A Bedroom

So here's a quick shot of my daughters room.  Savor it, as it will never be this clean again...

As you can see, we copied the loft bed idea from Pottery Barn (this is my go to place for inspiration!).  My husband still needs to build the bookcase on the other end, so I didn't bother to include it in the photo.  You can see the desk I blogged about here in person.  It really fits perfectly in this space under her bed...almost as if I had planned!!  Well I did, lol, but not this desk per say.  It was purchased after the desk was made.

The walls, if you will recall, were already lavender when we moved in.  Personally, I was sick of pink, my daughters favorite color, so this was a great excuse to update her room a little.  I purchased the aqua velour comforter from Target on sale.  The throw pillows, which I didn't have a hope of photographing since that bed is NOT meant for a 5'9" adult, coordinate well since they have the aqua and the lime in them.  You can just see a peak of the curtains in the corner.  They're not the curtains I want.  I have the curtains I want...somewhere...in a box.  Yep, story of my life.  I got these at Garden Ridge to fill the void because they were inexpensive - $6 - and they do match.  But once I find the other curtains, they'll be switched out.  

I got the desk chair at Target as well, but not the same day I bought the comforter.  Not for lack of trying mind you.  But they were out of every color except orange (which I'm not wishing I had grabbed for my youngest sons room, but oh well...).  Luckily for me, I'm a frequent Target shopper, and when I came back a few weeks later, this one was in the clearance section.    I got the two coordinating white boards (the other one is to right of the pin board) and the pin board on clearance at Kohl's.  There's also an aqua lamp clipped up top to her bed for reading, but again, you'll just have to take my word. :-)  The lamp in the photo is turned on for a better picture, but in real life, it's a nice soft lime color.  Aqua and Lime were my coordinating colors for the lavender, and all three colors are in the throw pillows as well.

Things I still need to get:

1. Floor mat - one of those clear vinyl ones for desks.  I do not want the floors torn up by the chair, although it seems fine right now
2. Book case - my husband is going to custom fit one for the loft bed itself, just like the inspiration bed
3. Art work - this will be one of a kind, because my daughter is creating her own artwork.  I really loved that idea!

That's IT!!!  Clearly, the most put together room.  Once the artwork is done and the bookcase is complete, I'll do more photographing.  But I'm very pleased with how this came out.  Here are some photo's of the original inspirations for the bed and a picture of the comforter:

Comforter

The Bed

the bed undecorated!

Still Inching Along...

Living Room

Today we finally got some more things done around the house.  I don't have a lot of photo's to post of what was done, because it was miscellaneous things in each room.  Again.   But there's not much I can do as we continue to clear out boxes from the garage and put stuff up as we find it.  Did I mention I may never move again after this?!

Here's a photo of my living room.  I put a lot of the fall decor today.  It was raining all day, and it was lovely to have the windows open to the cool air while putting up fall decorations.  It almost felt like fall.  Fall for Houston anyway!

So this is a floral arrangement that I did for the mantle.  It looks prettier in person, but this was the best photograph of it I could get.  I have quite a few more pumpkins to put up.

Fall Flor

We made a decision on the pillow choices!!  This is the one that was the closest to the Pier 1 pillow we found that hubby loved. It's the greens and blues that appeal to him.  Of course, it doesn't actually match my fall decor, but fall won't last forever (I'm already planning Christmas decorating!) and it feels good when you walk in the room - or so my kids say!  Usually the cornucopia goes on the dining room table, but I have another floral piece there, and I was to lazy to move things around.  So I didn't...

Another shot of the mantle.  Notice the glass vase on the left?  I got it at Kirkland's today on sale!  Even my husband noticed that the one on the right really left the mantel feeling off balanced (note to self, less HGTV for hubby...).  This one doesn't match perfectly - the other one is a hurricane lamp from Party Lite that matches the sconces by the shelf - but the shape is similar, and I think they work well together.  Mike has promised we will get some type of audio pier "soon" so that I don't have them cluttering the mantle.  There are other things I want more though, like a bistro set for the kitchen, so it may be awhile before they come down.  Again, I can live with these for awhile longer.

