The Rug...and a few lessons.

Well first of all

WELCOME

to everyone new following along here!

SO happy to have you!!!

If you've been following a little while,

you know I've been trying to be patient in

getting our living room put together.

Dare I share my lack of success??? :-/

So...we got the rug. One.little.problem.

Do you see it?

Well, I knew I got a little smaller rug than

our previous one, but I thought the size would work fine.

Nope. Even with getting a smaller rug pad,

it just doesn't look right.

But THIS is the problem I'm talking about.

A little closer for ya.

It unfortunately arrived like this in the mail. :-(

Thankfully RugsUSA has been great.

The result? I was given a full refund for damages,

no UPS inspection, SO, basically a free rug with a hole in it.

Hm? What am I supposed to do with it???

They said I can donate it, throw it away, whatever.

It's too small for the room, I don't know if I really have a different

place in the house for this rug where I could 'hide' the rug....?????

I'm wondering if I should be a little thankful since

I didn't go with my gut on getting the bigger size?

Lesson learned!!!

Anyway....here are the next couple of pieces in the works!

I picked this up over the weekend and am SO excited!

I've been looking awhile for something like this

with these lines and have a very specific idea for it!

This is an amazing quality Stanley dresser.

Everything functions perfectly.

It is going to be a beautiful high gloss coral color, and I totally

envision it in a girl's room!

The center door opens to 3 drawers. Nice! :-)

Here's Annabelle helping with some work for

her Operation Smile fundraiser!

She's only $166.00 from meeting her goal!!!

Thank you for your support so far! :-D

I hope you're off to a great start to your week!

I'm definitely feeling quite contemplative over

some big decisions right now. That's why I love

my time working on furniture...gives me time to think. ;-)

~Anneke

Love to have you follow along via

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Family Room Update

Awhile back I posted this design concept for

our family room, which just so happens to be one BIG

room with the kitchen and dining.

I love how open it is!

Here was my design:

And here's where I'm at:

Craigslist apothecary cabinet I need to fix up.

New natural shades on the big windows.

Here's the day view - we're going to "fix" those

parts hanging down because we would like to protect

the little view we actually have of the water! :-)

Night view - yay! No more fish bowl feeling!!!

We got all 5 of our shades from Select Blinds.

I am in no way affiliated with them and this

is just me speaking as a happy customer!

All 5 shades cost us about $325! That's it - custom ordered!

This is the second time we have ordered from them

and both experiences have been super great. :-)

Here's my view from behind the kitchen bar.

See that peeking out on the left???

It's our barstools! Hooray!!!

Let me tell you,

when you have a bar.

with NO barstools.

it drives-you-nuts!

I finally looked at my husband and was like,

"Can I just order the barstools already???!"

(He's a trained sheet-metal worker and was a little

nervous, but ecstatic that they are welded and solid!)

I got these from Overstock.com

(Again, no affiliation)

Ok...so some changes:

This rug

Two of these chairs, one each flanking the tv console.

Unfortunately, it is currently out of stock and I didn't jump

on getting them quick enough. Crossing my fingers

they get back in asap!

BUT, just in case, I also like this...

and this....

What are your thoughts???

I need your opinion! :-)

I've also sold the barcaloungers and coffee table

(both previous Craiglist purchases)

for a nice profit, and still

waiting on the rug and couch to sell.

The hubby put the tv on the wall and

it looks AWESOME! :-)

As I've been looking around for what to fill in the space,

things are always changing slightly

and I'm still debating on the styling of that huge wall!

That thing is a PAIN!

But - I've promised my husband, I'll be super picky, not

rush it, and just get it "right" and not touch the room again for at least

two years or something! ;-)

I know...funny right? Lol

~Anneke

Family Room Design Concept

Well one advantage to being in physical recovery is that I am getting to spend more time actually getting the things spinning around in my head onto concept boards! Yeah! I've been spending a lot of time lately really evaulating our personal space, how we use it, storage solutions, colors, everything. For my husband's sake, and my own really, I don't want to feel like we are constantly re-designing our house. I think a little bit of this comes from the nature of finding deals on craigslist. For example, I bought a table to use at my sister's bridal shower this summer and then refinish and sell. Well, I liked it a lot, enough to keep it and sell what we already had (even for the same price we bought it two years ago! And we basically made $125 since the table we kept was less expensive). It's a score in my book, but I can't be constantly doing this to my family! lol :-)

So, I've been working on a concept board for our family room, which is really the kitchen, dining space, and living room all in one open concept. For a long time I've loved olive green, burgundy, tans, etc., and they feel very "down" to me lately when I see them in our space. Not necessarily anywhere, because other places where these colors are used I still love them. I think I'm just ready for something different. I keep praying this all doesn't look weird...every person's fear right? I look at the things I love and I see nautical beachy, industrial, glam chic, modern, bright pops of color against distressed weathered woods......um, excuse me - how do I pull this all together???

