Christmas Decs: Living Room!

Now onto the living room.  This room got some major updates with a brand new tree -  hello skinny tall beauty - and a super fun and super easy DIY.

I actually do have pics from my super simply JOY project.  Picked a  couple pressed corrugate letters up from Hobby Lobby along with some gold spray paint and some gold glitter spray paint.

pre

 

post

 

We also have this new beauty in the corner.

 

i love her.

 

As a bonus, and not styled at ALL, we also hooked up this little dec for the dining room chandelier.  I'm super pleased with how it turned out.  Stole this idea from from Miss. Kristin

 

Who would have thought zip ties could be such a staple?!

 

And if you haven't noticed a theme yet.  I'm totally digging black and white accents to tie this Christmas together.  Sure there's pops of red and green all around, and of course gold (duh!) but for the most part I've tried to tie everything together with some simple black and white ribbons.

 

Last set of decs plans tomorrow as we plunge into the final prep for Saturday's party!  Can't wait to share!

 

xoxo,

KC

 

 

 

Zhush it up

I work in marketing, a field that is predominately female with a few rare breed men that aren't afraid so embrace their more "communicative" side.  My D is actually one of these rare men, but even he (much like the few men in my department) was unaware of what "zhushing" means.

I always thought this word was yiddish but it turns out to be more French than anything, which is rather fitting since it's really the action of putting a little je ne sais quoi into action.  I bring up the whole marketing thing because of a scenario I recently encountered at work.

A female colleague and I were wearing very similar espadrilles and were discussing their comfortable in the middle of one of our main throughway's.  A fellow male colleague comes up just as I'm explaining that the cording on my shoes just gives them a little "Zhush."  At this he stops and says asks what on earth is Zhush.  After providing several relevant examples of Zhushing - straighting your collar so that it stands up  (use starch people, BIG pet peeve of mine), selecting an appropriate man bag or complementary scarf as an accessory - not even going into how Zhushing can be used to make your house, albeit your LIFE, more fun, and after a few more examples he got it.  This colleague, straight as an arrow mind you, now frequently asks me if he's "Zhushed," partly joking but not enough to disregard the answer entirely when I jokingly (not entirely) say no.

I digress.

It's time to start Zhushing the house.  Now I have particular anxiety about this because Zhushing essentially says alot about your personality, or what you hope to convey about your personality.  Whether its in the details of your necklaces and shoes or which books and trinkets and art you display in your home, it's important.

I started with the "most close to complete" room  - the Living Room.  What with the new furniture, fresh floors and new paint color, we're getting close.  We're currently using an older armoire and two older black bookshelves that we already had from the old house.  Eventually I'd like to see some more white in here with some floor to ceiling shelving but we can't get what we want overnight.

Now with this house we're looking for "more modern" than the last and a nice clean aesthetic, so that being said, D put down the mandate that these shelves remain as simple as possible - no cramming them with milk glass and books like the old house.

I started with this blank slate and gathered some groupings of things I knew I'd want to include.  Sorry for the crappy iPhone pics.  I was just happy I remembered to snap some!

semi-blank canvas, I already figured out the top by the time I remembered to take a pic

So you can see what we're working with, two short bookcases, about 4 feet tall and then an armoire around 5 feet.  I started with the Hatch Show prints mostly because they were the only two pieces of art that actually had the same size/proportion frames.  I also love these pieces and they were burried in our office in the old house.  I'm not sold on this as their permanent home, which is why they're still resting not hung, but they are a nice pop of color in an otherwise conservative room.

 

now onto filling these guys up

After collecting what I knew I would want to include in these shelves, I broke the pieces up into categories on the dining room table for easy picking.

 white stuff (mostly milk glass), greens, pretty trinkets and books (in that massive HD box)

From here I just went with symmetry as much as possible, relying on the physical differences in the materials I chose to (hopefully) create the interest I was going for.  Here's the end product.

decent first pass

up close finished version.  let's talk about how blah the backs of these are.

This likely won't stay this way for long but it accomplishes the goal of getting something in, keeping them fairly clean, and showing just a tiny bit about who we are.  Some of my favorite things in this: my gramma's old books, milk glass I've collected over lots of antique malls and thrift stores, a picture of D and his first ever pup Cody, and the little blue and white china box from our house in Texas.  It's where we always stored the spark plugs to the Christmas tree lights growing up and strangely where I keep mine now.