The final photo, with the cat sitting on the sofa.  Because no home is complete without a kitty lounging around!

Choices

Choice 1

I had posted a lovely pillow I found at Pier 1 Imports on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago.  I had picked out a nice paprika and copper color scheme for our family room and was really excited about it.  I took Mike with me to Pier 1 to look at some curtains in person (because they always look different online!) that we ultimately didn't like, when he found the pillow in question.  

Now you have to know.  My husband has made only one decorating request of me in the past 14 years.  When it came time to buy new sofas four years ago - the first new sofa's we'd ever purchased together since we'd been married - he asked me to NOT buy a brown sofa.  Any other color was fine.

Ahem.  I'm sure you're noticing the brown sofa in these photo's.  Yes, the very same one I purchased knowing that he asked for anything but brown.  Oops.  In my defense, the sofa I really coveted was aqua.  Which would have been lovely for all of a year

Choice 2

and then I would have been ridiculously tired of it.  So I really did make a much better choice.  He really does love this sofa now and how versatile it is.  So ultimately, it worked out very well.

Back to the pillows.  When he saw this other pillow and said he really liked the colors - that were completely different than what I had been envisioning - I felt that I needed to let him have some say!

Ultimately, we're not buying the Pier 1 pillows.  I need at least 3 (and I'd really like to have closer to 5) for the sofa due to the size, and at $35 a pillow, that is a steep investment for throw pillows.  So we were at Garden Ridge last week, and we found these two pillows that we both really liked.  The color schemes are similar, except for the coppery orange in the second pillow.  But it's the blues and greens that Mike is drawn to, so they both really work.  Now we need to decide which pillow will actually look best, because it will be the foundation of the color scheme for the rest of the room.

More to come...

The Dining Room

 Finally, some progress!

This, of course, is the dining room.  It is much more spacious than the one we had at the last house.  The doors you see to the right in the first photo is the sliding door to the sun room.  I'm not sure if I'm going to put up a valance at the top.  It's a big ugly sliding door.  A French door would look so much nicer.  But I'm not springing for that!!

The table runner.  I LOVE the table runner.  I found it at Garden Ridge when I was 'just looking'.  It was $10, and I would have gladly paid more because it matches that table cloth really well.  The table cloth was a splurge.  This dining room table was a set we bought used almost two years ago.  The top of it is awful and needs to be refinished (yep, another project) put I've been buying vinyl table cloths at Walmart which are more kid friendly anyway.  But they never hold up!  OK, they're cheap, I get it.  But I go through 3-4 in a year. So I was at Bed Bath & Beyond when I found this one.  

It looks like a real fabric table cloth. But it's scrubbable like a vinyl.  With four kids, really, it's just the  most practical.  By itself, its...well...ugly, lol.  But I knew I would be putting it with a table runner or maybe place mats.  And it was the color palette that really drew me because I knew it would work well with my color scheme.

OK, the missing things (because I don't actually have a single room in my house completely decorated, ugh!)

• sconces - I'm going to use the brushed bronze set I had in my formal living room at the.  
• Curtains - or valances?!  I'm not sure.  You can really see how ugly that slider is in this photo.
• Art work - um...there's no wall space.  So for the most part, I'm going to skip it.  I have a really cute roost wall plaque I forgot to photograph, that's up.  But I'm thinking that may be it.  Unless I take my rooster print from the kitchen in our home in CA and put it over the desk.  Which you can't see in these photos because it's covered in clutter but I'll make sure to photograph later
• The center piece - I didn't take a close up, because it's missing the decorator sand that goes in the vase.  It's missing because I have no clue as to which box its in.  A very common theme right now..

A parting shot.  It's definitely coming along!