Curtains for closet doors

I am still working on the general plan for the two little girl's rooms and went back to HomeGoods to pick up a few more options (you know, just in case). I cannot tell you how many comments I got from other shoppers while wheeling around these new treasures in my cart - this stuff is so cute!  I'm in love with these quilts and they are only $30 each.

The closet doors in one of the little girl's rooms are large and very heavy mirror doors. On one of the doors the mirror is broken near the bottom which is not good but the bigger problem for me honestly is the fact that they are so heavy the little girl cannot open and close them.

Apartment Therapy

One of the things I have been hired to do, besides making these girl's rooms look cute, is to make them more organized. I have said this before, but being organized is not necessarily about being neat (although I do think part of what these girl's mom wants is to have less clutter showing); being organized is really about function. And if you cannot get your closet door open easily you are probably not going to be putting your things away, right?

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Because the budget is tight on this project I thought it would be fun to take the doors off completely and hang curtains instead. It will bring in some color and pattern and softness to a room that is very heavy on furniture and has very little wall space. And most importantly it will give the owner of this room, an adorable 8 year old, the ability to access her closet easily.

Apartment Therapy

I was excited to hear from the little girl's mom, that her daughter was really excited about the curtains. My hope is to make the closet neat and tidy and easy for her to keep it that way.

Real Simple

What about you? Would you ever take off your closet doors and replace them with curtains?

Remember who you are

It is so easy to get hung up on past hurts or failures or even successes and let those things define who we are. We allow what other people think of us what we think other people think of us, or how we look or what we have or don't have to give us a feeling of acceptance or not. What if we were just all equal? What if we were all loved just the same because of who we were and that love and acceptance was not based on what we accomplished or what we looked like or what we owned. Wouldn't that be great?

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"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"

 - 1 John 3:1

Little girls make the best clients and my home tour

I met with a couple of new clients yesterday - two sweet little girls, one 6 years old and the other 8. You know those are my favorite kinds of clients! They are switching from sharing a room to each having their own room and they both needed new bedding and some organization.



So I did what I always do on a first meeting, I asked a lot of questions (what is your favorite color?) and took measurements and photos and told them I would get back to them when I had a plan. They told me they liked blues and greens and one said she loved owls.

And as I was leaving, of the little girls asked me if I would have it done tomorrow! Don't you love that? It was an evening appointment and it had already been a long day but I was right by HomeGoods and thought I would just stop in to see what they had. If you shop at HomeGoods you know it is pretty hit or miss. Sometimes they have a lot and sometimes nothing. Last night - they had A LOT!

I hope they like what I found - I think it is a great start to both of their rooms. And speaking of rooms ...

6th Street Design School featured home

Kirsten from 6th Street Design School is featuring my home today on her blog. She was so sweet to contact me last week saying she had recently come across my blog and liked my style - and wanted to know if she could feature my home in her Feature Friday series where she posts different blogger's home tours. I should have been flattered ... but honestly, the first thing I thought was - "she has no idea what my house looks like ... I THINK SHE THINKS ONE OF MY CLIENT'S HOMES IS MINE!" (I mean seriously, does she know that I have a 23-year-old kitchen with the worst granite EVER?) I wrote her back telling her just that and she agreed that she had just skimmed through quickly and she wasn't really sure if she had seen my work or my home. I sent her some photos and I guess I passed the test (or she felt bad saying never mind!) so if you want to see a bit more of my house than I have been brave enough to share before (well, not my entire home, but you can see my really old kitchen), click here.

6th Street Design School featured home

I always want to disclose to future clients that what you see in my home is not what I would do for them, and while years ago I would bring clients to my home to show them examples of certain design ideas, now I think I should have them over to show them what not to do (no, we do not use a million 6" recessed can lights in the ceilings any more).

6th Street Design School featured home

At first I really didn't want to was afraid to share my home especially after I went through and looked at all the other homes she has featured (they are amazing!) but going along with the whole "be authentic" and the Things I Am Afraid To Tell You movement I decided I would just be brave and let you see. Well, not that brave because I didn't show you the bedrooms or two of the baths. Trust me, they are not worth seeing; there is no inspiration there people I promise. At any rate, you should definitely check out Kirsten's blog - she is an incredibly talented designer (and so young and cute) and if you have time go through all her Feature Friday posts - there are some stunning homes for you to see!

Small changes make a big impact

We broke ground on a new kitchen remodel Monday and after I stopped by to check on the demolition  I dropped in on a client who lives nearby to check on her progress.

You might remember this home - I previously posted about it and you can see the before photos here. It started out with a great foundation and only needed a few changes...

We started in the living room where we switched the large gold mirror over the fireplace and replaced it with a more subtle silver mirror, added the zebra bench "coffee table" and ordered new carpet. The carpet had taken "forever" to be installed and I had not seen it yet.



I love the way the new carpet lightens up the room!

 Here is a photo of the room before any changes were made:

After a few changes ...

And finally ... with the new carpet:

We also added a new custom settee in the nearby dining room ...

It is a  Nathan Anthony design.

And do you remember the piano room that was being created at the top of our newly carpeted stairs?

The new white marble floor looks amazing ...

Can you believe it is not really marble at all? It is porcelain. 

It turned out to be a perfect and inexpensive alternative to the previous wall to wall carpet and gave us a nice stopping point with the new stairway carpet.

Don't you love the new wallpaper? We added some to the powder room as well:

I love the big impact these 'small' changes have made for this beautiful home, don't you?