Up on the blog later this week: kitchen redo phase 1, and the details for a bridal shower I'm helping to host for good friend E this weekend.

xoxo,

KC

Fill it Up!

So I've had this post scheduled for a long time and never got around to posting it.  Seems like a good segway now what with the recent before and afters.

My interior design philosophy to date has been based soley around making the pieces I've been handed down work.  Luckily my mother, to be hence force known as Kath, is quite the interior diva with impeccable taste and quite the history of home relocations (for Big T's job) and redecorating projects.  Big T being my father - for those who know him- his personality couldn't be described as anything other than Big.

It's interesting visiting all 3 (myself included) of Big T and Kath's kids' homes now as you can clearly see the influence of all the places we've lived to date.  I currently have the big red couches that graced our home in Lawrence, Kansas, made their way to my second college apartment and now my first home. My sisters have some of the Kansas furniture, a few pieces from our Texas home and some black buffalo check club chairs from their current house in Tennesee.  Sprinkled throughout there's dishes and silverware from Baltimore, New Jersey and I even their first crock pot they got as a wedding gift in Milwaukee.

Given the choice, I don't think red couches would be my personal first pick, nor would buffalo check top A & M's lists, but they've served us well and best of all - they were free!

Given that the new place is roughly 2.5x the size of our old rental home, we've got a lot of rooms to fill.  The red couches will make their way to our Den but we've already ordered some fun new furniture for the living room that I'm excited to share.  Whereas we were much more in the French Countryish camp, the look of the new house is much cleaner, more modern and more us.

Red Couches in their new home in the den.  Don't judge the floppy cushions and lack of coffee table.  On the replacement list already.

Building on the Silver Tinsel paint color and awesome new wood floors we restained we wanted to keep the more "transitional" flow rolling with some new furniture.  Enter my favorite furniture store EVER: Arhaus.  If you have not been to an Arhaus store or checked out their online store front, let me share the greatness!  http://www.arhaus.com/

We are always on the look out for beautiful pieces from this store but they can be quite pricey so you have to wait for a good sale.  We'd been watching this piece for a long time. The Holden Console Table.  It's also available at Crate and Barrel but a bit more expensive.

We knew we wanted this piece the second we saw it.  It's got a nice rusticy look but none of that weird fall-apart-on-you wood that you see in a lot of today's "reclaimed" pieces.  I don't know about you but I'm not into bugs and dust. And it's topped with a beautiful piece of bluish-greyish soapstone that ties in well with the paint color.

We ended up finding this exact piece for a little less at a local furniture store that had purchased a small "lot" of these tables - woowhoo!  We were actually there, looking for a new sofa and possible some arm chairs for the same room.

Phillips Furniture has been GREAT to work with and super affordable. Highy recommend a trip if you're in STL. We ended up getting a custom sofa in Porpoise (cue my excitement about picking a dolphin-esque color - we can discuss that obsession later) that's kind of a muddy grey/taupe color.  Much prettier than it sounds. 

Porpoise

It's kind of exciting because they let you choose the arms, cushion type (T shaped or straight) and skirt (or lack there of)  We went with straight arms, T shaped cushions and no skirt but no wood liner either, you'll just see 4 little wooden feet at the bottom.

We also picked  up two chairs that you can only describe as the tiniest seafoam lepoard print design. Yes, it sounds heinous but thankfully I, and the very few others that I've actually allowed in the still barren house, seem to like them.  Pictures of these bad boys to come. We're also keeping our glass and limewood coffee table for now, but may swap it out for something more fitting in the future.

Still need:

- shutters - I want big white ones for those 11 feet of windows!

- some sort of curtain, more likely as an accent on the sides than functional, given the shutters and maybe with some sort of complementary color that hasn't been used, thinking mustardy yellow or coral?

- huge rug - using the old one now, preferably graphic

- need some new lamps - something with color to spice up the space, and tie into the curtains?

-bookcases - I'd LOVE custom built in's much like Miss. Lindsey's over at fificheeck but we'll have to see what D says.  I'd also take two of these puppies from Arhaus in a heartbeat (it comes in a super light, almost limewood finish) right now we've got some older black ones that I'm repurposing

That's all I've got today from Canada.  More tomorrow on some bookcases in the living room, and the first phase of zhushing.

xoxo,

KC