MARCH 2011

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Dream Home - Laundry/Mud Room

In my perfect Dream Home there is the entrance that goes into a hallway with a half bath and leads into the great room/dining/kitchen area. From the kitchen/dining room side a hallway leads to the garage (in the front) and then in the back is the laundry room/utility room. There is also an office on this side but that'll be featured next.

In my true Dream Home I would have a nice huge laundry room complete with a mud-room (instead of the craft area seen in this photo) similar to this from My Home Ideas:


But...in the real world, I'll be lucky to just get a small closet with room for a washer/dryer and maybe some cabinets.

Either way, the laundry room will be solely my domain since the Hubby doesn't always pick the right settings so I get very nervous. Because of this I want to decorate with one of my favorite colors - PINK!

I adore this wallpaper from York Wallcoverings:


As for decor, these fashion prints from Chad Barrett would be fun:




As for the washer and dryer - I would like glossy white or a platinum color - of course an energy star appliance as well. Any cabinetry would be white with these very girly knobs from Restoration Hardware:


For the Mud Room side I would like something like this set up from - of course - Pottery Barn:


And for the piece de resistance - a chandelier for the lighting! I know its so over the top for a laundry room, but hey, why not! I would definitely try to find something cheap at a flea market or something and spray paint it white - or maybe even black! That would be fun! The look I have in mind though is similar to this chandelier from Pottery Barn Kids:


The Office is up next and then moving on to the bedrooms!! Yay!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Dream Home - Kitchen/Dining

Planning your Dream Home kitchen is a tough task and virtually impossible to cover everything, so the following inspiration board gives you the general idea and decor but not all the exact details.

Kitchen

The layout that I imagine is the living area of the great room opens up to the dining area which is right next to the kitchen (similar to the middle Home Idea room). I know a lot of people think that a formal dining room is necessary but if I had to give up a room, that would be the one. I'd rather have a nice big dining table with comfy chairs and bench close to the kitchen so you can actually enjoy your guests company as you cook! That's half the fun!!

For the Kitchen and Dining room I would like the sea blue to take over. I pretty much love everything about the My Home Idea Kitchen at the top left. Those blue cabinets are perfect!! The only thing that I would possibly change is instead of the silver accents it would be bronze/copper. I just love the copper look, but the silver also looks awesome. For the counters, in a perfect world, I would go with the Perla di Sabbia Granite countertop from Granite Transformations and a dark wood butcher block for the island.

I also like the open shelving and cream walls. Speaking of walls - I kind of image the board and batten from the living area with a darker khaki color on top to continue through the dining room and then end once it meets the kitchen and turn in to a shade or two lighter cream but all in the same color realm.

You are probably wondering - "Roosters? Roosters in Hawaii?!" Well, I've always loved the idea of having a rooster decor in my kitchen - not going over board or anything. Two reasons why they will work in this dream home are: 1) it'll tie in the coral color from the living area and 2) if you've ever been to Kauai - well, you know that there are a crap load of chickens and roosters walking around all over the place!!

We already have some good dishes, but there are some that will probably go including our purple, red, and vegetable design bowls. We will keep the cream plates as well as our putty colored plates. I also found some great rooster bowls and mugs at...wait for it....TJ Maxx of all places!! I know we shouldn't have bought anything that we have to move, but I couldn't resist! I think all of these would be perfect with the shiny blue set and a few more cream and sea creature plates shown above..I think they are all from Pottery Barn.

I went ahead and decided to include the dining room in here as well since it is kind of the same room. I LOVE the rustic wood table from Pottery Barn (yes, if I could live in a Pottery Barn catalog, I would!). One side would be a bench and the other I think would be something like these slip covered chairs:


The blue stripes would be fun but I'd have to see if it is maybe too much, otherwise I would go with the cream ones...and yes, I would stain guard them first!!

Lastly, the lighting. I love the pendant lights above the kitchen island and I must have the gorgeous capiz shell rectangular chandelier from West Elm. Isn't it perfect with that table!

What do you guys think? Will it all go with the rest of the house?

Join  us Saturdays at tatertotsandjello.com for the weekend wrap up          party!

Friday, October 1, 2010

My Distraction


This blanket is what I was completely obsessed with finishing and caused my lapse in writing. I wanted to wait to post about it until I knew my friend received it. So, here is the story behind the whole thing....

One of my bestest friends is expecting her first baby, a little girl, anytime now and I wanted to make something for her. Initially I wanted to cross stitch a baby sampler but I was having a really hard time finding something that would match the nursery which is pink and a brown animal print of some kind. While looking for a cross stitch kit I found this yarn...


I decided that I would learn how to crochet and make a baby blanket! That wouldn't be too hard, right? Well, the first night I tried I could not for the life of me figure it out. After a temper tantrum and calling my mom to complain about the fact that I couldn't figure it out, I decided to give it one more try and I figured it out! Well, I only figured out how to single crochet but I figured that would be fine. Here is a close up of the single crochet...


I started out with 300 stitches, which I thought would be a good length. I wasn't using a pattern or anything, I was just going to make a small baby blanket with the Neopolitan yarn. Well, I soon figured out that it was really really long and an entire blanket of that same colored yarn would be boring. So, I decided to make stripes with the solid colors...


Needless to say the blanket turned into an adult size..it was actually perfect size for my hubby whom is 6 foot 2! Oh well, the little one will grow into it!


Now that this project is done, moving on to finishing the Scrapbook!

Join  us Saturdays at tatertotsandjello.com for the weekend wrap up          party!