Moving On Out

So, Little Brother has finally taking the leap to getting his own place. He's rented a small, cozy one bedroom apartment and relegated me with the task of decorating. Going for a warm, young, masculine look. Here's one mood board that I'm using for jump-off inspiration.

www.younghouselove.com

Though I'm mainly using this mood board as a reference for colors, I'm definitely purchasing the birds as wall art...he's a hunter. He'll like them.

Navy Blue Kitchen Redo (continued)

So, to continue on my rant...I am stuck with a huge, navy blue booth in my kitchen. Any redesign of the space would need to incorporate that color. During my search I found these beauties

(cue angelic choir)

I love the bold colors combined with the neutrals of cream and white. Since I'm stuck with some shades of yellow in the granite, this works out perfectly. Lots of potential here. So I started my search for more points of reference.

Navy Blue Kitchen Redo

When we purchased the house in the summer of 2009, the entire first floor was very well decorated. Everything from the paint colors, to the countertops, to the kitchen booth were coordinated on an almost professional level. While it was super convenient at the time, I'm always thinking ahead, and I know that some point down the line we'll have to update the look.

Decorating doesn't have a lot of rules, but here's one that I think is good to stick to: Re-design/update your interiors every five to seven years.

As the re-design is still a ways off, I won't get too involved with what my options are. Whatever I go with though, I am bound by at least one monstrosity in the kitchen...the huge navy blue booth.

UGH. I can find a new table and countertop. I can paint the boring cabinets any color I want. I can even overlook the granite with specs of red, yellow, and black. But working around this beast is not going to be easy.

Coming tomorrow...one of my favorite potential color schemes....

Pattern Priority

In browsing through different looks and ideas to complete the master bedroom, I acknowledged the complete lack of pattern. In addition to a faux wallpaper stencil I plan to paint on the focus wall, I really liked the idea of a zebra rug on the floor. Unfortunately I can't take the credit for this idea [either]; it's a great look that is truly versatile as showed in these pictures.

The Orange

Decor Pad

Eclectic Revisited

In my excitement I purchased a zebra rug that I have previously mentioned on this blog. It was cheap. Too cheap. I received it fairly quick, but the quality was extremely poor. More like a yoga mat than a rug. So, I'm trying again. Today I purchased the rug pictured below. It is actually cowhide with a zebra pattern stenciled on. I should have it next week and am SUPER excited to share the results.

Wedding Mood Board - Pink, Orange, Champagne

Ohhhmmmmmmmm

I keep thinking I'm done with the master bedroom....but I'm just not there yet. If you recall from this picture, the room originally looked like this not long after we moved in. I wanted to get things "settled" in there fairly quickly....no one enjoys the limbo of moving. Since I splurged (read: over spent) on the furniture, I tried to cut corners in other places. An example would be the wall art. I created those two canvases on my own.

Then when I was browsing around for funky wallpaper, I found this through the Graham & Brown website:

I loved the zen feeling the images relays and the silver/gray/blue tone matched the decor almost perfectly. And lucky for me, it was only $20! Love it.

Backsplash, whiplash

So now that I am nearly three quarters of the way through the upstairs of the house [we purchased a year and a half ago], I must admit to you a horrible, dirty secret I've been holding....

I've already started brainstorming about updating and/or re-doing the entire downstairs. Eeeeeek!

And to kick it all off, I just happened to be browsing around on http://www.overstock.com/ and I found these gorgeous ladies:

We have a deep color + stainless steel theme going on in our kitchen already; this would looks soooo purty behind my oven. I've bene wanting to try my hand out at tiling. I've heard it's actually pretty simple. Hmmmmmmm....

I COVET! And stainless steel appliances aren't going out of style anytime soon, so no matter what I end up doing with the decor, these beauties will fit right in.

I think I'm gonna get 'em.