A Family Room Makeover

 I am absolutely loving the new look that Brandi of Don't Disturb This Groove gave to her family room. 

Here's a before, with orange paint and movie posters galore: 

And here is an after- still with the movie posters, only now they look super cool against the white walls and new color scheme!

You MUST go check out this makeover- it will astound you. And have you convinced that you need movie posters on every wall of your family room. 

Fabulous job, Brandi!!

By the way, today I'm contributing to the blog for a lighting site called Chandelier Warehouse. I recently watched "The Great Gatsby" and it had me swooning over a particular look...come read my post to see what it was! 

Look Who Came Home From Target With Me...

This guy.

Every time I go there lately I see it, and yesterday I finally decided I was tired of going home without it. 

My daughter LOVES elephants. So one reason I wanted it (besides the fact that it's just adorable) was that it reminds me of her. But there is a tiny complication....when I put the elephant in our cart she thought I was getting it for her. She kept squealing "Thank you Mommy! Baby elephant!" She got pretty angry every time I told her the elephant was for me. Now she keeps creeping into the foyer to look at it and, when she thinks I'm not looking, pet it. If it goes missing from it's table I'll know to go check her menagerie of toy elephants. 

Why Lighting Is So Important

 Today I'm talking light fixtures over at the blog for GoldenageUSA. 

Specifically, why they are my favorite part about a room's design. 

Find out here. 

A DIY Ottoman

Check out this gorgeous ottoman made from an old coffee table:

This fabulous re-do was done by Alaina of 

Fabtastic Eats

I love her fabric choice- you know how I love zebra, and I think it might be the same fabric I have on the pillows on our couch...which, by the way, is the same one as hers! 

Alaina used my coffee table-to-ottoman tutorial when she and her hubs did this one. It's so awesome to see a project that was inspired by something I did, and even better to see how great it turned out- my tutorial must not suck! haha. 

Go check out Alaina's post about this project HERE.

Spruced Up Foyer

 I'm so happy that our entryway doesn't look like this anymore:

After the addition of a table, and a bit of pattern from the little bowl sitting on it (both of which I already had) plus a couple new purchases, the room now looks like this: 

I love that it feels like an actual room now instead of looking completely neglected. I feel like the entryway is actually the most important room in the whole house. It's the first room to welcome you home everyday, and it's also where people visiting get their first impression of your home. And up until a few days ago, our entryway had nothing good to say to us or anyone else. But it feels a lot better in there now!

I loooove that I FINALLY have a fiddle leaf fig. 

I've wanted one ever since they started popping up in every single design magazine a couple years ago. At the peak of their craze I was seeing people getting fully grown ones for over a hundred dollars, which I know is pretty typical for a tree, but that's just way too much for me to spend on something that has a high probability of my killing it. 

But this little one was only $8.88 at Wal-Mart, which is so affordable that I can keep replacing it if I continually fail to keep it alive. I guess you'll be tipped off that something's not right if my tree never seems to be growing. 

But I'm crossing my fingers that this one thrives. It's so pretty now that I can't wait to see how much more beautiful it is at 6ft tall. 

I still can't get over this table's new look. I love it so much. 

The rug is from Overstock and I am really happy with it so far. 

Like the plant I got for in here, this rug was super affordable- only $46 for a 4x6 ft size.

It's a natural fiber and really thin, which is what I wanted because I didn't want there to be any annoying drag with the door when it was opened over the rug. 

This rug has no traction whatsoever on the floor; it slides around like crazy if you don't have a rug pad under it- which I don't. But I wanted to save us the extra $20 or so that a rug pad would have cost, especially since my entire budget for a rug was only $50 so the cost of the pad would have had to come from that. So instead I used a picture hanging command strip at each corner of the rug to hold it down to the floor and so far it's working great to keep in in place. 

The rug is still in that awkward, new-rug phase where it's got fold lines everywhere and doesn't lay quite flat yet. But with how often it gets walked over it should be smoothed out pretty soon.

I would love to be able to do more with this room- painting the front door a dark gray or black, switching out the light fixture, and doing some kind of board and batten to the walls would be first on my list. But since we are renting those things aren't options. (except for the light- but even then I'd have to get the deal of a lifetime on a fixture I loved in order to make it worth the trouble.) 

I would like to add some art in here eventually, despite the very limited wall space. 

But I'm really happy with this little update for now. It makes the view from everywhere else in the house look a million times better. 

*Rug Update*- it was going well with just using the command strips to hold the rug in place, until our yard guys showed up outside and our two dogs made a beeline for the door to bark at them. By the time the frenzy was over the rug was in a wad against the door. I've since broken down and bought a rug pad and it works amazingly. 

