Modern Rustic Beach House Design

So what is the deal with the weather lately? Here in OK we had a beautiful weekend- then the last two days have been crazy cold again! And everywhere else it seems to be snowing- go away already winter! I'm ready for warmer temps! I really need to move somewhere tropical because I can't handle anything below 70.

Anyway- if you follow me on Instagram you probably saw me hinting around to a design project I was fortunate be given recently. The project was for a couple in California who purchased a vacation rental in a seaside community in Northern California. Gorgeous. Serene. Jealous. Well I'm jealous of it anyway.

But at least I got to be a part of it by choosing the furniture for it. The couple wanted a modern look to fit the house but wanted a rustic relaxing feel as well. They requested I choose furniture only from certain websites so they could order the furniture easily and have it installed.

First up was the living/ dining sitting area.

They had existing couches and an existing dining table they requested I work with. The area is open with a sitting area complete with fireplace, dining space with office area, and living room with expansive windows with a beautiful view.

In the end we switched a few things up due to budget concerns and their personal tastes. Here is how the final design turned out:

There were also two guest bedrooms that needed attention as well. I had two options to share for them:

Option 1:

Option 2:

Then after some tweaking and editing their final decision:

And finally the master suite. There was a large window they were hoping to have some sort of seating underneath. There were a lot of doors in this room that we had to work around but I think it turned out well.

This was a fun project and I am hoping they send me pictures when everything is installed! 

And I think that this goes to show that you don't need a ton of money or high end furnishings to create a beautiful cohesive home.

Till Next Time!

It's Rug Time! (And another reason my husband thinks I'm nuts)

It's Rug Time, la la la, It's Rug Time! (Anyone else's kid watch Sid The Science Kid?) That song has been in my head for the past few days. 

Anyway- It's been rug time over at our house. I've been searching for a rug for a good while now. I even ordered one on Ebay then returned it after the colors in person were way different than the online colors... I swore afterwards that I would not order another rug based solely on online photos. Until I saw this one that is:

To Accessorize or To Not Accessorize?

That is The Question. Do you accessorize your coffee table? I see lots of beautifully decorated tables both online and on TV and I've been a little jealous. My own hesitation comes from scenes like this:

This is what the coffee table in our living room usually looks like- it's most often used as a race track.  Which is ok because I built that coffee table and I don't mind it taking a beating. Or I am afraid of things getting knocked over all the time. 

And lets face it- all those beautiful accessories = more dusting to me.

Choosing a Rug

If you've been following this blog for a while you may have noticed my struggle with choosing a rug for the living room. Part of this problem is that I constantly change my mind about what I like and don't like. But I'm super excited about a new rug I have coming in soon that I will share with you in the future.

In the meantime I thought we would talk about how to choose a rug.

Sofa in Front of a Window?

Good Morning All! I hope everyone had a good MLK Day. We spent the day in OKC taking Con-Man to the Science Museum, eating a real resturants and overall relaxing; hence this day late blog post.

Before we left town I was helping a friend with furniture layout ideas for a new house they are moving into. Mainly the living and bedrooms. In her bedroom she was hoping to put the bed in front of the window, but was worried that it would look weird or that there was some rule against it. I told her no fear! Lots of people put their bed in front of a window and have it look good- check out this post I did a while back on placing a bed in front of a window.

Rustic Shabby Chic Living Room

Hey Blog Friends! Long time no see! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.
Sorry I took a month long hiatus with no warning. December ended up being a hectic month! Besides all the usual holiday chaos my little 5 month Saw-Man decided he hated sleeping at night. This combined with my 3yr old Con-Man's usual never ending energy made for one exhausted Momma. 

And truth be told I was falling into a blog funk. I wasn't feeling creative, I felt like my projects didn't have a lot of heart, just overall blah. So stepped away from blogging for a while. I apologize, thanks for sticking around; I'm ready to dive back in if you are!

Rustic Shabby Chic Design

Today I've got a little eye candy for you. I was hoping to have a cool bathroom design to show but unfortunately because of our busy holiday schedules my friend and I couldn't get together to look at her bathroom the other weekend. -Insert sad face here- I'm bummed out, hopefully we'll get together soon.

