Rustic Glam Living Room {31 Days of Moodboards}

This rustic glam living room was super fun to create. I'm not even sure what I saw to inspire the color combination--perhaps the sofa and the rug? I'm loving the pink and bright green with warm brown and gray. I like the look of combining something soft and sweet--the frilly pink curtain, the pillows, the poofs and the awesome argyle print chair--with things that are old and rough and warn, like the shutters and barnwood wall. I hope you enjoyed looking at this fun design idea!

This is day 7 of the 31 Days Series. Look for the other 6 days on Pinterest, Facebook and previous posts. Thanks for reading!

Spa Bath {31 Days of Moodboards}

I'm having so much fun with this series! I hope you are too. I'm spending my evenings creating beautiful spaces and design ideas at a time that I can't do it in real life. This way is a lot cheaper and much faster which makes it very gratifying!

I put this moodboard together as an idea of how to take your average home's outdated (or just plain bland) bathroom to something fun, comfortable and unique without breaking the bank. It starts with a focal wall of horizontal planks painted white. The other walls get a coat of something like this "silver sage", a blue-green-gray that reads as a neutral but SO much prettier! Then you tile the floor with small pebbles, install a rustic wood vanity with a farmhouse sink on top, hang a round bronze mirror and an old-fashioned basket pendant lamp. Next comes the fun stuff: hooks and a shelf for your bathrobe, a ladder shelf for towels or magazines, a frilly curtain, a wooden bathmat for the tub and a fuzzy white rug for the vanity. The basket pictured above is for laundry, but you could use it as inspiration to create a trash can. Then just sprinkle in a few extra touches like a woven basket (hand towels? toilet paper?), fuzzy slippers, loofahs and sponges and a convenient place to keep them while bathing.

So there you go! Blah builder basic to beautiful bliss!

I hope you enjoyed Day 6 of this series! You can make requests for moodboards for certain rooms or send me a picture of your existing space and I'll come up with a plan that works for you!

Have a great day!

Vintage Home Office {31 Days of Moodboards}

It's my birthday. And in honor of my birthday I'm sharing a kinda scary dream with you. Not the wake-up-sweating kind, but the daydreaming, intimidating kind. And it's scary to know you want something and not know how to do it, and it's scary to put my dreams and ideas out there. But they say that's a step in making them a reality, so here goes.

I'd like to be an interior designer, work out of my home, and help people create beautiful spaces in their homes. On a budget. With an emphasis in doing-it-yourself.

There, I said it.

When I was a little girl I became enthralled with Egypt after my Grandma took a trip there. I think I was 6. She brought me a book about mummies and pyramids and I decided I wanted to be an anthropologist. I had that dream for several years but sometime around 7th grade I had to do a paper on a career I was interested in. This was back before the internet was the thing, so research included encyclopedias and trips to the library and taking notes by hand with a pencil!  In my research, I discovered that anthropologists spent most of their time outside digging in the dirt in all kinds of weather with few discoveries for their efforts! 

So my career goals shifted. Nurse? No--too much blood. And sick people scare me. They might die!!! How about a missionary? Lots of travel, exotic locations, homesickness, inconveniences and BUGS. Nope. Not gonna happen. Perhaps a travel agent! Help other people fly to exotic locations and deal with the bugs and get access to great flight deals and vacation opportunities! Meh. Too much time in the office. 

That's when my parents bought a 1960's ranch style house and renovated it. It wasn't extensive or expensive, in fact my brother and I were at our grandparent's most of the time. We left a dirty, ugly, stinky house and came back to a new, clean, pretty one! And I loved my new bedroom! It was white with blue bedding and blue fluffy curtains and a matching poofy valance and a floral wallpaper boarder and a set of furniture with a white-washed finish! Hello 1990!

This trip down memory lane all to make a point is getting long. Suffice it to say, throughout high school I wasn't really sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, but an interior designer sounded really cool. I couldn't convince myself that it was a real career, though, and when we took our college-visitation tours as high school seniors, a friend and I listed "journalism" under our majors on the questionnaire. They stuck us with the "education" people and gave us a tour of the Ed building, not the English or Business Departments. 

You know what's funny about that? We're both teachers. Last I knew, that friend was a high school English teacher and I have a master's in Educational Leadership and 7 years of teaching under my belt. 

So, to turn this conversation and my heart back to interior design, it's just something I've always liked. I'm not saying I'm particularly talented. I don't know the real rules for stuff, I don't know fancy names of things, I certainly don't keep track of fabric designers. I just put what I like together and try to make sure everything has a purpose--either functional or pretty or both! 

Which finally leads me to tell you a little about the design plan above. (I was tired of scrolling up to remember, it was so long ago that I saw it!) The goal for such a space would be not only to provide a place to work and keep work-related things, but to provide a place to meet with clients. I'm picturing a large space, like a front living room in those 1990 track homes that no one uses cuz they're all back in the kitchen-slash-family room in the back of the house. Or a formal dining room that really could moonlight as a dining room with a few switches and a little time cramming things in closets organizing. 

This Vintage Home Office is a melody of grays, deep red and pale aqua. It includes several large pieces of furniture to divide the space into zones as well as provide storage. The room would include a work area (aqua desk, chalkboard), a meeting area (pedestal table), a waiting area (white settee and red side table), and storage (hutch, card catalog, bookcase with glass doors). The different zones would each be anchored by a unique rug. The fabric swatches at the bottom include material for curtains and pillows as well as inspiration for area rugs. 

