master bedroom paint and odds and ends

Another room painted! We actually painted this one about 6 weeks ago, but I never posted about it. The color is Valspar Bay Sands, it's a nice soft warmer gray. I wanted a gray that wasn't icey cold, and I didn't want it to have any purple undertones, so this was perfect. I LOOOVE it next to all of the white in the room.

I added the mirror because I felt like we really needed something "shiny" and I'm still looking for a few more shiny things to spiff it up a bit.
Here it is before...
and here it is WAAAY before... right after we moved in.



We always throw an extra down comforter on in fall and winter, so I decided to add more color and texture by finding a new duvet cover. I think she's gorgeous, I love it.


I made this topiary using a (foam) pot thing that I already had. This had something leafy in it, it's been in the pile to donate to the DI for months now, but I dug it out and gave it a second chance. I had to use wire cutters to cut the pretend greenery out of it. From there it was easy, a moss ball and a stick from the yard.

I found the B at Hobby Lobby and just hoped it would be the right size for this empty frame I already had on hand. It was on sale, $3. I thought about painting it, but I kind of like the look of it for now.

So what's left? I have another night stand that's been on back order that should be here any day, that will help make things a little more symmetrical, and I scored this gorgeous chair from a classifieds ad for only $35. It's perfect, nice and small, lovely mustard colored velvet. Tufted buttons on the back...

Imagine it with new dark wood legs, if you please. :) I have plans for this baby.

I used it in our family pictures a few weeks ago, see, she's already part of the family!

The only problem is that even after steam cleaning it, it smells like old grandma mixed with stale smoke. Nasty! It's living in the garage until I can figure out what to do with it. Any suggestions? The guy who did the cleaning even sprayed a sanitizing and deodorizing spray on it, and it's better than it was, but I just can't put it in my bedroom smelling funky like it does.

I really want to find a way to keep it, so I'll try any reasonable suggestion. Throw 'em at me!

So pretty much that's it. The other nightstand and the chair, and then I'll really be "finished" in there, although I'm never really finished, but you all know what I mean, right? :)

Today is our official ONE YEAR housiversary! One year ago today, we were packing up our old house and saying goodbye to neighbors and friends and moving everything to a new county and new town. We are so happy to be here, we feel so at home! I have a little celebratory post planned, so come on back and visit and celebrate with us! :)

Deck the Halls...

We woke up to SNOW today. Real live snow. The news reports say that my little town got 7 inches. I don't think we had nearly that at our house, but it was more than I would like to see a few days before Halloween.


I'm so sad that the leaves just barely started to turn, only to be blown off, rained on and snowed on. I feel like we hardly got to enjoy fall.

My little fella's didn't seem to mind at all. The big boy pulled out his snow pants from 2 winters ago... um, a little snug, but he swears they fit just fine! :)
It's just not right! Icy pumpkins?? Ugh!
Tonight we are expecting a low of 29 degrees. For real. I'm not even kidding you.

So, I'm taking suggestions.

Where should I relocate so I don't have to live in an icebox for 6 months out of the year?

Seriously, I'm so not even joking.

bead board and the evolution of a home

I have been a slacker with posting my projects. Sorry friends. I've been really busy with my photography business lately. That and the little thing called motherhood have been keeping me running lately! We've had some projects in the works over the last few weeks that have been slow going for that reason, but we finally finished up some loose ends this weekend! Yay for finishing stuff!

First off, we changed out the dining room light with this little pretty. We also put up some beadboard and trimmed it out with a shelf on top. I found a new way to hang my plates, and I'm really liking how it's all working.
Here's what it looked like just after we moved in (it will be a year next week!)

We also hung the new light. It was actually a very economical purchase. I just bought the Moling light fixture from Ikea (about $40) and 5 tiny lampshades that clamp onto the bulbs for about $5 each. that puts me at $65, but then I sold the old fixture on classifieds for $25, so really it was a good change for only $40. I think it makes the space seem warmer and cozier, and I just prefer the look of it a whole lot more. Other fixtures I had seen similar to this one in the past where around $150, but I did find one similar at Lowes recently for about $70(shades not included), so I still think I got a pretty good deal.

