living room in with the new and out with the old (table, that is)

We're in the process of rearranging our living room (more on that later!) and needed a new end table for one side of the Klobo (our Ikea loveseat, incase you have no idea what we're talking about...see this post for our re-do of the Klobo slipcover.)

We decided to visit one of our favorite local vintage housewares stores to see what they had to offer. 

We found this little side table with really nice detail.

Here's a close up of the detailing.  

We purchased it for the mere price of $22.  The table itself was painted a really light pink color which didn't quite fit too well in our living room.  So we knew we'd have to paint it.  I was leaning towards a super bright color, but didn't want to overpower the orange wall which it would be in front of.  So I looked around at what leftover paint we had and found a sample color we got for the kitchen.  (Which didn't quite look as we thought it would in that room.  It's actually still on a patch of the wall...we're still figuring out what color we want.  Another work in progress.)  Anyway, the color is called Carolina Inn Club Aqua and is a blue/green color.  

Here's a process shot.  I'm still deciding in this picture if I like the color or not for the table.  

In the end, we ended up really pleased with the overall table and color.   It adds just enough color to not be overwhelming and fits in to the colors of the room well.  Actually the color is pretty close to our lining set of curtains.  

Here's looking down.

I don't think I've talked about our new lamps we got a few months ago, but here's a close up.  They're by Thomas O'Brein for Target.  I love the crackled glass circle shape of the lamps.  I've been looking for lamps similar to these for a while, but never found anything really affordable.  I actually saw a very, very similar style of lamp, only blue glass, in a recent issue of County Living magazine for over $300!  Needless to say, these were much, much less than that!

One of the major things we wanted in end tables were a shelf or drawer to put things on/in.  Often drawers can seem a bit heavy, so this shelf is really nice and open.  The side detail is really interesting here, too.  Just big enough to hold things in place, but not too boxy.  

This is the hot mess that used to be our living room.  Actually it usually wasn't such a mess.  We were in the process of moving things around when I took this quick shot.  The table to the right of the Klobo is the one we replaced.  I love the table (Kinsey actually made this table in high school!), but it's destination in life isn't to be used as a side table.  It's much too big and as you can see, it was often used as a dumping ground for mail and other non important things when we came in the door.  This picture looks so crazy now that we rearranged everything.  (More on that soon!)

Bedroom Blues...

I won't lie. When Kinsey and I first saw our potential house, the bedroom was one of the rooms that sold me (The first being the dining room...painted in the exact shade of green we've always wanted and with a wonderful wood floor to add to that!) It used to be the master bedroom and a smaller room, but previous owners combined the two rooms to form a very generous and large master bedroom, complete with cedar lined his and her walk-in closets. I also was immediately drawn to the beams on the ceiling. We love the look of restored barns and all the woodwork, and while ours beams certainly aren't salvaged wood, they do the trick.
Anyhow, the one thing the bedroom lacked was, well, color. The carpet is a very neutral tan, the walls were a shade of white and all the trim in the room was a medium tan. It at times could seem very apartment like. Given the color of the walls in the rest of the house (green in the dining room and orange on two of the living room walls), it seemed that it needed a little boost. After occupying the house for exactly 10 months and going between a million various shades between light blue and light aqua, we decided to go for it.


Here was our bedroom right before painting began. Rather plain and actually almost dark despite the white walls.


Here's the color we settled on - "Aquatic Mist" by Valspar. We picked it because Kinsey made the statement, "It makes me think of Maine". Oh, and see that little red tool? It's one of those paint edgers you see all over in home improvement store that I never thought we really needed before. All that's changed. While I did still tape along the bottom of our heater, it completely eliminated the need to tape the trim on the ceiling, windows, and doors. Not to mentioned I feel like it saved a ton of time. Just one sweep of it is all you need. Perfect, perfect, perfect. And it's only about $2.50.


The first strip of paint using our new favorite tool.


The final result! This is right after we painted and of course before we moved everything back to their respectable spots, but you can see what a complete difference it made. The room is so much brighter now and gives off a coast of Maine feel to us. We're completely in love with the room now.
I'll have a more finished room picture posted soon.

New Home!

So it's been a while since I've not only wrote here, but also listing new projects in general. Kinsey and I bought our first home in October of this past year and have been busy doing various projects and such. We were pretty lucky in that the house we bought was in really good condition and recently remodeled. Most of the walls were painted in colors we would've picked ourselves. We didn't really have to spend time ripping up carpets and repainting the walls. Here's a picture of one of my favorite rooms (obviously this was before we moved anything in!), the dining room.



One room that is still a "work in progress" is one of the upstairs rooms. This room is to be Kinsey's craft/collage/music room. The walls as you can see were just a simple shade of white which kind of made the whole room seem a lot smaller than it is.




Yesterday we just decided to go ahead and paint. So we headed off to our local Home Depot and picked out a warm brown color. Here's a picture of one of the walls painted in the final color:




We're quite pleased with the final outcome.


And here's a look of a new design I'll be posting in our shop this evening: