I know, I know.  I’ve been a bit quiet lately.  There’s a great number of reasons why, but the main one is that my job has kicked into high gear for a bit of a “season,”  so I’ve had next to NO time extra to even think about blogging.  Sad day.  Not only that, but we’ve made pathetic progress on so many things I was hoping to check off my list.  Still to do:

- build a bench

- paint our house

- get our roof replace

- PICK a roof color and paint colors

- finish installing bathroom hardware

- patch the wall in our master bathroom

- paint the hideous red room

- shop down a bunch of bushes I hate

But, lots of non-house stuff has been happening that is WAY cool.  For instance, my husband went to Turkey!  How cool is that!?!  I was majorly jealous, but it was a quick work-related trip and would have been a huge sacrifice for me to go in terms of money and work.  But, he brought back fun stuff – a pillow!  Yay!  And a fancy hand painted bowl.

Cool thing number 2:  I was asked to photograph another wedding!  And with that, I am now seriously SERIOUSLY investigating starting my own business. SCARY.  I love the idea of it, and I love photography, and the more I learn about business, the more I’m actually excited about it.  But.  It’s hard to go through that much transition and change.  You have to be pretty sure.  And I’m still not at 100%.  Any words of encouragement or advise from anyone who has started something new, taken a big risk, or just understands business would be MUCH appreciated!

Cool thing number 3:  it’s fall!  And that means tomatoes and peppers and CANNING!  I need to learn to can first, though.  Ha!  Perhaps this weekend I’ll try pickles since I have about 30 cucumbers in my fridge waiting to be used…

You may have seen a tweet recently about reupholstering a chair.  And maybe you’re wondering about that chair.  Well, here it is, in all of it’s stained and smelly glory, waiting to be loved on.

We picked it up off the side of the road for free earlier this month and it’s been waiting patiently on our front porch for some new fabric.  I’m still unsure if it’s possible to even do it.  I’ve been searching online for tutorials and hemming and hawing over if I should go for it, or just drop it off at Goodwill for someone else.  I think it would be a great chair for our dining room if we recovered it in a simple linen or ivory colored fabric.  But is it worth it?

What do you guys think?  Should I go for it, or not?  Will it be a waste, or a fun project?  I’m on the fence still…

Hey, check out what we picked up on our anniversary weekend…

It is DELICIOUSLY comfortable.  Many naps to be had here…I promise more pics tomorrow.  For now, I’m off to take a nap in my new favorite spot

In case you think our home always looks sparkling clean, everything in place, perfectly put together, I’m hear to tell you that is NOT the case.  Let me put that thought to rest once and for all by showing you this…

This, my friends, is what we affectionately call “the red room”.  It might be better termed the storage room.  The collection zone.  The dump.  Truly, it is a mess of boxes, odds and ends, pictures, pillows, and old binders full of procedures from a summer internship I did 7 years ago.  It’s BAD, folks.

Here’s another gem for ya:

At least the boxes are in a nice line, right?  Let’s see – we’ve got the tapestry that has yet to be hung in our landing area, the tube from our dining room rug we bought last summer, and a box full of bubble wrap.  Nice.

It get’s worse when we turn to the other side of the room…

First, isn’t the black accent wall nice?  *cough cough*  Here we have our collection of yet to be hung photos; a smattering of nick knacks such as a beer stein, free vase, and mismatched mugs; the lovely floor lamp from the early 90s; an empty box; and the dresser that is orphaned by it’s mate currently in our bedroom and the headboard in the basement – ???  I have no words.

We’ve been busy around here at the Jewel of the Prairie, sprucing things up in our foyer, building a compost bin, and now, updating our guest room!  Eventually I’ll post more about progress on the spa bench for the bathroom, but for today, you get pretty pictures of our (very much still in-progress) guest room!

Here’s what it looks like today:

Now, for the story…

When we bought our house, this room was occupied by a young boy and was decked out with a sports theme, complete with baseball fan, football cross bars, and a wallpaper border.  And let’s not forget the forest green ceiling, shall we?

Since we A) don’t have an 8 year old boy with a sports obsession, and B) don’t enjoy cave-like rooms, we knew this would be a HUGE overhaul.  Soon after we closed, we got to work on removing the wallpaper border, and priming the room for some fresh paint.

I seriously have nightmares when I remember priming and painting this room!  With that dark green paint, it took two coats of primer to get good coverage on the walls and ceiling before we could paint.

Already looking brighter, right?  We chose a light blue color for the wall, hoping to coordinate a bit with some furniture I’ve had since I was a teenager, which formerly belonged to my mother as a child.

A little brighter than we expected, but it was still a HUGE improvement from what we started with.  \

We added furniture into the room, and the wonderful quilt my mom made for me, and for a while, the room looked like this…

Again, let me remind you where we started:

So much better, right?  Well, there was obviously still a lot more we could do with this room besides paint and change the fan out for a light from a different room.  I had dreams for drapes, artwork, and hopefully, a bedspread that matches the room a bit better (the quilt will have a new home in a different room).

Fast forward a few months, and I finally was able to snag the last missing piece to complete the furniture set – the headboard!  In the 10+ years I’ve had this furniture, we were never able to get the headboard from my grandparents due to the size of it.  After a quick trip in April to help them move, I was able to bring back the headboard in a U-Haul trailer, and at last, she’s with the rest of the family!

Ignore the awful color in this photo – take a cue from me and never take pictures at night!

We switched out the quilt for something blue, which works a bit better, but still doesn’t quite fit.  Maybe I need to recruit my mom to do something custom once she finishes the half a dozen other quilts she’s making  We also put in another lamp on the left that was a garage sale steal for $1.  Sure, it’s huge and probably would look better in a living room, but it works for now.

The most recent update to the room is something I’m super excited about – drapes!  I found some inexpensive drapes at Ikea, and after some drilling and leveling (thanks DH!) we now have some glorious flowing drapes to add a little bit of softness to the windows.

The print is a bit more modern, but still soft and organic looking, which is just what I was looking for.

I also snagged a white throw pillow on sale at Macys for $10.  The quilt stays for now, along with the gold sheets. Obviously this combo is SO working!  *cough cough*

A couple of other additions to the room include a vintage fan we found at Good Will for $3, a huge stack of art books in need of a home, and a little print that I might hang somewhere in the room.

What do you think of the floor lamp with the orange, blue, and white?  Do you think it’s too much?  I kinda like it, in a very vintage-meets-traditional-meets-modern kind of way.

Over on the dresser, I added a negative botanical print from a photography class I took in high school, a handmade glass hurricane that used to be in my great grandparents summer home on Washington Island that I rescued from my grandparent’s basement , and three Swedish and Danish painted plates and hangings that belonged to DH’s grand parents that I’m going to hang in the room somewhere.  Oh, and a cute little stack of books

I love the changes so far

For a long time, we’ve had a low coffee table operating as our entry way table.  Coming up to knee height, it was kind of an awkward way to welcome someone into our home.  Added bonus?  The odd height of our mirror and artwork, hung from the same hooks of previous owners stuff, which was most definitely proportioned differently.

I’ve wanted a more appropriate table or console for our foyer for quite a while, and we’ve finally got it!  Thanks to my generous mother, we inherited this wonderful console from her:

I think it looks SO wonderful!  Not only does it fit the space better, but it the drawers are an added bonus – now we have a place to store a few pens and scratch paper for writing down notes, and probably a few other odds and ends will find their way in there I’m sure.  Plus, I love having a little bit of shelf space for a few pretty items

On top of the console is a basket we use for mail, a pink depression glass vase, a small wooden basket we got on our honeymoon in Jamaica for dropping keys, and our weather thing-y.  On the first shelf, there’s a white compote I snagged at a garage sale for $1, a stack of various art books topped with a metal candle holder DH got in Hong Kong (I think?), and a white coral tea pot we received as a wedding gift (the lid is permanently stuck, so it is relegated to being looked at – ha!).  Across the bottom – which I’m still working on – is a brass apple bell (sorely in need of some books or something to beef it up), a ceramic blue dish that was a wedding gift, and a stack of various books.

I’m thinking a small framed picture on one of the shelves might be nice, or a basket, just to add add some texture.  The apple bell is looking a little sad and sorry all by it’s lonesome, and I’m not sure about the blue dish either.  I’m sure I’ll keep fiddling with it for a while until I like it

The next thing I’m hoping to get done is to add a frame to a mirror we got for free at a garage sale, and hang it above the table where the purple painting is.  Then we’ll probably ditch the ill-placed skinny mirror in favor of some framed art, or possible a different painting.

And let’s not think too much about the other side of the foyer, ‘kay?  Because it is kind of a sad situation.  The coat “monster” is the only functional place for coats besides a few hooks in the side entry for the house, so it stays.  Though I’m sure we could prune down the number of outerwear choices we have available in the summer.

The coffee table under the window works okay, though I’d be willing to consider other options.  We’d like to avoid blocking most of the window if possible, so that limits the height of whatever we put there.  One thing I’ve thought of is maybe a chair and a small table?  We don’t really need a bench since we already have one…

See?  And that table and picture are totally not ours – I haven’t taken a new picture that doesn’t have Christmas stuff all over the place, so just imagine this being bare with a spiny plant sticking out towards the bench.  :-)

Anywho, welcome to our new and slightly improved foyer!  I’m grateful for the table upgrade, and excited for the next step – MIRROR!

A while back, my mom asked if we wanted a console table for our house.  Free furniture?  Yes, please!

I had pretty much forgotten about this promise until I was visiting my folks this week, and I inquired about said table.

“Is it that one?” I asked.

Mom: “Yes, but I’m not ready to give to you just yet.”

My sad face must have given it away, because next she said, “We’ll have to see.  I’ve got a table downstairs from your grandparents that I need to work on that will replace it.”

Ah, makes a lot more sense now.

We made plans for me to take it back to Iowa when we visit over 4th of July.  I’m squealing with excitement!  Isn’t it so darn cute?

I love that it has the two drawers since we are in desperate need of some hidden storage.  Plus, the two shelves are perfect for displaying a few cute things, or adding a few baskets to hide some more…stuff.  Junk.  There, I said it.  I have junk.  Sue me!

Plus, the wood and style is pretty simple and should go well with a variety of things.  At this point, I’m thinking it will take up residence in our front hallway right near the door.

See, won’t it look perfect?  Of course, none of this is my furniture because *ahem* I still haven’t taken any pics since we moved in a year ago.  But you can imagine, right?  It will go along one of the two walls on the right corner where that bookcase is.  It’s not *quite* tall enough for my taste, but it should work just fine.

Is it just me, or is it the spitting image of this map console table from Pottery Barn?

Pretty darn close, right?

One of the things I love about our house is the patio.  It’s shaded and quite large, making it a great place for grilling and eating.  For the past year, it’s remained mostly empty since we hadn’t found any reasonably priced patio furniture that we liked.  I was seriously considering some Ikea deck furniture like this:

However, the construction was a little rickety and weak, and we weren’t sure it would really last.  Instead, we ended up purchasing a small set from Nebraska Furniture Mart, and we love it!

While it would have been wonderful to get some lounge furniture with couches and cushions, in reality, we want to have meals out here.  So it had to be a dining set.  We went for round since it’s easy to pull lots of chairs up to a round table, unlike a rectangular table.  And we just weren’t fans of oval.

We’ve already had friends over a few times and have enjoyed MANY meals cooked on our Big Green Egg.  And with our garden starting to bloom (YAY!) we’ve got a great view too!

Summer living at it’s best, right?  :-)

I found one more pillow picture today that FINALLY depicts what I envision our bed looking like.

Via Young House Love

I’m sure some of you are rolling your eyes at me for obsessing so much about pillows, but I’m a picky person and I know if I don’t get it right the first time, I’ll be annoyed at myself.

Why do I love this set up?  I think it’s because I like odd numbers of pillows rather than pairs.  Pairing up the big square Euro shams, and the plopping another pair of pillows in front, and THEN a trio is a close second to me – like this:

But like I said previously, we already have two kings and two standards that we actually use for sleeping, and they’re not going any where soon, so I have to keep that in mind.

Back to West Elm I went to get my third Euro sham – and now, I am all set!  I’m planning to just place the 3 right in fron t of the standards and kings, just like the first picture.

And eventually, I’ll think about toss pillows.  But for now, this is MORE than enough for me to contemplate

My first design board is for my younger sister, Carrie, and her husband, John.  I’ve been bugging my sister for a couple of months to send me pictures of her living room so I could give her a mood board.  They live in a nice 70s ranch that they’ve been slowly sprucing up with modern light fixtures and punchy fun colors.  Here’s the note from my sis:

Here’s our living room pictures, finally! I do have a large painting to put up, it’s mostly reds/oranges/some blues (modern) and I also found this really cool piece that’s pretty big too to put on the wall. It’s an old window with a cool modern red Coo Coo clock decal on it. Sorry I didn’t take pictures of those. We want to eventually have a big bookcase (probably Ikea) on the big wall behind the couch, and probably a small desk back there too. There’s probably 4 feet of space behind the couch.

Have fun designing our LR!

Carrie

Here’s their design board with a layout of the room.

First, they’ll keep the current soft turquoise blue walls, the couch, rug, the window treatments, and the turquoise lamp.  If there’s room for the rocking chair, then keep that too.  I’ve incorporated orange/coral, red, and a bit of purple/mauve for accent colors to give the room some interest.  Let’s get to the new stuff!

1. This TV console from Ikea will help anchor this wall and give a nice spot for their current TV, plus either a few accessories or a lamp.  Then it can transition for a widescreen TV later on if they choose.
2. Above the TV, it would be awesome if there were two floating shelves, stacked about 12 inches apart, for displaying photos, plants, accessories, or books.
3. Some sort of table or chest behind the couch would be great.  Since there’s not enough room for a coffee table in front of the couch, this will add an extra landing spot for drinks and snacks, maybe even a lamp.  I’d love to see a glossy red painted campaign dresser (scour around on craigslist) or a light and airy glass topped table, which are also plentiful on craigslist.
4. Storage is definitely needed, so we’re bringing in some fun shelves (turned on their side) along that huge wall – check out these simple square ones, or these more mod multi-sized ones, both in a brown/black color.  Above it, they can display their artwork and a few more accessories.  They can also add some fun and playful storage boxes from Ikea (white, orange, and basket-weave!) to hide a few items if they want.
5. Plopping two of these clear glass lamps on either end will add a bit of symmetry to the wall, especially if they put their art piece in the middle.
6. There are two options for working a desk space into their living room – either add a simple desk with side cube storage and display space, or forego the shelves and have a desk/wall shelf combo like this.  Since Carrie & Jon have a big pooch, I’d recommend the first option just so they don’t end up with wagging tails knocking stuff over all of the time, but this desk/shelf unit from Crate Barrel would also be a great space saving solution.
7. If Jon and Carrie need some extra light for their work space, placing their turquoise lamp they already own in the corner will add just enough.  To further decorate this space, they could use some simple boxes for storage, and add a nice simple botanical print in a basic white Ikea frame above the desk.
8. A nice parsons chair for the desk will look beautiful, and can double as extra seating as needed when guests stop by.  Brown leather, tan suede, or white would be best.
9. The space in between the window and the door is begging for some artwork or photos.  This would be a great space for a vertical display of several of Jon & Carrie’s favorite pics from their honeymoon, or of other favorite memories.
10. If there’s enough room by the front door, a simple hanging rack and this handy storage ottoman will help sort jackets and scarves and be a welcomed place for guests to kick off their shoes.  If space is limited, either skip the ottoman, or place the ottoman next to the door under the photos.
11. Some bright and fun pillows will help add some color to their couch.
12. A bunch of different fun accessories to dress up their shelves can be spread through out the room on the floating shelves above the TV, or along the bookshelves.  Look for things in the purple/mauve color – like these small glass vases from West Elm, or this larger bamboo vase from Z Gallerie; red, orange/coral – like this natural coral; and turquoise – like this vase.  White, (here, and here too!) and clear and natural woods will work too.

I hope you like it, little sis  I had fun decorating your living room.  Most of the items are relatively affordable, and a lot of the fun accessories could be substituted out for similar objects in the same colors found at Home Goods or any other home decor store.  Happy shopping!