New Bed Finally Arrives!!! Sleep Number is Da Bomb

It's sad to look back at your life and think about the things that used to make us happy, compared to what makes us happy now.  My new happiness came in a big yellow truck, with two delivery men!!!  Don't get excited the delivery men didn't stay, but the package did.  The package was/is my new Sleep Number Bed.

I've been wanting to get a new bed since I moved into the condo 3 years ago.  Side note...Wow time goes by so quickly, I can't believe that it's been 3 years now....  Needless to say it's been a while that I've been wanting a new bigger and more comfortable bed.  So after a long process, I finally decided on a Sleep Number bed.  Let me tell you, I LOVE IT!!!!  I should have purchased this bed a long time ago.  It's amazing how the difference in pressure (soft or hard depending on how you like to sleep) can make such a difference.  After my back surgery a few years ago, I have a hard time getting comfortable and sleeping through the night.  This bed takes all that away.  I never want to get out of bed.  You probably saw my previous post where I purchased a new bed frame from Joss & Main in this post... I'm Back!!!!!!!!!!.

Between the new bed frame and the new bed, I'm slowly starting to fall back in love my master bedroom.  Don't get me wrong, I still have work to do in the master bedroom, but it's come along way from when I first moved in (oops, I still don't have before pics posted of the masted bed/bath room).

Here's the wonderful new mattress and bed frame.

You can see the remote that adjusts each side of the bed, just above the Sleep Number Book

Painting Stairway Entrance Wall - Finally

Everyone has those projects that they hold off on doing and my stairway entrance wall is one of of those projects.  My condo is located on the "2nd floor" no one lives below me, my condo is above a bunch of garages.  In order to get into my condo you have to walk up two flights (but not full flights of stairs).  The first set of stairs has 9 or 10 steps and the 2nd half has the same amount.  In between the two sets of stairs is a landing and walls that lead up to the vaulted ceiling.  Here's a view of the wall that I'm looking to paint:

This is a view looking down from the top of the stairs down to the landing and the wall that I'm looking to paint (the big white wall).  The picture doesn't really show it but, this is a two story wall.  Let me see if I can dig up a better picture....

You can see the wall in this pic.  Yes there are 2 white walls, but the wall on the left that is half painted and the other half is white, is not something I can paint myself.  I don't have a ladder that can accommodate stairs nor one that can accommodate stairs and a 2 story wall at the same time.  I want to paint the wall on the right hand side. It's the wall that's behind the horrible ceiling light, this is also on my list of things to replace!!  So if anyone wants it, it's yours.  Anyways you can see that this is a very tall wall.  You can also see from the two above pics that khaki, tan or whatever you want to call it color, is the color of my stairway entrance and the same color up stairs in my living room.  I should look up the color and let you know the exact name.  What I can tell you is that it it's the Behr primer and paint in one Premium Plus Ultra line.  The best invention ever!!!  The other main color is blue, but in shades that range from light blue to medium blue with a few pops of cobalt blue.  What I'd like to do is paint that wall an accent color of one of the various blues that I have in my living room.  I think that will add a little bit more character to the my open space living area.

The problem was I couldn't decide which color I wanted to paint.  One thing I love is that most of the major paint companies is that you can order or buy samples of their paint in the major home improvement stores.  So I just purchased 10 - 8oz sample colors of various shades of blue of the Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint.  So as soon I receive the color samples I'll paint a bunch of different swatches on the wall and figure out what color is the best one to paint the entire wall, then I'm off to Home Depot to purchase a gallon of paint.  I've been thinking about possibly using the same color and paint the kitchen the same color.  I'll keep you posted as to the color and what I decided to do with the kitchen.  Too much khaki and tan in one place isn't doing it for me anymore.  Till my next post...

I'm Back!!!!!!!!!

It's been a long time since my last post, but I think I'm finally ready to get back into updating my blog and to get started on my long list of things that I want to do to my condo.

Most of you will know, but some of you won't, I lost my mother to cancer on June 20, 2012.  Before she passed, my dad and I spent as much time as possible with my mom taking care of her and just cherishing the time that we had left with each other before she passed away.  It's almost been a year and I'm starting to feel like it's time to get back to things that I'm passionate about.  I know this would make my mom so happy to know that I'm back working on my blog and that I'm going to starting working on projects and decorating my condo again.

Since it's been a while since I've worked on my condo, I'm feeling a little A.D.D. about the whole thing.  There are so many great ideas and thoughts running through my head that I don't know where to begin.  Let me tell you... with all of the my idea folders that I've created from the many magazines that I collect, the digital folder full pictures that I've saved from the internet and my Pinterest account (pinterest.com/msweeza/) I don't know where to begin.

