Friday, May 2, 2008

Design on a Dime

I am so NOT Nate Berkus or Candice Olson, but I do watch HGTV with a lust that makes me want to buy a home and decorate it, even in this dying economy.


I have been living with garage sale furniture and hand me downs for so long and have been itching for new beautiful furniture to dwell among. Dark woods, Asian influences, Global textiles... ...yum...

But I have toddlers. TWIN toddlers. And a five year old who is careful, but not always clean.

And so we go on living with second hand things, vinyl couches that can be easily wiped, and a dining room table that already have marks and dings on it, cabinets bought at garage sales because they are big and lockable. We haven't even used coffee tables and end tables with lamps on them since the twins were born because they just knock anything to the floor and climb and jump off of them.

But when we moved into our most recent rental house, and I brought (okay, when my hubby and his burly helpers brought) the white vinyl couches into the starkly white painted living room, and set them down on the cement-grey floor, I asked my landlord if I could paint the walls some cheerful color.

He said no.

This particular landlord rocks, but he still said no.

So I made a vow. I made a vow that I would take this one room, and make a plan. A design scheme. Anything that didn't go nicely with the design scheme would move OUT of the room, and I would buy new things that ALL MATCHED NICELY together! At least for this one room.

I have been entranced lately by that aqua blue/chocolate brown design scheme you see just everywhere lately. So, even though I tend to love warm colors, I went with it.

Here are a before and after video, so you can pretend you are watching HGTV.

Okay, its not THAT good, but it ain't bad! Sorry the videos are kind of dark. We don't have a lot of light in there. The colors aren't very vibrant either, so its a bit hard to see the real difference, but you will get the idea.

(Honey, don't watch this at work, it will just embarrass me in front of your co-workers. Thanks, sweetie!) <--- Note to the Hubby.

Before the re-design:



And the "After":


7 comments:

Snowbird said...

Very nice Karen. My daughter, the designer. Gee, maybe you should go on Home Makeover. I bet Ty would welcome you on board. :-) But, I do love what you did with the room. Can't wait to see it in person.

Anonymous said...

It looks great!!! Don't worry, someday your boys will be old enough to allow you to transform the rest of the house. It took my mom twenty years, but she's finally there!

gpc said...

Nate and Candace (and Ty) would be lucky to have you. You did a beautiful job - and don't think of it as garage sale and second hand, think of yourself as an environmental pioneer. Very green, very chic. Recycling furniture is definitely a wonderful idea for all of us. I love your art project, it is such a clever idea and definitely pulls the room together. And you take such beautiful photos, maybe you will come across bits and pieces of those same colors to photograph so you can keep the arrangement fresh if the paper ever starts to show wear.

Cindy said...

Very nice! I love scrapbook paper (although I don't actually scapbook) so I'm always looking for new uses for it. Very clever! Also those slip covers look fantastic. I thought you bought new furniture. Way to go!

JeSais said...

it looks awesome!!

Jess said...

It can't get any better than this.

Gia Waters said...

Great share thanks for writing this