Pages

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Grey & White

I saw a glimpse of a bedroom over on A Beach Cottage and I am in heaven! It's summer in the land down under and the light is much different then in the winter. Below is a photo of her bedside.



I am loving the grey polka dot pillow along with the grey striped pillow on the white chenile bedspread. LOVE taking a nap in the sun wrapped up in a chenile blanket!



Here are some other great grey & white photos from around blog land. From flicker a shot of grey and white buildings.






Birch trees are such a great grey and white background.







For you Harry Potter lovers our there, Hedwig.






Knitting







Grey and white Carrara marble.



Grey and white houndstooth trenchcoat from Soia & Kyo. LOVE!













Paisley


River rock.







A pile of grey knit blankets.................






I never realized how many images I see that I like that are strictly grey and white.

Friday, January 21, 2011

January Goals

OK, so this post comes three weeks in to the new year and new month. I have been debating on weather to post goals at all on my blog. In 2009 I did a monthly financial roundup and then stopped. Well, I am back to it but not sooo involved.

This month our goals are....
  • Complete the hallway
  • Put $200 in savings
  • Put an additional $600 on CC # 1
  • Actually use our Wii Fit
  • Lose a couple pounds

There you have it. Nothing too exciting but achievable. I have to say our progress is moving along nicely on our goals. I will update at the end of the month.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Valentine's Day Subway Art

Run on over to craftily ever after and check out her latest subway art for Valentine's day! I printed our her Halloween and Christmas subway art and even got Halloween framed which you can see here.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Hallway

It's funny to call the hallway a finished room since its really a transitionary space. However, we can officially call it done! It was completed last night and it feels so good to have another few items knocked off the condo project list. Remember Quinn and Finley from an earlier post? They found a new home here.


On the other side of this wall is our kitchen which you can see a sneak peak of on the left. On the right and around the corner to the left you go to the front door and back in to the kitchen. Down the hallway on your right are the bedrooms and bathroom. I have mentioned before our space is small? (Sorry about the glare from the light. I needed it on to take the photo.) Below a photo of our two new light fixtures. They coordinate with our dining room fixture.


The yellow in the two canvases go well with the candles on the sconces. I have had the sconces for at least ten years. They as well as two of the candles are from Partylite. The candles are electric. They are set on a timer so they are on right before we come home and go off sometime during the night after we are asleep. It's great to not have to worry about fire, candle wax dripping, etc. I have a total of six in the house. I found the other four at Costco for a steal compared to the two from Partylite. They are made by the same manufacturer.

These are my mothers parents. The photos are both when they were in the army and they signed them to each other. They are hanging above a 48 star flag that belonged to my husbands grandfather. Right now it's hanging on two nails but we want to have it framed.



We originally bought the crown molding for the living room to hide surround sound wiring. Because there is no clear change between one of the living and dining room walls and then between the dining room and the hallway we ended up buying this dental molding for all the public rooms in the house except the kitchen. The surround sound system died Christmas eve 2009 and the molding was completed soon after that. When we first started to put it up the saw we were using was off and the corners never met correctly. So, we bought these corner pieces to help us along.

Yes we have popcorn ceiling. Textured walls are not fun to paint! Even after two coats we still see small spots we missed.

Cutting in used to not be one of my favorite things. Our friend who works at Home Depot recommended an awesome paintbrush for cutting in. It was only $6 and totally worth it!
Can you believe we lived without molding around the three hallway doors for almost two years? This photo shows the last wall color we had
.
Here is a progression of wall colors. What isn't showing was the yellowy cream color we started with when I moved in.
  • Our first color choice was a light mocha called Colchester Taupe which I chose because I wasn't sure how C would like it and we were renting so it was a "safe" color. The molding was painted two shades lighter called Lighthouse which was a white with a little mocha tint to it.
  • We were getting bored with the color so we decided to change it up, we wanted more brown in it. The color we chose was just one shade darker on our strip called Worn Glove.
  • Finally our current grey which is Creek Bend.

All three colors are by Behr. Colchester Taupe was renamed Gypsy Moth.

