Life

Let’s improve the home, shall we? I love home projects and we’ve undertaken some minor things in the past few months – mainly just buying some furniture. Y’all might remember that we finally purchased ourselves a decent king size bed, new bedding, and stuff last summer/fall but I don’t think y’all have seen them all set up yet. I also finally got around to deciding on a new nightstand. A bookshelf. What else? Also, please excuse the poor picture quality brought to you by my phone. Once the room is done, we’ll take fancy pants pictures where you can tell the walls are actually a very pretty green.

The bedding (which I love) is West Elm which we got on sale. The bed is Basset Furniture which we also found on sale! The bookshelf was purchased via Joss & Main which is an online furniture outlet. Lots of great deals and no problems ordering things online. The bookshelf was supposed to be a gray but ended up a light purple/lavender color which actually worked out much better with the yellows, greens, and purple chevron pillows. Those pillows – a steal from HomeGoods!

My husband’s nightstand is a hand-me-down IKEA find. So…free! It belongs in the guest room, but he’s temporarily using until I decided (I guess, we decide) what sort of table will find a permanent home there. He only uses a bedside table for his clock alarm and to hold his cell phone. I’m thinking a small dresser to add some storage. I like using furniture pieces in ways that aren’t traditional. Notice the Old Navy bag beside my shelves – that’s trash. I’m just lazy enough not to remove it from the picture frame.

Obviously we have more things to do in this section. Wall art and curtains for the windows are our next big bedroom project. I’d eventually love hardwoods upstairs, but money is a thing. I’d also like a chaise, settee, or bench at the foot of the bed. Maybe a cute smallish chair in the corner? Who knows.

This next picture is an upcoming project for the dinning room:

That huge fan (and it is GINORMOUS) will be going on the wall in a home built frame. I think it’s a gorgeous and interesting art piece for the barest of bare walls. The wall itself is a deep chocolate brown color. We bought the fan for about $20 at the Chinatown Mall down the street from us during Chinese New Years. I definitely want to bring some of the Chinese culture into the house since that’s Jimmy’s heritage. We’re going for a young, colorful, Southern US/Asian mix. Should be tons of fun.

And finally, we’ve started our first real outdoors project:

Now before y’all think I’ve been controlling all the decorating and purchasing – think again! Jimmy is spearheading the garden! He’s super excited and has been planning for weeks. Yesterday, while I was at book club, he and a friend went plant shopping. Tonight they are going to be doing the installation. In the flowerbed above they’ve gone with double knockout roses and calla lilies. I love that he chose the lilies cause those were my bridal bouquet!

For the front yard, he purchased some purple and white flowers and a gardenia bush. They don’t look like much yet so I skipped taking their picture. Just imagine.

Lots more on the agenda! One of the biggest projects we’d like to tackle is our entertaining area out back. We are a townhouse so don’t have a huge yard. In addition to the new flowers, we’re thinking about a porch swing to hang under our second floor deck and a fire pit/coffee table combo with some chairs and small tables thrown around. We already have a grill – so that’s a plus. We host a lot of people throughout the year and so this is a priority for us.

What projects have y’all been tackling around the house this spring?

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Bedtime Stories Continued…

Dear Lord.  If you follow me on twitter, then you were privy to my epic rant yesterday.  A rant of gigantic proportions over my husband’s shopping exploits.  And yes, I realize I was taking quite a risk in letting him buy a mattress on his own, but I thought I was being non-naggy and giving him some freedom.  As a consolation prize for not getting a memory foam mattress.  But guess what?  He ordered a memory foam mattress.  Surprised?  Ugh.

After we had a minor (major) fight about his selection, he next informed me that he had financed the mattress over three years, interest free.  WHAT?  We had never agreed to do that.  We had decided to stick to a budget that we could afford to pay off now.  There are a plethora of mattresses within our reasonable budget, but no – he ordered something beyond our means.  When I found out the price, I nearly clocked him.  To top it off, he’s also ordering a new queen mattress for one of our guest rooms so that our guests can sleep as well as we do.  Because we have overnight guests every week (3 times a year) that require the ultimate in pampering (mostly young single people who could give a shit).

He’s calmly informed me that we have a 100 night trial period.  If I don’t like it, I can return the mattress.  Like I’m going to make him return his beloved mattress – I already feel the guilt.

