Saturday, March 24, 2012

3rd Times the Charm....NOT!

Allie and I ("the husband," aka Chris) just finished a DIY project we have been planning for a long time. I cannot take any credit because while I worked an 11 hour day, Allie was so busy working on her dream headboard for our new bedroom. We will post a DIY tutorial in the future for all of you, but for right now I just want to say what a huge accomplishment this is for us. We have had a lot of challenges during this process such as a broken saw at Home Depot, more than doubling the allotted budget (we were still very under budget for the typical price of headboards in stores) , but worst of all was hanging the headboard on the wall! Whoever has said, "3rd Times the Charm" has not seen us attempt to hang a headboard. No joke, it took about an hour and a half....we were becoming so desperate we even started to blame the level, wall, screws, or anything else because we couldn't come up with any more reasons why it was not working out for us. Talk about putting your marriage to the test! ha ha In the end we had to laugh about the whole thing, and now that it is DONE we are absolutely in love with how it turned out. Allie really wanted to make a dramatic headboard height which now makes the statement in the room. Also, Allie just had a birthday and I surprised her by ordering her dream bedding from West Elm. I love the look we are created. Enjoy the pictures and please let us know what you think! We love hearing from others and learning how to make things better. Also check back with for our future DIY tutorial. We learned a lot from doing this project and I am sure if you are considering doing a similar project it will be worth learning from our mistakes.









Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Master Bedroom: LONG PAST DUE UPDATE!! + Free Printable


I'm not going to make very many excuses, except that my job has been crazy, and this really is the first minute and burst of energy that i'm using to do this post. Once my event in April is all done, you're going to gain more confidence in me...promise! Plus, i'll even have pictures to prove it. So let's just get into it...

I know that i've posted what we want to do in our bedroom, but of course we've gone a completely different direction. Instead of the classic feminine look we were going for before, we took it a different direction and decided the more contemporary West Elm look is what was more us. I still am going to order this lumbar pillow cover for the lumbar on our sofa though, because i cannot get enough of this print and CWD textiles...
Okay, enough of the past....i just need to jump into the current plan. We have made a couple purchases and updates to our ever-evolving room, not crazy updates since we're in a rental, but effective. The first thing we did was get our new bed frame. What it is, is a box spring frame from Ikea with chrome legs. I didn't think i would love it so much! Since we are in a rental we needed space underneath for temporary storage, but i wanted it to be minimal, contemporary, and clean. It totally surpasses my expectations.....

Right?!?!? Love it...all together it cost about $380.00. The white box springs were $300.00 shown here and the legs were $80.00 for all 8. I know it seems pricey, but i know it will last for SOOOOOO long!! And i love the look and know i won't get sick of it....

Next on my to buy list were lamps...and there is no way i was going to jump into a purchase. I've been on the hunt for the perfect lamps since we decided we were going to do this, but once we decided on the style we wanted, it was like they just appeared on a shelf in home goods with our names written all over them...and they were $39.99 each, which was right under budget!

Right?!?!? I know, i'm a little too excited about this stuff...i cut out a template for our headboard shape...

Yes, it will be much much higher and larger! I want it to be a statement, without being too loud. I still need to decide if tufting would be a better choice than no tufting. Chris says yes, and i'm a little iffy, so i would appreciate any and all suggestions.

Since the headboard is going pretty high, i moved the sunburst mirror and did a few things to update the gallery wall...

So i ordered one of our favorite pictures from our groomal shoot (done by the talented Jacque Lynn Photography) as a ready-to-hang canvas. I had never used Costco for this before, but they were for sure the least expensive. This 18x24 was $55.00 plus tax, and it's gorgeous! Then, i made a print of our favorite quote. It means a lot to us since Chris put it in a video when he proposed to me. I just thought it needed a more permanent space in our gallery wall....does that zinc 'M' look familiar?? See the tutorial here...

As you can see, we have a chair in there that is actually the 4th chair of our dining set that we can't keep in our kitchen since our table is up against the wall. Gotta love rentals right?? The 'M' monogram pillow is seriously one of my favorite things. It's handpainted and has such great texture and character. It was made by Mary from the Lettered Home and is sitting on my faux sheepskin who is patiently waiting to be turned into our fuzzy footstool. And the dinosaur is a funny story. I saw this post from Kimberly at Third Floor Design Studio and with my love of gold was totally on board. I had planned to head to the Dollar Store to see if i could find an elephant or giraffe or something, but my dad is so funny and put this little guy in Chris' stocking this year, so i just used him. It will go on Chris' nightstand, once we have them that is ha ha ha....

As for our most recent inspiration and decisions on what we're going to do with our room, here's a little sneak peak....

I'm so excited to see it all come together...my birthday is the 22nd so i'm anxious to see what the newest addition will be. And since i've been such a flake, here's two versions of the print i made for our room. Let me know if you want a different color, and i'll see what i can do....just right click and save. It's an 8x10 print....

Thank you for being patient....i promise it won't be this long until next time!