time so I could get to work.

In order to keep those perfect lines I figured a grid pattern would do the trick. With the very thin painters tape left over from my tray, I first made all of my horizontal lines using a piece of tape as my spacer. Then, I repeated the same process vertically.

Although it made a lovely gingham pattern, the squares were just a bit too small for my spongy circle things. Big bummer.

Attempt number two. I used my wide painters tape for my spacer...and that was a total bust. That tape was too wide and I only got a few rows in.

Third time is a charm. I put two pieces of the thin painters tape together, overlapping them slightly and used that for my spacer. Just right. Do I sound like goldilocks?

With some old cardboard I made myself a little painters palet and got to work. At first I thought about trying to follow the colors in the original painting dot for dot. But that would have driven me bonkers. So I went random.

Starting with one color, I would fill in 3 random squares. (I don't know why I picked 3). Then, move to the next color. I went thru the whole rainbow, doing 3 squares of each color before starting over again with the first color. Repeating this over and over until I got to the last few empty squares. At that point it became a bit of a chess game but turned out pretty well.

Some of the circles got a little wonky and aren't exactly uniform, but I kind of like that actually. Because really, what in my house isn't a little wonky and not exactly uniform?

The whole project only took about an hour (would have been shorter if I didn't have to tape and retape) and was under $20. A great deal I would say.

Have you attempted to recreate a piece you've seen on Pinterest?

gotta know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away. Know when to run.

I'm quoting Kenny Rodgers. This means I've been doing some soul searching, or some drinking. I'll let you decide.

The paint color I chose is now on the walls in the master bedroom. And although I love it, really I do, its making me re-think the whole color scheme I had in mind.

But I can't show you my progress without a little light conversation first. So let me give you a brief history of the room.

The house was built in 1942. Just kidding, not that type of history. When we bought the house, this room was nothing but a white box.

Plain as plain can be. Nothing to fix or remove, just a blank canvas. Literally.

Our first iteration was Amelia's nursery. These were pre-blogging days, so sadly I only have two pictures. Taken with a very old camera.

I loved this room. And it stayed like this for almost 3 years. A lifetime in my always-changing-things-around world.

But as we prepared for our second baby, we decided to switch rooms. They are roughly the same size, but I thought it was time we got to use the walk-in closet.

With all of the prep we took to get the new room ready for the girl(s) we didn't put any effort into our 'new' bedroom. We took the polka dots off the wall. That was it. And thus the 'redo our bedroom' line item took its permanent place on the to-do list.

Look at this sad two legged bedside table for pete's sake. It may defy gravity, but its just pitiful.

This brings us up to this weekend. The room is stripped. Curtains are down and everything is off the wall. And many many holes have been patched.

does anyone else always have Barbie's on their dresser?

I kicked the kids and husband out of the house and took all day Saturday to listen to Pandora and paint.

Now it should be known that I am not the 'cut in' person in our relationship. My husband is the cutter and I am the roller. Some might say that is because we are an awesome team and love to share responsibilities and work together.

Some would be wrong.

The truth is I am WAY too impatient to cut. The taping, the prep work, the patience to SLOWLY glide your brush along the...ugh. See. I'm too impatient to even describe it.

But this time was different. Maybe it is the residual patience built up from having two little girls, or my advancing age (even though I don't look a day over 21) but I wanted to try the whole thing on my own.

To prep myself, as any good blogger would, I asked WWYHLD? (what would young house love do) I studied Sherry's video on how to cut in. I even bought Sherry's favorite brush.

And it paid off. I mean, come on now, look at that line!

Impressive!

And the color - lovely!

I took my time and sang as I went. I literally whistled while I worked. And without an inch of blue tape in site, I had a painted room and newly painted trim before the sun went down. Only 2 Starbucks teas required.

This isn't the best picture (poor end of the day lighting + tired painter/photographer). It reads more peach than it really is. In reality it really is the perfect grass cloth warm yellow.

So this brings us back to the issue I started with. (see I really did have a point)

The color scheme. While I think the navy will work well in here, I propped my kelly green mirror up to the wall.

And while I don't think they are NeNe vs Kim level enemies, I don't think they are doing each other any favors. So I'm thinking the green is out.

What do you think? Just go with various shades of blue? Ditch it all together and go with a totally different color, like coral (at the risk of hearing my husband complain about a coral bedroom)?

If only Kenny Rodgers sang more about color stories.

treat yourself friday

I try to do a little something fun for myself on Fridays - get a tea at Starbucks, buy a new magazine, etc. (I know, I live on the edge.)

One of my favorite things to do is get my nails done. However, I often find myself without the time to go to the nail salon, aka 'mommy's special place'. And as a result, I have more bottles of nail polish at home than I care to count.

Last Friday I was feeling particularly cheap but still wanted my Friday treat, so I picked up a bottle of Sinful Colors at Target for $1.99. Can't get any cheaper than that.

 


Turns out this is the BEST nail polish I've ever used (with the exception of my Chanel). This stuff stays on longer than a RHOOC marathon. No chipping. Bright colors. So much fun.

Treat yourself this Friday and pick some up.

dressed beds

Let's talk about your bed.

Now don't blush. I know we haven't known each other that long. But I'm interested.

Are you a white bed person?

via Better Homes and Gardens

Or do you like a little color while you sleep?

via Better Homes and Gardens

In pictures, I always seem to be drawn to a crisp, white fluffy bed.

via Lonny Magazine

via Somerset Bay

But in reality, I most often go for a bit of color (no surprise) when I pick out bedding. That of course might be influenced by the reality factor. Having a dog that spends much of her day in our bed makes me think twice about investing in any luscious white bedding. (especially during the rainy spring months when I often find muddy paw prints)

via Elle Decor

via Gus and Lula

via Domino Magazine

So which do you prefer? All white? Color and pattern? Or maybe a mix of both?