[ Sidenote (yes before we even start this post): Do you know where that saying originated? Only from of the best musicals ever My Fair Lady; second only to Les Miserables. And if you haven't seen the preview for Les Mis...coming out on December 25th...then we can no longer be friends.]

Anyways, this post is actually about the fact that I think I have nailed down my sense of design. Yes, this is a true accomplishment. I love every kind of design and am truly able to look at most rooms and find beauty somewhere. But, I have realized, that for our personal space, my true design comfort lies in a cottage-farmhouse-rustic feel. I know, not really narrowing it down too much, but at least they are all somewhat similar. Read: we like texture, used and abused furniture, and a homey feel. 

More the point than anything else, is that I recently did a bit of rearranging in our living room, to help it reflect our taste. There are still a few more things that we will do over a couple of years, but for now, it is just the way I want it. :) 

I was aiming for something a bit cozier and that would allow for more seating when we have our Bible study group over. Plus, I wanted something different. So I just tweaked and tweaked moving things out of the dining room and into the living room. I pulled things from our bedroom and I pulled some stuff off of our sun porch. Basically, nothing was safe. 

I felt this layout, with the addition of the green chair, would work really well. Plus, removing the huge coffee table in the middle of the room, still allowed for things to feel open without losing any function. 

Plus isn't the trunk beautiful? I think it is a great place for some fresh flowers and a cute tray with a couple of accessories. Speaking of accessories, did you notice that the corner shelving unit received a complete overhaul? 

I wanted that corner to also have a cozy-cabin like feel. The lanterns combined with the books, animal themed accents, and muted colors all lend to the feel. I then plopped down an apple basket full of yarn and called her done. The perfect place to curl up with a book or to start a crocheting project. 

Under the TV I placed a bunch of cozy blankets, ready to be snatched for the impending colder weather. From where I sit typing, there are a total of seven blankets in our living room. Can you tell what my favorite thing is? I'm pretty sure I have another five upstairs and at least one or two in our guestroom. 

Yea...my name is Liz and I am a blanket addict. 

In the end, it turned out very nice. It is the perfect setup for a cold winter's eve. And let me tell you, I cannot wait to start decorating for Christmas--I just keep forcing myself to wait until after Thanksgiving at the earliest. I'm trying so hard to contain myself. It's hard man....so hard to do. 

So what do you think? Want a bit of side-by-side action? 

Yea, we have come a loooonnggg way. :)

You Win Some, You Lose Some

It's fall right? 

Finally!!

I decided to get into the fall spirit and do a bit of decorating. We are on a tight budget right now, so I wanted to gussy things up without spending a lot of money. Dollar Tree to the rescue! I always love Dollar Tree as a resource for decorative items on a budget. 

As I was walking around, I spotted these paper doilies  and came up with the idea of putting them all together and creating a runner. For three dollars, a half hour, and some tape I had on hand, I figured I could create a great piece. I was inspired by this runner by Ashley Ann and thought that I may be able to recreate. 

My first attempted involved layering them. I would overlap them and just sort of put them together at random. Whatever I thought would look good. Well, I ended up getting rid of that. It was too...cluttered.

Then I decided to put them together with more space in between them. It turned out better and I put it on our buffet and proceeded to accessorize. 

 I went around the house collecting a bunch of things that I thought would work for a fall-ish feel. I gathered a few accent jars I had on had, a bunch of candles, some fall decorations from last year, a bag of split peas, a bag of popcorn, and some decorative squash that I picked up from a local produce stand.

Then I just started layering them on the buffet and worked with things until I had them the way that I wanted. I also kept in mind that I didn't need to use everything on the buffet because I wanted to put some stuff on our coffee table in the living room too. The result was satisfactory enough. I wasn't sure how I liked the runner that I had made, but I decided to live with it for a day and then decide.

