design

Transformation Tuesday no. 6

| The Bee Life

Our living room is finally looking grown-up, and I absolutely love it. One afternoon of; “Let’s just go look at furniture” turned into us actually pulling the trigger and buying it. One of our challenges was finding furniture that was deep enough… B is 6’6″ and I wanted him to be able to fit and be comfortable, plus once he tried out a deep couch he was sold; that was what we needed.  Mind you 45″ deep couches aren’t that popular; nor do they come in a lot of styles. With our oblong living room I wanted pieces that could be versatile and could be rearranged. Our other sticking point was the fabric and color, we wanted something light colored and also more lineny – no microfiber in this house! So once we found our pieces, we knew they were it, hitting our size/color/fabric requirements while being the perfect mix of the style we wanted.

Before:

The listing photos
The listing photos

After:

Luckily we could keep some of our original pieces: the coffee table was a steal from an antique store, while the light blue ‘car seat’ chairs were from B’s parents.  The rug was a steal from target being $40 and it’s Moz’s favorite – every time we get a rug she just goes and lays on it. It’s the cutest thing. There will always be finishing touches, but I am loving how this has come together so far.

House Hunters – Centerpieces

| The Bee Life

One small decorating detail that I have been rambling my brain on is a centerpiece arrangement for our massive dining room table.  Ideally I would like it to be usable year-round, but allow the possibility to add holiday touches.  Surprisingly, Pinterest has not been much help.  I like portions of centerpieces I’ve seen, but not the whole thing, so I am just going to have to get creative!

Wishlist:

  • Something that is classic and clean
  • Fresh flowers (everyday)… but highly unrealistic – fake flowers are not an option
  • Year-round
  • Airy and light

At this point I am leaning towards different size glass vases/cylinders that would house candles.  I also like the idea of candlesticks, but I want to potentially do this for our fireplace mantle, which is also a constant thought and struggle – everything I see is holiday related!

Pinspiration:

http://myuncommonsliceofsuburbia.com/
http://homedesignlover.com/home-accesory/15-traditional-candle-centerpiece-ideas/
http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-dining-room-centerpiece.html

My search for that first piece to drive the inspiration is ongoing, even window shopping in multiple stores looking for that one piece has been unsuccessful, but I am determined! I can’t wait to share the end result, hopefully sooner rather than later. Until then any advice, pictures or tricks you did would be awesome!

House Hunters – Office Space

| The Bee Life

After two full weekends of house work, and keeping Lowe’s in business, the anticipation of moving into our house has been building… I just want to decorate and organize!!

Again, I blame pinterest for all of my design aspirations, including our future office. I want our office space to be chic and elegant but also sporty, we have some sports memorabilia that I’d like to be able to include in the same vein. So I feel like (once again) the contrast between dark navy blues with whites and greys is a good balance – but I know I can’t use this color pallet for every room… right? Another reason I love this color pallet so much is that it’s still sophisticated without being too girly, because frankly I would love to do something like this… But I wouldn’t do that to B. *smiles*

My inspiration:
MadeByGirl: Anya Kucheryavenko, small office defined by navy wall behind shelves, darling
Pulled from “Made By Girl” Blog via pinterest – Site linked to picture.

How to make this my own:


01 / 02 / 03 / 04

In the next week or two, we should finally be moving into the house. All of the work we have been wanting to get done is nearly under wraps! Then the before and after pictures will start coming… so get ready!

Until next time…

House Hunters – Dining Room Design

| The Bee Life

Well it has been nearly 3-months since we began our house hunt, and we are happy to report that we got a house!  We probably also have the most lucky and unique story when it comes to our house. To give you the cliff notes version; we saw this house our second day looking at houses, B loved it – I was stuck on a house we lost. The house had an offer placed on the house, so we went back to look at the house and ended up placing an offer – we freaked out and pulled our offer. The house was gone – contingent with the other offer. A week or two later, the house was back on the market. Two weeks after that we went and looked at it again. Two weeks after that, we went back again with my contractor uncle and did a more technical walk-through (so in case your counting, we saw the same house 4x).  After that, we made a real offer, and after a bit of negotiations our offer was accepted!!

Now the fun part begins -decorating! Here are our plans for the dining room; I want a mix of patterns, modern and a classic look to tie into the bones of the house, (which will be 100 years in 2015)!  I am obsessed with the floral chairs (05) – I think these would look good  for the heads of the table. We are also looking into having our table made, so that is it a little more affordable – more details to come on that.

Dining Room Design
01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05

While we wait to close on the house I have been doing plenty of on-line shopping and deal hunting – any suggestions for hidden online (or places) treasure troves for a great deal? I am always game for a good DIY project!