A few ideas on paper...

So there it is, my rudimentary sketch of our dining room. As you can see, there's not much color to it, especially with the curtains, because I am drawing a complete blank! Hopefully we will find an area rug that will help us out in that department. However, now that I have some of my ideas down on paper, I have a general direction as to where to go with this.

First off, is the dining room lamp, which I already found and plan on ordering soon. Since I already had it in mind, I included it in the drawing there, the size is about right, maybe just a little smaller.

Next up, the chairs. I had the idea of reupholstering them first. The material on them is really dark, and I figured my changing up the color, it could add a bit more of a modern touch. However, from what I'm seeing, re-upholstery can be a bit pricey, especially since I have 6 chairs. So I started looking into slip covers and found this idea:

Our dining table has similar legs, however they're more curved, but I thought the carvings on the legs of this table was a pretty good example of the kind of detail that we have on our table. I thought the slipcovers gave it a pretty nice, clean look. However, I'm thinking of instead of doing long covers, going with short slip covers like in the drawing. The chair legs are really pretty, and I thought they would look nice coming out of the slip cover, the most important thing for me is to cover up that dark fabric. Something sort of like this:

I found a website a week or two ago called The Slip Cover Shop, basically, you send the measurements of your chair (they have a guide to help you figure out exactly what to measure). When you place your order you give them your measurements and fabric choice, then they custom make your slipcovers. Unfortunately, they are non-returnable once they are made, however I thought for the price they were worth a try. They charge $140.00 for a set of 4 covers, not to shabby. I don't know anybody that has used them (if anyone reading this has, please let me know about your experience with them), so I'm still shopping around. However, so far, this is a pretty competitive price.

Next, I need to figure out the curtains. I'm not even sure if I like the panels, but they're the best idea I can come up with right now. The window in our dining room is actually a big sliding glass door that is almost the size of the wall and leads on to a little balcony. Since it's so big, I don't want anything too over powering, but I have a feeling curtains will really make the room cozy. As for the color, I will keep you posted, I'm thinking the area rug will determine it.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Gotta get the creative juices flowing!

Victory!

This weekend my husband and I decided to finally paint our master bedroom and bath. If a couple has never truly worked together before, I suggest painting a room together. Not only does it do the obvious, which is allow you to spend time together, but it gives a little insight into the inner workings of your significant other. Not only did I learn that my dear husband is very organized and has a specific way of doing things, he has the extraordinary ability to keep on working and cleaning even though his wife is almost passed out on the bedroom floor from exhaustion mumbling, "No more...the room wins!"

So in the end, we managed to get the two rooms done, and it looks spectacular if I do say so myself! At first we were a little nervous about the color choices mainly because they were made spur of the moment under the dismal Home Depot lights. Originally we picked out two colors from one manufacturer, upon walking into the store all giddy about our color choices, the bubble was quickly burst when our paint dude shook his head with disapproval and advised that we go with the ever durable Behr paint. In a frenzy the Mango and I tried to match our beloved color swatches as closely as possible. In the end, the colors weren't exact, in fact they had a little more of a green tone than we expected, however we loved them!

Currently, I am in curtain mode. Yes, I have entered the world of panels, draperies, and sheers. To be honest, I had no idea where to start. The curtains always magically appeared when I lived with my parents, so I started my journey for blackout curtains on my own. Thanks to my ever helpful Nesties, I came to learn that a great place for blackout, or as they are now called, thermal curtains, was JCPenny! Who knew? Usually I run right passed it to get to the mall, but I was amazed by their selection and great prices. After taking an impromptu "curtains for dummies" course from the curtain lady, I finally selected our bedroom curtains...Ta Daaaaaa!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Wendy thermals in Ivory! Yey! I know it's crazy that I'm excited over curtains, but what can I say, I'm weird.

So now that that's over, I'm looking at every site I can to get inspiration on making the space ours and I happened to stumble upon this fantastic side called HousetoHome. It is just filled with pictures of beautiful spaces, I almost had to do a jig in the middle of the office (yes, I'm doing this at work) from the excitement of the find. I found these wonderful bedroom inspiration pics that I just had to share: