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.

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? :)

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)!

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...

thinking about my suzani...

When I was in Istanbul last year I bought a beautiful yellow Turkish suzani, at the time I had no idea what I would do with it, but it was too pretty to resist! So now, a year and a half later, I have finally figured out what I'm going to do with it. I have also seen some beautiful pictures on other blogs of what people have used their suzani's for, which has inspired me!

I've decided to paint my bedroom, I hate the baby yellow that it is right now and I want something much cooler and relaxing. I'm thinking about a very light gray that would give off the feeling of white, but still wouldn't look washed out. I also want to get rid of my turquoise dresser and replace it with a more contemporary dresser from Ikea, maybe in a dark brown-black. I'm probably going to make these changes very slowly over time, but at least I can use my suzani as a bed cover immediately!...well, after I have my mom send it up.

source: yurdan

source: style court

source: little green notebook

source: katy elliot

sneak preview and some little changes in my home...

In the last post I promised that I would post pictures of my sisters re-done bedrooms.....well, I didn't have enough time to finish taking pictures before I went back up to San Francisco so for now I just have a little sneak preview!

(my sister is going to take some more pictures of the room before she moves back up to school this weekend across the bay...soooo, next week I will reveal both rooms)

anyways, here are a few preview shots...

The two shots above are from Catherine's room, the top is her nightstand and the bottom is her dresser. She also has an awesome bookshelf that we picked up when I went shopping with here at a home consignment store...pictures to come.

Julia's room is probably the most dramatic change....her room used to be green! Now it's a much cooler and calm gray, way more grown up for the 17-year-old that she is. How awesome is that lamp? I found it on craigslist for $30! It's huge, but I love it! I think it adds some much needed drama on top of her dresser. Next week I will show you the drapes on the other side of her room....sooo pretty!

What else have I been up to? Well, I came back up to San Francisco a little over a week ago and finally got around to cleaning my entire house. I also did some minor redecorating because I get bored easily and like to switch things up every few months. After re-doing both my sisters bedrooms I decided that I wanted to re-decorate my bedroom in SF as well. Right now the walls are a baby yellow that I am totally sick of and I'm going to paint them a nice gray (I'm kind of in a gray phase, if you haven't noticed). I also want to give my bedroom a much more contemporary, and most importantly less girly, look. I am so over shabby chic right now! I also want to get rid of the clutter of accessories...which was the first task that I tackled over the weekend...

I'm going to get rid of this dresser, so this is just a temporary set-up, but I like it. Less stuff and less fussy so it will be easy to move stuff when I paint.

Remember this table? It used to be in my bedroom, but I decided to put it in the living room for now while I re-do my bedroom. I might leave it in the living room or eventually sell it because I don't want it in my bedroom. I really like having a table and a lamp in this corner of my living room. Before it was just dead space, now the living room looks finished and the lamp adds a nice glow at night.

...and there you have it. I hope you have enjoyed all the little projects I've been working on. I will definitely try to blog more often....I've been such a bad blogger this summer!

i've been mia....

I've been so bad at posting this summer....definitely not off to a good start with my blogging. Oops.

I've been staying at my parents house in Southern California since mid July, so I am essentially on "vacation". However, I am proud to say that I actually have been somewhat productive this summer. Remember when I wrote about re-decorating both of my sisters bedrooms (here and here)?? Well, right now were working on some final touches before I go back to San Francisco next week. I will definitely be posting pictures of their new-and-improved bedrooms!

Here's a short recap of what I've been doing:

-I went to the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood for their "Hollywoodland" event where my sister (a synchronized swimmer) performed. It was very classic and very Hollywood, and I am going there again tonight!!

-My lovely friend Elizabeth got married last Saturday, the wedding was beautiful. I was a bridesmaid and I also did her makeup for her special day!

-Went to Disneyland! ok, not as exciting because I grew up 20 minutes away so I've been plenty of times. It's always fun to relive your childhood though...

-Last but not least....bedroom redo's!! I've been shopping with my sisters and picking up a few things here and there for their new and improved bedrooms. The rooms were finally painted on Monday, so now I'm working on styling them pretty!

.....which leads me to some pretty bedroom inspiration photos

*sources: home sweet home for some, can't remember where others are from