Family room

Our family room has undergone some changes recently. This is what it looked like when we moved in:

And here it is now: 

The only major things we changed about this room (besides adding our furniture and decorating) are we painted it (Wheat Bread by Behr), we got new white faux wood blinds in the three windows, and we painted the trim. 

I just recently purchased these curtain panels from IKEA, for a total of only $20. They're thin and sheer, but perfect for this room. I love the back tabs. 

The dresser is one I've had since childhood that I added new knobs to. It holds table linens and lots of serving pieces. Above it is what I like to refer to as our "mantle". It is a beautiful piece of cedar from Aaron's mom's property that I added some metal brackets to. 

It has an old mirror I've repainted a few times (currently gray), a succulent and pot from IKEA, some gardening books, three votive candleholders with quatrefoil cutouts from the thrift store that I spray painted, and a capiz picture frame I got on clearance at Marshall's.

I love the raw edge on the shelf, you can see it in this picture. 

The vase on the dresser was hard to photograph because it is all white, but I absolutely love the texture. When I found it the other day at my favorite thrift store, it looked like this: 

 It was $12.50, and like I said, I loved the texture so much. It reminded me of the very popular hive vase from West Elm. I sprayed it white, and I'm happy with the find. I've been on the hunt for some accessories for the dresser for a while, and I love how it is a little larger scale than the usual things I find.

A Relaxing Guest Bedroom

Aaron’s mom and aunt came to visit us a few weeks ago (more about that fun weekend later… it was project-filled) and that lit a fire under us to get our guest room acceptable for these very important guests. We started out with this:

So basically, rag rolled walls in two shades of orangey red, a barn wood chair rail, and western curtains. This room didn’t have much goin’ for it, in our opinion. I’m really careful about my thoughts on this room though, because I know that to the three little boys that shared this teeny tiny room before we lived here, this was probably the coolest room in history and I know their parents worked really hard on making it great for them. Anyhow.

I painted the room (and the chair rail) Silver Birch by Glidden. I was expecting it to be a lot more gray, but it kind of turned out as a really light, almost whitish gray. I’m still happy with it though, it makes the room really soothing. I originally planned to do the room in all yellow and gray, but then I started really liking a gray, yellow, and blue combination. I found some great bedding that I really loved at HomeGoods and went from there.

Since all we had was a futon up until this point, we needed to buy a bed for the room. I knew from the beginning that I really wanted the IKEA Leirvik bed, since Aaron thinks it is so girly and it would never fly in our bedroom. To make a really long story about mattress shopping short, we picked a great memory foam mattress at an amazing price from Denver Mattress, and switched out our old mattress into the guest room.

The day that we picked up the bed from IKEA, we were babysitting my parents dogs, so they were of course helping us put it together.

I found this perfect shade of aqua blue in the oops section at Home Depot at $6 for the gallon. I painted the nightstand that I mentioned here ($30, thrifted) with it and the shelves that were already hung in the room.

    

           

So, here’s what we’ve come up with for now!

  

 

Paint: Silver Birch by Glidden, color matched to Behr Premium Plus Ultra, about $35
Bedding: quilt, duvet, shams, and decorative pillows all by Hillcrest at HomeGoods, purchased with a gift card.
Lamp: $29.99 at HomeGoods
Nightstand: $30.00 at Next to New, updated with a $7 oops paint.
Shelves: already in room, updated with $7 oops paint.
Curtains: Target, already owned
Curtain rod: Wal-Mart, already owned
Bed: Ikea Leirvik, $99.99
Desk: West Elm at Pottery Barn Outlet (it was around $50, bought in January)

Our total out of pocket for this room was about $200. Not bad! I still have plans for things on the walls, and those shelves.

Thrifted mirror

I'm here again to confess my undying love for oil rubbed bronze spray paint. Just kidding but kind of.

The first thrifted item I bought was this large mirror at the Salvation Army for $14.99. I loved the unusal shape (long and skinny) and the beautiful curvature (is that a word?) of the top. I had to have it.

I also had to paint it.

So I taped it off and covered the mirror part with newspaper, being very careful to get as close to the edges as possible, as not to spray the mirror itself. I  love the result and can't get enough of seeing the delicious metallic bronze against my grayish wall in the entryway.

I love how long it is, so it has become my go-to full length mirror when I stand back far enough. I for one think it looks expensive and new and it is really old and cost me $14.99. I also think it looks very nice paired up with those Target frames that we got as a wedding gift!

A Next to New Lamp

The Next to New shop on Burnet Road is one of my favorite thrift shops in Austin for furniture and home items. It is a mix of donated items, consignment items, and estate sale goods so it is a refreshing change up to the Goodwill or Salvation Army scene or any other shop I've found in town for that matter. Some things may seem overpriced at first, but if you look closely at the tag you will see they operate on a discounted "schedule" where on a certain day the price drops by 50%, and then another 50% which is great for true bargain hunters that can control their impulses! Everything there is very gently used and there isn't a bunch of crap to rifle through. They have nice vintage furniture pieces, amazing china sets, beautiful silver items including some incredible tea sets I always lust after, a good selection of oriental rugs that are in good condition, and lots of milk glass and pottery.

I've had my eye on a dresser there this summer, so I'll be going back next week to see if it's still there. If it is I'll get quite the bargain :)

Last week I visited specifically for a lamp to make over. After continually checking my Home Goods for the perfect lamp for months I have given up. I found a lamp with a great shape and size at Next to New and it was marked down to $7.50, the lowest it would go. This little guy had been sitting on that shelf for quite awhile!

Never mind that lampshade and that the scale is totally off... I knew a new lamp shade was in the cards.

I got a can of Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze at Home Depot for about $6...

And I gave my lamp two quick, light coats...

Then I went to Target and came away with a new shade. I got this one from Target, about $15. Target sells shades for lamps without harps, so I had to take the harp off my new lamp. I was happy about that because the harp was unusally large and it looked funny. It was as easy as pinching the sides of the harp to get it off.

Here's my lamp in it's new home!  

When I was at Target I saw similarly sized oil rubbed bronze bases for $34.99 just for the bases! So happy with my decision to upcycle a lonely old lamp from Next to New!