let there be (attractive) light

I have hated our kitchen light fixtures since the day we moved in. Although they were brand-new, they looked dated. And not in a fun vintage/retro kind of way. Just in an ugly way. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I might want, looking at different brands like Progress lighting, considering hanging lamps, and ultimately we just found a two-pack of pretty fixtures at Home Depot for a really great price. Two weeks later, Lowe’s had one of these fixtures for way more than we paid for the two-pack! Granted, maybe the metal was different but they looked the same. And trust me, it’s a huge improvement over what was there to begin with. It only took six years, but I feel like my kitchen is finally where I want it to be!

A Painted Kitchen: Coming Soon!

Drew and I decided that this was the year to finish painting the rooms in our house, as I’ve mentioned before. We’ve got our colors for the dining room and kitchen and will be starting those in the next month or so - I’m thrilled! The kitchen is going to be a neutral color, a very light brown. I’d love to put up a backsplash, some pretty glass tiles or something, but for now that’s not in the budget. Definitely an idea for down the road, though. The dining room is going to be green. We plan on repainting the den (formerly our master bedroom), but that is not the priority right now. I can’t wait for my kitchen to feel a little more welcoming. I do my best, but the beige walls are so uninspiring. With a light brown I can go a few different ways for accessories. I can do gold/evergreen/burgundy as I currently have it or I can switch to blue/yellow — a little more French country I think. That’s what I’m leaning towards. So excited to get going!

A Neat Workplace

For Christmas I bought my husband a charging valet for all of his various electric gadgets. They used to be strewn all over the counter, and I can’t tell you how many times I had nightmares about spilling something on his iPhone. While it would be nice for him to have a dedicated office with sleek modern office furniture, we’ve gone that route before and it just doesn’t work for him. With his laptop he can be anywhere on the days he telecommutes, and it makes more sense to have a place for his things somewhere where he’ll actually put them. But I did convince him to move the valet to the dining room (there was space on top of our wine fridge), so now I can reclaim my counter space and cook without worry.

Clean and Uncluttered

Oh, thank heavens the Christmas decorations are finally down! I still have a few houses from my Christmas village on the tv stand, but for the most part, it’s all on the dining room table ready to be boxed up and put away until November. It makes me realize how much I prefer a clean, uncluttered look. I love having all the decorations up at first, but then I start to feel like it’s too much. So now I’m in cleaning and organizing mode. It’s the beginning of January but I’m already making a plan of attack for spring cleaning. It will be here before you know it!

Finishing Touches

I’m hoping that in the next few months we can finally finish up painting the rooms in our house. Yes, we’ve been here for over five years and the kitchen, dining room, and hallway are still boring “builder beige.” We’ve picked out a lovely mocha for the hall and we might end up using a “mistake” gallon for the dining room. When they were painting Noah’s room, one of the gallons of red paint came out more brown. I think that would look great in the dining room. I’d also like to put up a couple wall sconces. Dolan Designs has some really nice looking ones. The kitchen is the only room I don’t know about. Maybe yellow? It’s hard to choose because the walls all run into each other so the paint has to coordinate with everything else we have. It’ll be a challenge, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

Fun Decorating Idea

A couple weeks ago we were shopping and Drew wanted to look at closet knobs to replace the boring ones on the kids’ doors. Well, we didn’t have any luck finding something we liked for Laura’s room, but we found adorable plastic knobs for the boys’ rooms! Noah got a brontosaurus and Jake got two taxi cabs. I love when stuff works out like that! I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with Laura’s room, but I just haven’t been able to devote time to it. It will probably be a good winter project.

New Faucet

I hate our bathroom facuets. They’re not attractive and I’m thinking of researching new ones. I always like Kohler faucets and I know they are high quality, but there are other brands too. I just need to spend some time researching. I think I want to paint first, though and take it from there.

Bathroom Ideas

I love visiting people’s home and seeing how they decorate. My BIL’s new home is so nice. It’s in a housing development and it is brand-new. The houses are too close for my comfort, but they are certainly beautiful. The master bath is especially nice! It has a garden tub and a separate shower with a glass enclosure, double sinks, porcelain tile, and such a clean, modern look. His girlfriend decorated it very nicely too. So I’ve been thinking of things I can do to update our bathroom. The full bath downstairs has no window and we painted it a dark green, which I think was a mistake. At some point I would like to repaint it a light color. Maybe a light eggshell blue or even just plain white and then accessorize with silver. Drew has other areas he wants to paint and repaint first, though so I’m not going to get to my project anytime soon. Unless he goes on a business trip — then maybe I could surprise him with it!

Coziness!

This fall we purchased a new sectional sofa for the living room and wow — it is just so comfy! On chilly nights I can fall asleep so quickly while relaxing on the couch in front of our wood stove. It was hard to find the perfect sectional, but I think we finally did. We looked at so many stores, from chains to boutiques todiscount furniture shops. Interestingly, the furniture at the high-end stores didn’t always seem better, even though it was certainly more expensive. You can’t trust anyone anymore and sometimes the discount stores offer the same furniture (without the nametag) for a much lower price, I have learned. It’s interesting.

I just love our room now! I’m so glad we were able to make that decorating change. It just makes everything so much nicer!

Sofa so good~

OK, the title is a bit funnier if you actually say it out loud Anyway, we *did* end up finding a sectional the other day! The places that we looked seemed to have a lot of modern furniture that was very cool looking, but didn’t fit with the style of our house. Finally we found a sectional that we liked, in the color we wanted, that is also in our budget! Score!!! And bonus, we even found a rocker recliner to replace our old one. I am going to wait to order the furniture because delivery time is 4-6 weeks, and I don’t want to get it before our wood stove is installed.

But I am so thrilled that I can cross another “to do” off of my never ending checklist.