{renovate} the depths of indecision

Sometimes I'm quick to make decisions and know precisely what I want. Other times, it takes me months and I second guess everything. The latter usually revolves around fabric and/or other textiles. It just so happens that I'm trying to choose a couple different fabrics right now. And a couple rugs. I need to choose fabric for over the kitchen sink. I also need to choose fabric for the living room ottoman and I need a rug for in front of the kitchen sink. Oh and possibly a rug under the table in the nook. Seriously, it's a lot! It makes my head spin. I know I want to have some fun with the fabric over the sink, so I'm trying to choose that fabric first and then base my other choices off it.

I know you're all curious, so here, my friends, is what indecision looks like:

I. CAN'T. CHOOSE. First world problems, right? I just want to pick one so I can move on with my life, but none are right. At the beginning of the kitchen remodel, I posted that I wanted to updated the color scheme be blue and green - instead of just blue. This still holds true. More recently, I posted a variety of fabrics, trying to narrow things down. The one thing I have decided is that I want a floral, because there are so many straight lines in the room - the cabinets, the tile, the painted lines on the floor. (My awesome husband pointed that one out ;) I need to both mix it up and soften it up. The problem here, though, is that a lot of florals read too stuffy.

The fabric below (left) is actually the closest to what I'm looking for. Chris loves this one. But I think it's maybe too turquoise? Although, the pattern is pretty awesome.

During High Point Market, I was drooling over browsing the #hpmkt hashtag in instagram and came across this fabric:

PERFECT. Do any of you know what this is? I asked the person who posted, but haven't heard back. I LOVE it. It's bright and fun, yet not too busy or precious or stuffy. If any of you know, or have a guess, let me know! :)

Friends, what do you second guess yourself about? Are you in the middle of a decorating dilemma right now?

{create} low maintenace succulent containers

Friends, it appears that I'm on a succulent kick. It started after Christmas. I always plant paperwhites around Christmas in a large serving bowl and after they die, I save the bowl (dirt and all) for next year. But this year I'm trying to keep more plants in the house, so that bowl was replanted with succulents. 

It moves around the house as needed :). One of the - pretty obvious - things that I LOVE about succulents is how low maintenance they are. I planted these guys in March and have watered them once since. Easy! I am terribly neglectful of potted plants, but I absolutely adore having them in the house, so I've been trying to incorporate more plants that don't need a lot of t.l.c from me. 

For this little succulent garden, I added some river rocks and mossy rocks (both from Target), to add a little texture and make the dirt look not so ... dirty ;).

And speaking of low-maintenance. Each summer, I plant flowers in cute little white pots on our front steps (you can see past containers here and here). Last summer was no different, except that I was even more neglectful than usual (KITCHEN!). I let the flowers die and the weeds grow and a few weeks ago, our steps looked like this.

Yikes. Those are some huge weeds. But do you notice something about these containers? 

Look closely - the couple succulents that I'd added to the containers not only survived ...

But some even thrived! Our front steps get huge amounts of afternoon sun, which is pretty hard on certain flowers, but apparently succulents love it. I can take a hint. 

Now, our front step containers are all neat and tidy. And, planted full of lovely succulents.

I'm not sure how much each of these succulent varieties will fill in, so I might need to plant more, but I'm excited to see how these look by the end of summer. And, I'm even more excited that they'll (hopefully) flourish without much babysitting from me! 

Friends, do you plant succulents? Do you love to take care of plants, or do you take the more hands-off approach to gardening and house plants?

{inspired} fall color palettes

Happy Monday all!

Today I think it's time for a look at some fall color palettes! For those of you who don't know, each season I take a look at an outfit I'm loving and translate that outfit's color palette into a comfortable and stylish room. Fall color palettes are by far my favorite -- I love both fall outfits choices and the rich amazing color schemes. Let's take a look.

Fall Color Palette #1

 Kate Spade

Houzz

Fall Color Palette #2

Anthro

 Houzz

So, tell me, which look is your favorite of the two? I am such a big fan of orange and navy, buuuuut, in this case I think I have to pick #1. I really love the color blocked sweater dress! :)

**f you’d like to check out previous color palette posts see: summer color palettes,  spring color palettes, winter color palettes, fall color palettes, summer color palettes, and spring color palettes.

{create} custom painted plates

As you all saw Wednesday, I created custom painted dessert plates for my Thanksgiving Table. Today, I'm back with quick and easy directions for creating your own painted plates! Painted plates are a super easy way to dress up a table and add a splash of color if you have all white dishes - like me! :)

The goal of these plates was to create a layered, textural and colorful look. I wanted them to be something I could use year round and that would feel special for desserts or appetizers.

With that in mind, I started with four white dessert plates (from the Dollar Store!) and a gold paint pen. I freehanded a different design onto each and let them all dry.

I found these great stencils at Michael's -- they're Martha Stewart adhesive silkscreen stencils and they were FANTASTIC for working with the curves of the plate. (I was going to link to them, but Michael's website is seriously impossible to navigate (AKA, I'm lazy!), but they're easy to find in the store). The silkscreen means there isn't an actual cut out where the stencil is, but a million tiny little dots that the paint goes through. You can't tell their dots on the finished project and it made stenciling practically fool proof.

The colors, which went along with my Thanksgiving inspiration and nicely tie into colors I use all year-round, were Martha's Green Olive and Wild Blueberry. Make sure you're using paint that cures onto glass and can be washed later! The key to painting, as with all stencils, is to not overload the paintbrush. Or, in this case the foam blotter :). I tried both a brush and foam and the foam worked so much better -- I think because of the silkscreen. You can see in the photo on the left that I dabbed off a lot of paint before I ever touched the stencil.