In the meantime another friend of mine is moving to a new house soon and wanted some ideas for decorating her living room. She said her style is Rustic Shabby Chic.

A Modern College Apartment Design

So did everyone have a good Thanksgiving Weekend? I hope everyone was able to spend good quality time with family and friends. 

We headed to Arkansas to watch LSU beat up on the Razorbacks (sorry Razorback fans). My MIL and some friends came with us and we had our Thanksgiving up there. It was fun and it was Con-Man's first LSU game!

Last week I shared some inspiration ideas for my sister's college apartment. This was just for fun- basically to play around and give her an idea for her dream living room.

A Modern College Apartment

My youngest sister is a college student at LSU. (Where else?!) She's going to be a senior next year and is hoping to move into a larger apartment. She and I thought it would be fun to dream up her ideal college living room.

Her request was a living room that was modern but still homey. The colors she wants to see are black, white, and red with accents of chrome.

Even though this is excercise is just for fun I tried to keep the costs low and somewhat practical; with some bold and bright thrown in here and there.

Here are some furniture ideas I've come up with so far:

Sofas

I like this Ektorp sofa from Ikea. It's modern feeling and comfy too. And since it's from Ikea the price is right at $500.

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The Clare sofa from Macy's is sleek and I like the button tufting. It's an apartment size sofa so it's smaller scale will be good for my sister's apartment living room. It's a little more pricey at $899 but still a good buy at under $1,000.

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And when your looking for furniture somewhere you may not think to look is JCPenny. They have a lot of quality pieces  at good prices. (I know this because our one of our sofas is from there) The Audrey sofa is modern, small scale, and a good price- $700. Only downside is that it only comes in 2 fabric options.

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Coffee & End Tables

This Rustic Storage Coffee Table from West Elm immedietly caught my eye. I liked the warm feel of the wood combined with the modern lines of the table. Extra bonus is that it has storage inside and the top pops up to act as an extra table space. Perfect for my sister who uses her laptop a lot. It's a splurge at $500.

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I liked the warm wood and storage/ display solution of the Gallery Coffee Table from Urban Outfitters. At $300 it's still a bit high.

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The Klubbo coffee table from Ikea is a perfect for a college budget at $90. And the chrome look metal legs are perfect for our modern theme.

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End tables can be a great way to bring some fun and funk into a space without overdoing it. 

This bold red Hourglass Lacquer Table from Urban Outfitters would be a perfect pop of color for our college living room. But at $270 it might break the bank as far as end tables go.

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These Nesting Tables from Ikea are much more budget friendly at $99. The color is right and since they nest they are good space savers- the tables can be pulled out as needed for extra seating or table space.

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Fun Rugs:

Rugs are another way to bring in some fun and pattern into a space.

This bold pattern Lappljung Rug from Ikea is a great price at only $69. 

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The Almsted rug from Ikea is off white so it feels warmer than stark white. It's made of wool so it's durable and stain resistant. It's on sale for $199.

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Cowhide anyone?

How am I going to pull it all together? Be on the lookout next week to find out!

And Then There Were Two

Happy Monday Everyone! And Happy Veterans Day Weekend. Special shout out to all military members out there- especially my Hubs. Go Air Force!

Seriously- Thank you to all U.S. Military Members for all you do and the daily sacrifices that you make.

Today I want to share with you my finished reupholstered mid-century chairs. Woo Hoo! Yay for finally having a pair of matching, good looking, non upholstery falling off, chairs in our living room!

A Legitimate Reason as to Why My Husband Thinks I'm nuts

I have a problem; I'm the first to admit it. It's a furniture problem- I change my mind about it a lot. The should really have a support group for people like me. Furniture-Aholics Anonymous. 

Back to the issue at hand- why my husband thinks I'm nuts. In the past I've brought home questionable pieces of furniture. These orange chairs for example:

(Special Update on These Coming Soon!)

Childs Play: An Easy Update

Picture this: Your slowly but surely designing and decorating your living room. It's starting to come together, things are happening and you're feeling pretty good. 

