I have always been nervous to decorate my home. Luckily, in the past, we weren't planning on living somewhere very long and we rented so nothing was permanent! And we had no money so decorating was a term very loosely used in our world. It was more like, do we have some frames that we could hang some pictures we took on some of our walls, maybe above the free floral couch and massive black leather chair?
But now, this is our house. We are paying the mortgage every month. It belongs to us. Which makes Drew want to put money towards things that will make our house very efficient like a new water heater and windows. But, I want to decorate.
Except, I don't. I'm scared. I have trouble finishing a room. And that is why we don't have one room finished. Well, there are several reasons. I also don't want to take the two boys to Hobby Lobby to see what they have that I can decorate with, our living room is already spewing of Ikea and Target hasn't caught my eye with anything lately.
Picking paint colors was hard enough now I have to figure out something to hang on the wall?!
And we desperately need throw pillows for our couch. We have light blue walls in the living room and one shade bluer in the dining and kitchen. I would love to pull in different colors like green, but am unsure of how to go about doing that. Do I have to find a pillow that contains blue and green? Or can I go with just green?
And the new baby/guest room is causing some angst in my life. I refuse to paint it blue. They boys have a blue room by default of us purchasing too bright blue for a living room paint. I will not paint another room blue. I would like to paint it green. But, I would like a little bit of floral in there because I am a girl and it seems like the guest room would be a good place for this. But, do I need to remind you that it is also going to be home to a boy? I found this bedspread for the queen bed and yes I would buy that pillowcase and then this crib spread and bumper and skirt in bright green, not pink but my other dilemma is that we are painting our room green so upstairs we will have 2 green bedrooms a blue bedroom and a blue bathroom. Are there rules against using only 2 colors in your house?
And I kind of want to paint our half bath downstairs orange. Can I do that? Did I mention it has a black toilet?
And what color do we paint our entry and hallway?! I was thinking a light gray.
Help! Send blogs or links to things you like and would look good in my home, ideas, give me something internet!
And, I promise pictures if you promise to help.
For stuff to hang on the walls, I recommend hanging out on Etsy. There are lots of great artists who sell their prints there. Some of my favorite sellers for prints are labpartners, falldowntree (for kids), jellybeans, and treetopstudio. Do you like those wall decals? We are using two of those in our new house. On Etsy, ellynelly and Elaphannie do them. There might be decorative pillow covers on Etsy, too, although I haven't looked. I like trying to find things on Etsy or other individual artist's site to break up the IKEA at our house. :)
ReplyDeleteI personally would be bummed if my house was mostly painted in two colors, but that's not my design sense: I am a big fan of bright, vivid, intense colors, and the more the merrier. There is certainly nothing wrong with it if that's what you want, though. It could give your house a really unified feel-- lots of cool, natural tones. Light gray sounds like it would blend nicely with the other colors, and a bathroom is a great place to put a pop of bright color. Small dose, you know. :)
I think my favorite home design blog is Design*Sponge (not all home decorating). For other ideas, I like to look at magazines like Domino and Dwell. Good luck, and don't stress! It's supposed to be fun. And it also is best viewed as a years-long process, I think, not a task to be completed.
You should TOTALLY paint your half bath orange! We were going to paint our 1/2 bath orange when we redid it last year, but taking down the old wallpaper did not create a smooth enough surface on plaster and bad drywall. We used grasscloth wallpaper instead, which turned out nice. We just hung a large, orange Rothko print in it instead and a yellow vase with orange (faux) flower on the back of the toilet.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of black toilets, but it might go well with orange in your case--think Halloween! Ok, maybe not...maybe a lighter, brighter orange will keep the black toilet from looking funny. Also, toilets aren't so expensive or hard to install, so you could replace it. (It's getting rid of the old one that's the problem! Just too darn big!)
I like Julia's idea--don't you think Drew would LOVE if you used Dwell for inspiration? At home in the modern world!
--James
A black toilet? Hilarious. I have found great deals on throw pillows at Target and Marshall's! And that bedding is awesome!
ReplyDeleteSteph
I also love the bedding and the baby stuff had some good prices for Pottery Barn! If you are too worried about the green what about white with a green strip or just half the wall green?
ReplyDeleteI would get rid of the black toilet they can be fairly inexpensive and flushes just as nice as the expensive thrones. I love the orange idea but would be scared of too light and looking peach!
I do like the light gray color, but what color is your carpet - we had problems in STL with our carpet being gray and the tan tones looking TERRIBLE with it!
I would love some pictures of furniture that you have - I order prints from art.com and matte/frame them myself.
Have fun and be yourself - Get pillows with the blue and green - bed bath and beyond had some great stuff!
you're too cute. you know, it's awesome to think of throw pillows in a seasonal way...like a fun green that you like now, yes of course you can get one that's solid- check out bed bath and beyond, they have lots, and then you can change the cover in the fall with orange or something- also still looks great with blue, and red looks great with blue at christmas... but anyway, if you're afraid of big commitments, you could always say it's a seasonal choice! i don't like to spend a lot of money, but i like to change things around, so one or two changeable pillow covers is fun for me, and i switch out some of the pictures in my frames with the seasons too, so it keeps things fresh...since i hope to be here a while!
ReplyDeleteMegan
I can get all excited about planning it out - and have a lot of plans, and never, ever, ever finish. I found paint chips from 3 years ago, the room has never been repainted.
ReplyDeleteWe had black fixtures in a house we lived in - I think I ended up with pink in that bathroom - or I planned to anyway.
Hey, I'm friends with Nealy, and met you last summer when you guys were in the Twin Cities for Target. I've been reading your blog, and truly enjoy it. I like to look at Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and Crate and Barrel catelogs or online. Not necessarily to buy things from there (a little pricey), but to get ideas and then find a way to accomplish them more economically.
ReplyDelete