Design Dreaming

As you know, I have been trying to design and carry out plans for our upstairs and transform it into a warm and inviting master bedroom. I have a small chunk of the horrid pink walls painted a lovely sandy beige, but progress had been halted. Over the last week, we have purchased a beautiful bathroom vanity, uber-modern faucet, and white subway tile. I figured it is easiest to put up the wall tile before installing the vanity. After modifying the wall heating vent and ripping up a small portion of the floor, this bathroom project was clearly becoming a big one. But I'm thrilled and excited and motivated.

With this ever-expanding bathroom project, the upstairs plans have been put on hold. But I am eager as ever to tackle it. Here are my ideas:

image from: freshome.com
This is color and feel I'm going for with the wood ceiling. 

While at our local home improvement store, I scoped out the laminate flooring options for the ceiling. There is major square footage to cover, so budget is very important. I found a medium-tone (not too dark) highly variegated option for like $1.50 per square foot.  

Image from: the-brick-house.com

The only lighting we have upstairs is a tiny wall sconce at the top of the stairs. For some romance and drama I want this sexy beast hanging above the stairs. 

I OWN YOU!!!! Yes, I have had my heart set on this rug from World Market for several weeks. Last weekend was a 1/2 off sale so I splurged and it arrived Friday. I absolutely love it and I think it will provide a nice stepping-off point for the design of the rest of the room. Oh, and I think I got one of the last ones because it is no longer available online. I rule. 

image from: krrb.com

Ikea always has a way of elbowing in any budget-conscious home update. A simple, modern, low Malm bed would be perfect for our bedroom. They have a great new color option too: a medium walnut with a more prominent grain.







One of the last projects will be a divider to separate the closet area from the sleeping area. I really like this wood slat number, and it would be an easy DIY. Unlike these folding screens, I would do a permanent built-in screen, as we have sloping ceilings and a brick chimney smack in the middle. I like the slats because it would let light through from the window on the other side.

We're talking a lot of wood (part of the floor will also be wood/laminate or cork) warm colors and texture. With all the ideas and long wishlist I have, we may very well be still working on this next winter. 

New Year, New Projects

 I've been terrible about keeping up with my blog--apologies and excuses. Anyway, as much as Matt and I have accomplished on our house (see past posts) there's more! Our priority has been getting the living areas livable and saving the upstairs master bedroom for this very moment. Exciting, I know. 

 We've broken the project down in 3 parts. 3 parts in 3 months. Sounds do-able. First is to paint. Call me crazy, but the pink is quite ugly. We've chosen a nice earth-tone which will be a welcome change to the all-white downstairs. 

Part 2 will be to remove the horrid ceiling tiles and replace them with some type of wood. We'll know when we see it, but I'm thinking some kind of salvaged hardwood. We're going for a very warm, architectural- modern feel. 

Finally, if all goes to plan, new flooring will go in. 2/3 of the large room will serve as sleeping and closet area while the front 1/3 will be a place for low book cases and a reading nook. We will delineate these spaces with a low-pile carpet in the bedroom area and a cork or hardwood in the lounge area. 

Last will be finishing touches like putting in baseboards, trim around the windows and something to separate the closet from the bedroom, like a Shoji screen or more bookcases. 

The area to the right of the chimney will serve as a spacious
walk-in closet.

I almost forgot the chimney. After painting and before doing the ceiling, we have plans to knock off the drywall covering the chimney to expose the brick underneath. Why cover real brick with fake, I will never understand. Depending on what it looks like, I'd like to paint the brick white. What? I love white. 

Overall, I expect the upstairs to be fairly easy compared to the rest of the house. We don't have floors to refinish, endless hours of paining, and disgusting messes to clean up. Just installing NEW stuff. 

Ok, that was a lot of ugly you had to look at. Here are some nice things to soothe your eyeballs.

This may be my favorite little corner of the house. I have two epiphitic cacti hanging
in a bright window over the kitchen table along with our perfect pendant lamp
and my beloved "yarn painting"

The kitchen cabinets look amazing with my DIY handles. 

Eames chair deserves its own nook

I've discovered that hanging a small textile on the sides of
our Ikea Expedit bookcases adds so much warmth and texture
to the whole thing. 

I found this hand-woven trivet at a thrift store (shocking, I know). It adds
nice visual interest above the sink. 

Pottery

I am lusting over these new pieces at CB2. 

