Category Archives: Home Design and Decor

It’s All Shades of Gray

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So, I’m not actually done clearing out the debris from Alethea’s big-girl-room-to-be, but since Sherwin Williams is having a big sale starting tomorrow, I thought I’d better get a paint color picked out.

Peter didn’t like my idea for doing white/cream walls and I am absolutely set against any kind of tan.  However, we did manage to agree that we should keep the walls neutral since there are going to be so many fun colors in the accessories, and that pretty much just left us with gray.

Fortunately I was already planning on painting our master bedroom gray, so I had spent plenty of time with my deck of colors and had some idea of which samples I wanted to try.  And here they are:

From Left to Right:

Sherwin Williams Popular Gray – too light
Behr Dolphin Fin – too blue
Sherwin Williams Proper Gray – too dark
Sherwin Williams Dovetail – too prison cell

So now what?

I think I’ll head back over to SW tomorrow and see if they can make my Popular Gray sample a little darker and turn it into the next color down on the paint strip which is Versatile Gray.  I didn’t realize finding the right gray would be so much work.

Why Can’t I Capture It?

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Three weekends ago Peter and I tackled a home improvement project that has been ‘in process’ for quite some time.  (‘Stalled out’ would be another way to put it.)  See, I found this cool idea online a while ago for how to make simple floating shelves using a hollow-core door.  Months before now, we bought the door, sawed it in half and then did nothing further.  At last I can say that after almost a year in our basement, the door halves have reappeared, been painted and are presently hanging as shelves in my piano studio/office.

Now that this last project has been completed, I am very pleased to announce that my office is finally done!  I have no further plans for improvements/decor, other than to someday replace the metal mini-blinds with something more attractive and maybe throw in a few more pictures or accessories (you didn’t honestly think I meant I was DONE done, did you?)

But since I am at least done for now, I thought I would mark this auspicious occasion by posting another before and after.  So, here is my office before we moved in:

And here is my office currently:

I am extremely pleased with how the room turned out, but I am very frustrated with my lack of ability to capture the room in a picture.  I think the room is well designed, cozy (it’s 10×10) and has a lot of visual interest, but after taking about 30 pictures, I still don’t have one that really feels like you’re in the room when you look at it.  How do you make a 2D image feel 3D?  I see it in magazines all the time, but I just can’t do it myself.  I’ve got some photography books on order from the library.  We’ll see if this problem is something a little ‘how-to’ help can fix.

Trying Something New

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Okay, so as most of you know, I love shopping and I love interior design (generally an expensive combination).  The other day out of curiosity I visited the blog  www.withtwocats.com.  (The blogger, Lauren, had one of the finalist nurseries on the contest I entered and I was checking out more pictures of her baby’s room.)  One of the main things she does on her blog is post “idea boards” where she takes a theme/color scheme/idea and then applies it to a room (bedroom/living room/etc) thus creating a picture collage of furniture and accessories.

It seemed like something I might enjoy doing, so I gave it a try.  Here is my very first idea board, which I put together for our Master Bedroom:

I’m not going to admit how long this took me, but I will say I had a blast doing it.  It’s like decorating a room for free, without any commitments or manual labor and you get to go “shopping” for stuff at any store and any price range you’d like!

We’re not actually going to be decorating the master bedroom any time soon, but now when it’s time I’ll be ready!

President’s Day Project

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On Monday Peter and I cleaned out our Laundry/Mud Room and organized the closet.  Here’s the before pic:

And here is the closet post organization:

Sorry to everyone who reads this blog strictly for cute baby pictures, but I had to post about this because not only do I now have an ironing station, a place to put dirty kitchen towels and a spot for empty laundry baskets, but this is also the first time since we moved in that the entire first floor of our house has been clean and organized.  I am feeling tired, but triumphant!

It Looks Clean Until…

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So when we were in Philly a few weeks ago, I realized that we only had pictures of our house when it was empty and we haven’t taken any photos of the improvements done along the way.  So yesterday I thought, “I’m going to take pictures of every room to show what we’ve done.”  It sounded simple enough, so I started with the living room.  I cleared out Alethea’s toys and started taking pictures, but it still seemed kind of messy, so I dusted.  Still not good, so then I straightened up a bit more.  Better, until I noticed the clutter on the kitchen counters in the background.  Yikes!  That had to go…

An hour later I was exhausted, had some good pictures of the very clean living room, but had not gotten to any other room in the house.  *Sigh*

I have concluded that if you’re ever wondering just how clean your house is, one way to tell is to take pictures that you plan to post on the internet and see if you like what you see.  It was a rather frightening experience for me, but I guess in the end, it got results.

Living Room Before:

Living Room After:

One Room Down

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I just finished painting the letters of Alethea’s name for my final project in decorating her nursery.  I think they turned out pretty well.

This means that I have officially completed one room in our house.  It was a lot of work, but I do so much enjoy the results.  And so does Alethea.  When Peter put her on the changing table and Alethea saw the letters for the first time, she got a big grin on her face and she actually laughed out loud!  I don’t know if she likes the colors or was delighted that something new appeared, but she was definitely pleased.