something to sink into

One of my favorite places in a house is the bedroom.  Master, guest, baby - doesn't matter.  I love bedrooms.  I stumbled across this article at Apartment Therapy today, and am in heaven.  I would truly want 6 of these bedrooms in my house.  My top three:

Love the look of the first one - from the flokati rugs to the acrylic egg chair to that awesome mirror over the dresser.  I'm not normally one for neutral color schemes, but I love the tans and brown in this one.  I can't quite tell if all the walls are taupe, or if I see some mint in the right corner, but I like it, whatever it is.  The light wood walls kind of trip me up, but they do look really great with this room, so I'll let them pass.

The second room looks like an incredibly comfortable retreat.  I love the windows in this room.  I can imagine waking up with the sun on a Saturday morning in this room.  The rumbled bed is a fantastic choice by the homeowner/photographer.  It makes this room look so much more inviting - like a place I would really like to be in the morning.  Noon.  And night.  I wouldn't mind spending all day in here.

There's something about the coral and the white in the last room.  What a wonderful room.  Wouldn't it be great with a little private, lush green terrace?  I'd definitely find a place to hide a coffee pot for mornings on said terrace.  This room is just so beautiful - it almost looks like it belongs in a boutique hotel or somewhere else nice and fancy and restful and wonderful.

Someday...I'll have my own beautiful and finished bedroom.  SOON would be nice.

Retro!

Recently, I find myself sifting through Etsy shops, looking for vintage goods.  Pretty much, along the mid-century modern line.  I found this little ditty.  It's not exactly mid-century mod, but I lurve it just the same.

It's a retro barber shop table from Etsy seller charlottage.  I have no idea what a retro barber shop table is, but I adore it.  It's got a deco, glam feeling about it.  I'd like to imagine I have somewhere to put it, but I'm just now sure where.  Oh, and the seller's stipulations mean it's not coming to my house any time soon, but a girl can dream about the thing she loves.

I'm in love, and this time it's for real!

New favorite style love?  Jaime Hayon.  Spanish-born GENIUS.

Recently, he created the new design of the Faberge Salon in Geneva.  I. Am. In. Love.  In LOVE.  From all of the chairs to the tinted windows to the mirrored ceiling; even the beautiful orchid tones!  As a typical non-lover of purple shades, I'm surprised, but in a good way.

This room comes straight out of my own Champagne Dreams.

These chairs are both fantastic.  The sexy curved back, supple fabrics...a very alluring room.  I like the floor-to-ceiling drapes, and again the gorgeous fabric.  This room definitely feels like a boudoir - a place for covert meetings and meaningful eye contact over glasses of champagne.

Image taken from they Hayon Studio site:  http://www.hayonstudio.com/project.php?id=57

Change of plans?

Hmmm...having just posted about how I knew what I wanted to do with my house, I come across this posting on Apartment Therapy.

I love the idea of a huge black and white picture, and a couple of pieces that both stand out and blend in, letting the picture do both as well.  And, since pink is my favorite color, I love the scheme in the photo.  I also think I'm developing a soft spot for Eames chairs.  I'm fairly certain that my mid-century mod style diagnosis is totally correct (thank you HGTV.com!).

It's not that this picture has completely changed my mind about what I want to do with my house, but it's given me something new to think about.  Maybe I'll have to think of a place to do something like this.  I wonder what the impact of this kind of a photo wall would be if it were on a smaller scale?

Definitely something to think about...

It's been a long time comin'!

Whoa.  We closed on our house on September 2 of last year.  We've been in our house for 501 days.  Last Saturday was a monumentous occasion:  we put up the first picture.  Well, to be totally accurate, it was the first picture, the first piece of wall decor, AND the first multi-purpose piece.  THREE.  Yeah, three pieces.  I'm beyond thrilled.  This is the start.  Soon enough, we'll have walls covered in pictures and sconces and Lord only knows what else.  I. Can't. Wait.

I've got a clearer picture of a lot of the things I want to see in my house.  I think that's the result of showing people around the house (we had a party yesterday for my birthday, and there were quite a few people who had never been in the house before) - I got a chance to describe what I see as the finished product.  I know exactly what I want my dining room to look like now.  I've got a really good idea of what I want to see our bedroom, the family room, and the utility room to look like too.  I even know what direction I want to take with our garage!  I really like feeling more comfortable choosing items and making plans for my house.