.

I really like the velvet curtains we got from Cost Plus (for some reason they don't have grey on their site at the moment). At $35 a panel for velvet like curtains I thought they were a good deal. You can see one peeking in this corner. We are actually using it to hide our laundry center since the opening needs a custom door. We have two in our living room and will get two for our dining room. They might be a little too dark for my grey but I like them!


The entire hallway cost us about $200 for what we did. We already had the IKEA Expedit bookcase. There are only two switches and one outlet in the hallway and the grey they have at Home Depot is practically a perfect match.

The dining room has already been painted and we will start the living room next month. Both in the same grey color.

Linking up to Good Life Wednesday at A Beach Cottage.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

What Would You Have in Your Airship?

Restoration Hardware is one of my favorite sights to browse and get ideas.

A friend sent me a link to this chair. It's called The Aviator and I love it.

I can totally picture this in a cool bar or lounge. At $1195 on sale (regularily $1495) I don't imagine two of these coming home with me any time soon.

C and I are contemplating trying to make something ourselves.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Wellies - The New Galoshes

I don't know about you but around Seattle we get quite a bit of rain. Last night it snowed but it all melted this morning and there was water EVERYWHERE! I have been wanting a pair of Wellies for a while and thought I would Google to see what is out there.



Or classic Burberry plaid (sadly not on sale).

Or your classic Wellington boot.


Hands down my favorite are the chocolate brown by Ralph!

Monday, January 10, 2011

New Wall Art

I was at Bed, Bath & Beyond a couple weeks ago with my C and my neighbor. She wanted to pick up some mirrors for a wall in her condo. I came across these two canvases and just had to have them. They were on sale too!



Their names are Finley & Quinn (what do you mean you don't name inanimate objects in your house?). Can you guess which is which?

Right now they are hanging on my dining room wall one over the other as you see it here. I would prefer to hang them side by side (the woman on the left and the man on the right) but need to find the right space.

It's funny because I have no yellow or purple in my house. The background is slightly yellow and you can see purple in some of the clothing items.

They look great on our grey walls!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Score!

Life is so crazy.

I was reading a blog the other day about how someone made their own bed frame which is something C and I have been wanting to do. Their inspiration was over $2000 and they paid $200 for the materials plus a jigsaw.

Check out the post for their do it yourself bed here.

This post has inspired C and I and we are going to do something similar. It probably won't happen for a bit because we need to finish up our living room.

Last night a friend was going through his tools and came across three jigsaws. He gave us one. Woo Hoo!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Giveaway from Brooklyn Limestone

Starting off a New Year with a giveaway from one of my favorite blogs in blogland, Brooklyn Limestone. Jump on over and oogle her photos from her world travels.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Word For 2011

I have come up with a word for 2011. I am not completely sold on it as "the word" and reserve the right to change my word if I feel the need.

My word for 2011 is: Minimalism

You might think this is a funny word for me to use or that I have already been trying to practise this so why put it out there as my main focus for 2011?

I thought about a word that would represent all that I want to accomplish this year. Many of the things I want to accomplish this year are the same things I have wanted to accomplish in past years. I realize I have been going about things in a very agressive way that doesn't seem to be serving my purpose as I am not checking cetain goals off the list because my perfectionism get's in the way and I take on way too much which results in overwhelm.

So, minimalism will remind me to take small bites instead of trying to change everything in a big way right now. Minimalism I will be able to use for all that I am focusing on in this year. Gradual changes will make my results more achievable than my perfectionism streak which gets in the way.

On New Years Eve Eve C and I went to this great little bistro in our town called The Loft. We can't wait to go back and we will definately be dining on their patio in the warmer months! As we looked around the small over a glass of red wine we got to talking about how important "space" was for us. Not necessarily the amount of space but what made up the space. As well as all the stuff we have that we don't need.

The ideas and all that we talked about morphed in to future plans and what we want in the next three to five years. So by focusing on minimalist ideals and taking small bites, this will snowball in to larger achievments.

Do you have a word for 2011?