Guest Bathroom Storage

I've been searching for storage for my guest bathroom and I finally found it on Joss and Main.

 Here's a close up pic.  The color in this picture makes it look like it's green, but it's almost tealish looking.  I will eventually change the color once I pick out the new bathroom wall color.  

Master Bedroom Is Finally Coming Together...

Well, it's taken several years, but the master bedroom is finally coming together and feels like an adult room.  I have all the essential areas that I need.  Sleeping area, reading area, get ready in the morning area, plenty of room to try on clothes (besides the walk-in closet) area.  So here is your first official glance at my master bedroom.  There were a few posts done about this room, but I only showed you the window seat and the bed.  Now, I'm ready to show the whole entire room.

This is the 1st view into the room from the doorway.  I should have smoothed out the duvet first.

You can see my reading area next to the bed and window seat.  I have a couple shelves that I want to hang above the chair next to the window seat.

This is my get ready area.  Needs some work, pictures on the wall and an organization center for all my hair and makeup accessories :)

This is a better pic of the room from the door way.  I have ordered a mirror to hang over the bed and yes it's from Joss and Main.  DUH

Please excuse the clutter on the right side of the dresser, this is now gone.  I'm thinking about hanging that pic that's leaning on the tall dress to give that wall some more character.

Here is a closer look of the taller dress.  I'm not planning on keeping those boxes on the floor, but they fit at the time.

I'm going to use this to display my jewelry and all of my mom's jewelry.  This is a hallway that leads to the walk-in closet and master bathroom.

Finally Knocking Stuff Off Of My To Do List

It was a busy and productive weekend at the condo (finally!!!) Although, I had to make a decision not to go on an annual weekend get away to Traverse City with Stephanie and Chris...

This was taken at the 2013 Shamrock and Shenanigans 5k at Connor O'Neill's in Ann Arbor, MI

It was a tough decision :( , but I got so much done and knocked off my to do list - which FYI - seems to grow by the day.  It's given me the itch to continue doing more projects, so I'm ok with my decision.

Now where to begin, where to begin....

As most of you know I am a Joss & Main www.jossandmain.com junky.  I mean next to Pinterest www.pintrest.com, Young House Love www.younghouselove.com and Thrifty Decor Chick www.thirftydecorchick.com and many other inspirational sites, I just can't seem to stay away.  I am constantly debating on purchasing items and when I'm not debating on purchasing items, I'm rushing home to get the recent package that was just delivered.  It's become my dirty little secret that I'm learning to share with people (it's part of my 12 step process).  I'm seriously thinking about starting up a Joss and Main support group for people like me and I know there are tons and tons of us out there.  For those of you that don't know about Joss & Main, you need to learn quickly.  They remind me of an Overstock.com type place.  Their prices are amazing and can also be extremely expensive.  They have all these different categories of styles.  There is bound to be something to fit everyone's style.

So the first thing I decided to do was to put together the two new pieces of furniture that I purchased from Joss & Main, so that I get them setup and decorated at my condo.  Here are pictures of what I purchased...

Hamilton Nightstand. This is similar to my Pier 1 night stand but not exactly.  I like that they match but are different at the same time.

Terrace Storage Shelf 1

(I will post about the each of these products and where they ended up in the new couple of posts)

After putting together the two pieces, I then (with the help of my wonderful father) finally hung my Ikea wall sconces that I purchased almost 3 years ago.  Ikea no longer makes this product and didn't take a picture of it in the box or before I mounted either one of them to the wall, so here is the best I could do to show you what it looks like without revealing the rest of the room...

Ikea Wall Sconce

I also decided that I wanted to hang a shower curtain in the master bath to give it some color and hide the shower itself.  I have a walk-in, 1 person shower with doors and it's just not pretty to look at.  Eventually I'd love to replace it with a walk-in steamer tiled shower.  Enough day dreaming, so I went on the hunt a while back and found exactly what I was looking for.  Now when I say I was looking for something colorful, I mean colorful.  I purchased this Kate Spade Shower curtain online from Bed, Bath and Beyond....

I love me some Kate Spade!!!!

After I had everything setup and ready to go I began to tackle the master bedroom.  I needed to move furniture, setup the new bedside table, hang the wall sconces above each of the bedside tables, lay out a pattern of how I want to hang my collection of Paris photos and then of course I had to accessorize with what I have purchased or collected along the way.  After I completed most of the master bedroom, I moved onto the spare bedroom/office.  I've been calling it the spare bedroom/office for 3 years, the only problem with that, is that I didn't have bed for the "bedroom" portion of the room.  Since I purchased my new bed, I was able to move my old bed into the spare bedroom.  I did a little rearranging in the spare bedroom and moved the base, box springs and mattress into the room.  Never mind the fact that it's leaning up against the wall, but at least it's out of the hallway. 

