Nursery Art

The search begins and it needs to begin now because I am incredibly picky and indecisive about picking out things for our house. So I've been creating a wish list on wishpot.com of all the things I've come across online that I am considering for the baby and our nursery. There is not a definite color scheme I have in mind, or maybe I just want it to appear that I don't have a color scheme. Regardless, what hangs on the wall is a defining part of the feel of a room. Here is some cute art prints I've come across that goes with what we envision for the nursery.

1. Canal Street New Orleans by Matte Stephens
2. Dear You, Mister Bear by blackoutwell

3. Uh Oh by Rifle Paper Co.

4. Friends of Violet by Studio Violet

5. Doudou ABC Print by Kayatine

Home Improvements

So, Kelly has become obsessive about re-lining (re as in we have done this before) the kitchen drawers and shelves. He went and bought scrapbook paper from Michael's. He measured, cut and taped the paper in our drawers and spent a little too much money in the process. But it is actually a really good idea since it is nearly impossible to find contact paper with a good design on it. Here's an example of one drawer he completed. The other's are in progress.

After a 10 days, my Kombucha is carbonated and ready to drink. The picture below is what my bottles look like after the second fermentation that lasted 3 days. I added chopped cherries in two bottles, fresh crushed blueberries in another and lime juice and ginger to my fourth bottle. But you don't have to add any fruit at all and it is just as good. It's amazing how this started off as sugar, black and green tea and now it is a fully carbonated healthy drink.

My Kitchen Revealed

Yay! I feel like my kitchen is the first completed room in our house. Kelly installed some track lighting from Ikea this past weekend and it totally changes the vibe. This just confirms how important lighting is to a room. My kitchen is completely inspired from a kitchen I saw in a 2008 issue of Blueprint magazine. In fact, most of my house is inspired from just that one issue. The colors I used were spring mint, antiguan sky, and hazy blue from Benjamin Moore.

Light Fixtures Out of Reach

My mind is wandering to the idea of electrical work. Most older homes do not have light fixtures in necessary places. For example in our living room and den there is not a light from the ceiling. I know that light can transform the way a room looks and feels, so I'm beginning to give this more thought so when the time comes for lighting on our list of things to do for the house, it won't take a me months to decide on something. Here are a few that I'm in love with at the moment.

For the entry way

Above the kitchen sink

For the bedroom

For the dining room - This is even more beautiful in person!

Extreme Home Makeover: Bathroom Wallpaper

Ok... so I guess I'm going to start calling all the work we're doing on our house "Extreme Home Makeover" because to us, it's pretty extreme. We are crossing the line of people who didn't know anything about construction, carpentry, and basic knowledge on how to care for a home to people who widening their knowledge base by diving in head first tackling home projects we probably have no business doing without professional supervision.

I've been doing a terrible job documenting the process, because at times I don't want to be reminded of the huge mess we're making. But I definitely need to start! I'm currently spending my Spring Break painting my bedroom. I thought this was going to be a simple and fast project. But of course there are obstacles. I will mention them later when I show you before and after photos.

I'm also thinking ahead to my next project. The bathroom. Our bathroom needs a lot of work. Or maybe I should say, we want to do a lot of work to it. It's functioning, thank goodness, but it is ugly. We will retile it, because apparently the floor is rotting underneath. And instead of painting it, I would like to put up some wallpaper. I was apprehensive about doing this at first because I thought with all the humidity from the shower it would peel right off. But the gentlemen who put up my wallpaper in the dining room, told me if it was done right, it would stay forever. So I've been looking for wallpaper for the last 5 months, trying to find the right one. I've come across some beautiful wallpaper on the web. But not until last week did I find what I was looking for at a reasonable price. I wanted to find something I liked in yellow that was a modern yet fresh with a vintage feel. Below are some wallpaper that I think are beautiful and great, but didn't quite fit the criteria of what I was looking for.

This picture with the yellow wallpaper is from Miss Print and is called Saplings Wallpaper Sunflower Yellow with White. This is what I ended up falling in love with. I'm going to tile up four feet and paper the rest of the walls. So excited for this project to begin. Estimated time to begin is in two weeks!

All wallpaper images are from: http://www.5qm.de/

Birch Tree Decals

Ever since I've seen this post last June on knack's blog, I have seen dying to get these trees in my entry way. Well, one purchase from artfire and a paypal claim later they were in my hands! It's not worth mentioning which seller I got them from because they caused such a hassle. Since we finally got our living painted and things looking relatively good in there, we decided it was time to hang the trees. I'd been kind of scared of the whole process though because I didn't want to mess them up, but our friend Will and his wife hung some in their new apartment and he said it wasn't hard at all. And he was right! I love how they look, I'm just debating on whether to put a bird perched on the branch above the front door though. Not sure if the bird thing is too trendy or not. I'll have to sleep on that.

