What's Your Design IQ?

I love HGTV Canada. I wish so badly I had access to this channel in southwest Missouri. They have Sarah Richardson, for crying out loud! I was goofing off tonight, waiting for Design Star to come on and found a whole gaggle of quizzes at hgtv.ca. Considering that I've always wanted to go into Interior Design, the results of this quiz couldn't be better!

What's Your Design IQ?

Rising Star: You really know your stuff, and should definitely consider pursuing your dream of becoming a designer! If you aren't already in design school, enroll as soon as you can and prepare to wow your profs with your impressive know-how. But don't ever get cocky?the world of design is ever changing, and budding designers need to stay on their toes at all times by studying, interning and working incredibly hard. Continue to devour as much design information as you can, and upon graduation, seek a mentor who can nurture your talent and help build your knowledge and experience base. Even Brian Gluckstein had to start somewhere, so keep the faith if the going gets tough!

Head over to HGTV Canada and let me know what your Design IQ is!

Inspiration: Pier One Napkins

I'm don't consider myself a Pier 1 type of girl. They're more ethnic-contemporary than I normally find myself, but some things I can't help myself from mixing into my eclectic mix. One of my favorite things and first place I normally go is the kitchen linens. Specifically the napkins. In years past, I have used these napkins to make pillow covers, I've used them instead of table runners, and cut them up to use in other projects.

I just picked these up on my last few trips to Pier 1.

I feel like they definitely deserve a close up!

These don't fit anywhere in my new home. But I love them. They fit well in the last place, because the walls in the kitchen/dining room were green. I used them as an alternative to a table runner under a collection of bottles and jars:


I bought these to add on to some too-short black curtains I had for the office in my old place:


I just bought these to sew a set of pillow covers for my living room:


I honestly bought these next napkins with no clue what I would do with them but I loved the print. Once I got them home and was showing them to my mom, I've finally decided on a great art project for them. They'll end up in the kitchen, maybe the dining room:


Do you ever find inspiration in odd places? Any ideas for the first two fabrics?

Decisions, Decisions...Dinnerware

I love Pottery Barn. Loooooooooove. I recently went through my design inspiration box and most of the tear outs were from Pottery Barn (and PBTeen and Pottery Barn Kids). It's a mild obsession. My second credit card ever was a Pottery Barn card. I'm not lucky enough to live near a Pottery Barn store (or an Ikea... booo) so I rely on their website and catalogs.

The largest purchase I've made from Pottery Barn so far is a King size quilt that I dreamed about. In my old house, I painted the master bedroom walls a deep chocolate brown, had a khaki comforter, and needed something red for the room. I didn't want to go fire engine red and Pottery Barn came to the rescue with this beauty:



I've decided now to upgrade the dishes that are on loan from my grandma (5 years now...) and I'm buying Pottery Barn. While I love the idea of fancy colored and patterned dinnerware, I once heard Ina Garten say to stick with white dishes so your food is the center of attention. So I've picked these three sets of dinnerware from good ol' PB:



Ever classic PB White.



Mmmmm... pretty Emma.



Popular Great White.

I'm leaning towards Great White, but I do love Emma's beaded detail.

Decisions, decisions.... What's your dinnerware?

It's Too High!!!

Please excuse the crap... everywhere. I've just discovered what has been bothering me about the bathroom...



Do you see it?

The towel bar is hung sooooooooo much higher than the light switch that hanging anything on that wall, unless hung super-uncomfortably-high, will be obnoxious. Maybe this picture doesn't do it justice. There IS a problem and it WILL bother me until, well, I don't know. Until it's fixed! Ha!

The print I have up now (featured in the pic) is ok, but it's so little for the long wall. I know I could do staggering, smaller art series, different WHATEVER. Point is, it bothers me.I'm also thinking I might lower the towel bar myself and ask for touch-up paint (rental living!).

On the moving front, I've been here two weeks or more and I still have stuff to unpack. Proof I've spent too little time here? I've done the dishwasher once. I haven't even used the stove yet. I have picked up a few bargains that I'm really excited to share and a few projects for ye 'ol a-p-t. Should be (hopefully, God-willing, she's not making promises, is she!) a fun week!

Little Baby Tomato

I'm just waiting now...



For them to ripen and their cheeks to blush...



If I can keep the Japanese beetles away, I might get more than just one tomato off this plant.

We've had hot, sticky, muggy, drizzly weather lately...



Drizzly weather means one great thing...



Great clouds. Especially since I was on the road for work, it gave me something to do.

(Safety first, kids. Never should you take pictures/post blogs/post on twitter/stalk new friend on facebook/etc. when driving. And as a disclaimer I did none of these things either.)

