Family Room Reveal

Here's a quick update on the almost finished product. It's taken a long time to take photos since the moments of the house being quasi-clean, having good lighting, and having the toddler entertained elsewhere are few and far between. It's like a split-second utopia.

Overall, we love the house. We still have some nesting to do, but it will come (right??). The big stuff is complete, and making it ours is a work-in-progress. We are getting there slowly but surely. But, here's where we are today...

the little rocking chair was left with the house. i painted it & B loves having his own "big boy" space in the family room.

Need a reminder of the before? (shield your eyes from the shag carpet!)

The inspiration behind the transformation...

Favorites in this room:

• The black windows. Replacing all of the aluminum-framed casement windows throughout the house wasn't in the budget. Painting them black gave them an INSTANT update and we love it, despite the pain it was to get the painters to finish the job correctly.
• Natural light
• Fireplace - hubs did an amazing job installing the wood cladding. 
• Fireplace surround
• Shelving update - a little trim on the shelf fronts and paint on the rear wall is another instant update
• B's play area isn't as pretty or contained as the Sarah Richardson in me would like, but I wouldn't trade having him a place to hang out for all the designer fabric in the world.

Details:

• Rug: One Kings Lane
• Bench: Antique
• Mantel: Custom reclaimed Douglas Fir
• Fireplace surround: Absolute Black granite, honed
• Fireplace cladding: Custom
• Armoire: Crate & Barrel
• Curtains: Ikea
• Wall hanging: vintage
• Paint colors: see here

state of the art [part 2]

a while back, i designed some graphic art prints for our guest room. after framing them in ikea frames, i finally got them up on the wall. though i'm not quite ready to reveal the full room yet...you can let your imagination run.

[yep, the light switch is wearing a mustache + spectacles!]

you've seen the chevron rug i made.

now the art.

each state is a shout-out to family who'll likely be sleeping there the most.

california...

arkansas + texas...

ohio...

want the art? you can download it here for free.

full reveal coming soon...

state [of the] art, part 1

to add a little punch to our guest room, we wanted to add some pops of color. inspired by a blog post that referred me to a now-closed etsy shop, i fell for the idea of personalizing some graphic art prints of various US states. (i can't remember where i saw the inspiring post, sorry about that.)

since most of the folks using that room would be our family, we thought it'd be fun a fun way to make the room feel a little more like home. because i prefer collections in odd numbers, we picked the following five states:

arkansas: where my parents both currently live & my hometown
california: where Zenn [cricket's brother & sis-in-law] live
georgia: where we live, duh [and later realized no one would be using this room from here, so we scrapped this frame when we ran out of wall space]
ohio: where Hippie Sis + new hubs The Professor are saving the world, one water molecule at a time
texas: where Teacher Sis lives, shaping the future of America

i picked up 5 Ribba frames from Ikea, with aluminum frame & white mattes, for $17.99 each. the interior matted space is 11.5" square, so perfect for a 12x12 print.

[ikea ribba frame @ $17.99ea]

i played with the idea of using punch scrapbook paper as the background and cutting out solid shapes of the states. this would make them easily interchangeable if anyone decides to move elsewhere. but the scrapbook paper gods weren't on my side when i was shopping for the right mix of pattern + color, so i busted out photoshop to create the "custom" art. a little clip art & a few tutorials later, art was complete.

i shipped it off via the interweb to a print shop. a few hours and $3/each later, i popped them in the frames. determining the wall placement will be the hardest part. for now, they're just laid out on the bed. they'll make it to the wall eventually. as will the bird plates.

if you happen to have folks in the same states, or just a fondness of these particular places, you can download the art files here. i'd love to see how you use them!

arkansas
california
ohio
texas

the finished product reveal, coming soon.