orange walls...

Love this foyer for fall. Pretty staircase (remember, I have a thing for staircases), pretty botanical artwork, nice orange walls,  and how about the black outlining? Love it...

martha stewart

What do you think? Would you paint ever paint an orange room, like an entryway? Personally, I would if it worked with the colors in the rest of my house, I like small unexpected pops of color in small spaces.

Here are some other orange rooms--found a lot of these pictures before I started my blog so I can't remember most of their sources, let me know if you know where they're from...

I know this isn't really an orange room, but the orange and natural colored leaves definitely add a punch to the wall.

Better Homes and Garden

How about an orange ceiling? This looks great on those tall 12' ceilings, and the orange adds a lot of warmth to the rooms.

Love this idea of painting the back of your bookshelf a bright color instead of the whole wall. This gives you the feeling of an orange room without actually having to look at 4 orange walls all the time.

my other sister's bedroom re-do (coming soon)...

First, thanks for all the nice comments everyone left on my last post. I really do appreciate feedback and can't wait for more on upcoming posts!

Not only did I do my sister Catherine's bedroom this summer, but I also re-did my youngest sister's bedroom. I don't quite have the greatest pictures of it yet, but here is a sneak peek of how the bedroom turned out....

I hope you will all come back for more! I will keep you posted on the second "big reveal", I'm hoping I can get some good pictures up in a post within the next couple of weeks.

Until then you can read the posts that I wrote about her room back in July here and here.

the big reveal (catherine's finished bedroom)...

Here's the before....
....and after!

Here's the rundown...

My sister just turned 20 over the summer and even though she lives at school for 9 months out of the year she wanted to have a new, more grown up look for her bedroom. She wanted it to be more relaxing for when she does come home, because she is on vacation. Her room before was too country, too girly and very high school.

What I did was simplify it. I chose a nice blue gray paint color for the walls, and you can't really see it in the before picture, but originally the wall and ceiling above the chair rail was painted green. We painted it white to make the ceiling look higher and the room feel bigger.

One more before shot of the other side of the room. She had that huge corner armoire desk that took up a lot of space, and she didn't really need it because she isn't in high school anymore. So we got rid of it, sold it on craigslist and made $125 off of it to go towards the room! You can see the after picture of the same corner below...

We found that leaning bookshelf at a consignment store and it was already painted black so it was perfect. I wanted to organize her pictures, books, knick knacks in one place instead of having them all over the room (we also got rid of a ton!).
In this corner before there used to be two shelves with lots of stuff on them. I wanted to get rid of that to make this side of the room her "dressing area". I had the idea for the leaning mirror because she hates her closet door mirrors, they really make you look extra "wide". We were thinking about getting rid of the closed doors and putting some white curtains in, but I decided that I didn't want the bulk of the curtains or for them to look to messy, I was going for the clean look in this room. We found the mirror at Homegoods for a great price anyways, only $60!...they were way more at ikea.
Another shot of the "corner" with the dresser. I wanted to build up the height of the dresser a little by getting a taller lamp. The lamp is from Homegoods and the cute shade came with it. Random, but that picture of the ballerina was actually painted by our great grandfather in the 50s.
Close-up of the bed. That cute pillow is from Stein Mart. If anyone lives near Mission Viejo, CA that Stein Mart actually has a really great throw pillow section! For the bedding we decided to a duvet set that we already had (it was actually mine). It's very simple, plain white, which is what we wanted but it has nice lace details on it. The tiny lamp on her night stand is from Ikea and was only $19.99.
Excuse the mess, this is a progress shot that I took before we hung the pictures. This is the only good shot of the small ottoman stools at the end of the bed, super cute and from Ikea. If i knew now to sew I would have put a pretty striped fabric on them, but the white works too.
Close-up of bookshelf. My sister was a synchronized swimmer (actually still is) and she had a TON of swimming photos. I used what we had in decorating, but I tried to bring out pops of orange to tie in with the rest of the room.
Pretty vignette of her night stand.
One last shot. Forgot to mention the curtains! They're from Ikea, online it says $19.99 for a pack of 2 panels, but I want to say that we got them for less (on sale?) if I remember correctly.

Anyways, that is the room! Hope you like it! I would love to hear some feedback so if you're thinking something write a comment!

my sister's bedroom re-do...

If you just started reading my blog then you might not know what this is...

Over the summer I re-did my sister's bedroom. This was the initial "inspiration board" for the bedroom that I did back in June. You can read the original posts here and here. The bedroom was actually finished back in August but I never had the chance to take pictures of it before I came back up to San Francisco. So when my sister went home this weekend she was nice enough to take pictures for me!

This is the sneak preview for today, but come back tomorrow for the "before and after" photos of her bedroom...

fun things on sale...

If you haven't checked out Pier 1 or Cost Plus in a while, they have some great finds on sale right now....

This rustic "twig chandelier" from Pier 1 is adorable, and only $31.18! Regularly it's $125, so that's a great deal!

I had been looking for an inexpensive sunburst mirror for my sister's bedroom and finally found this one, also at Pier 1 for $39.99....I'm trying to convince her to buy it!

Love this cute table lamp which is on sale for $29.98 (Pier 1)

I am a big fan of simple cylinder vases right now and I think this is a nice twist on the style with its bamboo detail....50% off at $8.98 (also Pier 1)

I absolutely love these Moroccan occasional tables from Cost Plus, and they're only $29.99!

I like the simplicity of this candle sconce for $10.39, I've been looking for something similar to put on each side of the artwork above my sofa. (Cost Plus)

I so have these tables! And I love them! The small ones are only $20, the tall painted one is only $24.99 and they're perfect for a narrow hallway. I have them at the top of the stairs with a little dish on it where I drop my keys when I come home. The lamp on the larger one is great because it provides light to the very dark pantry that is across from it, by the way the lamp was only $15 with the shade from T.J. Maxx! Sweet deal.

Last, but not least, this awesome 5x8 jute rug from Pier 1 is only $50!

finally...

I forgot to mention some important news.....someone got Photoshop yesterday, and that someone is me!

This is going to make life so much better....

woot. woot.

this pillow is too cute...

Now that I saw that awesome tray table on One Kings Lane I've been checking back to see what other sales they have going on, which is where I spotted this little gem of a pillow...

Too bad it's sold out...
Geeze, I have seriously got to get on these sales sooner. They must be on east coast time because this sale just started and most things are already sold out!

easy DIY upholstered headboard (no sewing!)...

A while ago a wrote about how I wanted to re-do my bedroom. I want to paint the walls a very light warm gray and maybe paint my dresser a glossy black, or buy the low Malm dresser from Ikea in brown-black. Anyways, I still wasn't sure about what I wanted to do with my bed, right now I have an antique iron bed (painted white), it's very shabby chic, which is so NOT what I'm into now. That was a phase, my tastes have evolved....

Well, I was reading Design*Sponge last week and found great DIY instructions on how to make your own upholstered headboard! Super easy too! Once I save some money to re-do my bedroom, this will probably be the first thing i do.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out what kind of a fabric I want to use to upholster it, I'm thinking of a fabric with bold yellow pattern on it. I want to have my yellow suzani folded at the foot of the bed--it's too small to use as a bed cover--so I want to have a bold pattern at the other end of the bed to balance it out. Here are some ideas....

duralee

duralee

Okay, I haven't totally thought this through and figured out the scales of the patterns on these fabrics, but these are just some general ideas for the colors. I will probably end up looking through our office stash of leftover fabrics from previous clients....which is perfect for my non-existent budget! Designer for free, best design of all!

Here is the finished headboard from Design*Sponge....so glamorous! Love it! Link to post with DIY instructions here.

design*sponge

vignettes and tablescapes...

I kind of have a thing for tablescapes and vignettes, okay maybe a small obsession. If you locked me in a room full of tables/mantles/dressers with lamps and accessories I would be in heaven. I would style endless tablescapes and photograph pretty vignettes.

Which leads me to tons of pictures of pretty tablescapes and vignettes!

four walls and a roof

Hmm, I'm never sure whether to write above a picture or below it. Yesterday I wrote above, I think I will switch it up today, more pleasing to my eye...Alright, first picture (above), more of a vignette, but I love the way it has been styled, it feels very balanced to me.

martha stewart

I know, this picture screams Martha Stewart....but it's such a simple classic look, very east coast house-in-the-hampton's-esque.

source unknown

This one is very urban-chic! I like the eclectic accessories and especially the flowers, since I'm into pink and orange right now!

source unknown

So girly, I like the simplicity and the symmetrical styling.

better homes and gardens

I thought I would sneak this one in here....this is from the October issue of Better Homes and Gardens, and this photo is actually taken of my boss' entryway. There is an article about her flat in San Francisco with some great pictures of her home, we in the office are very excited!

alkemie

I like this vignette because it's not fussy, but it still has great detail and the placement of accessories is very thought out. I think guys could totally go for this one, it has a slightly masculine feel.

absolutely beautiful things

The picture above and the rest below are all the work of Anna Spiro of Absolutely Beautiful Things. I love the way she styles accessories, she has a knack for making her styling look effortless. I always go to her blog for styling inspiration, and to gawk at the assortment of colors and patterns she uses! Not only is Anna an interior designer but she also owns her own design boutique in Australia called Black & Spiro....I cannot wait for the day that I go to Australia, I would seriously go just so I could shop in her pretty store!

absolutely beautiful things