Next steps in the great makeover?  Convincing the hubby to get the dining room furniture I want.  :)  Painting my Nana's dresser either a patent black or a patent white (I'm leaning white) to serve as a dining room buffet.  Figure out which of my friend Michelle's pictures would look best blown up for our dining room wall.  PAINT our upstairs.  And our family room.  Tiling the kitchen backsplash.  Reupholstering our dumpster chairs and the old kitchen couch.  Pulling up all that crappy carpet and laying some hardwood throughout the upper level.  Building all the shelving we are planning to.

Sounds like a long list, but I know exactly what I want it all to look like, and that's a huge step.

Copycat? Meh.

There are a couple of blogs that I frequent, because the styles of these writers are fantastic!  I often find myself so completely agreeing with what they find as beautiful, I find myself fantasizing about what they've posted.  Since that *is* the point of this blog (to showcase all my ideas as well as things I've found), I'm going to throw out some props to the Wifestyle Files for this little ditty.  It's the kind of desk backdrop I can see myself having in the living area in my someday-cottage.  I'm imagining exposed studs, walls roughly whitewashed, a whole wall of windows facing out to the beach, sun streaming in.  The desk would be tucked between the big, floofy couches and the breakfast area/kitchen.  Instead of using a wall-mounted, framed corkboard, I'd just staple the corkboard to the wall, and  put together all the pieces.

As previously stated, I have a deep desire to be a neat freak.  This kind of a desk backdrop appeals to me because, while it's chaotic, it's controlled chaos.  I love that the look is completely eclectic.  Full of things that matter or appeal to the designer.  I appreciate it when I have things that really have no business being together all in the same space.  I'd probably pin myself has having at least a somewhat-eclectic design taste, which is likely why I can't commit to just one design style.  A little bit formal, a little bit modern, a little bit mid-century mod (according to HGTV.com).

I might have to try and figure out where I can fit something like this into the current house, instead of waiting for the millions to come rolling in to build my beach house.  :)

JUNK!

I'm a closet neat freak.

By that, I mean that, in my heart of hearts, I want to be a neat freak.  I want to have a place for everything, and everything in its place.  I want shelves and storage solutions and an ORGANIZED desk (both at home, and at work!).  No more "Where IS that remote??" or "I know I put the matches somewhere."  I want every drawer and shelf and cubby to have a REASON to be.  That's why one of my favorite areas to navigate to on sites like realsimple.com or apartmenttherapy.com have to do with closet organization.  Perusing the AT site today, I found a little article on the best of 2009 - Clever and Unusal Storage Solutions.

I'm in love!!!

Below is a smattering of pictures from this article that are really great.

I LOVE this concept.  Purple is probably a little too radical for me, but I love the usefulness of shelves, but with the uniqueness of all the different desks and tables.  I think it's very clever.  It doesn't fit into the current home design, but maybe I'll figure out a way to fit it into the next house (whenever that comes along...).

I LOVE this idea!  There was a bed at Ikea (Malm collection) that had side tables/shelves that tucked into the headboard to create a clean, modern look but still give you the convenience of bedside tables.  There was a different bed (I can't recall the collection) that had storage in the boxy frame (much like in the picture above, but on a smaller, bed-sized scale).  My ingenuitive husband wants to combine the two concepts, and build a bed for us.  I wonder what the liklihood of convincing him to make the bed similar to this one is?

Such a clever small-space idea.  Especially if you're a traveler, and your house is filled with your little travel artifacts and collections.  I imagine it on a wall papered with old maps and location-specific travel maps - maybe even just one huge map on corkboard, with pins stuck in to show where your travels have lead you.  It's odd, but when I imagine what this wall would look like, I see it in the eat-in kitchen of our last apartment.  Probably because that WAS a small space!  This might also be fun in a basement bar area with a British or Irish pub feel.

On a related note, I discovered a little website called easyclosets.com (thanks again, AT site!!) that I think I'm going to use to plan out my ideal closet for our bedroom.  I'm so thrilled.  Closet organization is something that has always been lacking in our household, and now I'm going to make it happen.  I would rather have an organized closet than a new dining room set or even than new kitchen countertops.  Hopefully, I'll have a plan to post sometime soon...