Monday, May 16, 2011

Project #3: Bedrooms



We've started redoing our bedrooms. The last week has been bitter sweet. You see, I had this amazing idea of leaving the kids with my parents in Utah while I was there for my sister's graduation. That meant two weeks of uninterrupted work here at the house. I thought I'd love listening to my books and painting, well I actually do, but I miss the kid terribly.  I have a bit of an idea how empty nester's feel now. I'm so not ready for that phase of my life! I want my kids back!!! I'm trying to focus on choosing the colors for their accent walls and decor. How elated am I to get that gross white carpet out of my house? Elated doesn't express enough of how I'm feeling. Unfortunately it wasn't yet in the cards for me to have a carpet free home, but hopefully the next house will be. At least the padding is somewhat green, we are getting the Nike padding, made from scraps of recycled foam from the Nike factories. So without further ado, here are some inspiration pictures:

Isaac's Bedroom:

I'm a beach person, I was on born practically on the beach and lived there for half of my life. I miss seeing the ocean every day, and I won't rest until I get to see it EVERY DAY again.  So, every home I own will have  a beachy feel until I get to my real beach home. The room that has had the most beach appeal has always been Isaac's room. When I was pregnant with him, I planned out a sailing theme for his room, and that theme still continues on through his collection of sailboats.   I buy one every time I go on vacation to somewhere that has an ocean. I'm also printing and framing a sepia picture of Isaac and Grandpa sailing in Brazil and adding it to the room decor.  His room will have a bluish teal accent wall. So these are a few of my inspirational pictures for his room. Thanks Pottery Barn!




Bella's Room:

Well, I'm a no frills kind of gal, and so is my daughter. So it's been hard finding a theme or bedding  that isn't Shabby Chick or Princessy, or too grown up for her(she's only 2). And the main problem is that I'm completely biased towards duvet covers. It's just easier when it comes to putting it in the dryer when it gets dirty. In hopes to get myself going in a good direction, I asked her if she wanted pink or blue in her room, she said blue. I wanted hot pink, so now I'm still at a loss.  I also wanted her room to have a beachy feel, but unfortunately the only duvet cover that was cool enough for that costs $250!!! What a rip off, if I get completely stuck and can't even pull off a different theme, I may splurge and rip myself off..... At this point, the duvet I got for her is busy enough that I don't know if I can add too much more to the room and achieve my vision of a modern, uncluttered  and active little girl's room. I saw these cute circle decals, and found a stenciling pattern that is almost like this one. I guess her room will be a trial and error deal and will probably take me 3 months to finish.........Here are some of my inspirations, thanks to Lulu Chua, PB teen and West Elm.




Our Room:

Well this one is the tough one, how do you make an original Kiva fireplace not be an eye sore in a modern room? I don't have the answer yet. But my brain is constantly spewing out smoke, so I'll get to a solution eventually. So a couple of things we've been wanting to do with our bedroom is to make it a bit more private. Right now we have a wall of glass between it and the sun/toy room. So the etched glass door is already installed and etched picture windows will be installed in a few weeks. That will give us visual privacy but still let in all the light from the sun room. I've also wanted to put a chair or two by the fireplace for some cozy winter night reading, but I'm worried that I won't find two chairs cozy enough and small enough for that. We'll see.... I've also been considering a bench by the foot of the bed. I think it'll be too much  for our room. As long as I find the right chairs, I'll do fine without the bench. My other issue is that our bed was bought to be in our Utah house, it matched the house and the colors perfectly. Now we've got this awesome bed, but it's never perfect with the few bedding I've bought for it in the last 3 years. I'm hoping that an accent wall will tie the leather color on the headboard in with the rest of the spa theme I'm planning for the bedroom. Here are a few inspirations for our bedroom. Thanks to HGTV, Ashley Rohe blog, and the brilliant Mies Van Der Rohe for designing a timeless modern classic, the Barcelona Chair.





Sunday, May 15, 2011

Almost Zero Waste

As usual everything happens for a reason, and depending on your reasons, things will always happen to push you one way or another. I've been, weakly, on a quest to become a greener, more environment friendly person. I did away with plastic containers in 2008, now only having glass containers(most still have plastic lids, BPA free of course), shed away most of the plastic cooking utensils and replaced them with bamboo utensils, and try to recycle more than I throw in the garbage. I've always been into green building, ever since school. I also hate clutter, and am constantly considering ways to reorganize things in my home to provide a more streamlined look. Yes, I'm obsessed with everything being completely uniform, and sterile, it makes my boat float. Having lived in an old house that desperately needs updating for the last 18 months has just about driven me bonkers! So the remodeling continues I'm  already preparing ourselves for some crazy reductions. Now that I have an iPad (my Mother's Day surprise), I'm even considering parting with my books. We've downsized our library so many times already and you can find pretty much all classics in some time of downloadable electronic format nowadays. So anyway, back to my inspiration. This woman is amazing to me just for her zeal regarding her carbon footprint. I'm so glad a friend posted this on Facebook, and now I'm ready to start reducing, reusing and recycling even more! I don't know if I could get to that point, but some of the things she's doing are so easy pretty convenient so there's no reason not to try!

Zero Waste Home


So I want to thank Bea for being avant-garde, you have and are inspiring many households to do the same and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I was so excited about the produce bags I had to google them and found them on Amazon. Target also carries some.  For a few years, I've been putting my fruits and veggies  loose in the cart because I didn't want to use a plastic bag. This totally solves my problem! Click on the pic and it'll take  you to Amazon.