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You are here: Home / Archives for decorating

decorating

The Four-poster Bed

March 6, 2012 by Amy 7 Comments

OK so last Tuesday I posted all the options for a headboard in our master bedroom.  Out of the blue, this four poster bed came charging out as the obvious winner. 

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I mean, never in my dreams have I envisioned a four poster bed in there.  Usually those huge four poster beds are way too traditional for my taste.  I picked that bed last minute as an off-the-wall choice. But something about seeing it in the room was like a magic slipper.  Pumpkins turned to coaches and suddenly my bedroom had its ball gown.  Or something like that.  I just knew it was right. 

I hadn’t even paid attention where I had grabbed that image from and was disappointed to find out it was Pottery Barn. 

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Pottery Barn is gorgeous but I am way too cheap to buy something full-price there and this bed especially was just too much.  Technically I had the money to buy it but I just couldn’t.  And there’s your tidbit for today.  Just because you have the money to buy something doesn’t mean you should.  More on that later.

A quick Craigslist search turned up nothing but those big traditional four poster beds of my nightmares.  I called a local furniture shop last last week where I got the mirrored nightstands and while they solidly beat Pottery Barn’s price it was still just too much. I couldn’t find peace in getting it.  As with all decorating dilemmas, Mom declared we’d just hold out and watch Craigslist. 

Mom calls me Sunday night and says, “I found your bed, go look at your email.”  I was already in bed so I checked my phone and I’m pretty sure I heard angels singing.  It was the perfect bed. Better than ANY of the four poster beds I had found.  If I could have dreamed up a perfect four poster bed, this would be it.  But like any Craigslist ad, you have no idea if someone had beaten you to the punch.  I immediately texted the person as the ad suggested.  No response.  Mom got antsy and while I refused to call them at 9 on a Sunday night, she called and left a voicemail.  I emailed them while she did that.  The person must have gotten the hint we were interested because a few minutes later I got a text back saying we could come see it the next day.

Of course the price was still more than I wanted to pay.  Bassett had lowered the price where they had gotten it just a year ago and honestly, I could have paid a little more for a brand new one, especially if this used one was damaged in any way.  I had all kinds of tactics on how to talk them down but my mother, the Craigslist expert, said to simply say the price had been lowered and ask what was the least they would take.  Once again, mother knows best because they lowered the price on the spot so much I’m pretty sure I heard those angels singing again and I had to suppress a giggle because finally THE PRICE WAS RIGHT.

 

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Transporting the thing is an entire other post but let’s just say we almost had to go back and pick it up in something other than Scott’s truck.  But we got it safely home and Scott was a champ and put it together right away.  Ya’ll, I could barely contain myself.  I’m not kidding when I say I nearly cried.

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I wanted to feel guilty for all this stuff we’ve bought for our room.  I mean, my heart is still torn by all the needs around me.  Part of me can hardly appreciate it. I’m not beyond tearing it all down and taking it back when I feel it’s the right thing to do.  But I’ll be transparent here and say that God keeps whispering, “Enjoy it, Amy.  Enjoy it.”

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My heart keeps getting pulled back to two things. First, is the Garden of Eden.  God said it was created for enjoyment.  In our own little way, our master bedroom is turning into our own little garden to enjoy.  I’m excited about that room and it is a sanctuary for me and Scott.  Scott and I have been through some rough times but it is such a blessing to lay in that room together and the room just radiates everything beautiful we love.  I can’t explain it except to say in a weird way a four poster bed and a lime green couch is bringing us closer.

 

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The other moment my mind keeps going to is Mary just before Jesus’ death.  Mary poured an expensive perfume on Jesus and his disciple Judas chastised her saying it could be used for the poor (although he was really just being greedy).  Jesus corrected him and said no, you will always have the poor but you will not always have me.  Jesus isn’t sleeping in our four poster bed with us but as I mentioned, our marriage is growing stronger and ya’ll,  I can’t quit thanking Him for giving us a four poster bed.  In the end, He does get the glory and for whatever reason, God has decided to bless us with this room.  This doesn’t mean we’ve stopped helping the poor. If anything, it spurs us on to give even more because we have been so blessed.

 

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So all that to say I love our bed and I think it’s ok.  And speaking of, Lexi HATED the idea of getting this bed. There were tears and pouting.  She just hates change. She was not happy even after she saw it in the room, actually especially after she saw it in the room.  But this morning, she came in the room, hugged one of the posters and said I love it.  I don’t understand that girl but I think we’re all on board that it’s a winner, folks.

Next on the list is to find the right comforter and artwork above the bed and couch.  I feel Photoshop calling my name.

Filed Under: decorating

A Mirror, Rug and a Debunking

January 26, 2012 by Amy 5 Comments

OK, so I’ve had a few small changes around the house.  Nothing outstanding but they make me happy and I’m all about sharing the happy.

The mirror

First up, my mom found this mirror from Celebrating Home. 

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The mirror is a perfect fit with our new curtains and I love that it brings some green into the room.  The plan is to find a dresser of some sort to go under it but clearly this decorating the bedroom thing is going to be a drawn-out process.

