Some things you should know about

I'm in my usual post-Super Bowl Sunday funk - attributable largely to the the approximately 37 pounds of queso I ingested but more specifically because my New England Patriots lost in a HEART WRENCHING game.  Seriously, I still feel sick.  Can't talk about it...ugh.

I need the day to recover.  In the meantime, I'm sharing some of my favorite finds and deals from around the web.  

World Market has these great ikat patterned shower curtains right now. Even if you don't need a splash of ikat in your bathroom, the pattern and colors would make for some great throw pillows.  Or you could always try my favorite trick and turn them into window draperies.

 

Coral & Grey Ikat Shower Curtain from World Market $29.99

 

Purple & Green Ikat Shower Curtain from World Market $29.99 

I got Knox these shoes last week and he's worn them every day since.  He loves them and I think they're pretty hysterical myself.

 Robeez Yoda Slip-on from Nordstroms $27.95

Fun, purple drapery panels on sale at ZGallerie for $39.99 (96" length.) 

Mimosa Panels in Orchid from ZGallerie $39.99

I have to admit I'm not the biggest fan of Kirkland's but lately they've become my go-to place for interesting and inexpensive side tables.  Two of my favorites right now (the second one I just used in a nursery inspiration board coming up this week!)

 

Gold Barrel Table from Kirklands $79.99

 

Twig Accent Table from Kirklands $49.99

I just got this book for Knox and the illustration are so wonderful, I almost want to put it away for framing.  Each page is a letter of the alphabet with a really fun image to accompany it.  If you don't want to destroy the whole book by framing its pages, the book jacket that accompanies it can be reversed and opened to reveal a colorful alphabet poster that has all 26 letters and their corresponding illustrations.  LOVE.

 

Paul Thurby's Alphabet from Amazon $11.59

Say what??  A pinstripe chesterfield at Tuesday Morning of all places?  Crafted right here in North Carolina!

Pinstripe Chesterfield from Tuesday Morning $2,499

You know I am loving some metal sconces these days. This 3 light fixture in polished nickel is gorgeous for a bathroom and really reasonable at $159.

Pullman bath light from Shades of Light $159

This room makes me happy.  The cool art on the wall is from here for $99.

 

 

The Change from AeroPagital Prints on Etsy $99 

I'm kind of obsessed with this vintage Turkish kilim rug on eBay. The colors are just perfect.  It's small (roughly 5'x2.5') but it could look really GREAT to reupholster a bench don't you think?

Anatolian Kilim Turkish Rug from eBay

And lastly, Michael Fassbender.  

 

Period.  End of story.  No additional description required.

Vintage Anatomical Wall Charts

This eBay seller is KILLING ME with their collection of vintage anatomical charts.  They have everything from interesting botanicals to some crazy mammal and insect charts.  I love that they are of the pull-down variety - makes it feel so much more unique.  I love seeing interesting art pieces in a room and I think one of these over a dresser in a kid's space would be a great finishing touch (not to mention a conversation piece!)  The apple and dog rose are really sweet but I know there are little boys out there that would die for frog print at the end!

 Snail

Coffee

Butterfly

Mushroom

Jellyfish

Bat

Kangaroo

Dragon fly

Dog rose

Cherry

Fern

Apple Tree

 

Flax Seed

  

 

Cuttlefish

 

Frog

 What do you think? Freaky?  Or just unique enough to be interesting?

Before and After: Louis style dining chairs

Remember the Louis style dining chairs I got on Craig's List? Well they've been sitting around my house in a constant state of half-done-ness for the last 7 months. But no longer!! They are done and I love them! (sorry about the terrible before pics, they're all I have!)

I started off thinking I would do this whole project myself - remove old upholstery, paint AND reupholster. But as things dragged on and on I had to just admit to myself that if I was ever going to get this project done, I needed to outsource the re-upholstery piece to professionals. Just removing the old upholstery proved to be a bear of a task. I have a whole new respect for upholsterers. It is NOT easy work.