String Art

 Prints and paintings are great, but sometimes you want to mix up your wall decor. What could be more sassy than some geometric DIY string art? 

Every aspect of this project was tedious and time-consuming. From drawing the template to pounding 200 nails, then applying the string, and finally carefully peeling off the paper template from under the finished piece. A full-on weekend project for sure, but well worth it. 

I chose dark brown, gold, grey, bright orange and dark rusty red embroidery floss. Any type of string or yarn would work, depending on the intricacy and boldness your design. Next time I'd like to try a rustic slice of tree stump rather than the pale plywood. 








While we're at it, check out my new thrifty finds:  
Left to Right: a cool volcanic textured pot, chevron planter, and circle-clad vase. Lots of brown-town, but I love it.

Thrifted Lotte Lamp

This is going to sound crazy, but over the weekend, I found a Lotte Lamp (classic Scandinavian mid-century modern) for $5 at a thrift store. As you can see, there is nary a chip or scratch on the thing; it is either new or has been sitting in a closet for the past 40 years.  

The shade was only $2, so I bought it, even though I would like to snag an original Lotte shade at some point. A few years ago, I splurged and bought a brand new Lotte Lamp for $145 at The Century House here in Madison. They are fantastic. 


Who loves and amazing find? I do!

Busy B

Here I am! I've been all kinds of crazy-busy getting ready to move into our new house (whaaat? more on this later) and to a lesser extent crafting and the other usual ridiculous things I tend to do. 

I am freaking out over warm colors. I found the fabric that is now wonderful pillow cases on a recent thrifting trip. 

Look at all the plants I have crammed in one place! Normally, these fellows would be outside by now, but as I mentioned we are moving in a matter of weeks, so they will have to stay put. Did you know Matt and I are buying a house? Big step in life! We are excited, overwhelmed, perplexed, frightened, and overjoyed. We've been thinking, dreaming and planning for this for a long time and it's really here--yikes! Look for a possible home-renovation blog in the near future!

Continuing on the warm color palette, I whipped out these pillows yesterday. I modified the fabric you saw above by folding and stitching it to create a varied design. The zig-zag is part of a remnant I've been saving for just the right project (read: hoarding and petting it while repeating "my pretty...")

For Mother's Day I tried my hand at the Succulent Cupcakes project featured in my previous post. I'd say the results were pretty damn cool. Everyone loved them. 

Time-consuming? Yes. Completely impressive and too-cute-to-eat? Also yes. 

Cactus & Succulent Prints

I've been hard at work on some new prints for my Etsy shop! I know all my plant-lover friends will adore these.


There are several different designs available, so take your pick. I hope you love them as much as I do!

Let's Head West

I've never really liked these Ikea fabric-wrapped wood frames above our bed. I think when we moved in 3 years ago, we didn't know what to do with them so here's where they ended up, and haven't been given a second thought since.



After doing some thinking about the upcoming winter (dark, cold and long) I imagined a rich bright desert vista out my window.
So I ripped off that bland, pale Ikea bummer, joined the two wooden frames to make one large one, and sewed some colorful fabrics together in an organic nature. I enjoy it very much.

Also in need of a change was the armchair in our bedroom. Before, it was also sporting a black and white pillow number. Keeping with the mod Southwest theme, I made this red and orange chevron pillow and tossed on some faux sheepskin. Winter blues be gone! Now I have happy cozy colors in my bedroom.

New Stuff

Matt and I live in a fantastic apartment designed by a local Madison architect. For the last 2 years, our vast white brick entry way wall has remained empty. Partly due to the fact that we didn't have anything suitable to hang there and that we kind of liked the blank, minimal look where our beloved bench could shine.






This is a linoleum block print I've created


As it turns out, we've aquired several pieces of art we really love (50% of which I've made) and thought they'd do very nicely on said empty wall. And just like that, we have an art gallery! It looks so great, I wish we'd done it sooner.

This emerald gem was purchaced for under $2 at the "dig 'n save" thrift shop. I call it a "yarn painting"

I snatched this pretty little piece of pottery up for $1 a couple weeks ago. A real beauty!

I put this little vignette together on our dining table. Something about it is just so pleasing to my eye.

Speaking of pleasing, we visited Ikea two weeks ago and I came home with two of these fantastic pots (among several other things). It couldn't look more perfect with my favorite cactus.

I have an eye akin to a rat or crow--I often find myself picking up colorful stones, acorns, leaves, twigs and teensy pinecones. They end up in a small wooden dish by the front door.