i have started my bedroom transformation...

The painting has begun...

...a splotch that is, now I have to finish.

I can't wait for my room to go from baby yellow....

desire to inspire

...to gorgeous charcoal! (can I have the dogs too?)

Original inspiration board here.

new lamp and an anniversary...

I promised I would show you a picture of my new lamp...

I love it so much! I will eventually put it in my bedroom when I paint it, but for now it's out in the living room. Doesn't really match the room decor, but it's okay with its black shade for Halloween.

And yes, that is a black cat tealight holder. I love Halloween decorations.

I actually meant to share this with you a while ago, but never got around to taking a picture. I bought those nesting tables from Ikea for $50! The set of three was on sale for 3 days in September and I had to have them. They're a little too big for this nook (I think it looks a little busy) but for now this is their place. This area tends to be my catch-all for miscellaneous decor that I move from other places in the house so it's kind of a mish-mash, but whatever. Notice the obvious "dorm style" lamp....what can I say, I think I can still use being "a recent college grad" as an excuse (even though I haven't lived in a dorm for 2 years)! Actually, the new lamp in the previous pictures is my first "adult" buy because it's not a Target lamp, dorm left-over, or hand-me-down.

If you were wondering what this nook looked like before, here it is above in all its boring glory. Even though it's a bit more cluttered now, I think it really makes this space look and feel warmer, not to mention feel like an actual space.

On to other things...

Today was a beautiful day here in San Francisco...

Perfect day for a picnic in Golden Gate Park...

My boyfriend and I actually planned this over a week ago, so we were lucky that the weather was so nice, because we had a monsoon on Monday :)

The occasion for our picnic was our 5 year anniversary, which was actually last Friday the 16th. His parents were in town last weekend so we held off our little celebration. Obviously from the pictures you can see that we had tacos! I love Mexican food, makes me happy. I made the easiest taco meat for it too. Crockpot is my savior. Tri-tip steak with a jar of spicy salsa in the crockpot, cook on low for 10-12 hours, shred the meat when it's done and you have the perfect tender and juicy taco meat. I cooked it while I slept and woke up to the smell of cooked meat, yum? (but I knew it would taste so good later so I didn't mind!).

For a light and healthy dessert we ate some fresh pomegranate. Mmmm.

Last but not least, the person I celebrated 5 years with! Isn't he a cutie?

And just for fun, below is a picture of us at our senior prom in 2005....

back in action...

Dismissed from jury duty! Yay!

Now back to the real world...

It's been an exhausting week and I haven't felt very creative or inspired, that is until I came home yesterday to 2 packages on my front stoop!

Remember the lamp I ordered from One Kings Lane (my very first purchase)?

Now it's mine! I have it temporarily set up in my living room until I paint my bedroom. I wanted to take a picture of it but I left my camera at my boyfriends house, so that will have to wait for Friday. I think the lamp has inspired me to get started with the painting.

I got another sign about painting my room yesterday when I bought the November issue of House Beautiful. I was looking at the section where they show a series of peoples favorite paint colors and how people use them, when I saw a picture of a lovely dark gray room. I read the little quote, and the color was Kendall Charcoal from Benjamin Moore, the same color I chose for my bedroom! I'll just take that as a sign that it's the perfect color for my room!

While I was looking at the House Beautiful website--trying to find the Kendall Gray bedroom, which I never found--I found some nice photos in the gallery section. I haven't looked at it in a while, so these pictures are new to me, but maybe not to you. So maybe this post is more to re-inspire myself to get myself going on my room!

I think the unintentional theme here is pretty ethnic patterns (got my suzani on my mind--I swear, when my room is done I will stop talking about suzanis)...

house beautiful

taking a few days off...

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been fulfilling my civil duty and the courtroom hasn't provided much, if any, inspiration. It does, however, inspire me to want to take naps....

On my down time I've been checking out my favorite, One Kings Lane. And they have some fun goodies.

