Pink, but not too precious

Decorating a house takes a lot of time and a lot of money. If you live in a huge house, it takes even more time and more money. I've been working with a handful of my clients for a really long time on their large homes. We sort of take things piecemeal and I'm cool with that. I like working in layers.

This client has a large and lovely home and though she likes the look of her home to fall on the less cluttered side, I'd say we're about 75% there with her decorating projects. But I think it's good to take a break, let the new furniture settle in a bit and begin to prepare for the next layer.

I got some of the progress photos from this home last week and I thought I'd share a few shots. You'll probably remember the night stand project from this old post.

I think this home is the perfect mix of high and low furnishings. The couple spends on only things they really, really love and plan to keep for a long time.

These were two inspiration images for the oldest daughter's room:

Suzanne Kasler

Sources:
Wall color: Benjamin Moore Pale Oak
Chair: LEE Industries in Raspberry Strie velvet
Pouf: Tazi Designs
Bed: Oly Studio Helena
Sheets: Serena and Lily
Duvet: Pine Cone Hill (Hannah in pink)
Quilt and shams: Matteo
Box spring cover: Restoration Hardware Matelasse in Blush
Rug: Wool broadloom that looks a lot like seagrass but is really quite soft.
Pink chevron pillow: Fabricadabra
Nightstand: Homegoods DIY knock-off of Bungalow 5 night stand
Side table: Restoration Hardware Baby
Lamps: Pottery Barn
Curtains: Made them from inexpensive but nice, heavy weight linen I found on Fabric Row in Philly

It was a perfect match with the duvet. We really wanted a coral, peachy pink for the room, so this fabric was a big find.

The placement of the windows and the queen-sized bed made curtains tricky. We opted for one wide panel at each window pulled to the side with a tie-back. It's hard to see, but we added a thick band of creamy white linen to the leading edge. This was our inspiration photo.

Ruthie Sommers for Domino

We're getting there! Layers! We've talked about putting up a big wall of fabric-covered cork board in a coral and white stripe for pinning up homework and artwork, etc. There's also some cute pink movie posters that need to go up.

Quinn's Nursery

Wouldn't you love to work at Anthropologie? More specifically, wouldn't you love to have an employee discount to Anthropologie?? Yeah, me too.

One of my clients works there and is due this summer with a little girl to be named Quinn. Here's where we are with the nursery...

We wanted something fun and bright and girly but not overly so. Still working on finding the perfect dresser/changing table.

Anthropologie products here:
Chesterfield Sofa (my client scored a damaged one at a very deep discount)

Finnegan the Fox

String of Pearls Lamp

Coat of Arms Mirror

Fabric Letter Q

Children's Tables

I'm helping a friend decorate her new house and she is looking for a kid's table to go with these chairs from Conran.


She wants something similar to my kiddie table, that doesn't look too juvenile. I got ours at Home Goods about six months ago:



I love that it's solid wood and sort of a farmhouse style.

This one from PBK is beautiful, but it's pretty expensive even on sale at $299.


I think that a taller (at least 18" high) coffee or side table can make for a great kid's table. And they're always so cheap at yard sales and on craigslist.

Here are a couple from my friend's craigslist that we're considering. It's fun to think outside the box with these. A little paint would go a long way in making these look more kid-appropriate. Sunshine yellow! Fire engine red! Leaf green!








The IKEA Lack side table also works great as a kid's table. It is crazy cheap ($7.99), comes in a lot of colors, and is a great size especially for smaller spaces.
Do any of you readers have a good secret source for inexpensive but great kid's tables?

The Girls Room, Part II

When I caught my four year-old gazing longingly at PBK and Serena & Lily catalogs, I knew that something had to be done about her boring bedroom. Both of my girls love color. They are girly, but not too girly, so an all-pink room wasn't going to do.

Cupcake jars purchased 50% off at Rose and Radish

Here's what we came up with on our very (very) small budget:



I already mentioned that I did a lot of the 'shopping' for the room in our basement storage area. It was fun to work with things I already owned.

I really wanted new duvet covers for the twin beds - something simple and mostly white, but with a colorful trim that matched a color in the Chiang Mai headboards. I could have just bought some bedding like this from Pottery Barn, but I figured I could save myself a few hundred bucks and just get creative with a pair of all-white duvets we already owned and some turquoise single-fold bias tape.


The sewing is not perfect, but the result is honestly better than I expected. I like the punch of color in the sea of white bedding.


While I had the sewing machine out, I added a few yards of dark purple ricrac to the bottom hem of my cheap Target bedskirts.


I bought this cute little french nightstand at a vintage shop a few years ago. It's seen better days and badly needed a paint job.


I went with turquoise again and trimmed out some of the moulding details with white paint.



Michael's had a bunch of the Martha Stewart collage frames on clearance a while back and I finally decided to do something with the two that I picked up. It was fun looking at pictures of butterflies with my girls and picking out shapes and colors to mimic using vellum paper.



The lamp was $18 at HomeGoods, and while that price included a nice shade, it was badly damaged in our move (see before pic), so I had to buy a new shade at Target. I'm loving clean parchment shades these days.

On the opposite wall from the twin beds, I reused a large frame and a piece of sheet metal to make a chalkboard. Here's the before shot...


I mounted it low on the wall for easy kid access and also hung some freshly painted galvanized buckets filled with chalk. The floor pillows are from HomeGoods and Target. Above the chalkboard, I hung a metal butterfly wall sculpture thingy from Target's clearance aisle. It was all black metal when I bought it a few days ago, but I (shocker) decided to paint the butterflies.



Years and years ago in college, a roommate gave me a paper star chandelier. It's been in storage for a long time and I'm so glad I thought to dig it out for this project.


The colors weren't right for the space, so I painted it white and now I love it in the room.


The star hangs over a striped slipper chair we found just sitting in our basement when we moved in and some framed pages from a favorite children's book, Brundibar.



Also from our storage supply was this white mirror I bought a very long time ago at Nordstrom (well, really, Last Chance for all you AZ natives) for $20.


The old paint finish was a little too shabby chic for my taste, but I decided that yellow would be just the right pop of color for the above the dark brown dresser (which we can't paint). In this picture you can also see what the white star looks like when it's lit up. It's the perfect night light for my girls - my two year-old calls it Twinkle-Twinkle.


The little pink lamp on the dresser used to be green. I found it at a thrift store for $0.50 and used a small brush to apply some glossy pink paint. Good as new.



I also found the embroidered linen table runner at the same thrift store.


The room's not completely done yet - I still have some finishing touches to make - but I like the progress that has been made since last weekend.

The Girls Room, Part I

I've been planning to redo our girls' room for a while now. I knew that after we moved would be about the right time to put our 2 1/2 yr old in a twin bed, and that was a good excuse to switch things up with the decor. I liked their old nursery, but I was bored of the muted colors and wanted to try something vibrant for at least our year in Delaware.

the old nursery in Boston

The sad, sad former state of the girls room in our new house.

A year or two ago I somehow I managed to buy on eBay more than 3 yards of the alabaster colorway of Schumacher's Chiang Mai Dragon. I know some people feel the print is overused, but I LOVE it. Plus, I paid $10 a yard and can cope with 'trendy' for $10 a yard. Aren't the colors so great?


While we were still in Boston, I found two upholstered headboards on Craigslist. This insanely rich woman who lived in an amazing Comm Ave. flat sold them both to me for $20. Isn't the yellow plaid unfortunate? The quality is surprising on these though - I'm sure she paid several hundred a piece back in the day.


Reupholstering the headboards was SO easy. I had to cut off the large welting so that the new fabric would lay flat, but that was honestly the hardest part.



I cut my 3+ yard remnant of Chiang Mai in half and that was all the cutting I did.


I like the idea of being able to pull the fabric pieces off later if I get sick of the headboards, but still want to use the Chiang Mai fabric for pillows or chair seats or other small projects.


The backs of the headboards look a little funny though because I didn't cut away the extra fabric.


You can't tell from the front though...


Cute, right?


Next project was to make some cheap (read "free") artwork for above the bed to replace the old Maurice Sendak prints:


I drew pictures of flowers from the Chiang Mai pattern and colored them with my trusty AD Chartpak markers while I watched Rachel Zoe suffer through Oscars week. (sidenote: After about the 50th time Rachel called Anne Hathoway "Annie", I threw said trusty Chartpak marker at the tv... so obnoxious)


I used some navy blue linen I had laying around as the make-shift matting for the new "botanical" prints. And while it's not real art by any stretch of the imagination, it sort of works for the room and my girls think the flowers are "SOoooOO pretty!!" Good enough for me.


Wow, this post is getting long. Okay, last project to share today -

I love the look of a pair of sunburst mirrors above twin beds. We all know how expensive sunburst mirrors are though. So, when I found these round floral tole mirrors at HomeGoods a couple months ago, I snatched up two as fast as I could. They were only $8.99 a piece and I think they look a lot like sunburst mirrors, but are maybe a little more juvenile (a good thing in a kids room, right?)


I almost painted them gold, but I had purple paint already, and I love how it plays off the purple in the Chiang Mai fabric.



Come back tomorrow for Part II. You're going to love how this room comes together...