Balance

Decorating bookcases can sometimes be tricky. This is a great example of balance and the use of natural elements. The use of the blue and white paired together is a nice combination.

Images from Phoebe Howard

Yellow Anyone?

I am always amazed that each wedding I have worked on for a bride always turns out different. Different in a good way. Each bride always has her own unique style and taste. The sky is the limit when it comes to designing for a wedding. How fun are the yellow guess shoes? Love them. There are many colors you can combine with yellow. I threw in a few different colors into the board for you to see, such as Grey, Green, and Brown. Click on the image below to see the items closer.

Here is a fun inspired "yellow themed" mood board.

The idea behind setting a mood and theme to the wedding is to look at all the different ways to "tie" in everything. For example, the favors, which consisted of a CD that contained all the bride and grooms favorite songs were printed in the wedding colors. The beverage of choice and table numbers tied into the theme.
I am a big fan of bringing in a touch of nature. I love the use of the painted white branch. Yellow flower pomander balls adorn the branches. The idea of varying heights of vases wrapped in the alternate wedding color is a great idea. The use of of the color brown does a great job to tie in the color of the bridesmaid dresses. The dresses were brown with light yellow sashes. It is the simple touches that can add such a dramatic statement. Varying images from the knot.com

Last Holiday Stop for the Year

I started the holiday tour and then never really finished it for you guys. This is my last post for the holidays. Or shall I say the last Christmas holiday picture post:) Then I must make good use of all this time off from work. I need to finish the closet purge and try to squeeze in a project prior to going back to work after the New Years. Although, today I said was my one day of TV and bumming around day. Being off work is really spoiling me. This was a shot of our master bedroom sitting room fireplace. I love the color green! I cannot ever seem to get away from using it in our room.

Holidays are Wrapping Up

All the effort of decorating for the holidays and it seems like it comes to a end so fast! Does anyone else dread packing up everything??? I do like organizing, however it is ALOT of work to pack everything back up. Especially, this year. I suppose I will leave some things up until after New Years. I did pack up the dining room table plates today. A semi-start, can't hurt. This year we put up two trees. We have never done that before. Although, this was the first year in the house that the bonus room was finished in order for us to do so. I went with oranges, golds, and browns on this tree as these are the colors of the bonus room. Maybe by next year I will have a tree skirt for this tree or a topper. Although, I made do with sticking some gold berry stems at the top instead and liked how it turned out. The tree turned out pretty good considering I started with NO ornaments for a second tree. It is amazing what you can transform into ornaments. For instance, pine cones! I did buy carmel satin spray paint in hopes of spraying a few. I never got a around to it and ended up sticking just the plain brown pine cones on the tree. It did the trick. It was nice, the tree fit perfectly in the dormer and sparkled through the windows out to the road.




Why can't Christmas stick around longer. Trees make it so pretty in the house, don't you agree? What is it? The lights you think?? Or is it just the lovely memories that go along with it!? I think both.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Hope Everyone is having a Cozy Christmas Eve!

Coastal Dreaming Take II

Here are a few more dreamy coastal photos that sparked my interest....
Now in my current house I could not imagine a fish on the wall of any sort, but at the beach casa I could totally work with this. I love the simple green jars with a touch of outdoors brought in.

I like the use of the dark blue and white color schemes through out.

Check out the bedroom, loving this too! I'm missing the beach and water can you tell? I am thinking I could live with this set up at the beach, couldn't you. That crisp and clean bedroom is gorgeous.

Images and design by the talented Phoebe Howard, that you can check out here

Coastal Dreaming

Anyone else imagine this in their dream beach house. This is a room labeled Boca Grande from the talented Phoebe Howard.



Love the bed, lamps, colors, and art work. Happy Inspiration and Day dreaming.

Design Consults

Over the years I have been asked to help choose paint colors or give design advise to those starting on a project. I have helped a few friends and friends of friends you could say:) Starting in the new year I will begin to offer design help for those who want to purchase a mood board or seek a virtual design shopper so to speak. There is link to my direct email off to the side. Down below is an example of a Nursery design and the first Nursery Mood Board up for grabs. Hand picked bedding, art, fabric, etc. are show below. Let me know what you think. Or if you would like the details on where to get these items or would like to purchase this mood board design for your Nursery Design, email me. I call it "Hoot, Hoot!" You will see why down below.



Couple of other finishing touches would be this mirror.