In the basket I crinkled up some paper and then layered the decorative gourds on top. I followed that by putting the two scarecrows, that I had, in the back. A set of Fiesta salt and pepper shakers made the perfect compliment to the pitcher on the other side of the buffet.  Then to top the grouping off I used a mason jar, split peas, popcorn, and a candle to create a fun decorative piece.

On the opposite side, I used a large glass vase I had leftover from our wedding and a small votive, to do the same decorative element I used with the mason jar. I decided to move the pitcher with flowers from its spot in the living room, because the colors worked well with the overall scheme I had going on. I also decided to utilized the 'fall' decoration I had purchased from Christmas Tree Shops on this end as well.

It all came together in the end. The colors from my mom's picture, that hangs above our buffet, and all the colors of the adjoining rooms seem to compliment everything nicely.

Then in the living room I decided to do a small arrangement and I used some more doilies, a wood chicken (left behind from the previous owners of our house), a couple of glass votives, a decorative tray, and a pumpkin I had on hand from last year.

The goal was to do something simple, but fun. I attached the doilies to the bottom of the tray, with tape. Then I layered in the chicken and candles. The pumpkin went on the bottom shelf. I also love how the baskets I have holding our magazines, are made with chicken wire. In the end, there was an overall country theme that I didn't plan for!  :)

This is where I was originally planning on ending the post, but after living with the doilies for a day, I decided that I wasn't a huge fan. So, I removed them from the buffet and this is what it looks like now.

I like it a lot better... I think. Oh! I forgot to mention that I also put our ipod and its speakers back on the buffet. Function is way more important than beauty, around here. 

So, what do you think? Do you like the display better with the doily runner? or without? Honestly, I'm not 100% convinced either way. I'm thinking that I might try to make a new runner with just the sunflowers or the leaves and see if I like that better. Some input would be greatly appreciated :)

Gorgeous Chairs

As per our last post, there are some pictures I need to share with you. Pictures of certain chairs that were an early birthday gift from my parents. But first things first, let me give you the back story.

While we were in Canada we did a bit of shopping. We usually head into Huntsville, made popular by Shania Twain and Tom Thompson, to visit the wonderful little shops that line downtown. I love taking time to walk through all of the antique stores, art stores, and especially love visiting the Nutty Chocolatier--mmm love their frozen yogurt.

This year, we walked into an antique store that I had never been into before. I believe in years past it was a used record store. Still cool, but doesn't quite excite me the way that used, old stuff does. We walked through the doors and right away I spotted a pair of green leather chairs. They weren't just green...they were lime green. They were the perfect scale and were old school, but still sleek enough that they would fit into the decor of our home. I squealed, showed them to Jonathan, and then left empty handed. Yea...they were vetoed. Too expensive and we really had no way of getting them home in our tiny Subaru.

Fast forward a week and we were home. One evening we went out at my grandparents to spend time with them, my parents, and my little brother. At one point my parents asked me to come out to the car to look at something. I of course agreed...completely oblivious. They opened the back door of their SUV and suddenly I saw lime green...THE BEAUTIFUL CHAIRS FROM THE ANTIQUE STORE! I was so surprised and completely caught off guard. I actually didn't even notice them at first because I was too distracted. They said that they went back and grabbed them after Jonathan and I left--they were an early birthday gift.

Well those little sneaks! I was so surprised and excited. And I have to say, they fit perfectly into our home. I have since rearranged a bit and one fits perfectly on the one side of our living room. Here is a before and after for you.

As you can see, in this progress picture, we originally had a rocker on the left side of our living room. I loved the rocker, but with most of our furniture being brown, it didn't really make a statement or anything. Plus, going with the whole first-floor-color-scheme idea, I wanted to pull in more of the lime green-grellow color. Enter amazing chair from parents and a bit of tweaking and I think it looks a whole lot better!

The other one is waiting patiently to be utilized on our future porch. I can't wait to see what it looks like out there! :) 

The Entertaining Rooms

Continuing on with our tour a la $$, I decided to group together the living room and the dining room. They were the rooms that had the least amount of work done to them, before we moved in, meaning there is still a ton we are waiting to do.