In this post, I shared the early steps - sanding, priming and picking a paint color. Ultimately I settled on Benjamin Moore's Sea Pearl, a pretty off white that was a nice match for the white faux ostrich leather I was using. But after spending an entire afternoon painting 1 chair (and battling drips on the chair's turned legs the entire time), I took a step back and realized I was painting this chair almost the exact same color as Rustoleum's Heirloom White. I had a few cans on hand (doesn't everyone?) and 20 minutes later I had this (the 4th chair is just out of this shot).

I am SOOOOO HAPPY I turned to spray paint and abandoned the brush on this project. The result is a perfect, smooth, even finish. I did 3 coats and sealed it all with some spray Minwax polycrylic in satin.

Off they went to the upholsterer's with 4 yards of the faux ostrich and 3/4 of a yard of Schumacher's Chiangmai Dragon (which by the way I got on eBay and was so afraid it wouldn't be enough for the back of the chairs...but it was!!) I had them do double cording all around and I love the way it turned out.

I totally love the clean look and the amazing durability of this fabric. They weren't home for 30 minutes when Knox put them to the test by sneezing a mouthful of pureed blueberries all over one of them. A quick wipe down with a wet cloth was all it took and they were back to sparkly white.

They're sort of like mullet chairs - business in the front but party in the back. :)

I think if I had had more of the Chiangmai Dragon fabric, I would have specified exactly what scenes in the fabric I'd want framed on each chair. But with 3/4 of a yard, you get what you get. I'm still ok with it though. I got some flowers, some dragon, some lanterns...

Originally, we were planning to use these in our dining room. Our breakfast nook was our little coffee shop corner with 2 comfy arm chairs. (terrible iPhone pic...sorry)

But with Knox now in a high chair, we needed to swap out the coffee shop corner for an actual breakfast nook outfitted with a table. In came the Odyssey table from CB2.



So now they live in our breakfast nook.

Need to get rid of that rug asap. Also my Maskros is ridiculously off center and there's nothing I can do about it. But I will focus on my fun chairs and not my off center light.

Here is the cost breakdown for this project:

Chairs: $50 per chair on the Raleigh Craig's List
4 cans of Rustoleum Heirloom White Spray Paint: $30
2 cans of Minwax Polycrylic Spray: $20
4 yards of white faux ostrich leather: $135
3/4 of a yard of Chiangmai Dragon on eBay: $90
Reupholstery Services: $75 per chair from ABZ Uphholstery

Guest Room Tour

Today I'm sharing images of our guest suite. I decorated this particular room well before starting Honey + Fitz and as I was getting it ready to host our Memorial Day weekend guests, I realized that I've never properly photographed it or shared it with you all. The room has an en-suite bath that I'll post pics of eventually.

My inspiration for the room was this guest bedroom makeover originally featured in Cottage Living magazine. When I saw this image, I immediately fell in love with the cheerful yet serene feeling and thought it would make a very welcoming space for our guests. It feels comfortable and really approachable - not overly decorated or too precious - but still pretty.

I set out to create a similar look, using the spa blue and sunny yellow color combination as my starting point. Here's how my room came together.

The bedding in the original room is all custom. I was able to create a similar look by using Pottery Barn's Matine Toile duvet and euro shams in marigold. The sheets are Fieldcrest Luxury in Grey from Target and the matelasse coverlet was a Home Goods find.

The one thing I did sew up was this little lumbar pillow.

No fuss, just a simple envelope closure with little white pom pom fringe to dress it up. It ties in with the curtains nicely. The insert is a 12"x24" lumbar pillow from Pottery Barn.

Speaking of curtains, the ones in the inspiration room were made to match the custom duvet. Since I went off the shelf with my duvet, I decided to do something different with the curtains and made them using this fabric (Slubby Basket in white) and edged them in a 3"wide band of this fabric (Waverly Essence in spa).

They are a great weight while still letting in filtered light.