First, I know my friend Whitney would love to cuddle with the pillow below...
I would like to be taking a nap on the bed above with these pretty candles lit...

I also bought this pretty print from the Made by Girl online shop. It comes with the frame too! I like the fun colors and the funky gold frame, and it was only $15 all-together!

I'm hoping to be back at blogging by Wednesday or Thursday. We shall see....

Until then, I hope you are having a better week than I am (I know it's only Monday hehe).

i picked a paint color and it was love at first sight...

Busy, busy, busy. That has been my week.

I did however manage to stop by the "Creative Paint" store close to my house to get some Benjamin Moore samples for my bedroom. I'm going to paint my room "Kendall Charcoal". As soon as I saw the color I knew I wouldn't have to look anymore, it was love at first sight. It's a warm charcoal, not blue, which is what I wanted so that my yellow suzani would pop nicely. I think the actual paint chip looks a little darker than in the "virtual fan deck" below. You get the idea though...

I'm liking the colors in the room below, this picture from Beach Bungalow 8 has been in my inspiration folder for months and I just pulled it out because it has the same yellow and gray combination that I want in in my bedroom. I think I'm going to have a few more pops of color, like red, blues, and black (those colors are in my suzani anyways). I want my room to have an overall darker feel than the room below, but I think this is still a great example of the yellow and gray combination.

What do you think? Ever painted a dark gray room?

*update: I realized my "paint chip" clashes with my blog header....is it weird that it bothers me? :)

weekend fun...

My mom flew up from Southern California this weekend to visit my sister and me so we had a wonderful girls weekend. We did a little cooking, decorating, shopping and baking. The weather was nice and cool here in San Francisco so it was the perfect fall weekend!

I think my mom and sister bring be good luck because I always seem to find the perfect things when I'm shopping with them! It definitely held true this weekend when we walked outside my house and saw a great garage sale on my street, where I picked up these two little gems...

As soon as I saw these beautiful vintage gilt sconces I had to have them!

How great are they? I can't wait to see how the mirrored one reflects candle light!

The jar and two decorative mossy balls were thrown in with the sconces, very cute!

We also did a little pumpkin carving, though, it might be a little early and I'm hoping the pumpkins won't go rotten before Halloween. I might keep them inside for a couple of weeks.

While carving, we learned that the white pumpkins are probably better un-carved....we didn't realize that the shell is about 3 inches thick!

Still made for a cute pumpkin, I think it looks like a puppy, or a panda. That is my sister, very proud of her pumpkin, which I have to say is the perfect classic jack-o-lantern!

Their cuteness again.

(my sister had to flip the cake upside down on the cloth covered in powdered sugar, you can't see it as well in the picture, but the sugar when everywhere, all over her pants and my floor!)

And now for the baking! I found this recipe for a pumpkin roulade in the September issue of House Beautiful and I had been wanting to make it. I thought this would be the perfect weekend to bake, because baking is always more fun with other people!

This is the finished Pumpkin Roulade, you can just slice and eat. Very yummy, and easy to make!

I love Halloween decorations, and of course I had to be totally cheesy and put up my fake cob-webs!--there's more in the living room and hallway :)

Mother and daughter!

We had such a great weekend!

the big reveal (Julia's bedroom re-do!)...

A few weeks ago I shared my sister's bedroom re-do that we did over the summer. Well, here (finally!) is the other bedroom for my youngest sister that I promised I would share.

Today was also the perfect time to post because a little over a week ago I was reading the blog Room Remix and saw that she was going to do a mood board Monday event. The rules of the event were to design a room around one of two products, a set of drapes from Pier 1 or a trellis fabric. As soon as I saw the curtains I had to participate because I had actually used them in this bedroom re-do over the summer. Which is why this post is kind of a 2-in-1. I'm posting the pictures of the final bedroom re-do and participating in mood board Monday with my project!

Enjoy!

I'm an idiot and I didn't take some before shots of the whole room but I did take shots of the furniture that we sold via craigslist. Above is her armoire desk that we sold because, like my other sister, she never used the desk and it really just took up too much space. You can also see that bright green paint that her room was painted before.