And this cutie hand painted canvas

Perhaps this fabric for a pop of color for drapes

Day of Surfing

While Blog Surfing today I stumbled across these pieces of eye candy over here, however Room Remix mentioned the blog the other day so I thought I would go check it out. Then hours later.... I had been shown a ton of inspiration. Phoebe Howard is the designer and her blog is titled Mrs. Howard personal Shopper, the link is above at "here". Oddly, enough it appears she has a firm not to far from home in Charlotte, NC.
Speaking of candy, this wall color can be found at Benjamin Moore and Mrs. Howard choose "Chocolate Candy Brown". What a fun name for this paint color. I love the white bed, chocolate wall color, and pink drapes.



I love when fellow bloggers share others inspiration. Thanks PK over at Room Remix. I think Phoebe Howard definitely deserves a round of applause for her decorating expertise.

Bonus Help

After Christmas I hope to finally finish this room. Is a room ever truly finished??? Our bonus room needs some items on the wall. The room has 12ft ceilings. Therefore, ALOT of wall space. I am hoping to get the following:
1- 3 long shelves from IKEA to fill in some of the vast space on the walls.
2- A mirror for behind our sofa table. I would of course paint this mirror. I was thinking of trying out the Heirloom white that Janelle recommends at Isabella & Max Rooms along with the Rub N Buff for an antique look.
3-Book case items, such as this pedestal fruit bowl. I actually can check this off the list.
4- Another item for the bookcase is I really like this bird plate.
5- Door

Yes, the builder inverted our door so it opens to the inside of our hall. I want it to open to the inside of the room. I was thinking of getting a french door for this room. The door is hardly ever closed. I have some glass door knobs left over from our office french doors that I would like to use. However, everything else in this room is done. It was a veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long work in progress shall I say. I will share the journey later. Maybe I can pick up the holiday tour in this room.

Items in this set:
IKEA | Vegghyller | Vegghyller | LACK | Vegghylle, $30
Pier 1 Imports - Sunflower Mirror, $50
Pier 1 Imports - Scroll Fruit Bowl, $25
Pier 1 Imports - Yellow Bird Plate, $5

Lovin it

Stumbled across this today and love it. I'm eating my words now saying "I don't really like birds". Here lately, I am all about birdies. I love the dark grey background. This would be an adorable nursery print. I will definitely have to save for an idea book. I could see some neat turquoise color drapes. I think this would be a nice print for either a boy or girl, don't you think?

This etsy store has some really cute items: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hirondellerustique

Molding galore

Loving these inspiration photos from houzz.com
Molding makes such a difference. Look how clean and fresh.

This stairwell and windows are killer. I like the molding around the stair banisters too.

Were thinking of adding some molding going into our sitting room and this looked pretty neat.

Continuing on

Lets pick up the Christmas tour in the dining room. Our floor plan to our home is very open. Our dining room is right next to the living room. It is only separated by a half wall. Therefore, I enjoy decorating the table as part of the holiday scheme. Now, I have to say that I normally do not leave the "table set" so to speak. However, at Christmas I love pulling out my dishes and using the only china I have which is appetizer Christmas plates.
Here are a few shots of the dining room table.

I took a red damask table runner and added a few sparkling stars as I have on my foyer table along with some shiny mercury pillar holders. Again, you can find at PB.

I love white dishes and oddly found this cute white holly dish at TJmax. I thought it would play on the other white scheme dishes found in the dining room buffet and on the table.



You know you can start to see "themes" with peoples decorating. What they like and lean towards. I see a theme with loving crystals. Few years back at Christmas time PB had crystal garland. I leave it up year around on my dining room chandelier. It dresses it up. At Christmas time it sparkles with all the other items.

Again, seeing themes in my house. Damask, black, white, etc. I can't get enough of these reindeer plates.

So, that concludes the holiday tour of our dining room at Christmas time. What does your house look like at Christmas time? Do share.

Holiday Cheer

Deck the halls it is! Or shall we say deck the entry way and the rest of the house. I love Christmas time! I was just telling my husband that it is a decorators dream come true time. I told him how much thought goes into the placement of each ornament on the tree and how exciting it is to decorate for this time of year around the house. I thought I would share some of the holiday cheer and decorating going on at our house over the next few posts.
I love sparkle this time of year, the more the better. I have several glittery stars scattered around the house. You can find them on the foyer table, dining room table, and breakfast table. You can find them at my favorite store, here. The entry foyer table has flowers that are changed out each season. For the winter I have curly willow branches, glitter branches, and bittersweet berry stems. I love to hang shiny red ornaments off the branches. The reflection in the mirror is pretty neat too.






Now if I could just find a new place for the mistletoe. I changed out my light fixture in the foyer and now I have no good place to hang it! Maybe I can find a creative way to hang it from the lantern light. However, for now its only home is hanging from the french doors outside the office.


Stay tuned for the rest of the holiday tour...