I'm sure I'm forgetting something that I did this weekend, but for now I'm pretty impressed with myself and the progress that I made.  I can't wait to show you everything, so stay tuned because I will be posting about each project very soon.

Painting Stairway Entrance Wall - Finally Part II

Back in March I wrote about making a decision to paint the stairway entrance wall in Painting Stairway Entrance Wall - Finally.  I went onto Behr's website (http://www.behr.com) and purchased 10 different paint samples, in the hopes that I would find the right color in one of these samples.

Behr does a great job in shipping so many samples

I began by sitting on the floor at the top of the stairs (also in the middle of the room) and opened up each sample.

I made a "NO" pile, a "YES" pile and a "MAYBE" pile and narrowed my decision down from that point.  After looking at the "YES" pile, I decided it was time to paint a swatch of the four samples on the wall and see which one I liked the best.  I've been living with these swatches for about 2 weeks now and I'm still not sure.  What do you think?  If anything I think I'm leaning towards the top left corner color...

I will keep you posted as to which color I choose or if it's back to the drawing room to start all over.  I swear with all of the samples that I've purchased from Behr (via their website or from HomeDepot) I could open up a sample store right out of my house.  I should go onto Pinterest and see what other people have done with their left over paint samples and make some art work or something to hang in the soon to be painted accent wall.

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.

 

Bedroom Window Blinds

When I moved in all of the windows had existing window treatments (one less thing to worry about until I was settled in and could spend time deciding what I wanted). So I slowly worked my way around the living room and dining room by installing new faux window blinds, instead of the standard tiny plastic blinds and come with every house. My master bedroom didn't come with these blinds, it came with the original home owners khaki and white checked curtains. Now don't get me wrong I was grateful that something was here so that my neighbors couldn't see in my bedroom. O that reminds me I should tell you all that I am living in an episode of Friends... I live across from the "Fat Naked Guy" expect my neighbor isn't fat.

So last weekend it was time for me to update the out dated, not to mention since I've painted my bedroom a very light gray it was driving me nuts!!!! Here look for yourself....

Wouldn't this drive you nuts as well? You can see a corner of my new bedding (also from West Elm) it's the same color gray as my walls and an off white. So needless to say white and khaki curtains just didn't look good together.

So back to Home Depot I went and had the faux wood white blinds cut to cover my two bedroom windows. As soon as I installed the blinds, I took a step back and I felt like I could actually be comfortable in my own bedroom!!!!!

Now the next step in my bedroom is a DIY Headboard, so I need to pick a fabric that has gray, white (maybe black) and a splash of color. The fabric will cover the headboard and will also be used for tie back curtains. Don't you think tie backs will look good there? I've also got two light sconces that I purchased from Ikea before the holidays that I can't wait to put up on each side of the bed next to the DIY head board. Of course I will update you on those projects as I'm working through them and when they are completed.

Dining Room Updates

Ok, so I've been telling you all about the updates that I've been making to my condo so I'll start with dining room and then I'll work my way through the rest of the place as I go. For now here's the new dining room table (Overstock.com) and the chairs (Ikea). I had been searching and searching for the perfect "drum" chandelier and finally just a few months ago found this one from West Elm!!! I love it, it's the perfect fit for the room and for my style :)

Moving on Up to the East Side!!!!! No more Card Table and Folding Chairs :)

That's right I said it "NO MORE CARD TABLE AND FOLDING CHAIRS"

Insert a photo of my borrowed card table and folding chairs from my parents. O wait.... that's right I was too embarrassed to take a picture of my dining room that I never spent time for the first 3 months of moving in. I hated to open my curtains during the day because I wondered if anyone could see in and see the card table. O well such is life.

So you have seen the post below that showed the actual table that I purchased from Overstock.com. Well I actually purchase one but ended up with two. The first one arrived damaged, seriously damaged, so I contacted Overstock.com and basically they told me to keep, sell or donate the damaged table (I of course asked for this in writing). So needless to say my parents now have the damaged table downstairs in their basement. Yes that's right we have matching tables and spare bedrooms. Ok our spare bedrooms arent's matching but the color is. When I painted my spared bedroom we weren't sure how much paint we would need, as this was the first room I painted with the Behr primer paint so dad picked up 2 gallons. So my mom asked if I would mind if they painted my old bedroom the same color. I so did not mind and was glad to give them the extra can of paint.