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The Rug

I peeked in HomeGoods the other day after I hit up Old Navy and no lie, I saw this rug for my bathroom and was taking off to the check-out counter in no less than 25 seconds.  If you know me and my indecisive nature, you know that’s a flat out miracle.

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The Debunking

And finally, the other weekend Scott and I were bored and I said, “I feel like rearranging some furniture.” Well, that started 24 hours of drama with the girls’ room.  Lexi wanted to keep it and Emma wanted them separate.  I actually like the look of the bunk beds but they were serving absolutely no purpose.  Neither girl wanted to sleep on top and it was clearly being used as storage.

 

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After a trial night, both girls decided they really like having separate beds.  Can you believe they happily spent 9 months sharing a twin bed?

Filed Under: children, decorating

Updated Chair and Hall Bathroom

January 13, 2012 by Amy 8 Comments

OK, so here are a few small updates that we’ve made around the house that I haven’t taken the time to tell you about. The first is another Christmas present from Mom.  I picked out the fabric and she recovered it for me.

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Isn’t that fabric fun?  It is totally me and makes me so happy!

When we were in Maryland, I scored a new shower curtain and rugs for SIX dollars each at Ollie’s.  Not a bad transformation for less than $20!  You can see older pictures here and here.

 

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Amazing how a little color and pattern changes things, huh?

Filed Under: decorating

Master Bedroom Silk Panels

January 6, 2012 by Amy 4 Comments

Belated Merry Christmas to me!  My mom had my curtains made for my Christmas presents but we had so many issues with the fabric they didn’t get done quite in time.  They were well worth the wait though!  My bedroom is really feeling like a bedroom!

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Lots more to do in the room to make it all come together…pillows, bedding, pictures, furniture but I’m loving it so far!

Filed Under: decorating

The Nightstands of my Pinterest Dreams

September 28, 2011 by Amy 7 Comments

In case you missed it, a few months ago we finished our master suite addition we completed in preparation for our adoption.  Here’s the picture of our bedroom just after we got the carpet.  Basically, it was our bed and nightstands. It’s still just our bed and nightstands.  But today?  We got NEW nightstands.

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We’ve had our nightstands for all of our 13 years of marriage.  Actually, we’ve had that ONE nightstand for 13 years.  Scott has either not had one or used that $10 metal one we got at a discount furniture store.  Since putting on the addition I have been dying for mirrored nightstands but I thought they were all out of my price range.  Please check my Pinterest Bedroom Idea board and you’ll see mirrored nightstands galore (and a good idea of what I want this room to look like).  My mom lucked up on a set at a local place and while they were pricey, they were EXACTLY what I wanted and since we keep furniture around for a long time, I just knew I had to have them.  I was expecting them to take up to 6 weeks to be delivered so I was pleasantly surprised when it’s not even been 2 weeks and they called today to say they were in. 

Look what a difference!  Go ahead, scroll up, down, up, down, up down. 

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They

 

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are

 

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gorgeous.

Filed Under: decorating

Top Ten Tuesday: Bedroom Designs

March 15, 2011 by Amy 12 Comments

OK so I could keep a lot of the same decorations in our new bedroom and most likely I will.  But it’s time to step it up just a notch.  As I mentioned, I’m not a fan of the uber popular coastal look going around.  I mean, it’s GORGEOUS but it’s just not my style.  Pretty sure I will forever be a fan of reds, oranges, browns and greens.  I love dark woods.  I love for it to feel WARM, COZY and INVITING.

So given that, here are my Top 10 Dream Bedrooms.

#10 What I love about this? DARK.  I love the feeling that I’m sleeping in a library with all of that dark wood.  Just wrap me up and put me to bed!  Not a fan of the lamps, rug or picture necessarily.  Just like that it’s so dark.

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#9 I don’t think I could handle such light walls, furniture AND carpet but I love all the green pillows and love the interesting light and bench.

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#8 Blue is not usually my thing but I do love all the shimmer.  The chandelier is outstanding and I just like the overall chic look.

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#7 I don’t love everything about this room (please cover those chairs!) but I do love the mirror, I love the mixture of red, orange and brown.  I like the black and white artwork.  The lighting just makes it feel cozy.

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#6 These white walls usually would be a turn off but I think the tile is interesting.  Again, I love the red, orange and brown.  I particularly like that the headboard and bed are both dark, similar to ours.

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#5  I love the orangey/peachy colors in this room.  I think this is less the cozy feel but still a nice, bright room I would be happy to walk into.

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#4 OK, now we’re getting to my favorites.  I love, love, love the green floor to ceiling curtains. I Love the shimmery rug and art.  I love the dark furniture and dark floors.  I’m surprised I love it given the walls are ivory.

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#3 I just LOVE this room. Again, floor to ceiling curtains.  We have the brown and orange with some great pattern in the blanket.  I love the rug.  Love the geometric design in the lamp and side table.

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#2 Now, this is just a pipe dream but this room was built as a college thesis and I am just IN LOVE with all the cozy lighting and the green on the bed and curtains.  Love the mirror on the bottom of the bed.  Love all the wood accents.  This is so not happening but I love it.

