Before and After Staging

I realized that I haven't posted any staging pics lately, so I am going to try to do better about that.  The truth is that sometimes I forget to take "before" pics when I am performing my staging magic, so I don't always have any to share.  I am trying to do better about that as well.

I had the opportunity to recently help with a true bachelor pad.  It was a small but charming house that just had some really quirky aspects, the biggest being the master bath.  Take a look...who puts a tub in the middle of the room??  And a mirror with no vanity underneath?  Throw in some really old light fixtures and random shelves/towel racks everywhere, and this is what you get:

And here is the after:

Moving the white cabinet under the awkwardly placed mirror really helped balance the room.  Matching bath mats also helped.  Taking away the old towel rack and putting in an updated ring version along with new, updated lighting really helped as well!   But the biggest impact was the simplest...just opening up that shower curtain to get rid of the big white blob in the middle of the room!
Another awkward feature of the room was the front 2 rooms.  One seemed to be a dining room but was being used as an office, and the front living room was being used as a dining room.  No one wants to walk in to an office, so we switched things up a bit.

 Here is the after...we made it a true dining room to eliminate questions of what to do with the room.

To the right was the living room being used as a dining room.  We needed to try to at least give the idea that it could be used as a living space.

Here is the after.  Even adding a couple of chairs and a rug automatically changes the purpose and feel of the room.  You don't always need a full room of furniture to get the effect that you are looking for.

The guest bedroom was also challenging because of its small size and the fact that it was also being used to store a drum set.

After moving the set out and getting some bedding on the bed instead of clothes, the room looks 100 times better!!  With no drums it is easy to see the true size of the room.  Also notice throughout all of the pics how simply opening blinds makes a huge difference in the mood of the room.

 You can see the entire listing for this home HERE or click on any of the after pics to take you to the source.

Spring makes everything better!

It really does...as soon as it gets warm and sunny, you immediately get pulled out of that post-Christmas funk.  March Madness, NASCAR is in full swing (I might be the only one getting excited about this), Daylight Savings, flowers blooming, pollen; OK almost everything about it is great.  Spring is just what you need after a long, dreary winter, even though we only get about 2 weeks of it here in the South before it is full-blown summer weather.  So I like to begin the Spring season at my home as early as possible because it is always gone way too fast!
I thought I would share a few snippets of where Spring has made its way into our home. 

Here is my new Spring addition this year, a cute bunny from Pottery Barn (I think he's all sold out online, but I just saw a bunch at the outlet here in Memphis) that can hold anything from candy, dip, or in this case, a few eggs that I picked up last year at Hobby Lobby.  I love how he's all lounged out.  He's in my kitchen right now.  Please ignore the awesome couter tops.  Who puts pink countertops in a house???  The people before us apparently.

Here is my favorite bunny from some of my McCarty collection.  He's sitting on my den coffee table with a bowl of candy.  Side note: Andes are the most amazing candy ever made.

 This is a happy yellow bird that I picked up at TJ Maxx for super cheap.  He's on my built-ins because I thought they needed a little cheering up.

Outside I planted pansies in my two big flower pots on the front porch this weekend.  I mixed colors because I couldn't decide which I liked best!  These always remind me of college and the Tri Delta house because there were always lots of them planted along the front walk way. 

One of my most favorite things about Spring is the opportunity to use my outdoor furniture/cushions!  I bought these at Pottery Barn about four years ago for regular price.  I hardly ever buy things not on sale and in season, but I splurged.  And I will say they have held up great and I still get a lot of use out of them!  So I think my investment definitely payed off.

Hope y'all are taking advantage of the wonderful weather out there!!

Sneak Peek

I am slowly crawling out of a week-long cave of being sick and got a little work done on my chairs this weekend.  I am going in the next couple of days to pick out some fabric for when I attempt to re-cover them.  But, they are already looking a-mazing.
Here is one of the chairs getting a shiny, new paint job.  I'll post how I did it when I do a before/after of the entire dining set.  I am so happy with them so far though that I had to share!

