Thursday, October 28, 2010

More on the master

In anticipation of our new mattress coming (2 more days!!), I have been thinking more about the potential of our master bedroom.

Before, with the seller's furniture:

After playing around with some ideas, here is my current vision for what the bedroom might become:

A breakdown of the items:
West Elm quilt

West Elm sham

West Elm euro sham

West Elm striped sheet set

West Elm throw pillow

West Elm throw pillow

Bassett Chatham poster bed (black)
Bassett Chatham dresser (black)

Bassett Chatham night stands (black)

Crate & Barrel sconces

West Elm owls

Pottery Barn mercury glass candleholders

Urban Outfitters tree
Pottery Barn casual cotton drapes (same as our dining room)
One of my favorite ideas to add more to this room is inspired by Centsational Girl. On the back wall (behind the bed), I would love to do this paint treatment similar to hers.
I'm looking forward to hearing Chad's thoughts, and figuring out when we will be able to accomplish all this. At least I feel like we have a direction! For now, all I need is a free Saturday to drive the 2.5 hours to West Elm and check out the bedding!

Monday, October 25, 2010

The King

We did it. We went out last weekend to look at king-size mattresses, something Chad has wanted to do for a very long time. We would have done this long ago if we had the room, but decided to wait until we had a house. So we went to look, and what happened?

Of course, we found something we both loved, and we purchased it. It's a Simmons BeautyRest. It will be delivered on Saturday, and we can't wait!

Uh oh. We don't have any king bedding. No king sheets! Nothing!!

For now, all we really need are some plain sheets. The queen quilt will do for a while. I don't want to rush on finding bedding.

The bedding will set the tone for the rest of the room. Right now, it is a blank canvas. A big, beige box (with a big beige master bathroom attached). So I suppose the bedding will also set the tone for the bathroom.

Here is our bedroom (with the seller's furniture):
COMING SOON

I posted recently about some bedding ideas. While I love the solid blue Tuck-Stitch quilt from West Elm, there has to be some movement and pattern. And they just so happen to have it pictured on the website along with the Winter Pine bedding set, and I love it.
Chad is a very outdoorsy kind of guy, and most of our home will be decorated with a subtle nature theme (the leaf plates in the dining room, the bird statues in the living room, etc.). And this bedding fits the bill. However, I don't want a duvet. So I'm looking at the solid quilt with some Winter Pine shams.

I still like the idea of the white and gray sheets with black furniture. And we can paint the walls, but we're still stuck with beige carpet (which we're not willing to change).

Part of me wonders if I'm so drawn to this bedding because of the red wall in the photo? I love how it looks together – but I just don't think we can handle red in our bedroom...

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Dining dilemmas

I spotted these plates at West Elm...
...and instantly thought they would look great in our dining room!
We may try hanging them on either side of the mirror, above the chairs that are against the wall. They are only 8.5" in diameter, so I wanted to get a feel for what they might look like.
It could work, but they may be too small on their own. If so, one idea is to frame them in shadow boxes, similar to something Sarah Richardson did on Sarah's House 2.
If that doesn't work, the next plan is to move them to the other side of the room.

The sellers left 4 black floating shelves in the dining room.
Since we have no black in the room, a project is brewing. We are going to paint the shelves Sherwin-Williams Barn Red to blend in with the walls.

Once the shelves are painted, the plan is to add objects in white, silver/pewter, and espresso.
But that is another project for another day. For now, I may just order these plates. At $29 for the set of 4, they will make for great art in the dining room no matter how we use them!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Move to the back

We've had this bushy plant in the backyard that has gotten out of control.
It was a lot bushier before the rain from Tropical Storm Nicole, which caused some of the branches to snap. We love that this plant's flowers attract large butterflies, bumble bees, and hummingbirds. We don't love how it looks next to the patio.

Chad dug it up...
...and moved it to the back of the yard near the trees, where it could look more "wild."
 
 Now the area near the patio looks more open!
We will probably take the picket fence down at some point, because you can't see the flowers and plants when you're sitting on the patio. And we'll probably take out the flowers and do something more consistent along the planting bed that is going to look good year round. Can't wait to landscape in the spring!

In another area, we have beautiful hydrangeas off the patio near the house, which I just LOVE!
 However, the hydrangeas appear to have some sort of disease.
Not sure what this is or what's wrong with it, but we'll figure it out and try to fix it. I will have to acquire a green thumb now that we have a house. I've never been particularly good with plants, but our goal is to have everything outside looking good by next spring!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Cover me

We have no window coverings on our master bedroom windows. Chad just realized this today...after living in our house for over 1 month. I found this amusing.

It was especially noticeable tonight because of the soccer game, and the bright lights that we could see through the trees. We back up to a natural wooded/marshy area, so the lack of window coverings hasn't been a big deal so far. At the very least we'd like to keep the light out from the workout center on the other side of the trees.

I'm thinking blackout curtains. But I don't particularly want to spend money on curtains before we know what we are [eventually] going to do with the bedroom. I just like to have a plan.

The first plan of attack for the room is that we'll eventually buy a king bed. The only question is when. And whenever this happens, a king bed is going to mean new bedding; eventually new furniture; and maybe the current beige walls will get a fresh coat of paint. Until then, I'm not too keen on a premature curtain search. In response to this, my wonderful husband encouraged me to "look" for bedding.

Here are some of my ideas for bedding:

We live in the south and like quilts. No thick comforters or heavy duvets for us. And there are just not as many options out there for quilts. So at the moment, I'm really digging the second option (blue quilt) with the white/gray sheet sets.  

And potential bedroom furniture:
Pottery Barn – Hudson Bed

Bassett – Aspen Grove Arched Panel Bed
Bassett – Chatham Panel Bed
The third bed also comes in black.

As for the curtains, I was given the idea to put sheets up in the interim. That may be what we'll have to do, since it will be a little while before we can conquer the bedroom!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Living room inspiration

These drapes are seriously cool—in an ugly kind of way. The colors are wonderful, and the print includes birds and butterflies!

With our first-floor rooms being red, cider and beige, these patterned drapes pull it all together—and they add some blue into the mix, too! They have now become the perfect inspiration for our living room, which is in serious need of color!

Living room on move-in day (view from kitchen):
A sneak peak at what's in store for the living room:

We'll be super happy once this room starts to come together. Stay tuned for future updates!