I won’t go too much into his purchase of the most expensive down comforter and sheet set he could find.  I also won’t complain about the fact that because he bought the most expensive sheet set ever he couldn’t afford two sets that I could alternate out each week. Basically, everything that came out of my mouth was a complete waste of breath. HUSBANDS.  Sometimes you need them, sometimes you…I won’t finish that sentence.

After steaming for about 30 minutes, my anger left me – it’s kinda hard to stay mad when you’re getting new pretty things and the object of your ire is super excited to the point of giddiness about his new purchases.  But I vowed to order whatever the hell throw pillows I desired.  So that brings me to what this post is actually about – THROW PILLOWS!

I have two options I love and don’t know which ones to choose.  Help me!  Here’s a reminder of what my duvet looks like:

I ordered the duvet and two standard shams.  Now, for the throw pillow options.  Option #1:

I love the Ikat design.  Just thinking about throwing these babies on the bed has me all a twitter.  They keep my calm, zen-like atmosphere happy while adding a little flare and fun to the mix.  Ballard Designs has them on sale right now for $39 (big one) and $29 (little one) – this cost includes pillow insert.  Shipping and sales tax will up the price.

Option #2:

Some combination of these beauties from West Elm.  Aren’t they gorgeous?  I like the vibrant colors and the handmade feel to these guys (I think they actually are handmade). They would add a vintage flare to my room I would love.  And to be honest, I think they’ve stolen my heart – mind, body, and soul.  They are priced at $34 and $41, but shipping is free.

So I’m definitely leaning towards Option #2, but those dang Ikat pillows are going to haunt me in my sleep.  Decisions, decisions.

Stay tuned for more decorating updates as our bedroom comes together!  I’ll be sure and post progress pictures.  Plus, I’ll need more help choosing side tables!

Housewares

So, I know this has nothing to do with books, but I own the place which allows me to break all the rules.  Anyway, since buying our home back in 2010, Jimmy and I have slowly been furnishing and decorating.  We’re not super flushed with cash so we make one major purchase a year.  And this year’s new addition is – a real grown-up bed.

In college we made do with the trusty favorite – mattress on the floor with empty cardboard boxes that served as bedside tables.  And it worked back then.  We thought nothing of it as renters and college students.  When we finally graduated and got big people jobs we updated to the new classic $100 IKEA malm bed.  This little diddy has served us faithfully since 2009.  But now we need a change.

First, the malm is a queen and we’ve outgrown a queen-size bed – or more specifically, my husband has outgrown a queen-size bed.  He practically sleeps on top of me and it ain’t workin’ folks.  His core body temperature is lower than most and as a result he omits the most amazing amount of heat.  It’s like sleeping outside in 90% humidity.  Which brings me to our next problem – the tempurpedic mattress.  I HATE the memory foam mattress.  HATE, I tell you.  It traps heat like a son of a bitch and I often awake drenched in sweat (lovely visual – you’re welcome!).  Also, since I’m relegated to the very edge of said mattress, I often feel as if I’m falling off since the edges have no support structures.  They just crumble.  HATE.

Today we took our first step into a new era and ordered the following bed from Bassett Furniture:

This is the bed above, but we ordered it in the color/finish below:

I couldn’t be happier, really.  The bed is quality and has nice, simple lines that help add to the zen-like natural feel of our bedroom.  Can’t wait for it to arrive.

Because I wasn’t feeling awesome today, I sent my husband on a mattress buying mission.  We did our research and had decided on a firm mattress within a certain price range.  He returned empty-handed and a failure.  Why?  Because he wants another memory foam mattress and the salesperson sold him on a different brand that doesn’t hold as much heat (yeah right, salesperson – you just saw a sucker in my husband and tried to sell him the most expensive product in your store).  I refuse to buy another one of these mattresses and Jimmy refuses not to.  Not sure how this battle will end.

In a more positive turn, I have decided on our duvet.  See below:

Again, clean lines and not gender specific.  The citron/yellow will look great against the bed’s wood tones and our green walls.  Plus, it’s one of the cheapest duvets I’ve seen in a while – thank you, West Elm.  We’ll also have to buy a new comforter, but IKEA has always provided a wonderful product at very affordable prices so no worries there.  Bedside tables will probably have to wait, but I do enjoy the look of the one in the above picture.  I refuse to buy the matching bedroom set from Bassett.  I believe in mixing and matching – I hate matchy-matchy.

Okay, enough with the bedroom talk.  I’m just a bit excited over this new purchase and can’t wait to sleep in my new bed!

 What’s going on at your house?  Any exciting new purchases?