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#1 And this might surprise you, but this was my favorite out of the bunch.  It’s not perfect but there’s a lot to love.  I love the floor to ceiling green curtains (those are green right?).  I love the dark furniture.  I love the pattern in the rug.  I love the mirror to the left.  I love the black and white photography.  I am very surprised I like the light blue walls and blue accents in the pillows.  I’m not a huge fan of the bed and chest but overall, I think this room evokes the right mix of modern, traditional, light and dark, cozy, livable space.

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I think I’m going to pull some of my favorite things from all of these to make our new master bedroom a cozy retreat.  I think we’re really going to need a nice place to escape to in the coming years!

Which of these are your favorites?

For more Top Ten, visit ohAmanda.com

Pictures were taken from Elle or Rate My Space

Filed Under: decorating, Top Ten

And So It Begins

March 7, 2011 by Amy 4 Comments

Today is the day, pending a permit, we’re breaking ground.  I’m so excited to get started!

This weekend I spent time clearing out Scott and the girls’ closets as they will be GONE in just a few weeks!  My understanding is the foundation, framing and roof will be done within 2 weeks and that’s when they’ll “blast through our wall” to make way for the hall.

So I put the girls clothes in empty racks in the playroom closet and boxed the rest of the stuff up.  As for Scott’s, I stuffed as much as I could in my closet which happened to be less than full since I consigned a whole bunch of stuff as month.  But he still has quite a bit of clothing.  So we’re planning to get a free-standing clothes rack and park it right in the middle of our bedroom until the new closet is ready.  Oh joy!

I thought I’d show a few before pictures.

Here is the girls’ room (please ignore the half-made bed and messy dresser.  I did clean that this weekend too.  The new closet will be right where the headboard is.  The window will be taken out and dry-walled in.

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And from this view.  The closet will be GONE as that whole wall is the other side of the new hallway!

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Right on the other side of that wall is what will be the other side of the hallway in our bedroom.  Just imagine this whole section you see being the new hallway headed straight out of the house.  The window will be dry-walled in as well:

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A new wall will be built about 3” inside the room to make sure we meet code for the width of the hallway.  Pretty soon our TV will have to come down and the dresser moved.  And as I mentioned, all those clothes are going to have to find a temporary home.

And here is outside before we do any digging.  The hallway I mentioned is right in between those two windows on the side of the house.

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Man, I can not wait!

And in case you need to catch up or need a reminder, here is the floorplan.  A few things have changed but it’s pretty close.

Filed Under: decorating

A Little Hardwoods Miracle

February 7, 2011 by Amy 8 Comments

2149c19c-5696-4243-9703-f748e77f7bb1_300 Do you ever just feel like God is on your side?  Sort of a heavy/prideful thing to say but I feel like God is on our side with this whole addition thing.  He’s just GOOD.  I don’t know if it will always be smooth sailing but this morning it was.

Where to start? 

Well, the plan for our currently carpeted hallway and the new hallway is to replace all that with the hardwood that is in the living room, kitchen, etc.  That way, we can put carpet in the new bedroom and not have to re-carpet the existing bedrooms.  I like carpets in bedrooms, what can I say?

Scott and I went to Home Depot last weekend to cross our fingers and hope that they still had our floors.  Well, only 2 lone boxes sat there, one of which had been opened and was poorly re-packaged.  We needed 5.  We talked to customer service and apparently it was a discontinued item and no one in our surrounding area had anymore.  Collective sigh.

I didn’t want mismatched hardwoods so we were going to go the carpet route but then we’d have to carpet all the bedrooms too so we didn’t have mis-matched carpet between the hall and the rooms.  Yeah, I know we could, but I’d rather do it right while we have the money. 

So this morning we decided to do a nationwide hunt for this hardwood.  I did a nationwide Craigslist search and two came up!  There were 30 boxes of 3/8” in Atlanta!  Ours was 5/8” but we could supplement with wood and make it work.  Things were looking up!

I called Home Depot to see if they could widen their search.  It was out of stock online.  I called locally they showed nothing in their system.  I mentioned that we just saw it last weekend and sure enough after taking a look, those 2 boxes were there.  I started asking him how else we could find it as we were pretty desperate.  He seemed helpful and put me on hold to make some calls.  Well.  Turns out there was some confusion and he was looking at their 3/8”.  He DID have SEVEN boxes of the 5/8” although we were sure we only saw 2 boxes last weekend.  I sent Scott right over and sure enough, he said, the seven boxes were stacked right where we had looked.  Plus, they were in fact discontinued so the sales lady let us have the seventh box we really didn’t need for half price.  Not to mention they were ALREADY 40% off from being discontinued. 

In short, we got MORE than what we needed locally for 43% off the original price.  Can I get an amen??

Also, this is our first official purchase for the addition!  Yay!

Filed Under: decorating

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Hey! I'm so glad you're here. I'm Amy, working mom of 3 in the Southern suburbs. I love Jesus, my family, books, chocolate and coffee. I write about faith, parenting, adoption, marriage, fashion, and design. Read more here

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