Back to the table, I didn't like the chairs that came with the table so I decided that I would purchase the chairs after I saw the table and decided exactly what I wanted. Below is a pic of the table in it's everyday size and also a pic of the table fully extended (54" x 54").

Living Room Wall Changes

I know, I know it's been forever since my last post but all of you know why and I think you understand. I'm glad to report that everyone one in my family seems to be doing better!!!!

So since it's been so long it has taken me a while to figure out what to start posting so I'm just going to go room to room and post different updates of the things I've done. That includes posting Christmas pics.

So ever since I bought my condo I've always been really intrigued by wall decals, so I bought a set and decided that I would hang it up in my living room. Let me first tell you that it was an easy but time consuming project. I used the corned edge of my driver's licence so transfer the decal off of the plastic paper and onto the wall. See below....

It looks like it's 4 large pieces and 4 small pieces, WRONG. If you take a closer look you will see that the 4 large pieces are really about 30 small pieces. I really, really liked the decal at the beginning but after a while realized this was not the right decal or the right location for a decal. Well that and the fact that a few a the pieces starting coming off. So I just pushed the pieces back down. Suggestions don't use the decal on an outside wall. Between the winter cold on the outside and the heat on the side, I believe that was the cause of the unraveling. I will for sure do another decal, in fact I think I've already got the next one picked out, but you will have to wait and see.

So one day I was out shopping at Bed, Bath and Beyond (one of my favorite places) and I came across this picture frame set that I thought would be a good replacement for the wall decal. O and by the way they say that the wall decal are reusable, um so not the case in my situation. Every single piece that I put up tore into many more little pieces instead of pealing right off.

Here's an up close picture of the new wall hanging in my living room. It's 8 separate pieces that took me a while to hang in an almost perfect rectangle. I'm still working on putting pictures in each of the frames but I've gotten a few of the pics filed. The top center has pictures of some of my cousins kids and my old roommates Jamie & Jamie and their first daughter Madison.

Well finally after 4 months, I decided on a table for my dining room. No more card table and chairs. Yes I said it I'm 33 and my dining room table is a card table complete with folding chairs!!! No judgement thank you :)

I've always liked the higher tables (counter height) but I just couldn't decided on what I really wanted. The only thing I knew that I wanted was a table that had a removable leaf so if I had more than 4 people over I could accommodate everyone. I also didn't want a huge table that would take over my entire dining area either. So today I received an email from Overstock.com regarding a sale on dining room furniture. Dare I say it was a sign!!! I looked through the sale and found the table on the and it was exactly what I wanted and needed!! So I purchased it.

Right now I have 2 bar stools placed at my kitchen bar (see picture to the left)... so these will serve as the extra seating and I don't need to store them when they aren't being used. Bonus

I didn't order the chairs that are pictured with the table, I just didn't like them. So I'm going to hold off on them until I find the right bar stools. I'd like to find chairs with some sort of fabric and I know I wont have a problem finding something that I like. If I don't find the right fabric it's an easy fix... it's called new fabric and my mother!!! The Queen of Reupholstering !!! I'm so excited and can't wait for the final product!!! Stay tuned

Art Work on a Budget

I know it's been a while since my last post, there's been a lot of things going on but I'm back :)

After painting the living room I realized the walls were extremely bare and needed some framed art work. Not sure exactly what I wanted I headed for the information highway aka the Internet for some inspiration. With ideas in mind I headed to Michael's to find scarp book paper and frames. Listen... after purchasing a condo and a brand new hot water heater I was not in a financial place to go to an art gallery (not really sure if I had the money that I would go to an art gallery) Anyways.... I knew that I wouldn't really know what I wanted until I saw it. So while in Michael's I hit the Martha Stewart Collect and find this great little book of 5X7 scarp book paper Perfect. Then I hit the frame section and found these long black frames with spots for three 5X7 pics. SOLD for under $40!!! Top that fancy art galleries!!

So home I went with my purchases ready to create and hang my cheap but pretty sweet artwork.

Here's one of the two frames and the Martha Stewart Scrapbook paper. Michael's always has sales on their frames so over course I got the frames even cheaper. The original price was around $30 and I had a 40% off coupon.

Here is the final project picture... looks pretty good if I do say so. What do you think?