After some internal deliberations I decided that I should start with purchasing a new bed.  My current bed situation is sad, just a plain old bed frame with box springs and a mattress.  I originally intended on creating my own headboard with fabric and a ton of batting.  The problem was, I just couldn't find the right fabric with the right pattern or the right shade of gray.  So I decided to put that idea on the back burner.  Then one day after work I was looking through the latest sales on Joss & Main (www.jossandmain.com) and I came across the Limoges bed in the perfect shade of gray and decided that I had to have it.

Here it is....

 The next step is to order box springs and a mattress that actually fit this bed.  As much as I love(d) the West Elm duvet cover and pillow shams, I'm pretty much over this set and I'm ready for something else.    So continue to come back and check out my blog, I promise that I will have more post very, very, very soon.  In fact wait till you see the decorating that I've done in the living room.  If you look at my Home Tour page, the rooms are pretty bare and lack decorations.  I've been working on that and have so much to share with you.

Coffee Filter Decor

Ok, so I'm sure you are reading the title of this post and wondering what in world I'm talking about.  Believe me when I first read about coffee filter decor my initial reaction was "no chance in hell I would decorate with coffee filters".  I mean come on, coffee filters are meant to filter my coffee not be hung up in my house.  Well I thought that until I saw the many different things that you can do with the filters.  I was most inspired by Emily at Jones Design Company.  She's one of the many blogs that I follow on a weekly (and sometimes daily) basis.  Feel free to check out her tutorial/finally product and the rest of her wonderful blog at http://www.jonesdesigncompany.com/.  Search for "coffee filter foof". 

After falling in love with the project, I looked around the house to see what I had that I could cover in filters.  I found a round 4" styrofoam ball and decided that I would cover it with white filters instead of the brown filters.  So I pulled out the filters, my hot glue gun and the ball and got to work. 

This is a fun and easy project that you can work on while watching tv or chatting on the phone with your friends.  Once I was finished I cut some string and hung it up in the corner of my dining room...

Bedroom Furniture Makeover

For months I've been wanting to tackle my bedroom furniture.  A few years back my parents purchased the bedroom set that I wanted from Pier 1.  I love the furniture, but not so much the color, or shall I say lack there of color.  The furniture was/is pine and it had a light finish on it.  Here see for yourself...

I love the style but it needed some serious help.  Plus with gray walls and my gray and white bedding, the pine color stuck out like a sore thumb.  I knew that I wanted to go with a white color, I just couldn't decide on the shade of white.  Originally I wanted to go with an antique white but against the bedding the antique white looked more like a yellow-white instead of what I was looking for.  Then I decided that I would go with a gray white.  So after many many many trips to the Behr website and many trips to Home Depot, I finally found the perfect color and it's almost the exact color of the white in my bedding.  Love it.

As you know I am in love with Behr's Ultra Primer & Paint in one!!!!  I don't think I will every use anything else.  Plus with the advice of the many blogs that I follow, everyone suggested that when painting wood, that Behr Ultra paint has the best results.  By trail and error many of these blogs have found that after 6 months they have had to repaint their pieces, because the paint that they used started to bubble and peel.

Here we go the first finished piece "The Night Stand"

Stencil Wall Complete!!!!

It's finally finished.  After many nights of stenciling, cleaning and drying I was able to finish my stencil wall.

What do you think..... 

So Many Stencils So Little Time

Every time I go through all of my favorite design blogs I always have "Stencil Envy".  When I originally bought my condo I thought I would put vinyl lettering or vinyl decal's up everywhere.  Then I came to my senses and realized that you can't have vinyl decals and lettering everywhere, plus for what I wanted to do it would have been really expensive and really tacky.  After spending hours on the Internet viewing tons of different vinyl companies I came across this wonderful company called "Royal Design Studio" http://www.royaldesignstudio.com/  (I highly recommend that you check it out sometime).  Tell them I sent you, not that it will help you but you never know :)  Maybe I"ll get a free stencil out of it, hey you've got to work the angles when you can.

Now I realized that my switching from vinyl decals to stenciling, that meant many long days and nights of tedious painting work but for the out come I knew that I would get I felt it was all worth it.  So far I find this to be true.  I'm not finished with the particular wall that I'm working on, but every time I stencil another section of the wall I love what I see.  Not to mention that stenciling really isn't hard work.  You just have to have the patience for it.  You have to wait for one section to dry before you can add to that particular area.  Of course you have to clean off the stencil in between each use.  This can be the a pain in arse but it's well worth it!!!

Anyways...I originally was trying to find this particular trellis pattern stencil (FYI there are about 1 million trellis patterns out there to choose from so be prepared when you begin your search).  After days and days of searching I came across this wonderful "Ribbon Pattern" and purchased it immediately. 

This is the stencil that I choose.  It's called "Ribbon Lattice Allover" and I love it.  I'm currently stenciling the wall outside of my spare bathroom.  I would like to eventually use the same design in my dining room stenciling half way up the wall and then adding a chair rail at the top to of the stencil to finish it off (be on the look out for that project). 

In the mean time here are a few pictures of what I've done so far.