Archive for May, 2009
Reader Redesign: Ooh La Loo
Roeshel’s bathroom went from caterpillar to butterfly thanks to her spot-on eye for elegance and her handy hubby Russ. Here’s her letter:
I’m a big fan of your blog (I’m a daily reader) and wanted to share my before/after pics of our powder room because a lot of times, you’re my inspiration. I think you’d approve! Haha.
Here’s a list of sources for you:
- Wall Color: Benjamin Moore Smoke
- Trim Color: BM Designer White
- Tile: Shore/bocachica
- Pedestal Sink: Glacier Bay (Home Depot)
- Faucet: Pegasus 9000 (Home Depot)
- Light Fixture: Tear Drop Chandelier (Urban Outfitters)
- Curtain: Abstract Floral/mist (Brocade Home)
- Vanity Mirror: Kingston Wall Mirror Shelf (Overstock.com)
- One Tough Chick Wall Hook: (One of my favorite shopping sites) Modcloth.com
- Pitcher/Basin: Homegoods/TJ Maxx
- Caldrea Liquid Hand Soap: Organize.com
- Bud Vases: Organize.com (no longer available)
I’m so proud of Russ for all of his hard work! Thank you so much! -Roeshel
We’re all over this gorgeous makeover, and we just had to laugh because we actually have the same teardrop chandelier from Urban Outfitters in our very own half bathroom. It’s a small world (full of glittering bathroom chandys). Gorgeous work Roeshel and Russ! To learn more about their fabulous transformation, drop in on Roeshel’s blog. Thanks so much for sending the delicious pictures our way guys!
Jennifer’s Design Dilemma
Jennifer and her husband Derick’s living room is bursting with posh potential. Here’s her letter:
My husband and I need your help. Our living room/formal dining room is dark and the fireplace wall feels WAY too busy with the dark brick, white mantel/tan wall and the cluttered, uneven bookshelves. There is a silly window in the wall behind the painting on the top left shelf that has to be covered up in some way (it’s about the size of the painting that is covering it). Things that stay: the big painting (our inspiration), the buffet table, the dining table (though I’ve thought about swapping the chairs for something creamy and modern), the loveseat, the curtains, the sconces. Everything else can go. My husband would like the room to feel “stylish, grown up and cohesive.” I would like the room to feel like a boutique hotel lobby that you could actually live in. Our priorities are getting more seating in front of the fireplace, accent lighting, and the fireplace wall. We’re willing to spend a little more for pieces with longevity. We like equal parts contemporary, mid-century modern, and traditional. Oh and we’d like a new wall color. We like chocolate, orange, citron green, teal, & red. Thanks for your help! -Jen & Derick
This space is primed for a major makeover. Here’s the plan:
And now for the mood board breakdown.
Read the rest of this entry »
Life On Less
The bummer-of-an-economy hit home with us a few weeks ago. My company issued pay cuts to all employees in an effort to ward off having to take more drastic cost-saving measures down the road. It’s obviously not news I wanted to hear, but I was certainly grateful that it wasn’t worse. When I told Sherry about it, we shared some moments of disbelief, anger and worry. But over the following days we slowly embraced the reality of having to live on about $400 less per month.
You guys know that we’ve already adopted a pretty affordable lifestyle and pride ourselves on being able to live life to the fullest even when our wallets aren’t (Sherry gives me haircuts, we’re a one-car household, we eat in all the time, I brown bag my lunch, etc). But we’ve gotta be honest: four hundred beans seemed like a lot to cut out of our already no frills budget. We don’t have it 100% figured out yet, but I thought we’d let you in on how we’re planning to adjust so far.
1. Kick my iTunes habit: It’s small, but I can keep a few bucks in our bank account 99 cents at a time by being a bit less iTunes happy. Music is to me as shoes are to Sherry (yeah old school SAT-style analogy), so I’m trying to absorb my pay cut a bit by rediscovering my existing music collection, and turning to Internet radio and YouTube when I want to enjoy playlists of new music.
