what a bucket of paint can do

Here are a couple of things you should know:

{1} When we moved into our house, all of the walls were a dark, dark brown.

O yeah, and so were most of the ceilings.

One more thing, the carpet was brown, too.

::i'll be doing a whole series of before and after with those pics soon::

{2} Once we signed the papers, we had a very short amount of time 

before we had to vacate our apt.

{3} This move came within our first year of marriage, and I was in my first year of teaching, too.

{4} I hadn't been creating a home portfolio my whole life...and...

{5} I was preggers, and in the business of making rash decisions to meet the deadline.

{6} I was in charge of choosing the paint colors.

{If you are into all brown decor, please don't be offended by this post}

That should give you an idea of what we were working with.

Our house was so dark and "cave like" 

that my mom said she had no idea where we saw the potential....once we already owned the house.

We, however, loved the floorplan and the neighborhood, 

and thought that painting every wall, ceiling, and trim piece wouldn't be too much work. ha.

My #1 goal was to brighten this place up, and that's exactly what I did.

I picked a creamy white for the walls in our family room,

and creamy white carpet,

did I mention we also had a white couch?

So, for a while I loved that because the result was so drastically different than before.

However, the white started to get to me,

which in part led to redecorating the family room, kitchen, and breakfast room.

It's an understatement to say that I have 

an incredibly supportive hubby who loves my creativity,

and gives me lots and lots of freedom in decorating our home.

He rocks.

He even hired painters to repaint 1/ 3 of our house once I decided I didn't like the colors

that my pregger self had chosen.

Which leads us to the family room ...

before {before we owned it}

before {before we painted it last week}

the top paint color sample of the wall is what we went with

after

it's so much warmer, and now i can decorate with white accents!

the loveseat and couch really pop

i love what a simple paint color change can do for a room.

milk glass darlings

i saw these darlings at a local thrift store, 

and completely fell head over heels.

especially because they were $2.50/ea

i love the details.

i love that their holes lend them to being held differently than a typical plate.

i love that these two are similar, yet different.

i really love how darling they look {tied up with string}, hanging around my fabulous thrifty mirror.

gold to glazed

i've been mulling over ideas in my head,  for. many. months.

about what to hang on our breakfast room wall.

i found the perfect pieces at a fabulous thrift store in downtown.

check out our fabulous finds from the weekend!

 those will be perfect for our breakfast room wall!

mirror: $30

plates: $2.50/ea

the gold on that mirror just wasn't working for me,

 so i decided to try my hand at glazing.

let's begin.

{1}

spray paint the mirror white

{2}

buy a pint of ralph lauren faux glaze at home depot.

tint with your chosen RL paint color.

i chose to tint with desert boot.

{3}

using a paint brush, glaze your desired area.

for best results, glaze an area with texture/design so the glaze will nicely accentuate it

{4}

wipe off the excess glaze with a damp rag

{5}

don't panic if you're not crazy about it halfway through,

the finished product will rock.

{6}

repeat steps 3 & 4 around the entire mirror,

step back and enjoy your new masterpiece.

{7}

sweetly ask hubby to hang it on your breakfast room wall.

love it. 

ta-da

want to see what we did with those precious milk-glass plates? check it out, here!

hob lob's knobs

I can't say enough how excited I am to begin Shabby Chic Cottage's 

10 tasks in 10 days challenge!

 

one of my projects involves adding some new hardware fabulous knobs

to a c-list find.

so little one and i headed to hob lob to see what we could find...

i probably browsed the knob aisle for 10 minutes...

just wishing i had more places in my house that needed them!

these little zinnia knobs tickle my fancy

southernliving.com

did you know they are the same knobs that anthro has?

they just go on 1/2 price, and anthro's don't.

                                                                                                                                          pinkybrown inc.

 boston.com

 
maybe not quite as much of a selection as anthro,
but definitely something that will wrap itself around your little finger.

can't wait to get started on the project...
hopefully it will be revealed soon!


p.s:
when we were leaving, little one waved "bye bye" for the first time!
 i kinda teared up.  he is just so adorable!

to frame or not to frame

Hubby has always wanted to hang his t.v. above the fireplace.

I must say, it doesn't lend itself to being the most fabulous decorative piece,

but if it makes Hubby smile I suppose it can stay.

Now comes the challenge of how to disguise it...

I found this great idea over at 

A Penny Saved

and can't wait for hubby and I to get started!

Penny framed her t.v. and created artwork to cover the screen.

Her artwork looks great, but we're just planning on framing ours.

She even created a step-by-step ::how to:: guide, so helpful!

a penny saved

I love how the t.v. looks purposeful.

Not just thrown on the wall...like ours does.

I'm not crazy about those symmetrical candlesticks, either.  

I just don't know how to decorate around the darn thing!

 

My newest motivations to frame the thing are:

{1} Hubby is painting the walls in the family room next week,

so the t.v. has to come down anyway

{3} the white trim will show up much better when the wall itself isn't white

{2} Shabby Chic Cottage has a 10 projects in 10 days challenge,

and this is (hopefully) going to be one of mine!

So, what do you think...

Would you frame your t.v.?

Do you even allow a t.v. to hang above the fireplace?