Progress Report - Living Room

Made a few improvements to the living room over the past week. Let's remember where we started:

And this is the current look!

Looking a bit better eh? Those couches look much more anchored like they have a definite place and purpose in life.

I bought the rug from overstock.com for only $168 (had a $10 coupon). It's a bit smaller than I was hoping for, but I love the pattern.

It's wool and it feels very nice on the toes. It's pretty tall... like the little fibers stand up pretty high so when you step on it you kind of sink in a little. Like a pillow for your foot!

The pattern is also kind of indented/3D so it has a really nice texture and more of a high end look. I love it! So does Cobalt.

As for the window treatments... eh they need a little work. The curtains haven't been washed/ironed/hemmed so they are still a bit funky looking. We added a panel in the middle even though it is one window so that the curtains can actually be closed. We've decided the blinds have got to go. They are broken... we can't move them up or down so the window is always half uncovered. And people can see in at night. It's a little bit creepy.

We are thinking about getting some new blinds made of a natural material... like wood or bamboo and I think we will mount them just above the window. But we're still working that whole thing out. For being not-that-great, the curtains do add a more inviting, softer, comforting feel to the room. We just need to get rid of those darn white walls. A few more angles of the curtains (sorry these pictures are so dark, it was very overcast the day I took them):

Living Room Project

I can't deny it anymore; I've gone crazy. I started out just wanting to redo my bedroom as a little distraction from PhD research monotony and then I added my bathroom to the project list and now... the living room.

We (me and my two roommates) have been living in our duplex for almost two years and haven't really put much effort into making our home feel welcoming and cozy and put together (Figures 1-4).

 

Figure 1: We have a small dining table that is endlessly drifting around the big open space in front of our really big front window. There are no window treatments or anything hung on the walls.

Figure 2: Our couches are nice and comfortable, but they seem awkward, like they aren't sure where they are supposed to be standing. Also notice the bleak white walls.

Figure 3: My orchid collection might be the only interesting thing in the room. I like the furniture; its functional, it matches and it is comfortable. But it is also very boring.

Figure 4: The area in front of the sliding door tends to become a storage area for junk we don't know what to do with. Like our minifridge, our clothes drying rack and random boxes. I think maybe we are just trying to block our view of the hideous (and dirty) vertical blinds.

Recently, we have put in a little effort to make the room more interesting. I bought this side table/entry way table (Figure 5 and 6) from Kohl's for 60 bucks (it was an awesome deal!) and we tried our hand at styling it after reading Young House Love's tutorial on shelf styling (Figure 7).

Figure 5: The new table adds interest and helps balance the giant window on the opposite wall (which is behind me in this picture).

Figure 6: Another view of the table. Don't mind my stuff on the table.

Figure 7: A close up on our attempt at styling the shelves. Could be better but not bad for a first try I think.

Needless to say, there are many projects and fun things to do with this space. I'm excited because it really has a lot of potential. On the short term to do list:

• Get a rug to anchor the living room area (and eventually one for the dining room area too)
• Paint the walls something other than white! I'm thinking a warm neutral?
• Put up some curtains!

We actually put some curtains up last night (which I will post about later) and I would say it was a... half win. It definitely looks more inviting but the white-ness of the walls and the dirty-ness of the venetian blinds has become a glaring problem. Painting is now at the top of the list once we convince our landlady.

Barbados Blackbelly Sheep Bottle Baby

Ian and I picked up a new member for the menagerie this weekend. She is a two week old Barbados Blackbelly Sheep.



Yes, she wore a diaper on the way home. This little lamb has been named La Tres and will follow in the footsteps of Uno the Hampshire/Duroc cross pig and Dos the other pig (I don't remember what breed she was). Barbados sheep are very lean and have mildly flavored meat. So its a lamb that's not so lamb-y tasting.



Tres is the most relaxed sheep I have ever met. She was born at Elm Ranch where she nursed on her mother for about 3 days. Then one night, little Tres thought it would be fun to sleep in a stack of hay and not go into the barn/pen at night with the other sheep. In the morning, her mother didn't recognize her anymore. Thus she has become a bottle baby.





This is what full grown Barbado sheep look like (courtesy Barking Rock Farm):

Goods from Texas

I found that fake gun I was looking for... in the form of a lamp.

Love this poster, I'm going to have to find a smaller print and frame it up myself. I have a thing for pioneer woman/ women of the wild west. They were badasses.

Very Texas-y drawer pulls and hooks. Sorry these are blurry.

Dresser Inspiration

I saw this little cabinet at homegoods. I really like the dark/black trim and stained awesome woodgrain of the doors/drawers. Im thinking I want to recreate this look with the new dresser. I'll have to figure out a way to bring the woodgrain out more on the drawers, but I think it might look really nice with the brackets and drawer pulls.
Opinions? Ideas?
*what is up with these stupid reflections added to these pictures? Damn you Android Blogger app!

Depression + migraines = need to escape

Currently in Houston airport on my way to see my bf (I'm being clever here... do I mean best friend or boyfriend? Or perhaps both are one person?)
It's been a rough week.  I'll spare you the details. The good news is I'm hoping I can convince Ian to do some thrifting and maybe I can find some neat Texas-spirited do-dads for my room. Like a cool gun rack. Or fake but real-looking guns to freak out my very Californian roommates. I am excited about the possibilities.  Also, I haven't seen this boy in 6 weeks, so I'm excited about him too.

Do I need a couch?

I found these neat couches at a new thrift store yesterday, and it got me thinking.... do I need a couch for my room? It would be nice to have a comfortable place to sit. And I want to learn to upholster anyway... but do I need another project? I have like 50 projects in progress. Hmmm.

New dresser

Picked this up at Savers yesterday for $15. I love the brackets. Im thinking about staining it a nice dark espresso. What do you think?
Also, I just downloaded the Android Blogger app. Let's see if this sucker works....

My version of "the look for less"

I took a trip to the Crate and Barrel near my house for the first time and I was surprised to find many of the items in the store looked like things I had seen before in thrift stores and cheap department stores. You can't beat the quality of the workmanship in the Crate & Barrel items but you can get pretty close for a whole lot less. Which is good news for those of us who aren't monetarily gifted!

Side Chairs

Crate & Barrel - Blake Lounge Chair $799


Savers - $25 + reupholstering and cleaning

Starburst Mirrors

Crate & Barrel - Dahlia Mirror $299


Kohls - $60, the fake gems can be removed with a pair of wire cutters and a file.

Square Dinner Plates

Crate & Barrel - Court Dinnerware 4 place settings $60


Target - on clearance for $35 (this is the box in my house, totally bought these)

Mirrors

Homegoods - $40


Savers - $8

I'm digging animal figurines

(I also enjoy guinea pigs at the pet store.)

Pretty Baby Girl

Check out these beautiful pictures of my new niece! They were taken my Alison Kay, a Costa Mesa mom and amazing photographer!

And I said what about breakfast at... Ikea

I had breakfast at Ikea on Monday. That cinnamon roll was amazing! I should eat there more often.

I need to stop using song lyrics for post titles.

If loving you is wrong then I don't wanna be right

Us thrifters are motivated by the allure of finding a great deals on items that ooze with character and the satisfaction of knowing you paid dollars for something someone else would pay hundreds for. But sadly, most of the time we find ourselves surrounded by junk, depressed and questioning our life choices (this happens to you too, right?).

But nights like tonight are proof that there is hope in the world and chasing your dreams sometimes does pay off. And these nights happen just frequently enough to keep us going through those dry spells.

I paid $10 for each of these:

Just wait until I get the chance to paint/upholster these little beauties. Then you'll see what I see. Mid-century modern country, here we come!

(also, this post doesn't really make sense if you don't think these items are super cool.)

Bedroom Redo - Planning & Rearranging

So first things, first. I needed to come up with a plan. Having a plan is important because without one, your room will end up like mine did. I spent a while measuring my room and furniture then broke out the old graph paper and started sketching some floor plan ideas.


(I know this is hard to read. I would have scanned it, but I don't have a scanner.)

There are a few things that I wanted to do:

1. Move my bed out of the corner and put it perpendicular to a wall with space on either side.
2. Place something (bench, storage unit) at the foot of my bed to make it feel anchored and more like a bed.
3. Related to #1, incoporate a night stand with a drawer so I have a place to store things (like hair ties, Cobalt always steals them).
4. Create a work area for sewing and crafting with lots of easy-access storage for craft-related items.
5. Designate places for the things that I use on a regular basis. For example, my backpack and purse always end up in the middle of my floor because I don't have a pre-determined place to put them.
6. Keep a way for Cobalt to look out the window.
7. Incorporate a chair or sitting area or something for relaxing out-of-bed.

As a recap, this is how my room was arranged before (I used floorplanner.com to draw this):



And after rearranging it the way I drew out on the graph paper, I decided I didn't like it so I rearranged some more on the fly. This is the current (final?) configuration:



It's not a drastic change when looking at the floor plan, but man, my room feels SO much different. Having the bed projecting into the room and having space on both sides makes it feel more cozy (surprisingly!). And I moved my old nightstand/bookshelf to the foot of the bed which makes this futon feel much more legit. I think that I can cross goals number 1 and 2 off the list!

Of course, this rearrangement is only inspiring new ideas fueling my decorating/design obsession. Project ideas are flowing like crazy over here.

For now, I will leave you with these inadequate pictures of the current state of my room.