Here's the first round of stenciling. I applied a stencil or two per plate, let them dry for a hour, and then came back and to do another layer on each plate. The project will stretch out over a day, but applying each layer is so quick that it doesn't feel time consuming.

And these are the four finished plates. Each plate has about three or four layers. I just kept going until they felt done to me, which in this case was layered and textural, but not too busy.

And see? They display dessert nicely ... as if macarons ever look bad ;).

Friends, have you ever painted glass before? Or any sort of dishes? It's a great easy weekend project if you're looking to spice up your Thanksgiving table!

Have a great weekend all!

**Update! I'm linking this post up to Beneath My Heart's November link party!

{inspired} summer color palettes

I realize that summer "officially" starts on June 21. And, there are a lot of place across the U.S. that have been basking in hot warm summer sun since before then. But we're a little slower here in Oregon. It's a general rule that Oregon summers - the sun, warm weather - don't begin until after July 4th. Seeing as how we've had nearly two weeks of perfectly sunny mid-80's weather, I think it's safe to say that summer finally here :).

All this to say ... it's time to look at summer color palettes! For those of you newer readers, each season I take a look what's on my to-wear wish list, and then translate that into a comfortable and stylish room.

Summer Color Palette #1

 

anthro

southern piphi

Summer Color Palette #2

 

asos

traditional home

Summer Color Palette #3

jcrew-skirt jcrew-shirt

free house interior design ideas

Friends, which look is your favorite? Obviously, I LOVE coral right now. But I'm also really digging blues and greens. I think I would take them all :)

** If you’d like to check out previous color palette posts see: spring color palettes, winter color palettes, fall color palettes, summer color palettes, and spring color palettes.

{renovate} adding a natural green

Happy Monday friends!

Last week I talked about adding green to our decor. And this weekend I added green in a major way - but probably not the way you're thinking {or even the way I was thinking!}. I made a trip to a local garden nursery for soil and came home with a bunch of new plants to spruce up our house for spring.

The bathroom has a fun new fern. Aren't those leaves amazing?

Our bedroom got this funky new plant. I couldn't pass up the color or the texture. Both are amazing.

And, our front steps got a little update for spring! I plant out these pots each year, this is just way earlier than normal. I did something a little different this year. Instead of planting all annuals, my normal method, I added in the mini trees I bought for Christmas decor, which then made their way to our spring mantle. I'm super curious to see how they do/how big they get outside.

I have a very basic method for filling my pots:

• Replace soil. Each year I add new soil to the pots -- soils nutrients get so depleted from feeding plants! So, I make sure to start my new plants off with good nourishing soil.
• Add in plant of different textures, colors and blooming cycles. As you can see above, there is the evergreen tree in back. At 1:00 is a flowering annual .... it'll flower red in a couple months. At 5:00 - 7:00 are succulents, which will fill in nicely and to round it out is a different red flowering annual.
• Don't crowd your plants! These seem a little empty now, but they'll fill out nicely in the next month. I've overcrowded before. Plants don't like it :) I'll show you an update when they fill out and look amazing.

I've been loving planting succulents outside. I've tried them a number of times in the house, but we don't have enough natural light :(.

And, because the weather this weekend was actually sunny (hurrah!), I got a great start on my garden. Friends, I am a bbbaaaadd winter gardener. I always let my garden go to weed. Boo. So each spring I clear it out and reinforce it with yummy new soil (see above) and then my new veggies can grow. This weekend I planted greens -- lettuce, kale and chard. Yum! I'll plant more in the next few weekends. Oh and are you wondering why I keep my veggies in a prison? We have crazy squirrels and cats in our yard. So a couple years ago we added a mesh border on all sides and it works like a charm -- no more veggies being dug up in the middle of the night!

Apparently I am not to be trusted at garden stores because I also came home with a bunch of new plants for our front yard! We didn't get them planted this weekend .... and they're currently in our backyard being watered by mother nature. So, you'll see more of these guys in the future :).

Anyone else out there have a tendency to go crazy at nursery's? There are just so many beautiful plants right now, it's hard to pass them by! :)

{inspired} blues, greens and kitchen schemes

Happy Wednesday friends!

Are you wondering where we're at with the kitchen? Yeah, me too! No, I'm kidding ... we're working on lots of technical details. You know the important stuff like making sure everything measure accurately and whether we want drawers or cabinets in certain places and how big our island should be. I'll give you guys the rundown once we've actually committed. At this point, things are changing on a daily basis. Love planning!

Although not my priority right now, one thing I can't help but think is the finished design and with that comes the fun part -- color scheme! As I mentioned in this previous post, we're opening the kitchen up to the living room. And, the kitchen naturally flows into the back entry. So a couple things to consider are existing color schemes. The living room is painted blue and features pops of yellow and orange. The back entry is painted greige, and has pops of blue.

bhg 

This little grouping could not represent our house, currently, any better. What I love most about this though, is the addition of green. Maybe it's because I'm so excited for spring (!), but the green feels so fresh. So, now I'm playing with a light blue, dark blue, yellow, green color scheme.

Some beautiful inspiration in varying shades of that scheme:

d.blackman 

good girl gone glad

decorpad

picassa

 westelm blog

SoHaus Interiors 

I think blue and green were meant to be together. At least in my house. Of course that means updating the living room a little too. Obviously. So much to think about :).

And by the way, the image from decorpad makes me want to buy an aqua sofa. So beautiful! What do you guys think of greens and blues? What's your favorite room from the ones above?