Inspiration

I love to look at magazines, catalogs, blogs, and online stores to get ideas and inspiration for decorating a room. In fact, I spend A LOT of my time doing this...

A few years back, I was watching HGTV and they were featuring their Key West Dream Home. I fell in love with it. I entered to win it almost every day. Obviously I didn't win. But I did get inspired. I've held on to pictures of that house for years now, waiting to use some of the ideas in my own house.
One of my favorite rooms was the Master Bedroom.
Photos courtesy of HGTV.com

Beach themed. Beautiful furniture. Perfect accessories.
It has the feel of a vacation resort. So calming and peaceful looking.

So this is the inspiration for the decor in our master bedroom.

It's coming together. Slowly.

Lamps

I've had the perfect lamp shades in mind for our bedroom forever. They are the Couture Hardback Seagrass Lamp Shades from Ballard Designs and they fit in perfectly with the beachy look I am going for; they look like braided seagrass.

They were a bit pricey, but I got a Ballard Designs gift certificate for Christmas, so they didn't cost me a penny! I ordered them a few days ago and was so excited when they arrived today!

Isn't it amazing how changing something as simple as a lamp shade can change the whole look of a room?

Ballard Designs has some great tips for picking the perfect lamp shades. For instance, I learned that your shade should be about two-thirds the height of your lamp base (give or take an inch) and the width of your shade should be the measurement of your lamp base multiplied by two. Who knew!?

Remember what our lamps and shades looked like BEFORE? Here's a reminder...
Mismatched lamps that were too small. Boring shades that were a little too traditional looking for the style of the room.

Now here's what they look like...
I 'shopped' around in our house and found 2 matching lamps. They have a brushed nickel finish and are taller and more substantial looking than the ones we had before. And the new shades look absolutely fabulous.

Cost for this transformation = $0
I LOVE THAT!!!

Project #1: The Master Bedroom

I decided to start with our master bedroom first. The reason I am starting here is that we bought ourselves a new king sized bed for Christmas...and when you get a new bed, you need new bed linens, and then your old stuff doesn't go well with your new bedding, and so on and so forth. Time to start fresh. So here are some pictures of what our room looks like before any redecorating has happened...err, I guess a room has to actually be decorated before you can RE-decorate.Blah.Boring.

I love (insert sarcasm here) the dog kennel and the dresser with the missing handles. I especially love that when you first walk into the room you see a huge TV with lots of wires hanging down the back of the dresser. Also love the alarm clock on the window sill.This room is SCREAMING for help!!

I'm going for a beachy theme in the room and here is my plan to help the room:
~A nice light blue paint on the walls
~A white farmhouse style headboard and footboard
~New bedding
~Dressers painted white and missing handles replaced
~Unique art piece to hang above the bed
~Hide the TV wires or get rid of the huge TV
~Curtains for the windows
~Do something to the nightstands (not sure what yet), maybe paint or stain them
~New lampshades
~Pictures to decorate the walls
~A chair for the corner (in an ideal world)
~A bench or chest at the end of the bed (again, this would be in an ideal world)

Blank Slate

I'm obsessed with interior decorating. I mean totally obsessed. I spend hours looking through home magazines, dreaming about how I would decorate my house...if I had money. I love watching shows that feature room makeovers; they are so inspiring! I even love cruising the aisles at Lowe's and Home Depot, just looking at things for the house.

We moved into a new house in September; a brand new, large house that we absolutely love. I would say it's pretty close to being my dream house...if only it were waterfront property :) The house has great features and beautiful architecture, but it is SO neutral - beige carpet, beige walls, beige furniture - blah! So we are starting fresh, with a totally blank slate. Do I have plans for how I want each room decorated? You betcha! Slight problem though...I am staying home with our triplets and not working right now, so that kinda puts a crimp in the ol' budget. Let me rephrase that, it puts a BIG crimp in the budget! So for now we are living in a big house, with minimal furniture, most of which is crap that we inherited or bought super cheap when we first got married. Oh and did I mention we have TRIPLETS? They are one year old and keep us super busy, which doesn't leave a whole lotta time for my big ideas.

So anyways, my plan is to take my time, save our money, and slowly decorate each room of the house to perfection. I plan to focus on ONE room at a time and decorate it as budget friendly as possible. That might mean re-purposing furniture and accessories, doing and making things myself, and buying cheaper versions of the expensive stuff I really like. I will take pictures along the way of the before and afters so you can see my transformations. And of course, I will blog all about my projects! See you on the flip side!