Tag: dream home

This woman is a genius.

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Breastfeeding, at least in the beginning, is a two handed activity. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time sitting on my chaise watching TV. I quickly became addicted to the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In one of the episodes, Adrienne Maloof is getting ready to leave. On her way out of her bedroom, in her amazing closer, she has her wedding dress framed.


This woman is a genius.


I can’t find a photo or clip but is that not the most fabulous idea ever??? If you want to see her home, click here to watch a short video.


Now I realize that more and more brides are selling their dresses. To each their own. Personally, I am in love with my dress. And if I had 19,000 square feet, I would most definitely frame my dress as well (Imitation is the highest form of flattery, no?). Instead, it hangs in my downstairs closet, waiting for a better day.

Home Project #1 – We love our hallway.

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Well, we did. We finished our first home project. The walls are painted and we have our collage of photos up. Both of us are very pleased with the final result.

View of the hallway, coming from the front of the house.

Some of the images, up close and the other angle

View of photos when you walk out of the nursery.


My favorite photo of all time.
What’s up next? The Guest Bedroom!

Home Project #1 — Fabulous Hallways

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I am sure that there are people that can get home projects done in a matter of minutes. Isn’t that what these blogs and home decor shows lead you to believe?
Lies, all lies.
The one home project I was looking forward to was decorating our upstairs hallwall with photos from our past travels. While not quite as bad as when we tried to line our wedding invitation envelopes, it’s a close second and definitely in the same level of Dante’s hell.

Here were the steps involved:

  • Get inspired. I found mine and posted about it here.
  • Pick the photos. This took an incredible amount of time but was fun for the both of us. Since it was on our past travels, we had to put in a serious amount of time deliberating on how many photos from India VS Turkey. Hours people, hours went into this step.
  • Buy the frames. We went with classic black frames from IKEA.
  • Match the photos to the frame. There were some photos that were meant to be displayed at the 4×6 size while others were deemed worthy of an 8×10. Another chunk of time spent deliberating.
  • Contemplate what color to paint the hallway so that the photos would the focal point.
  • Have the walls painted by our fabulous painter.
  • Denton made cut-outs of the photos and hung on the wall for us to make sure that we like the arrangement. Ultimately, we decided to align the photos to an invisible line that was parallel to the windows. The arrangement took quite a bit of time and even some online research.
  • Deliberate the arrangements and bite our nails at the prospect of marring our hallway walls.
  • Bite the bullet and hang the photos.

I’ll post photos tomorrow of the finished hallway!

Photo Collages

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Our new home has two really long hallways. I love them because I finally have a place to display all of our favorite photos. I already wrote about my plans awhile ago. Here are some photos to use as inspiration!

In the next few weeks, I plan on blogging about the home improvement projects we’ve done in each of the rooms. It’s is, after two months, finally starting to come together!

This is so fantastic for an entryway!
The entryway for our new home, sadly, is probably my least favorite part of our new home. I kept this photo around for inspiration. I love that the photos are black and white but the color comes from different style frames.


I ended up going with all of the same frames — similar to this photo. But I added different sizes to add more depth.


I kept this photo around as a what NOT to do — I think the photos are too small for the space. I would have redone this space in a different way. Remember: go big!

I love love the photo on the left. This is closer to what I plan on doing! Black and white with some color photos, all with the same frames.

This is a bit too much. They spent the time to stripe the walls, add a coat rack, some fabulous artwork and yet left the hideous light fixture. Plus, I think it is too busy.


Picking the photos for the upstairs hallway had taken a tremendous amount of time. We went through hundreds of photos from our trips (5 international plus two dozen within the US) to narrow it down to 31 photos. Finally, we had to pick the size we wanted the photo. It is a ton of work! We’re off to CostCo today to pick up the photos and put them in the frames. I hope that all of our efforts pay off.

Who doesn’t love a house full of photos?

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The New York Times had a great article about using your snapshots to decorate your home. If you considering using your wedding photos, make sure to buy the rights from your photographer. You can use the photos in many ways besides the standard picture on the thank you card!

The article highlights using Shutterfly for large prints. Personally, I prefer CostCo. I am absolutely in love with CostCo – and printing photos at a low price is just one of the many reasons.

Our new home has two long hallways. My plan is to do a collage of photos of us and the baby for the downstairs to give it a more casual feel. For the upstairs, I am going to get prints of photos from our trips. Here is one of my favorites.

Master Bedroom Ideas

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A reader posted a comment from yesterday’s post asking for details. The new home is a 3 bed, 3 bath 2500 square foot duplex down with full walk-out. We’re very excited about moving although slightly overwhelmed by the decorating process. Our current 1bed, 1bath 750 square foot home means that we don’t have much furnishings.

The first room we want complete is the Master Bedroom.

Inspiration: Love the palette, light fixtures, and night stands (although they are impractical)!


I love a tufted headboard. My husband does not.

So here is what my good friend Amy has found thus far for us. She loves this sort of stuff! The Crate & Barrel Colette Bed and Bench to go with our Natori bedding. I love the look of the first photo so much I almost want to go and get new bedding. Don’t tell my dear husband, he may shoot me since the bedding cost us a small fortune. We’re hunting for a chest, some night stands, and a new light fixture to complete the look. Oh, and hopefully, a chaise lounge as well but I don’t think that there will be enough room.



Here is a current photo of the room. There are French doors that lead to a gorgeous deck.
I can’t wait to hang out there all summer long!

If you have any suggestions or ideas, let me know!

We bought a home!

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And other reasons that I haven’t been blogging much:

  1. Between now and Memorial Day, Honey Bee Weddings has 12 weddings! This is are biggest Spring to date!
  2. Laura, our newest Honey Bee, has her first upcoming wedding. Go Laura!!
  3. I may have under-estimated how much energy it takes to make/carry/grow a baby. Babies in utero do not like 12 hour days or 80 hour work weeks.
  4. I’m going to be on the tele! Details coming soon.
  5. See title. We bought a home. And while there are a ton of people that love home buying and look forward to decorating, I am filled with a sense of dread and doom. If any readers/fellow bloggers are wanting to pitch in, I am open to suggestions.

I promise to be back with lots of pictures and ideas. But first, I need to get to May. 9 days to go!

Bloomie’s + Wedding Channel, I love thee

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…for allowing me to buy some luxurious grown-up bedding for a major deal.


Here’s the story: A few months ago, I was really sad about still being in our tiny condo. I didn’t register for bedding because I thought we would move and get new bedding to go along with our new bed. When that didn’t happen — and still hasn’t happened 19 months later– I decided to find the perfect bedding that would work with our current home and bed.


Out shopping with a girlfriend, I spotted this pillow and loved it. I love the bold color. I love the geometric pattern.




It comes as part of this gorgeous Natori bedding. I loved everything about it but the price. Seriously, who buys $3,000+ worth of bedding? (Probably people that don’t understand why you should spend $10 on chivari chairs at their wedding… to each their own, kind of thing, right?)

Anyway…


Since I have a gift card to use, I decided to take the plunge and buy bedding. I meant to go to the Bloomie’s website but ended up at the Wedding Channel Bloomie’s page. What is the difference, you ask?


Price!

For some reason, Bloomie’s Wedding Channel has the bedding on sale for $700 cheaper. $700?!

When I headed to Bloomingdale’s Home, they couldn’t honor the prices. I broke my golden rule (“Do not shop online”) and purchased all of it. Now, I just have to wait for the packages to arrive in the mail. Pictures will be coming soon!