Sharpie Design on a Salad Bowl

 Yesterday I showed you guys how in my quest to finally do something with our entryway,

I brought in a little table that I'd painted a dark gray.  

In the pictures of it you'll see there's a small wooden bowl sitting on top of it: 

That's a salad bowl. 

Since my budget for sprucing up this room is small, I tried to use what I already had as much as I could. So when I was looking for things to fill the tabletop I just wandered around the house and grabbed whatever I thought would work. We got a set of these wooden salad bowls for our wedding, and for the first few years every time we had salad I served it in them. But now I never bother- we either plop it on our plates or grab a different set of bowls because they're closer to get to. So I knew we wouldn't miss this bowl if I used it over here on the table. 

But I wanted it to look more decorative and less like a bowl to eat salad out of. Plus I wanted to add some pattern to this room. 

 I decided to draw a design on it using a black sharpie. The design I came up with was inspired by all the triangles that are EVERYWHERE now and that I am loving, and it was also inspired by the fact that I would have to do no measuring and no math in order to do it. It's a random design but with the exact same sized shape repeated over and over, so it's abstract AND orderly. (At least that's what I'm telling myself- you might just think it looks like I traced a bunch of Doritos around the outside of my bowl.)

So to begin, I cut the corner of a piece of thick paper to make a triangle:

Then I held the triangle to the side of the bowl and traced it in pencil.

Every time I moved the paper triangle to trace it again, I'd lay it in a different direction and let it overlap other triangles I'd already drawn, making a penciled design like this:

Once I'd gone all the way around the bowl, I went back over all my pencil marks with a sharpie marker. 

It was not that easy to do. I could definitely never be a surgeon because my unsteady hands would kill more people than I'd save. And the bowl has tiny cracks and dents in the wood that made it even harder to keep my lines straight. But knowing that I had three more of these bowls if I completely screwed this one up made me less afraid of using a permanent marker on it. There's nothing like excess to make you comfortable. 

Here is how the process looked partway through:

You can see that some of my lines look like I was scared of something while I was drawing them. 

But despite that, I still think it turned out pretty cool- especially for being totally free. 

The only thing to do after finishing up with the sharpie was to go back with an eraser and get rid of all my pencil lines. And I discovered that with some extra pressure the pencil eraser would actually completely erase the sharpie too, so I was able to clean up some areas where my marker had really gone astray or where my lines were way too thick. 

And here's the bowl now, back on the foyer table:

I really am liking the design- I think the layout of the triangles looks kind of 80's and then the fact that the triangles are open and just traced with black (instead of being color-blocked) makes it look current. 

I actually like it so much I'm tempted to eat a salad out of it. Or better yet some ice-cream. 

But then I'd have to wash the bowl and I'm not sure how that sharpie would stand up to the dishwasher. 

So I'll just keep admiring it on the table.

I plan to finish this room's little fix-up this weekend, so I should have photos early next week.

Have a great weekend!

Darkening A Table

 I'm tired of our entryway being completely barren (except for one pitiful vase in a corner) so this week I've been working to change that. 

I brought in this table that I hadn't found a spot for since moving into this house. 

Because we don't have much wall space in this room I'm really limited on what I can put in here, but this little table is luckily just the right size.

I like that it gives us a spot to drop keys or change or whatever when walking in the door, but I did not like the color in here. This room is already super light, so I felt like the silver paint was looking washed out against the wall color. 

Plus because I am limited on what I can put in here, I want what is in here to be really standing out and making more of a statement. 

I decided this table needed to be way darker so that it would stand out in this light room even though it's so small. 

I mixed up a very dark gray color by combining medium gray and black paints (both of which I already had.) 

Here's the table now: 

I love it so.much. It's hard to tell in pictures but the color has a very slight bluish undertone, so depending on the light it almost looks like a super dark navy. 

 I love how the mirrors and the silver-dipped legs now pop out so much against the dark paint. 

The only thing I can't decide on is the exact placement- I don't know if I want it where it's at in these finished photos, or if I want it in that recessed area of the wall like I had it in the before picture: 

I think I like the way it looks a little better when it's up against the part of the wall that sticks out, but the problem with that spot is the door. It can open all the way with the table there- all the way meaning completely straight out from the hinges, but if you push it further back than that it will hit the table. I feel like the table is safer tucked back into that little nook even though I don't like the way it looks as much when it's back there. 

So I'm not sure yet...still deciding. 

In the meantime I am thrilled with the new table color!

I'm still working on our foyer and I'm excited with how it's coming! My budget is tiny so I can't do a whole lot in here right now, but it's nice to not walk in the door to an empty room. 

Pictures of the whole room coming soon! :)