light up my life.

this light is from uptown thrift. it cost me $9.99

i am planning to hang it above my dining room table once i am done fixing it up.

so far it looks like this...

i ordered some light bulbs that are amazing looking from school house electric . 

i figure with the open shade i needed something a little more interesting and design savvy then just the regular compact fluorescents that we have in every other light in our house.

 i am making baby steps towards turning this house into what i want it to be after having lived here for 3 years. no big deal. haha. 

polyvore

                             
                                                            Dream Room by greybirds on Polyvore.com

i wish this was my room.
this is how i would arrange it in my current bedroom.

i would put the bed on the same wall as the bedroom door, the little branch table on the same wall as my closet doors with the chair next to it with the mirror hanging above the table. the armoire would go in the corner at an angle and then i would use the painting on the wall next to the bed with the small window on it. the lamps would go on either side of the bed on some small white tables. and to finish off the room id layer in the soft chenille rug and the curtains. 

swedish design makes my heart go pitter patter...

This is what we currently have in our dining room (minus the bench):

It was a gift from my boyfriends Grandfather.

It was really very sweet and he knows we need help furnishing our house but he bought them without asking us about our other furniture and it just doesn't fit in. So I am painting the top of the table white to match the rest and replacing those round back chairs with something square.

I hate the chairs. I have to replace them before I lose my mind. So I have been looking at other options and this chair was the winner:

ingolf

I need these chairs to spice up my dining room. They are from Ikea, of course, and only $50 apiece right now. I looked on every other site I could think of for cheap cross back chairs that still look decent and I kept coming back to these so I guess I will be driving to Frisco to pick a few up in February along with my new bed 

and dresser

and quite possibly a million other things for my house that I have always needed but never knew existed until I found them in the $1 bin at Ikea.  

By the way I was all gung-ho about the dark furniture trend until I decided I just didn't like how it makes my entire house look dark. I also just purchased a brand new chocolate brown sofa and I need the other furniture to be light and airy next to it so it doesn't weigh the room down too much. I have also been craving girlie romantic rooms with light grays and lavenders and some yellows thrown in for good measure. I am going to be painting my entire house during Spring Break with my boyfriend so I will make sure to post before and after photos on here. 

Have any spring cleaning planned for well, spring? 

Organizing those closets? 

Cleaning out that cabinet once and for all?

love letter... to my mailbox.

today i painted my mailbox.
it looked like this before:

only without the horse and carriage, it has two lions on either side of a crest type thing. 

and now it is a pretty aqua color. i painted the entire thing including the crest although i plan on painting that gold later. its pretty much the same color as this mailbox:

picture via *

i am going to strip the paint off my front door during spring break and repaint it a pretty yellow color. right now it is a kind of awful sea foam green. not a pretty oceanic sea foam color but a puke green sea foam. our house is a white capecod style cottage with a greenish gray roof and green trim. i think a yellow front door in the right shade will be charming and brighten up our entire facade. 

picture via *

i imagine it will end up looking something like this. i am pretty excited about it. 

do you think yellow front doors are pretty? or maybe they are  just not your thing?  

fabric finding mission = success.

   I loved the bones of this chair, just not the hideous fabric.  
It only cost me $10 at Second Home Furniture...                            

 This is the chair I am making over for my studio/office. 

This is my baby boy Ben hamming it up for the camera.

Please forgive the quality of this photo it was taken with my crappy camera on my phone( that I spilled green tea on at work).

Not quite done with it yet, still need to smooth out some spots and staple fabric in place. 

It's coming along nicely though.

I bought this fabric for $4 a yard. Yay!

 I went to Dallas last weekend with 2 friends to find fabric stores. Ones that carry Amy Butler and Heather Bailey and Sandi Henderson or any other of those fabulous designers. 


We did not find a single store that actually carried any of these fabrics, we went to several that said they had them but in reality did not. BUT we did stumble upon the most fabulous places by accident. 


First we found Make Studio where the lady (owner?) let us in the back room to look at their fabric after I told her about my love of design and where I scored several amazing fabrics at equally amazing prices. (I will post pictures of those later when I find my camera cord) She also told us about their super secret fabric sales that they hold twice a year where everything is marked down to under $5, and then told us about her favorite place to shop which led us to Super Textiles, which by the way is in a super shady, lock your door, and roll up the windows area of Dallas. They did make up for it by having fantastic prices and huge bolts of everything just stacked up to the ceiling in a warehouse. This is where I found the fabric to reupholster my desk chair with. For $4 a yard no less. $4 a yard for brightly printed canvas that should have been $14 a yard anywhere else. From there we went to the old standby Golden D'or where despite having massive amounts of fabric to choose from nothing really caught my eye, it may just have been that we had been driving around Dallas looking at fabric for hours at this point. We ended our mostly successful day with a trip to Eatzi's where I bought copious amounts of SW Pepper Spread to take home with me and had dinner. A very good dinner that consisted of half a lemon herb roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies all for $7.99. Why can't we live near one of these? All in all I'd say it was a good day. 


How was your weekend? Do any fabric shopping or furniture reupholstering? Oh, and since I'm new to the whole covering your perfectly good furniture with new fabric because it is more pleasing to the eye game, any hints or tips will be greatly appreciated. 


Have a good day!

design school.

                                            
                                                        picture via here

I'm thinking of uprooting my family and moving to Copenhagen to attend design school in 2011. I have researched how hard it would be to get a study visa for myself and a work visa for my boyfriend. Apparently it's  not very hard at all to live in Denmark if you want too. I have wanted to live in Copenhagen since high school. I am not sure why but I am drawn to this city like no other. I feel like I am meant to be a bike riding, design loving member of the Danish society. I want my little boy (now 1 1/2 yrs old) to experience something besides the state that we currently live in. His father grew up here and his father's father grew up here and so on. I am of a military background and have spent my entire life traveling from one place to the next and I love it. I actually miss moving around now that I no longer live at home. I feel as if I need to give Benjamin every opportunity that I can afford to give him. I would like him to learn a few languages while he is very young (the best age to learn a new language is around 3 years old or younger) and to have access to many different cultures, and not have the typical american upbringing. It is either Copenhagen where I would prefer to attend the Danish Design School or off to London where I would love to attend the London College of Fashion at the University of Arts London. If I get accepted to either one that is. I still have a LOT of work to do on my portfolio before I can even think of sending in my applications. I would love to take courses in textile design, photo styling and shoe design. We shall see what comes of these dreams later in the year, until then I better get cracking on some new pieces for my oh so empty portfolio case. Wish me luck!

stylista.

picture via something's hiding here

i have decided i want to be a stylist for a magazine/book/home design company.
i have been searching for something to focus on during college and i think i have found it.
i want to style interiors for decorating magazines.
i want to be able to go out and buy things for a shoot at a really cool vintage shop.
i want the life of jason grant  .
oh how i envy you.