Lighting Makeover

I have been so busy working on mint&honey and working on my living room I have neglected blogging. As we're nearing the end of the work that needs to be finished in the living room, I'm trying to think of solutions for lighting. I am debating on spray painting both of these fixtures but have no idea what color to choose. If I drive myself crazy and can't decide I will just buy new lighting. The colors in my living room are a light gray and white, so if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Getting ready to add some Valentine cards and prints to my etsy shop next week. So be sure to check them out!

I was so pumped this week when I saw that Nicole, a guest blogger on Design*Sponge was wanting to use photos from my kitchen on Wood Street in a blog post about how people utilize space in small kitchens. Design*Sponge is my favorite design blog out there, I feel so special to have been featured, even for a small thing like this. You can locate the article here.

Last week I completed another one of my holiday ambitions. I made two soft trees based on a project featured on the purl bee. It was surprisingly easy, and with the help of my friend Melanie and her sewing machine I was able to get these sewed and stuffed.

Redecorating

I am refusing to put any pictures up of the interior of my house until everything is fully or almost fully decorated, I won't try to estimate when that will be either. Because it has been proven already that getting everything the way you want it is going to be a longer process than you imagine. But, I will share some of the things I've been purchasing with our lovely tax rebate we received from becoming first time homeowners. All going in different rooms, just having purchased these things make me feel productive and that things are coming along.

Rug: West Elm

Sofa: Pier 1

Rocker: Overstock.com

Wallpaper: Cole & Son

Prints

I've been searching high and low for art to hang in my new home. Here are a few I'm in love with. Lately, I've been drawn to art that uses type, so forgive if a lot of these have a common theme.

1. Heart Print by Ork Posters

2. Home Sweet Home Print from Keep Calm Gallery

3. Take a Hike Print from Katie Daisy

4. Where There is Love Laser-cut from MadebyJulene

Wallpaper!

Here is a picture of the wallpaper I ordered and received today from selectwallpaper.co.uk. I am wallpapering 3 walls in my dining room that is connected to my formal living room, which is painted a light gray (seattle mist from benjamin moore.) I'm excited about putting it up even though I've never wallpapered anything before. I've heard it's easy from some and hard from others. I don't expect it to be a piece of cake, but I'm still crossing my fingers I don't completely screw it up. Good thing I have this book below to help me and give me ideas on what to do with the left over scraps! Image of living space from Feb. 2007 Blueprint Magazine.

I ordered this cute return address stamp from paperwink. They have the cutest papergoods!

projects and purchases

I'm finally positing my before and after pictures of the dresser I got from my Nana that no one was using and knobs were missing. I still need to give it a final coat of polyurethane. But I really love the way it turned out. I kept the original knobs and added two red ones from Anthropologie. I still need to find the perfect pull for the top though. I used Behr paint; Indian Ocean for the drawers and Scotch Lassie for the frame.

While in Austin for teacher training we hit a couple of great vintage stores! The owl string holder came from Uncommon Objects along with the white letters. The deer planter came from Room Service; we had an identical one that was black and bit smaller that broke during the move so I'm lucky to have found another. The paint by number came from eBay and the other vintage print came from Room Service. I can't wait to start decorating my house, but I need to paint first and rip up carpet (that's my next project!)

Close up of the dresser!

Inspiration for the Kitchen

After much time spent looking through the Domino Magazines I spotted this cute little kitchen in Blueprint Magazine and I fell in love. This is now my inspiration for our kitchen. We move in a week, I can't wait!

home sweet home

Here are some pictures of our small apartment we moved into over the christmas holidays. It's beginning to have a cozy feel to it. There are still some empty places on the wall where art is needed but I am not going to rush it. I have my eye on a couple of things on Etsy that I plan on purchasing that I think will be the right fit.

The art in our apartment is a combination of old calendars, vintage children's illustrations, and a radiohead poster from their concert last may.

I love the built-in bookcase in this room.

Since our apartment is a one bedroom, we had to convert our living room into half living space and half working space. And it works!

We moved our red bookcase into the kitchen to make it more cheerful. We filled it with thrift finds, cookbooks and our colorful dishes found at Crate&Barrel Outlet. We made a trip to Ikea to fill in some lonely areas.

I will have to post pictures of the newest addition of our family next time!