Decor

Living Room Progress!

One of my personal rules to live by is:

You aren't allowed to complain about something if you're not doing anything to change it.

For example: you can't complain about the size of your rear if you don't get up off of it and work out.  (the exception is things you can't change of course, but if you can't change something, you can change how you look at it and stop complaining anyway).

Hubby pointed out to me that Friday's post was a laundry list of complaints about the living room so I figured I should practice what I preach and put my $$ where my mouth is and whatever other cheesy cliche's apply.

So I did.

I've been far too ADD with design ideas lately, so I just need to focus on one room at a time.  I'm putting jewelry organization/display and some other projects on hold and focus on the room that irks me the most: the living room.

2 notable changes were made over the weekend.

#1. Harry Potter's room has a new door!  No, Harry Potter does NOT live with me, however we do have an awkward closet that spans the entire space under the stairs.  We call this Harry Potter's room, or the hall closet, whichever you prefer.  The bi-fold door to this space was the only non-white door in the entire house and was a very awkward orangey wood tone that was not finished well in the first place.  Since the hall is wide open to the living room, I consider them 1 large space.

Pre-primed white doors with paneling similar to the other doors in the house were less than $50 at my friendly local Home Depot, so I was on the ground running.  I'll spare you the enthralling progress shot of painting white primed doors white satin and I'll jump to the after.

As a finishing touch, I picked up a mercury-glass knob from Anthropologie and put up a mirror from HomeGoods to give the space more presence.

You like?  So much better if I do say so myself!

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Weekend Project #2:  New vignette/storage.

I've been hunting for some type of table to put against the stair wall, but am challenged by the narrow space.  While looking at HomeGoods, I fell in love with a small asian style cabinet that was too deep.  After re-measuring the area several times (hoping that somehow the space would multiply- no luck), I decided to bring it home anyway.

It worked as I was hoping next to the chair (which Hubby is all about replacing now, yay!).  I took down the brown curtains (not the hardware yet though) and styled the new cabinet with a new "&" sign, Starry Night (removed from the opposite wall), a few tag-sale books, and Archimedes the owl.

I'm so pleased to see the living room finally start evolving!

Doormat Upgrade

Over the weekend, an impromptu trip with a friend to one of my favorite places, Marshalls (TJ Maxx, HomeGoods... same company and I could curl up and live in any one of them) scored me the awesome area rug below for the front entryway for just $19.99. I kinda have a thing for paisley and the colors in this are divine- the blue of the living room, the red of the front door.

Its WORLDS better than the cheapy one (to the right) I got a few months back from the same place for just a few bucks- ravaged by the vacuum and cat hair (no matter how much I cleaned it), it had seen better days.

The new one makes me smile every time I walk down the stairs.  With the new paisley rug and the best light ever, the small area that is the entry way is turning into a very happy place.

Little Wins

Today, I'm celebrating silly triumphs.

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Do you remember when I posted an image of this mystery flower?

Well, it's a mystery no more!  It's Allium Nectaroscordum or Mediterranean Bells.

You have no idea how excited this little discovery made me.  Yes I am a dork.

I had this epiphany (thanks in part to Google of course) last evening.  I was trying to clean up the garden a little and decided that the dead stalks that used to be the beautiful flower above needed to go.  Most stalks pulled out of the ground with much less effort than I expected.  One stalk, however resisted and came up with the bulb- it looked like an onion!  That clicked in my head.  Alliums like this one in my garden are part of the onion family.  Lo and behold, after a search online, I found that the once mystery flower was in fact a type of allium!  I heart alliums!

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The next triumph involves a lamp I plan to take home with me this weekend.

Last weekend, while feeding my addiction at HomeGoods I fell in love as usual.  Since I'm trying to be good and not buy too much house stuff (operative word here is trying), I took a picture and walked away from it.  (Not of course before making sure that it wasn't the only one, so that it would probably still be there when if I came back to adopt it).

Since my cell phone doesn't take the clearest pictures, let me tell you that the price tag reads $49.99.

Swoon.

I'd been obsessing thinking about the lamp all week when, yesterday, I came across an image on one of my other addictions Pinterest.

The Weston Table Lamp from ZGallerie for a mere $199.

Coincidence?  I think not.  This is the universe telling me that I need to go back to HomeGoods and take home my lamp, don't you think?