Here's a wide shot of what the whole area was like before:

and After:

I'm still itching to paint the cabinets, but I will concede that I like them better now. :)

We also took it down the hall. I'm loving how it worked out, it really was a bare hallway before. We added a gallery of 8x10 photo's, some where from the family room before I changed things in there, and I made some additional prints. I love the contrast of the black frames with the white bead board, and it makes me smile every time I walk down the hall.






I've been thinking a lot about the evolution of a home. After the kids where tucked into bed and fast asleep, my husband Scott and I had a late night bead board painting rendezvous. While we painted we talked about the progress we've made on this house in a year. We've done lots of projects and changed things to suit our liking, it's been a slow (but sweet) process.

Every change has made this house more what we want it to be. I'm not done by any means. I still have a list a mile long of things I plan to do. I'm in love with the process though. I think "real people" rarely just move into a house, set it all up to look perfect one time and then never have to think about it again. Most of us just add to our homes, little by little, some paint here, some trim work there, perhaps a furniture purchase mixed in there somewhere, but it takes us time. My home is still not my dream home, but it's closer than it was a year ago. The point I guess, is that any progress toward the end goal is good progress. And it just makes me happy to be making baby steps toward the vision that I have for what I want our home to look and feel like.

I'll have more about the bead board coming up in the next few days!

family room {painted}

I know, it's about time! We finally painted the family room! What was the hold up? Well, for starters the master bedroom isn't finished, but it's oh so close, I'm waiting for something on back order, so what's a girl to do? How about start on something new? Yep, sounds like a plan!

Remember how I have a really hard time deciding on paint colors? No? Well, I do.

For the last 5 months I've bought tiny paint samples and painted squares on every single wall involved and judged how it looked in every light...

because I'm obsessive like that...

and because I've been known to have painters remorse, which is akin to buyers remorse, only receipts and returns don't cut it when you just know you've painted something the wrong color. It can be very disheartening, I tell you.

So I changed my mind again and again and then moved on to other things while I let myself have some more time to think about what I really wanted, because if I wasn't finding it, it was possible it was because I didn't even know what I wanted.

I wanted a neutral that was warm, but not too yellow-y, had a little bit of green undertone, not the pink undertone that our builder beige had in certain light, something that would wake up the space without fighting with every thing in the room for attention, and something that was subtle and soothing... In the end, I ended up making my own paint color using a paint my neighbor had in her home that I love and a few of my sample paints. I painted it on a piece of a board and then took it to Sherwin Williams a few weeks ago during the 40% off paint sale, and the nice girl at the counter color matched it for me. True Story. If you want my paint color, it's called Mindy Green (she chose the name) and it's at Sherwin Williams. I should have thought up a nice name for it, but she put me on the spot and I didn't know what to call it, so she got creative and named it herself. But don't be fooled, it's really not green. It's more like this...

(just keepin' it real, this is what a family room is used for, FAMILY, so it would have been ridiculous to make him move his puzzles so his crazy mom could take a perfect picture.)

I have more prints that I've ordered for this wall, and I can't wait to show you the wall behind the couch when I get finished with it!

The entry got the same paint. I'm very very happy with how the color turned out. We also painted all of the ceilings white. They were formerly the same color as the walls, and it's just a personal preference, but I like a nice clean white ceiling. White gives the eye a place to rest, and I love the contrast of white trims and ceilings and doors with painted walls.
I decided to just work with the height with our vaulted ceilings and make a grouping of photos that take up a lot of the space above the armoire. At first I worried if I went too high with it, but as we've lived with it for about a week now, I find it makes the room seem bigger, because it accentuates the tall walls. I'll be adding to this and hopefully it will be looking more complete.