Thank you Nate Berkus and my new living room

I've been in a massive "clean out" and "clean up" mode around my house now for at least two full months now. It all started with Nate Berkus. Well, Nate and House Beautiful.

House Beautiful has a lovely feature every month (well, I think it is every month and I would go and check but I don't have any of my past issues anymore - yep - got rid of them!) where they show a room makeover that is accomplished in one day. I think it was in April's edition where Nate took a couple's office / living space and transformed it. You can see his before and after here.

What inspired me was not so much what he did in one day although it was amazing or how he went about it because honestly, I do the same thing for my own clients. What inspired me is that I could do the same thing in my own house. I have said this before, but I am my worst client. I am never satisfied for long. I move things around constantly and tire of things easily. Which is wasteful not just in the pocketbook but also a huge waste of time. And so I wanted to fix that once and for all.



The way I tend to decorate for myself is not the way I would for a client. For myself, it has always been done piece by piece - a quick fix here and something new there. And that lasts for a while. But what I was longing for was to do a complete overhaul on my living room the way I would for a client. But I didn't want to spend any money. And so I decided that maybe what I should do is take everything out of the room and just start over piece by piece, using what a had but in a new fresh way. I would shop my house and see if I could have the same great results I saw Nate achieve.

I started with my sofa and moved it in every position I could think of and ended up putting it right back where it was. There was a reason it was where it was. And then I moved chairs around and tables and lamps from one side of the room to the other. I brought in tables from other rooms, and dragged my huge mirrored screen from one side of the room to the other. And I thought I had it. It was different and a change. And then I left to go visit my daughter for a while.

My "litmus test" for liking something is to leave it for a while. Coming back into it fresh will always tell me if it is right or not. And so I was excited to come home after this little trip to see my new moved around living room because I knew that this time it would be just right.

This is the room 'before' I moved anything- can you see the large armoire in the corner?

This is the room before I left for my little trip - I moved the sofa table in front of the windows ...

Wrong. I walked in from my trip and hated it. I literally dropped my bags on the floor and proceeded to move things back around again. But this time I was more drastic. I have had a corner armoire since we remodeled 13 years ago. It was supposed to house our TV - you know, the kind of TV that looks like a huge box and requires and even bigger 'box' to hide it? But we never put the TV in that room and the armoire just sat there unused as a storage unit for all my "stuff".  Which was great because it held a lot of stuff - but the problem was that it took up a lot of room and the color (a distressed green) kept me from doing exactly what I wanted to in the room. I had wanted to paint the walls a light gray but couldn't because of the armoire so I compromised. I wanted new drapery panels but the ones I had went so well with the armoire so I left them. I wanted to bring in fresher colors but everything clashed with the old drapes.

Do you do that? Decorate around an object that you can't change only to discover it would be a whole lot easier to just change that one thing? And so I decided it was time to just get rid of the armoire. Which was one huge task because it required that I find a home for all the stuff that I was storing inside it. And that was the beginning of the big clean-out. Well this weekend I finally finished. All of it. The drawers, the cupboards, the kitchen, the bathrooms ... it is done. For this time around anyway (remember it is a process!).

A cleaner "edited" look using all my same things - just moved around 

It may be difficult to see in the photos but the new room feels so much lighter, brighter and BIGGER. And I am happy to report that the "new" arrangement has not changed one bit. It has stayed exactly the way I moved it 30 days ago. That is a good sign. Gee, what am I going to do with all my spare time now?

Anyone want to buy a beautiful distressed green storage unit corner armoire?

Cake and coffee

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel." - Steven Furtick

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My sister sent me an email today about an incredible 'movement' that is showing up all over blogland called, "Things I Am Afraid To Tell You." She sent me the link to this post written by Ez from Creature Comforts that got this crazy viral internet dialog going about the authenticity of what we as bloggers post; a dialog that was started by a post written by Jess Constable (which ironically I wrote about her inspirational posters in my post last Sunday). Jess also wrote another post (The Icing or the Cake) that talks about another truth about reading blogs, Pinterest, or any social media site for that matter. In Jess' words:

But my Online World lens tells me a different story. My Online World lens makes me feel not quite “enough.” Sure, what I have is nice, but my life could be so much better if I had bright colored jeans, a floral blazer, a puppy, a hunky husband, a baby on the way, and a knack for cooking and entertaining like Ms. Stewart.

Then my life would really be something. 

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The bottom line is that what we see and read is not always reality and even if it is, it can bring us down, make us feel inadequate or give us a false sense of what is important or even true. We blog and read blogs to inspire and be inspired but I agree that there is a negative side to it as well and I think it is a great dialog to start and continue (which is why I am sharing it). And incredibly this all ties in perfectly with a video that a friend shared with me this week about stress and the important things in life. It is just a couple of minutes long and well worth watching.

Click here to watch the video, "Life is like Coffee."

Up to my ears in fabric

I have been up to my ears in fabrics lately (literally - you should have seen me trying to juggle eight rolls of fabric through the workroom doors this morning!).

These will be new pillows for one very lucky sectional ...

And these are the final selections for the sweet little girl's room. The Ikat on the back of the chair (Echo Design by Kravet) will put on a beautiful wingback chair that has been in the family for many years and is now being passed down to their little granddaughter. I love the idea of that special history in her room.

The rug and a couple of pieces of furniture have been installed and the colorful and eclectic artwork has arrived and is waiting to be hung. How very fun to be a little girl these days!

Hope your weekend is just as fun! Happy Saturday everyone :D