I couldn't afford to create a custom upholstered headboard like they did in the original room but I still needed something to act as the focal point behind the bed. Instead I took 5 Ribba frames from IKEA, spray painted them with Valspar's Mediterranean spray paint in high gloss and framed some pages from this book.

The pages were much larger than the mat opening so a good bit of the design is hidden behind the mat but I don't really care. It actually gave me the freedom to move the print around and center what I felt was most interesting.

Instead of doing matching table lamps on the bedside tables, I opted for swing arm lamps. I wanted to leave guests with plenty of room on the nightstands for things like cell phones, water bottles and the general stuff you amass when traveling. I went with the Cortland swing arm lamp from Pottery Barn Kids in the oil-rubbed bronze (unfortunately discontinued it looks like). Don't neglect to look for stuff like this at "kids" stores. I was just buying the base and nothing about it says "kids" so I was able to get the look I wanted for less than it would have cost had I bought it from the regular "adult" side. I bought the shades at JoAnn Fabrics and used a little Fabri-tac to glue on some remnants of the same Waverly Essence in spa that I used on the curtains. I trimmed the edges in white hem tape.

One of the bedside tables in the room - a vintage find from the Raleigh Flea Market. I love the shape and the distressed, turquoise paint works nicely with the color palette in the room. The coral piece on top is from this eBay seller.

The other nightstand is an old Crate & Barrel piece that I painted (it started out black).

On it I keep a couple of decorative boxes I found at Marshalls and a book or two. I like to swap out the books I have on the nightstand by season. For summer, I always put out my most favorite summer book, One Special Summer by Jacqueline Bouvier and her sister Lee. It's filled with hand written notes and drawings from the sisters about their summer aboard the Queen Elizabeth and their adventures around Europe.

The room really has no interesting architectural features to speak of so I faked it by adding some trim moulding about 12" down from the ceiling all the way around the room. Sort of a fake picture rail. I painted it out in a high gloss white and then painted the ceiling and the 12" above the rail in Benjamin Moore's Ocean Air. The remaining wall below the rail I did in Benjamin Moore's Smoke Embers. This was pretty much an experiment as I wasn't sure if it would visually lower the ceiling but I can happily report that it totally does the opposite. The railing and the lighter ceiling color immediately draws your eye upward and gives the whole space a very airy quality that I love.

I am on a slow but steady mission to rid my house of all the terrible, builder-grade boob lights we have. But lighting is expensive so I had to figure out a way to cheat a little. I bought a drum shade with a spider top at Home Goods, covered it in some linen fabric and and sandwiched it between the boob light and the ceiling.

I will do a more detailed post on how I did this later in the week. The result as you can see above is acceptable, though the view from below is anything but fancy.


So what's left for this room?

#1: Lighting! This drum shade over boob light thing is only a temporary solution. I think I've decided that I want to do a Moravian star pendant in its place and have finally found a decent price on one here. If you know where I can get a 20" version of this light for less, please let me know!

#2: The entire wall opposite the bed. You know how I like to keep it real with you guys, so here goes. On the other side of the room I have this bamboo framed mirror that I picked up at Goodwill for $20.


I got as far as giving it a coat of Benjamin Moore's Twilight Blue which is like an inky, navy blue color. I don't know if it will stay in the room but for now it's perched in the corner because I haven't been motivated to hang it (it weighs approx. 900 lbs).

I also have this chest from my single days. It totally doesn't work in the room but it's in perfect condition and at the time I put the room together, I wasn't ready to get rid of it. Perched on top is my 22 year old Sanyo television (that is not an exaggeration).

I've been considering swapping out the chest for my campaign dresser which I'm thinking of painting ivory, a grayish blue (like the one used on the armoire in the original inspiration image) or coral. I know...you're like coral?? but I can't stop thinking about how hot it would look with the brass hardware).


Then maybe I'll put my vintage faux bamboo mirror over it and spring for a small LCD tv of this century for my guests.

That's all for now! Will report back when I wrap up these other items. 

UPDATE!! I actually finished this wall with the campaign dresser.  Here's how it turned out:  

See more of the dresser transformation here.