Well...here is what I have at the moment. I'd love your "kind" opinions.

What do you like, not like, what works, what seems funny?

Here is a reminder of what the space looks like.

I'm terribly indecisive at times when it comes to details. I know what I'd like to have where, but as to what kind, shape, size, color, texture...oh, that can take awhile. Every choice will make a difference, and in the end make all the difference. Oh boy - I'm starting to sound too serious here! lol :-)

How about some more reader opinions? I'm struggling over what kind of mirror look to go for. I know I'd like something unique (not a classic thick framed rectangular mirror - that's for a different place in the house).  Here are some ideas:

A.

source

B.

source

C.

source

D.

source

What do you think??? I'm currently working on implementing

my design for our Reading Room, while planning for this space.

I.can't.wait.

After months of renovating, I'm so glad we finally

sold our other house - it makes me feels a bit more

free to go ahead with more personal

projects like this!

Let me know what you think! :-)

~Anneke~

You can now follow me via Pinterest and Twitter!

 

 

Well. Now that I'm back and officially done with all of the laundry and cleaning, we ended up doing a little bit of rearranging between our living rooms. Unfortunately with rough times and our other house not selling we needed some extra money for property tax. Boo. Keeping it real on this end. :-( 

Anyway, we decided to go ahead with selling our nice leather sectional since it's been on my mind lately to open up our family room.

We started with this

Oh...that angled wall.... :-/

Sold the couch for what we bought it for two years ago

off of Craigslist. :-)

And now have this

You may remember me talking about selling

our other couch from our reading room here.

So with that in mind, we used our couches for 2 years,

sold them and made $400,

and bought the couch above for $100.

I'm feeling pretty good about that -

even though I have to use the cash for property taxes

and not for funner things.

It brings out the creativity, right???

As for the family room, we kept these Barcaloungers

SO COMFY!!! They just take up A LOT of space!

It's not "done", but what do you think initially?

I love having a rug there, which we didn't before,

and I love how open it feels.

We're planning to put move the tv to the wall,

add a media center, etc.

On another note, I somehow got around to building this today!

It's like CRAZY long!!!  Almost 95" for our entryway wall.

I'm planning to stain it a dark walnut or jacobean

and paint the boxes black or something.

They are from a toy box set!

Be on the look out for the finished picture. :-)

I hope you are having a great week!

~Anneke~

You can now follow me via Pinterest and Twitter!

Need Some Design Ideas PLEASE :-)

So I've been "struggling" over our family/tv room, well, literally since the design stage of building our house. We've recently been talking about liquidating our couch, because the kids are going to destroy it, and I'm increasingly big on refurnishing from what you have every few years. But what to do instead???

We built our home with an open concept...kitchen, dining, family room all in one. LOVE it!

No....I didn't "clean" for picts. :-/ That's for afters, right? :-)

I'm open to everything except demoing...paint, furniture, I'd love to move the tv to the large wall, but what to put above the fireplace???, and then there's this wall....

This weird, angled, but necessary wall, that's bugged me since design stage.

That angled wall, with the large "focal" wall  where I'd like to put the tv (the wall and ceiling have specifically been wired for surround which we currently do not have), and the angled fireplace all have me slightly stumped. And don't mind that bench; it is temporary from the bridal shower! For reference, that art plaque thing is 47" x 47"!

So your ideas, PLEASE!!!  I am asking for any colors, textures, furniture, arrangement, fireplace, decor, whatever...I will listen to it ALL.

The other opening goes to the "formal" space, closet under the stairs, and out to the garage....

Here is a close up of the fireplace....

And currently, ahem, "working", on the dining space, but here it is looking back from the wall.....

I'd love for it to feel more inviting and open, but still cozy. I'm not a big fan of microfiber couches (no offense!). I love the idea of a sleeper couch and the hubby needs some sort of recliner. We always had movie nights and slept out downstairs on the sleeper couch growing up. Fun memories. :-)

So...either here on blog or facebook, please share!

Thanks and have a great weekend,

~Anneke~