It Must Be In the Water

Everyone I know is having a baby. EVERYONE. I'm barely exaggerating here. It's so bad that even the blogs I follow are dropping like flies into the abyss of parenthood. It makes me a little afraid to drink the water...anywhere... I have a cousin expecting her first baby this month, a best friend expecting in December, 6 tenants (I'm a property manager) due from September to January, several old high school friends due to pop by early 2010 and these are just people I personally KNOW. My best friend that is due in December has decided I have some sort of prego radar... I can spot them no matter how much or how little they are showing and from miles away.

Don't get me wrong, I love babies. Especially when they belong to other people. I lucked out and have a best friend who gave birth to my amazing Godsons:


Which gives me an automatic 18 year vacation from having my own children, right? Anyway... I like to look at and buy baby things, so the ballooning bellies and impending due dates give me a reason to feature baby things that I'm dying to purchase.

I found myself at Target tonight and while I didn't find much for myself, I did find this dress:

Isn't it flippin' adorable!?! It's by OshKosh and they only had 3T and 5T sizes. I (sadly) don't know any kiddos that are big enough.

I also love DwellStudio for Target. They have great adult things, but being the farm raised girl that I am, I couldn't help but swoon for this baby bedding pattern:

So sweet and I think slightly unexpected for a mod girly nursery.

Afraid I would catch the dreaded baby bug, I tried to get out of the baby section pretty quickly. Even though my home shopping was empty handed, I did end up with a little outfit for my cousin's soon-to-be delivered bundle of joy and a little something for my new place:

Don't be jealous!

(All pictures courtesy of Target.com)

Decisions, Decisions... Bedroom Edition

Since I've officially moved, I've had a chance to get the furniture in and really get a feel for how my things fit. The bathroom and bedroom are going to be the first two rooms to tackle, since I'm not waiting on any large purchases for these rooms. My bedroom has one window, one door, and (shudder) mirrored sliding closet doors. I've fit my queen bed, dresser, nightstand, bench and jewelry armoire in the room with plenty of room to get around. It all fit quite nicely, actually, at least better than I had hoped.

I picked this Martha Stewart bedding up on sale a few months ago:

In my first apartment, I did black and white with red accents. I assumed, mainly from this photo, that I'd probably go the same direction. But once I got it home, I accidentally paired it with blue sheets and pink pillow cases:

(Darker pink, not the baby pink.)

I kinda like the freshness and lighter feel this gave the whole ensemble. It made the black not seem so serious and modern.

I did this post awhile back about The Inspired Bride and featured this uh-mazing color palette:

THEN I was bored at work, I mean, I was working hard... and started going through the archives over at Brooklyn Limestone (more on this site in a later post). I watched as she transformed her whole home but fell in freaking love with her office:

I started thinking last night about where my bedroom would go and these three things came back to me like memories of a drunken escapade. After Mrs. Limestone's brilliant office I knew that Maddy's bubblegum machine color scheme would be perfect. I can't paint in my apartment, so the color won't be as high impact as Mrs. Limestone's but it definitely gives me somewhere to start. If I could do fancy things like This Young House does with mood boards, I'd insert one here. Unfortunately, I'm not that cool (yet!).

I need a headboard or wall treatment at the head of the bed. I was (and still am) in love with this bedroom I posted about earlier. I know a headboard/footboard combo will be too much for the room, but I like the idea of a headboard painted some bright and surprising color (perhaps the blue from the palette?) I spied this picture somewhere:

If I go this route, I'd definitely cut the room divider or trellis down to a regular headboard height to allow for art above the bed.

I'm also in the market for new lamps and I'm using these Restoration Hardware swoon-worthy beauties as inspiration (because they're $349):

I wanted to put drapes up over my closet to camouflage the ginormous mirrors, but my mom brought it to my attention that regular curtains/drapes are going to be really bulky. They also can't be hung by tension rod as I had hoped, which would make it flush with the wall. I'd thought about some sort of etched glass/frosted vinyl sticker, but I'm not going to deal with that possibly not coming off when I choose to move out.

What do you think? Is the color palette rad or bad with the bedding? Any great ideas on the ginormous mirrored door debacle?

It's Official

I moved. I haven't actually given up the old house yet (I'm sitting in the floor of the living room as we speak) but I've been staying at the new place. I'm here today to finish cleaning a bit and to babysit my dogs because them being in a one bedroom apartment isn't working.

My parents and I did the moving in one day plus an afternoon. This includes all the packing because I was avoiding the situation. We didn't lable the boxes, so you can imagine what my place looks like as I also haven't unpacked the majority of the items.

This round of moving has shown me how much JUNK I own. It's insane, really. I'm going to have a garage sale sometime soon (please God) because the apartment is literally bursting at the seams. I've tried to organize what I can, but with all the things that shouldn't be there, it's been hard.

Like any respectable woman, I set up my TV and then organized my closet. I spent more time deciding where the clothes were going to go and organizing my shoes than I did on anything else (so far). It felt nice the next day though to wake up to chaos and slide open the closet door to color coding and things hung properly.

What is the first thing you unpack when you move? If you only had 1 hour to do something in a new place, what would it be?