Stay tuned for the final product (hopefully I win the battle with re-covering the seats) as well as a Spring-inspired post!

My side chair is having a little work done

This is my side chair.  He has floated from home to home, room to room since we have been married.  He has always just been there.  More of a pillow holder than anything else. 

You can see him here in my living room:

Or here on the other side of my living room:

Let's just say he gets shoved around.  And this time it's to the great room for extra seating.  A couple of years ago we sanded and stained him since the wood was pretty worn out.  That helped, but what he really needs is a facelift.  So I have decided that his cushions are getting re-covered!  I know he's excited. 
Here is the current color situation in the great room where he will soon live: 

I don't have a good picture of my drapes, but you get the idea...this is actually the corner that the chair will sit in (this picture is from Christmas, I don't always have ornaments on display). I really want this chair to finally have a place and purpose, so I am thinking I might go a little bold!  I absolutely love the Premier Prints chevron that I used in my guest bedroom HERE, and since it looks like chevron might be around for a while, I am thinking something like this:

Or this, if the first one scares me too much:

This ash color would tie in the grey in my walls.  Lucky for me, there is a premier prints store here in Memphis, so I will be making a stop in there pronto to see if they have either one of these beauties in stock.  I can't wait to show you the finished product!!

My Dining Room Table Won't Be Lonely For Long!

Great news!  After checking out stalking Craigslist for the past month or so, I finally found chairs for my dining room!  You can read my original post about my dining dilemna (After googling when my spell check popped up, I am told that this is now spelled dilemma, but I will continue to use the mn version as the mm version just looks weird.  Was anyone else taught to spell it dilemna??). 

This is the picture of them on Craigslist.  First of all, it is 6 chairs which is awesome, and second, we now have a table that we aren't quite sure what we are going to do with yet! 

Here is one of them once I got it home.  The fabric reminds me of when I was a kid (the 80's), I think it's actually closer to the 60's or 70's.  It's some sort of laser cut velvet.  It's actually not terrible if you picture the new color of the chairs as a soft white.  We'll see.

Here is a closer look.  It's in pretty good shape for how old it is. I will keep you updated on the makeover of these chairs and how the finished product turns out!  I'm sure there will be a little bit of a learning curve on these, but I'm ready to have a place to sit again!
Stay tuned...

Some recent finds/fabric decisions

So I took a few days off from blogging because I went out of town and it takes me a little while to get back on track.  This also means I haven't DIY'd anything lately but I have some potential projects on deck.  I just wanted to share with you a couple of them.
First, I found this great old sewing table at a thrift store and I just couldn't pass it up!

It is missing a middle piece I think.  I am planning on re-finishing or maybe even painting the top to give it some new life!  I'm thinking that it might sit in between the chairs that I don't have yet for my living room:

Ugh...SO dark in there right now!  The leather chair is gone so that helps (and it was night time in this pic)...but still... 
I also found these great pieces for super cheap a few weeks ago.  I think they were originally lamp shades, but I'm thinking they could be decorative bowls/holders-of-some-sort-of-accessory.

I just loved the design and since I am all about gold these days, I couldn't pass them up either.

Speaking of my living room, I have been trying for months to decide what fabric I wanted to use in there for my curtains.  Currently, the curtains are literally silk fabric that I hemmed using no-sew hem tape.  That involved hours of ironing folks, so I am quite proud of them.  But, now that I actually know how to use a sewing maching, I think I should step it up.  And I might as well do a print to liven up the space a tad.  I was fabric shopping yesterday and came across a couple of options:

Sorry, it's a little blurry.  This one has a white background with grays, greens, browns, and tans.  I like it, but I'm thinking it might be a little too mono-chromatic for me.  I feel like I need more color! 

This option I like better because of ALL of the colors to pull from, but I'm afraid it might be a little dark once up on the wall.  I have samples of these options along with some others hanging around my living room right now trying to see them in different lights. 
I have to take into consideration my rug, which is a floral-type print already.  So I might have to ditch these altogether and go with a non-floral print.  We will see!
I will post updates once I make a decision!