First Major Project a.........SUCCESS!

A view of the mild distressing I did
Good view of the new chair cushion fabric

New view of the kitchen table

Nasty old cushions.....

Old kitchen table

Yay!!!! It turned out great!!! thanks to the inspiration of Richmond Thrifter and the wonderful tutorials on the blogosphere. I love the fresh look and the ability to play with fun fabrics in the kitchen. For ~ $120, I have a new kitchen table!!!!!

A Simple Fix.....Thanks to a great friend!

New Light.....maybe sporting some shades once I get the color scheme figured out
Old nasty piece of trash

There is nothing quite like a fake gold chandelier, is there? Thanks to my husband's bestest friend, I am now sporting the new chandelier that I ordered on sale at Ballard a couple weeks ago. Only "Uncle" C. would agree to take my dog for the night, return said dog at dinner time due to my whining, tired boys and then be up for changing out the lighting since he was in the house anyways:)

Fabric Ideas

Kitchen/Family Room

So here is what I am thinking......my family room and kitchen are virtually all one big room, separated by a half half-wall. The walls are painted a very neutral tan in both and my cabinets and built ins are still a yucky brown, but I hoping to have my nanny's boyfriend paint them soon:) When I do paint them white, I want to do the back of the bookshelves in the sage green that we have in the rug and also in our powder room. I hope that makes a bit of a "pop" but not too much. I have the rug in the family room that has the cranberry, coral, sage-ish green, tan, yellow and a pale orange in it, that although it has a stain on it, it was too expensive to replace. So the colors have to come from that. Then I bought the indoor/outdoor rug for under the kitchen table that is a summer black with a tan geometic design on it.....which, BTW, I LOVE! You can't see the spills and it is so easy to clean! Very durable:)

So, above are the fabrics I have pulled together. Of course, I forget how much each cost already. Starting with the green print (ufab, around $10 I think), I thought that would be nice for a throw pillow to help pull in the green from the rug and the back of the bookshelves. The ticking stripe is a thin cotton fabric in a nice coral, but I am not sure if I will use it or not (found at Williams & Sherrill around $15). The other two coral geometic fabrics I love!!! and they are both reversible. They are pretty heavy material and I was thinking of using them to recover my kitchen chair seat cushions??? (found at Williams & Sherrill and maybe $20-$25, I wish I could remember). Do you think this would look okay with the geometric rug? Should I do the coral side or the off-white side?

The tan with coral dots fabric is being used to make two panels as we speak for the family room (ufab, $20 per yard?). I have seen one so far and my mom is a genius! I think they will look great, but hopefully not too much tan on the tan walls. Hoping to make a throw pillow or two with the leftover material. The coral coral fabric I love as well (from ufab, can't remember the price), and I was thinking of doing a valence in this for the kitchen? Would that do okay with the geometric rug and chair cushions? The colors match great:) I was then going to do a throw pillow to pull it together, and maybe use the coral coral fabric as the tie-backs on the drapes?

The only other thing in the pic is the paint chip of the sage green paint.

Bedroom

I want to redo our bedroom in a bad way, but want to do it cheaply. Shown above is a left-over duvet cover that we registered for, but have never used. This is serious Pottery Barn wastage....and I think I should put it to good use! It also happens to be the exact same shade of blue as our wall color in there, that is very soothing and so recently painted, that my husband would kill me if I changed it. So......I want to build around this, but not have too much blue, blue, blue in there. And, with two boys and some insecurity about whether or not there will be a Baby #3 for us, I am craving some pink. The geometric fabric in the center (ufab, price unknown) is great and bright and has some texture to it. Maybe curtains? or just a throw pillow? I have a feeling my husband won't like that one unfortunately. The striped fabric is a Waverly fabric (available at ufab or Williams & Sherill outlet for only $11 or so a yard I believe!) that my mom thinks would make great curtains since it has a little bit of a seersucker texture, but I don't want too much blue on blue.....Then, the floral fabric is so neat and bright and so non-boy, I am thinking either curtains or large shams for the bed? We have two regular windows on either side of our bed, but then a large double palladian window in the front of the room that I do not know what to do about curtain wise. Love the decorative windows on the outside of a house, not such a fan of them on the inside.

Dining Room

Our dining room is currently painted cranberry on the bottom, tan on the top......it doesn't work with the attached living room, so I am thinking of doing a soft blue on the bottom and doing a stripe with the paint....Here are just a few fabrics that I saw at ufab that were really cheap and nice texture to either make curtains or just recover the chairs. We have a really formal dining room set that we bought while I was pregnant, and now I think it is just too fancy for our style, but alas....We have eaten in there once:)

A Before and After......My Dad puts in pendants!

Before
After

While our over-the-island fixture wasn't hideous or trap bugs (like our previous house's fixture did quite well), we still wanted to do a little update. We found some cheap Hampton Bay antique bronze mini pendants at Home Depot that we liked, and that went well with the light that we semi-like over our kitchen table, and my dad was nice enough to come over one afternoon and put them in while babysitting my two boys so my mom and I could hit up some fabric stores. Is he great, or what? I like how they hang down low (thankfully, since the height on them is nonadjustable)....it lends a nice soft, romantic lighting to the room. Unlike my husband, I HATE bright lights, especially overhead bright lights, and since I am the one who spends most of my time standing in the kitchen, I got to pick:)

Help! Can Richmond Thrifter and My Sleeping Beauty pull together my new house?

kitchen windows crying out for curtains or a valence....what style? fabric?
family room windows

family room rug, too expensive to replace so these are where my colors are coming from....thinking of pulling in the sage green, cranberry and coral.....thoughts?

bookcase close up-need to hide these cords!

the other side of the bookcases

So here are some shots of my family room. I also have some leather chairs and a ratty tan sofa that is too hideous to take a pic of right now. I have ordered a slipcover from PB that hopefully will work well in cream, and then want to make pillows and curtains to add some fabric to this joint.

I am seriously dysfunctional when it comes to making these bookshelves look put-together. Any thoughts on where to get some cute things? For cheap?

I am hoping to get our cabinets painted and bookshelves painted white. I am thinking of doing the back of the bookshelves a sage green.....Thank you Richmond Thrifter for the inspiration with your kitchen project!

What sort of fabrics and curtain styles would you suggest? My mom can sew and has now moved to Williamsburg, so I have a helper on hand!

Help! These bookcases and cabinets are craving white paint!

One Problem Solved

The picture above is a little hard to see, but maybe you can see how my hardwood floors have already been worn out by one little boy at the kitchen table. With three boys in the house counting my husband, I felt like I needed to save them.

The solution......an indoor/outdoor rug from Overstock.com. For only $183, I got this 8x10' rug. They say that you can hose it down, it is so durable! This should be perfect for all those spills:) I loved the graphic print and chose black and an off white as a basic color to play on. I hope to have the cabinets painted in the kitchen and to refinish my table myself. Then, it is on to picking fun fabric for some curtains and to recover the kitchen chairs. We will see how it goes!

Kitchen Table Redo

Here are some pics of my nasty, beat up kitchen table. The chairs are falling apart, but since the kids are so young, I am not ready to invest in anything new. Or actually, I am ready to invest in something else but my husband thinks that would be stupid. So......any tips on how to DIY paint it white and distress it? Could someone who can't do anything do this? And maybe be so crafty as to cover the chairs with some fun fabric?