the big reveal...

come on into my home,
make yourself comfy
i'll get you a big bowl of cookie dough ice cream...
or i have some skinny cow ice cream sandwiches if you're watching your weight...
or, i have oodles of easter candy, if you're lactose intolerant.
we can talk while the kids fight over an etch a sketch


i've been re-doing my front room for a while now, & i'd love to show you, now that it's done.
it's a small space. only about 10 feet wide and 12 feet deep.

the motivation for the makeover was this here brown couch.
it might look ok, but it turns into the devil when you want to sit or lay on it.
it wasn't terribly uncommon for a cheek to fall asleep while sitting on it because it has bars under it that hit you in all the wrong places.
it's super uncomfy. and brown.
quite frankly, it was boring in there.

i had to find the perfect couch that would fit the room and fit our budget.
we were searching for a grey leather couch with a vintage modern vibe.
it had to be leather, because of it's proximity to the kitchen (and inevitable spills)
and it had to be 35" deep or narrower
it had to be comfortable
and hopefully under $1000.
(which is a hard price point when looking for super adorable grey leather couches)

our search ended when we found this pretty leather number.

I added some random, pretty grey and turquoise stripes to the wall.
I had all these paint colors on hand and didn't have to go buy any, which was nice.
I'm loving the stripes.

1. We found the leather sofa at Macys.com 
it's the Claudia sofa in Taupe
we had to wait about 3 weeks for the sample to come in the mail.
we were worried the taupe would be too brown.
but, when the sample came it was a nice warm grey so we went for it.
and, since we have a history of getting credit cards and never activating them, 
we decided to go ahead and get the macys card to save an extra $100
it ended up being $899 plus tax and shipping (around $1000)
(which is waaaaay better price-wise than the other sofas I had looked at)
2.  Pillow from Moxie Mandie more info HERE
3. IKEA
4. Pillows from Mindy Mae's Market (they sell all sorts of awesome stuff at discounted prices online...follow them on facebook & you won't regret it!)
5. Oh, how I love these paintings! Jeremy (my husband who is an artist) painted these of each of our kiddos :)  They make me happy!  To see more of his work click HERE

I kept the same Danish Modern side chair because the chair wasn't too terribly uncomfortable, and i happen to LOVE danish modern furniture.

I just added some bright reddish orange-ish color fabric and more pillows from ikea and some chevron from MMM. (since re-upholstering this, i've noticed this color ALLOVER the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Price  (& if you don't know what SCDP is, i feel so sad for you.))

Dont' look too closely at my reupholster job...it was my first crack at sewing upholstery with piping...yeah, it's perfectly imperfect, just the way i like it ;)

Then, I wanted to add a little extra seating for when we have company.
With only the sofa and side chair, there just wasn't enough.
So, I went on the search for a table/bench that could be used as a coffee table OR a small bench for the kids to sit on.  I found the perfect one at IKEA

IKEA Molger bench in brown

it's decorated with another snazzy pillow from IKEA..(did I mention that I found those pillows for $2.99 each?? crayzay! that may be why there are 3 in this small space) and here's the third beautiful copper item that i was talkin about the other day...and some adorable vintage childrens books and some coasters.

The armoir also got a makeover, making it a lovely shade of yellow.
open it up, and it's (surprise, surprise) turquoise :)

some things we kept the same:
the turquoise table with our copper antiquities (no way i was getting rid of that!)

our collection of ebony elephants that we've been collecting each year on our anniversary, our lamp we bought when we were first married, our vase from downeast

 and some cool Aesop's fables illustrations from Jeremy's dad

and, in an effort to keep it real, i'll show you what it will really look like when you stop by:

so, come on over.  we can watch an episode of the new girl, or what not to wear (as seen here), or once upon a time ( i have them all recorded on our dvr :)  or, maybe we could watch madmen...or just gossip about WTFreakityFreak is going on with Don Draper...hope to see you soon!

How to Turn an Old Door into a Headboard

saw this in martha stewart magazine forever ago

and made a mental note: i want to make one of those!  so....8 yrs later...
we followed these directions for making the headboard


my husband did 99% of the work! and it was hard!
we started with this:

the door was found at an antique store in slc....we actually bought about a dozen doors from them and refinished most of them to use in our house...ya know, like doors (not headboards:) but, we had some extras lying around.
they had about a hundred years worth of lead paint layered on them so hubs lovingly stripped the door..this is the only time in our marriage i let him play with stripper (s) haha

i helped with the sanding a lil bit :) hubs was worried about inhaling lead paint so i was obligated to wear this mask {and yeah, my hair usually does look that fabulous :p }

Then came the fun part!! painting it!
I was inspired by my friend Leonora's photographs: check em out, check em out {uh, yeah, those are lyrics to a song....nobody probably know what i'm talking about ;) }

photos courtesy of: yellowheartart.blogspot.com

Aren't the buoys awesome??? so, i wanted to replicate this look for my headboard...and several times in the process of re-creating this i thought "am i insane?!" but I think it turned out awesome!

details

if you care to know how to do this here are the steps:  (and, yeah, it took me a few tries to get it right)
1.  beat the heck out of the door.  i used a hammer and a screw...lay the screw down and hit it with a hammer on the twisty part, it makes a cool design :)
2.  cover that bad boy with all sorts of funky paint colors {trust me, i did some not so funky colors the first time and it's not so great}
3.  cover those funky colors with wax ...i used my husbands snowboard wax cause that's what i had on hand.  a candle might possibly work..any kind of hard wax would probably do {trust me, you want to put a lot of wax on this bad boy.  i did just a little bit of wax the first time and it wasn't so great}
4.  paint the top-coat. i used a fabulous turquoise :)
5. while the paint is still wet-ish start scraping it off.  this works best when the paint is super-sticky still- but not too wet...but not too dry.  uh-huh, you get the point right? {if you wait too long, the paint won't come off}
6.  i coated mine with a high-gloss clear spray paint because i thought it'd look super awesome high gloss (and it does)

wherever the wax was, the paint will easily rub off.  i just used the clean end of a stir stick i had sitting around....or use the dirty end, i don't care :)

so, it's pretty easy, (the painting part atleast) if you have me as your guide {which i didn't...that's why it took me a few times}

still working on completing the look w/more pillows

jade is the new black

My mom called me up saturday morning and asked me if i wanted to go with her to get a pedicure....i've never actually had a "real" pedicure before...just the beauty school version.  so, this was a fun first.
first to pick a color:

Umm, yeah there were a few to choose from.

I felt like i stepped right into the nail place from King of Queens {anyone know what I'm sayin?} they were all asian and they liked to speak to eachother in their native tongue...

they had really nice massage chairs with attached foot baths.  This is my mom :)

and here are my feet, tan lines and all.  this nail guy kept making jokes but we only understood about half of what he said.  I did hear "this a sexy color" hahaha

the finished product.
my color of choice: "jade is the new black" sort of a chalkboard green with "catch me in your net" a sparkly teal on top...a very mermaid-ish color ;)
ma's color of choice: this purple that goes by the name of "polish" woah, creative name :)

fun times :)