As always, I see many do-it-yourself projects here: refinishing and painting furniture, sewing fabric for curtains or pillows, and making old things work as decor or storage--like the chalkboard or old map. 

So there you have it. A dream and a design plan. And lots of random information about me! Yeah, good thing it's my birthday, right? 

What dreams do you have? Have you thought lately about the crazy ideas you had as a little kid? Are you doing what makes you happy? 

Hope you enjoyed Day 5 of my 31 Day Series! I'm on a mini-vacation and will be updating the "Moodboards" tab on my blog soon! Thanks for stopping by--your comments are like birthday presents to me! Ha!

Pink and Gray Nursery {Moodboards}

 

I don't have a baby girl. We're certainly not expecting one either, but this is along the lines of what I'd like to do if the stork ever dropped off a baby girl at our house. 

I think it's pretty self-explanatory too, so I'm not going to ramble on about it. Just lots of pale pink and light gray, some white to keep it clean and pretty patterns in the rug, bedding and curtains (pink toile fabric at lower right).

I hope you're enjoying this series! I'm having so much fun with it! Remember you can submit ideas and problem spots, or areas where you're looking for inspiration. Let me know in an email, on my facebook page or in the comments section below.

Ellie

Industrial Farmhouse Kitchen {31 Days of Moodboards}

Oh, how I love this kitchen! I think this is my favorite design style--a little modern industrial, a little rustic, a little traditional. What comes out when I decorate my own home is a little more cozy and colorful, but I still love how this all looks on paper. Or computer monitors, whatever.

I picture this kitchen in an older home or loft apartment that has big, open spaces and lots of light. I decided on wood floors and a focal brick wall with a chalkboard wall as a backdrop to part of the space. I added a warm gray rug, open shelving, stainless appliances and apron front sink with a stainless faucet. The other metal finishes in the room are oil rubbed bronze. I chose a rustic pine table and benches as well as an island. Both of these get a dash of modern style; the island with its marble top and the table with the silver Tolix chairs at each end.

The cabinets I included are from Lowe's, but one could paint existing cabinetry white for the same look. The industrial shelf is to take the place of a pantry and would look great with metal bins. I also used a potrack for more dimension and to keep base cabinetry to a minimum. Upper cabinets are completely optional.

So there's Day 3! I hope you're enjoying the series! Come back tomorrow for something completely different!

Ellie

Stars and Strips Shared Bedroom {31 Days of Moodboards}

Does anyone think this moodboard looks strangely familiar? Well, like anyone, I'm motivated most by things close to me, and I drew inspiration from my boys' bedroom at our home in Iowa. 

This moodboard, though, has lots of different elements from their real room, some of which I might be able to do in our next house. We'll see! 

Here's the breakdown:

-Natural wood: bunkbeds, shelving, a focal wall and even toys!

-Stripes! Rugs, curtains and pillows--even a flag--are all striped.

-Colors! Each boy would have his own color with the rug, pillows and his dresser all being "his" color. In this case I chose navy, lime and red. Orange would look great instead of red.

-Maps: Globes can be collected and used in the space, as well as maps on the walls. I included star maps for fun, with a few other stars included, such as the star shaped light fixture.

-Blues: The maps on the wall have plenty of blue, so a light gray-blue wouldn't compete with the fun colors and would read as a neutral. (I used kelly green in the real room and it was too much! Learn from me!) My boys also have denim patchwork quilts (made by my mother-in-law!) and I love how neutral they seem. By the way, each one is backed with a store-bought fleece blanket in a different color so each boy knows whose is whose. 

I had so much fun creating this moodboard with ideas of what I would do differently next time. There are lots of DIY projects, big and small, depending on what you would want to tackle. My husband built my boys' beds and I painted their inexpensive dressers. Other projects include paint, building the focal wall and hanging maps, curtains and light fixtures. 

Thanks for stopping by on the second day of my 31 Days of Interior Design Moodboards series! I've added a new tab at the top of my page for moodboards so you don't miss any. You can also submit ideas or problem areas in your own home. Thanks for reading along!

Ellie

Natural Neutral Dining Room {31 Days of Moodboards}

Welcome to the first day of my series called 31 Days of Interior Design Moodboards! Look for 30 more to come this month!

This neutral dining room (or area) is based on natural colors and textures. The character of the room begins with white wainscotting or board and batten on the lower two-thirds of the walls and a neutral gray-beige paint on top.  Cream colored curtains with script frame a black window. The floor is grounded with a round natural fiber rug. A round, black pedestal table sits in the middle of the room with a large drum-shaded light fixture above, covered in a neutral fabric like linen or burlap. Comfortable chairs circle the table, tempting diners to linger. A buffet helps anchor the space and adds a surface for display or actual buffet service! The shade on the lamp echoes the scripted curtain fabric, and a round mirror is added for light reflection. 

Such a dining space has many things to DIY. You could use a paint pen or permanent marker to put the script on the curtains and lampshade. The buffet and tables could be thrift store or craigslist purchases and refinished yourself. There are plenty of tutorials for adding board and batten, and having done it myself once, it's fairly easy to do if you have the patience for lots of caulk and lots of paint! I've even seem some tutorials on how to make your own drum shade! Other pieces like the rug, chairs and lamps could be collected second-hand or substituted for something you already have. 

Have a great first day of October! Can you believe it's still in the 90s in the Sacramento area? I'm ready for some cooler weather and am missing fall in a bad way this year! 

Remember, you can submit ideas for moodboards, or problem spots from your own home. I'd love to work with you to add a little beauty to your home!

Ellie