Bathroom Progress

Hello all! Isn’t this weather scary? I never noticed how scary a thunderstorm is when you have giant windows. I swear, at one point I thought the lightning was going to come through the window and strike me.

Anywho…I’m back with photos of my bathroom. We’re still very much in progress, but we did manage to find some decorations that matched the mood board. I’m still fighting with Mike about the “girly canvas”, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to win this battle. Mainly because it really makes the bathroom pop with just the right amount of glamour.

Please disregard my terrible photography skills. There isn’t a window in the bathroom, so we don’t have any natural light. I’m still learning how to use my camera and I have no idea how to white balance it. Blah. Hopefully I learn soon so you will be able to fully appreciate what I’m trying to show the blog world.

Here’s a peek of our blue little bathroom. We pretty much found everything at Marshalls. The shower curtain was $15, the adorable towels were on clearance for $5 each (score!!!), the soap/lotion dish was $8, and the candle was from Kohls and was $15.

Not pictured: mason jars - which I got from Michael's Crafts. The are currently doing a wonderful job at holding our qtips, cotton balls and razors. 

Side note - hilarious story...

So the bathroom needed some paint touch ups due to the spackling/patching. I asked our landlord if he had the paint. He told me he did and gave me a bucket of blue paint. I told Mike to touch up a spot on the wall while I was at work. Well ladies and gentlemen...I come home to a huge blotch of paint on the wall. You can see in the photo where Mike was supposed to paint, and he decided to paint a huge square! Needless to say our landlord gave us the wrong paint. 

We went back and asked him for another can of blue paint. He gave us another one that was darker than the first. And look where Mike painted it!!! Instead of painting it on the large blue square he already painted, he decided to make another little section of the wrong paint. Hahaha...I died laughing. He is so funny.

Sorry for the terrible image quality, I took these photos on my phone.

Our landlord finally told us he didn't have the paint anymore for the bathroom. Insert sad face here! Well we just had to make do. We went to Lowes and picked up a whole bunch of paint swatches. I picked up the closest ones and taped them up. We stared at the swatches for maybe an hour and picked the one that we felt looked exactly like our paint. We chose Honesty by Olympic paint.

I was a bit nervous when Mike started painting because it looked too light, but as soon as it dried it was as if nothing was ever there. Problem solving is pretty much what we do. Whoop whoop! Hope you like the bathroom!

alley art

A couple weeks ago I found this painting in my boyfriends alley. Sure, it's not the most attractive painting ever, but I was loving the frame. It looks and feels rich to me. So I grabbed it and put it in my work dungeon. Well I finally had time to re-do it and this is what I came up with.

I painting it all white and kept it simple with peace & heart graphics. It was strictly black and white, but it was Mike's idea to fill in the heart with spray paint to give that cool effect.

He also contributed the perfect name: "My heart bleeds for peace".

*Post Update*
I was just informed this is the Mercedes logo....whoops!
I'll fix it and repost soon ;) 

dining room reveal!

Remember when I wanted to create a dining room in my living room mentioned in this post. Well, although I bought my table, finally got the chairs I wanted, and tried to dress it up for my Valentines Day dinner, it still didn't feel like a dining room to me. 

It was just this table in the corner of the room.

So I added some mirrors...

And still...it did nothing for me. 

I was going CRAZY trying to tie it into the rest of the room. Then one day after looking at decor pictures I noticed that most man made dining areas in living rooms have pendant lighting to make it it's own "area". 

I do have two pod lights directly over the table but I didn't want to hire an electrician to switch out the lighting, so I decided to go with a faux pendant. I literally was dreaming one night and woke up with this cool idea. Bird cages are all the rage now... I swear everywhere I go I always see a million of them.  I wanted to hang a bird cage over my table to define the space a little more. 

While shopping at Michaels, I found this gorgeous medium sized shabby chic bird cage. It fit all my criteria, but when I looked at the price it was $15. I know that's cheap...but did I really, really want to spend $15 on a bird cage? I thought about my student loans (not that $15 would put a dent into them) and I put the bird cage down.  That's when my love saw the 50% off sale sign right next to cage.  I immediately snatched it back and ran into the check out line. This isn't the first time he spots a great deal for me. He must be my shopping angel :)

I was loving the bird cage when I got home, but I didn't have the chain link I wanted to hang it up with. I went into my craft stuff and brought out some tulle. I thought I could measure how long the "chandelier" would hang and then get my chain link another day. 

Since the tulle is so thin, I braided a piece and hung it up. Mike said the braid looked cool and thought I should keep it that way, but I hated it. I was totally buying the chain link. 

But even when I hung my faux chandelier, I was still not digging my space. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was missing COLOR.  The only reason I kept my entire room white was to match the carpet I never ended up with.  

I wanted the color to match my living room so I brought it some green to match the carpet. 

Now I was starting to like it! But that candle was not cutting it so I opted for another one. 

LOVE! It went perfectly with the birdcage, and now I was starting to like the braid I made earlier. Doesn't it look cute with it now? 

But....I still wasn't 100% head over heels in love with the dining room!!!

Sooo one day the angels pointed me into the right direction.  

I was on this blog and saw this particular post that inspired me. So I went to her website to see what she did in full detail and she actually got the idea from this website. This is why I love bloggers....ideas go from page to page to page :)  Soooooo...look what I did...

I cut out the template from this website, traced it on the wall...which took 4.5 hours. Yes, my hands were hurting the next day. But then I also had to paint the lines, which took even longer :(

Yeah, that's me painting my friday away :) 

And now....drum roll please....

AND AFTER!!!

Now I'm absolutely positively head over heels in love with my dining room.

What do you guys think? ;)

xoxo - ginny

***POST UDATE***
Thanks to YHL for featuring my dining room stencil project in their Reader Redesign!!!
For those asking about the paint color, it's Valspar "Garden of Paradise" Signature Interior Satin Base 4.

fabulous finds

Every once in a while I am one of those lucky people who find great things at amazing prices. This past Thursday I was shopping with my boyfriend when I spotted a Pier 1. It was 9:15 p.m. and all the stores started closing, but I asked him if we could go inside really quick just to look around. The first thing we saw as we entered the store was a beautiful damask print chair with a price tag of $168.00. I kept walking but Mike stopped and said “look, its $20”. I stood there is disbelief; I couldn’t believe it was so cheap! I immediately started checking the chair for damages. I looked at the legs and they were perfect, I sat on the chair and it was strong and extremely sturdy. I looked at the pattern for color stains, or scratches on the legs and print. I couldn’t find ANYTHING!

The employee must have seen my puzzled face and made his way to us. He said the only thing wrong with the chair was that it had a tiny rip in the seam. I was already sold; I was going to take it…but remembering I only had 15 minutes to browse I left Mike talking with the employee. When I was done looking Mike told me he talked the guy down to $15! Lol…so I bought the chair for $16.32 with tax!!! How incredible is that?

As soon as we walked out of the store with my new purchase I remembered that my mom has a duvet the same exact color/style. Being the loving daughter that I am I decided to give it to her. When I got home I showed her the chair (which of course she loved) and told her it was hers. It looks great in her room, and it even looks great with the desk I made her.

Take a look at the beauty and the tiny rip that made my day :)