It's not perfect, and I'm not even close to finished, this is round one. I've got plans for the wall behind the couch, that's round two, but it will really become what I have in my head when the basement is finished and these couches move downstairs. Then the fun will begin! [insert evil laugh here.]

fall around the house and my mantel 2.0

Fall is my very favorite season. I always feel shortchanged here in Utah though, because it seems like we go from summer to winter pretty fast. For example, we're still in the mid 80's around here. I'm hoping it doesn't go from 80 to snowing too quick, I love the crisp cool air and the pretty fall leaves. I'm always in a hurry for fall to arrive and always wishing it would stay just a little longer. I'm a little behind putting my stuff out this year, but I did manage to get the first wave of it this week, and I'll be adding to it as the month goes on.

I've added the first of fall to the front door and porch. A new fall wreath and the first of many pumpkins.

Because I'm a crazy person I've already changed the mantel stuff that I just put up a week ago. It still needs a few things, like some twigs or branches or something... I'm working on it, but here it is for now.
I found another lantern-like candle holder, took the clock down, it was driving me crazy there. I felt like it was just dominating every thing else on the mantel.
This candle reminds me of candy corns, Nothing says fall like candy corns, although I don't like to eat them, they make me kind of sick, but they're fun to look at!
Probably my most favorite fall decoration right now though, is this little picture my 3 year old painted at preschool and brought home for me. He was so excited to hang it on the fridge!

I'm linking up:
Hooked on Houses fall decor party
Nesting Place fall mantel party

salvaging a mirror

We did a bathroom renovation in our last house, and removing this sheet mirror was a task. It got all chipped and broken in the corners, but was in good shape everywhere else. Because of it's size I really wanted to see if I could salvage it. And it kind of made me sick to think of tossing it into a landfill.

So I found some chunky MDF molding that I really love and gave it a try.



My hubby cut a piece of plywood that was just smaller than the mirror and we used epoxy to stick them together (for the purpose of having a good stable surface for mounting it to the wall). We then made measured and made miter cuts to frame the mirror with the trims. Once they were all matching up just right, we used gorilla glue to stick them to the mirror. I used heavy cans of tomatoes and other home canned veggies to hold it all in place on our picnic table while it dried overnight.

The next day I masked it off and spray painted it a nice soft white.


The last step was hanging it. We used D rings and hooks rated at 40 pounds each, just to be on the safe side.


I'm happy to say it actually worked, and the total cost to us was about $15! I don't know if I could have found a deal like that anyway, but it makes me happy that we gave something broken a new life.

thinking about painting?

Be sure to check out the sherwin williams 40% off paint sale! I know where I'll be headed tomorrow! And maybe we'll get the 12 squares of different paint colors off the family room and entry way walls... if I can hurry up and make a decision!

happy fall!

I've been hard at work, plugging away with my house projects and my business, and of course enjoying lots of fun family time, so blogging kind of gets pushed aside, but it was a nice little break, and now I'm back and ready to show some of the thing's I've been up to over the last few weeks!

And now that today is officially the first day of fall....

A new fall mantle is in order!
The stars this time are an image I took of my boys last fall:
an Ikea lantern I picked up for $9.99
FALL blocks that I bought on clearance a few years ago, but lost in our move last fall and finally found again thanks to basement finishing, aka box shuffling going on downstairs!


And as always, the Kodak Brownie from my Grandpa has to find a place in the line up, I would be sad if it wasn't somewhere visible, and it doesn't get much more visible than on the ol' mantle.

Fall is my very most favoritest season of all, so I say "Welcome back, Fall, Welcome back."

In honor of the occasion, I present to you, my most favorite pumpkin ideas I've collected over the past year or so from the web.

Ahh!! I LOVE ME SOME PUMPKINS!! I can't wait to get fall-ifying!

I'm sorry, I have no credits, these images mostly came from Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens, by the way, did anyone get a load of the October cover???
Um, you betcha I'll be trying that one!

I wish fall would last longer! You barely get to enjoy it and then BAM! There comes the cold and snow to ruin all the fun!