She was about 11 when we moved into this house and she wanted a "tropical beach" theme so the green was nice and bright for when she was younger, but now she wanted something a little more grown-up (but still fun and colorful).

After asking her what she was looking for in her new room I came up with a design idea...

I'm not going to share all the sources on the idea board only because what we ended up using in the room was a little different, but most things (on the idea board) are from Ikea, CB2, and Pier 1....in the real room however, most things she already had, like the furniture, bedding and accessories. We also incorporated a few new pieces, like the nightstand from Ikea (I painted it white, it was like $15, not the one in the idea board), the drapes from Pier 1, and that cute lamp from Ikea on her nightstand.

And now I'm going to stop talking and just show you the room!

I chose a light gray paint (Gray Owl from Benjamin Moore) for her walls because she wanted something much more subtle and relaxing than the bright green. She also wanted to use the accessories as the main source of color this time instead of having bright walls. --and I apologize for the different lighting in every photo, these pictures were taken several different times by different people!

(can't take any credit for this picture, taken as a wonderful favor from my mom's co-worker, thanks Pam!)

My sister has had that papasan chair for years and she wanted to keep it, but in the old room it was behind the armoire so you felt really closed off from the room when you sat in it. Now it's in a nice space that she can use to relax, read, or use her laptop (probably the third, she is 17).

Another shot that I took while I was finishing decorating, clearly I hadn't put up the cute yellow paper lights yet.

Other side of her room, you can kind of see that the room is a little narrow, but it's still pretty long.This was my favorite find for the room. I found this lamp on craigslist for $30! Definitely beats the $100 price tag of the phantom lamp at CB2 (which is in the inspiration board).

We're still trying to figure out what to do with the wall behind the dresser, I haven't found anything that looks quite right yet. I'm hoping to work on this next time I visit. So far though, I think the lamp definitely ads a nice touch to this dresser, and room.

...and that's the room! My sister is very happy with it, and she finally keeps her room clean because of it!

Go there to check out other great mood boards!

bedroom ideas...

I bought it.

The lamp yesterday was calling my name and when I got home from work I had to buy it.

....which inspired me to get some real inspiration going for my room.

I've been wanting to put my suzani on my bed for a while now and I think I finally came up with an inexpensive room re-do. First, I'm going to paint my walls a medium toned gray (originally I was going to do a light gray, but I wanted more drama). Instead of getting rid of my bed I think I might just make some slip covers for the frame in a white fabric....I need to learn how to sew nicely to do this first. I'm also going to keep the dresser that I have now, it's pretty similar to the one in the inspiration board above, but I'm going to paint it black.

The desk shown above is the exact one that I have, bought from Target a couple of years ago, and the chair is just for some color. I actually have a chair that's been sitting in the garage for 2 years now. I painted it white, but now I might just paint it yellow and find some cool fabric for the seat cushion.

I had to throw in that wooden occasional table as a night stand on the inspiration board, but the $1250 price tag is just a tad over my budget...craigslist shopping it is.

Ideally I would like to have a nice natural seagrass or jute rug to ground the whole room, but that's not in my budget now after I get the paint for the room.

Well, there you have it. The only things I'm actually buying for my room re-do is the paint and fabric for my slipcovers....I already bought the lamp so I won't include that ;)

Check out Hooked on Friday's to see what other people are hooked on today!

Don't forget to check back Monday when I reveal my sister's bedroom re-do (my other sister, Julia)!

one kings lane must haves...

Found these on the One Kings Lane "must have" list, and I think I agree. I must have these things, all of them. Or maybe just the lamp!--The lamp is $79, which isn't bad at all, but still a little expensive for me. But I want it so bad!!

Should I buy it? Help me out here....

Other adorable things below with an orange theme because, well, it is October....

If anyone wants an invite to One Kings Lane let me know!--It will also help me out in buying that lamp because I will get $25 (because I'm dying to have it! hehe)!