Can I get a DUH?!

Sometimes I amaze myself.

My whit is so original.

You thought so too?

Good. At least we agree.

Moving on.

So, in our dining room and living room we decided to paint, rip out the carpet, and call it a day. There was wallpaper all over the walls, but because of the state of the walls (i.e. the wallpaper was holding up the walls) we decided to just paint right over it.

Can I get an 'AMEN!' for not having to rip down wallpaper?

'A' to the double 'men.'

'Heck' to the 'yes.'

Overall these rooms were pretty easy-peasy. First, we shall take a look at the before pictures.

Ok, puke.

Get it out...all out.

I promise you will feel better.

Now that it's out of your system, let's talk about the process a bit. Once Jonathan and I took possession, the carpets were our first priority. We knew that they held a bunch of dirt (they looked like they hadn't been cleaned in ages) and some smells that we weren't too fond of. You know, cigarette smoke and a musty smell, weren't really what we wanted to be greeted by on a daily basis. So out the carpet in the living room went. We waited on the dining room one because it was the only one that was completely tacked down.

Then, the living room and the dining room were basically left alone until the month before we moved into the house.

Finally, at the beginning of April, we decided to start working on them a bit. We primed right over the wall paper, picked out wall colors and then painted, and ripped up the dining room carpet.

Things were looking a whole-heck-of-a-lot lighter and brighter! I still can't get over what a coat of paint can do.

Finally, we were ready to move in. We arranged everything we had into the rooms, I purchased a new rug for the living room, we bought blinds for the windows, a ceiling fan, and we were all set to go! Definitely a transformation.

Now on to the cost of it all. We needed two cans of Aqua Lock Primer, one can of wall color for the dining room and two for the living room, one can of semi gloss white for the trim, and two cans of ceiling white.

Paint: $270.00
Rug: $350.00
Blinds for windows: $ 202.93
Ceiling Fan: 109.95
Total: $ 932.88

Now, that may seem like a lot. But, remember, it is for two rooms. Plus, if you are just moving into a house, you won't necessarily need a rug, ceiling fan, and blinds. Just $270 worth of paint will take you a long way.

Like I said, we definitely got the most bang-for-our-buck in the kitchen, but the living room and dining room are a close second. I'm very happy with how they both turned out. It makes me even more excited for stage 2!!!

What do you think of our living room and dining room? Any questions about why we did what we did? Come on lovely readers of mine, feedback please! :)

When we last left our...

...house, she looked a bit like this:

There was tons of chaos happening on the inside and it was clearly visible from the outside too.  Our sun porch windows alluded to the hoarders-esk nightmare going on inside. It wasn't pretty and it seemed to only get worse once the moving-in process began. I can only imagine what our next door neighbors were thinking. Note-to-self: make sure to empty porch asap ;)

Anyways, we need to go back to where we left off in the updating process. After this post, where I showed our cheap kitchen floor update, I began to paint the living room. It was the last space that needed to be worked on before we moved in. We decided that everything else could wait until after.

So, about a week ago I began to paint the living room. I started with the ceiling and the trim, of course, and then moved on to the walls. Oh the walls. I just couldn't wait to tackle them. After picking  our new rug, I decided to go with a creamy white to compliment and pull out the neutral star bursts. We chose French White in eggshell by Benjamin Moore and after two coats, our living room was starting to look like the rest of the house--homey.

After the first coat, I knew that I had made the right choice. I even sent a quick text to Jonathan, ecstatic about the results!  I couldn't wait to get the rug and furniture into this space. The vision of having a neutral wall color, accented with punches of color (via the room's furniture and decor), seemed to becoming a reality!

I like it even more, now that the furniture is in!

What do you guys think? Have you ever planned a room out, only to have it come together exactly how you wanted it? 


P.S I have also had the opposite happen. ;)