2. Pause my gym membership: I work out at the Richmond area YMCA, and primarily use it as a place to shower after a lunchtime run downtown. By simply shifting my runs to mornings or evenings I can shower at home, where it’s free. And since it won’t cost me to restart my membership, I won’t be penalized for taking a break. Though Sherry will have to do without my rippling muscles for a little while (please note the sarcasm).
3. Trim our vacation by a couple days: We’d saved up for a weeklong road trip to Atlanta, Savannah and Charleston, but we decided to cut back a little by holding off on Charleston for next time. Shortening our little trip by 2 days put almost $250 back in our pocket in hotel fees alone. Plus, we can’t complain about the extra time that we spent relaxing in our own home sweet home instead.
4. Watch movies at home: Movies are probably second to my music obsession, so we try to allow ourselves a couple of trips to the theater each month. Instead I’m just going to practice patience this summer and rely on our Netflix subscription to satisfy my craving for cinema.
5. Cash in some credit card points: Sherry and I have gotten into the habit of using our credit cards to pay for just about everything. Not because it allowed us to buy things we can’t afford (we pay it off in full each month) but because it’s an easy way to track our spending. A few years of this habit later, we have wracked up quite a few points and have finally decided to trade them in for some bonus dinero.
6. Remember our refinance safety net: The great coincidence of all this is that my $400/month pay cut came just days after we refinanced, which reduced our monthly payment by – you guessed it – $400 per month. Maybe it’s all a big financial joke the universe is playing on us, but we’re still planning to have the last laugh. We hope to be able to continue to overpay our mortgage each month, but find comfort in the fact that we can reduce our monthly expenses by exactly $400 by letting that go if we encounter any unexpected expenses.
All in all, we’re pretty optimistic about everything. With Sherry having earned a variable freelancers income for over 3 years now, we’re well versed in adjusting our spending based on how much we’re bringing in each month. So ’til the economy gets better (knock on wood) we’ve got our noses to the grindstone and our hands out of the piggy bank. Have any of you guys felt the financial pinch especially hard lately? We know we’re certainly not the only ones with employment woes, so feel free to commiserate or, better yet, offer up some money saving tips or words of encouragement to the group.
And speaking of money saving tips, check out our other moolah-related posts which list a bunch of things that we do to keep cash in our wallets and smiles on our faces. Here’s the first one, the second, and the third. Happy saving to one and all.
Window Shopping: Sweet Savannah
We promised to share our Savannah shopping finds and we’re back to deliver the goods. After dropping in on virtually every decor store in the city (with our camera in hand- we’re such tourists) our favorite shop by far was The Paris Market & Brocante on Broughton Street. Their pieces were more inspiration than reality (we don’t exactly have $1600 for a side table) but the sheer creativity of their displays and the diversity of their offerings kept us swooning (and dreaming up some DIY versions of our own). Here’s what we loved…
This insanely gorgeous oyster shell chandelier had me ready to buy a bunch of oyster shells online to string up with wire and make my own. And the $1,800.00 price tag confirmed that the only way I’d get one of these babies would be to make it myself. But seriously, isn’t it amazing?
We felt another surge of DIY inspiration when we feasted our eyes on this lovely driftwood framed mirror and the amazing basket + casters + glass top = coffee table. I instantly added a humongous order of driftwood to the oyster shells on my mental gotta-find list.
We also really adored this twig pendant drum shade. I don’t even have to order a supply of twigs online- I can grab them from the backyard- and use either wire or Liquid Nails to hold them in place between two metal shade hoops to create a natural and oh so interesting DIY pendant. If only there were more hours in the day to execute all my new decor projects! Oh look, here I am pawing a few of my favorite beachy finds- a gorgeous huge nautilus shell and a giant ostrich egg (yes it’s almost as big as my awkwardly small head). I felt like I was standing inside the coveted coffee table book The Cabinet of Natural Curiosities. Heaven.
It was seriously devine intervention that I walked out without bags full of goodies and an empty wallet. But I took lots of photos and now have a ton of projects on my mind, so that must have tided me over for the time being. As we continued down Broughton Street we also ran into the most charming little specialty store: The Savannah Bee Company’s Honey House.
Inside we found row after row of gourmet honey in delicious flavors like orange blossom and tupelo. There was even a little honey bar where you could squirt samples into a spoon- and even try some raw honey comb with cheese and crackers. Needless to saw we left with sticky fingers.
Probably one of the most intriguing places that we stumbled across was an amazing old shop called V & J Duncan crammed with old maps, botanicals, illustrations, and prints- many of which were guaranteed to be over 100 years old. There were some pretty great fern and orchid drawings and of course some fantastic antique world maps but probably our favorite thing to do was sift through the baskets, drawers, and shelves labeled with locations that meant something to us. It was so interesting to find ancient post cards with illustrations of Times Square and super old prints and photographs of the state capitol here in Richmond – and although we left empty handed we spent about an hour just poking around and meeting the owner’s adorable Cocker Spaniels who stood guard by the door.
This fabulous souvenir shop discovery just had to be included in our little shopping roundup because it harkens back to this tongue-in-cheek post from April. We especially appreciated that someone took the time to put photos of cats inside the cat-themed frames (except for the dog picture in the frame with the feisty cat with his tongue out). Excellent attention to detail. And yes, we’re kidding about them being some of our favorite finds, but they were certainly entertaining in their own right.
Then we hit up Whitaker Street (which was chock full of more furniture, accessory, lighting and antique shops), where we dropped in on One Fish Two Fish, an adorable boutique with an amazing wall of sunburst mirrors (it’s such a great idea to collect various round mirrors and display them en masse) and gilded and hollowed out tree-trunk planters (which I totally want to make with some spray paint or even some gold leafing supplies and a few backyard stumps). So many projects, so little time.
And speaking of projects, this oyster shell votive holder carried a hefty $225 price tag, but my immediate goal is to recreate it (I am ordering my weight in oyster shells, right?). I love the ruffled texture that it adds and of course natural objects like shells are some of my favorite accessories- especially when they’re used in unexpcted ways. Here’s hoping I find the time to take it on soon (and you know I’ll take pictures every step of the way).
These are the items that almost got me to whip out my wallet. At forty bucks the round white ceramic palm leaf platter (bottom right) was hardly a steal, but even the next morning I woke up with pangs that I left without it. We’ll just have to head back down to Savannah someday…
So that sums up our Savannah window shopping spree. We’d love to hear your favorite finds of the bunch and of course any and all Savannah shopping info or experiences that you’d like to share with the masses. We thoroughly enjoyed out little vacay and can’t wait for our next big road trip.
Not Too Shabby Freebie Winners!
We might have a fight on our hands over our Sa-Sea Boutique pillow giveaway. No, not over the lucky four people who get the free pillows (we left that up to random.org), but we’re likely to see a power struggle over who truly rules the kingdoms of procrastication, organization, clean and obsessive-compulsive disorders (because quite a lot of you claimed to wear those crowns). Though I think only one person claimed to be the Queen of Unusual Last Names (we bow down to you, Bonnie Dang).
But maybe we should really be bowing down to the four people chosen to receive their favorite shabby-chic pillow from the Sa-Sea Boutique collection of four shown here. Those four lucky queens (sorry, kings) are… Venessa, Cela, Candy Howard and Lauren!
Congrats on your win, ladies! We can’t wait to hear which of the four pillows you each will choose. As for the rest of you, we know you’ve got an appetite for more freebies so we’ll satisfy your craving next Monday as usual.
Learn more about our freebies on our Giveaway FAQs page. Images courtesy of Sa-Sea Boutique.