But- you have kids who like to play in said living room and their toys have taken up permanent residence. You don't have an extra play room to keep all their things in, the living room is where the family spends the most time so the living room is where the toys end up. And I think we all know kids toys kind of stand out in adult decor- not the most beautiful.

The Culprit

Sound familiar? Its the issue I've been having. I've been wanting to do something about Con-Man's toy box for a while now. It needs to stay in the room so we have a place to store his toys but the bright red and blue kind of clash with my neutral color scheme. 

In addition to the red toy box I bought this Fleur De Lis basket at Ross (love that place!) for a little bit of extra storage. Clearly the two do not mix.

(I love Fleur De Lis!)

Solution: I went to my local hardware store and picked up some of this Krylon Spray paint specially made for plastic and spray painted the heck out of his toy box.

Now, I did discuss this change with The Con-Man just in case he had an issue with his red toy box being painted white. He was cool with it and seemed excited about the whole thing. 

After 3 cans of spray paint and some drying time the toy box was finished.

Both together:

Much better in my opinion and Con-Man doesn't seem to miss his big red monstrosity so far. Let's hope he doesn't ask me to paint it back to red later down the road!

What do you do about your children's toys in your home? Would you take the liberty of changing up some of their things to fit your decor?

Woo Hoo!

I don't know about you guys but I enter blog contests all the time. I don't usually win but this time I did! 

I won a roll this Kick @ss wallpaper from 2Modern!

I'm a Fan of theirs on Facebook and they have a contest each Tuesday for a different piece of furniture or accessory from their store. I enter every week (I'm sure my Facebook friends never get tired of thus) and haven't won until now! 

I already have some ideas of where I might put it- if you remember I was dreaming of redoing our bedroom a while back. Could this be the beginning of our redesign?

Or should I use it in our living room? 

Or should I use it to cover a piece of furniture?

The possibilities are endless!!

Throw Pillows: It's All in the Mix

Have you heard the Exciting News!? Adventures In Creating is nominated for an Apartment Therapy Homie award! I'm so thrilled! I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd pop over and cast a vote. I feel like the little blog that could!! Thank you thank you!!




So as you may or may not know I've been slowly but surely fixing up our living room. Here are some progress pics:


Initial Plan

Some Progress:

Curtains & Credenza

Coffee Table & Rug

The last big thing I need to do is reupholster the orange chairs in a neutral beige fabric. In the meantime I bought some throw pillows that were on super sale on Fab.com for the couch. 

I like how they break up Big Brown (AKA our couch) and I'd like to add a few more. I also want to get some for our lounge chairs. My problem is that I would like to bring in another accent color so everything isn't either brown or blue.

So I've been debating what sort of fabric. Another large geometric in another color? A colorful pattern? A solid? WHAT?! With so many choice and patterns it's a hard decision to make. So I found some guidelines and thought they were helpful. Turns out there are a lot of ways I could go about this.

1. Large Geometric Pattern + a Solid. The neutral background helps break up the bold pattern and color.

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2. Theme- here the theme of Tribal brings the look together. 

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3. Mixing small and large patterns. In this room they used the same large geometric in 2 different colors, and used a smaller geometric pattern to bring them together. Then the same colors are placed around the room.

Or below a large pattern is paired with a neutral, more textural pattern.

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4. All different patterns, all same color. Here different patterns are mixed together but because they are the same color with a neutral background it works.

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5. All Florals, all the time. Somehow mixing lots of floral patterns together seems to always work.

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6. Opposite colors and bold patterns. Here we have contrasting colors of blue and gold. The bold black and white pattern along with a neutral background helps bring the two together.

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7. Just make it work- as Tim Gunn would say. I'm not sure how these people made these patterns and colors work together but it sure does look good. So I guess when in doubt just break the rules and go with it!

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Now that I have lots of ideas and dream of a throw pillow wonderland- I still have one issue. My husband loves to but his big dirty man feet on my nice pillows! And sometimes even take naps on them if I can't catch him in time. So while I want to add a few more nice pillows to our room I still have a husband and child to contend with.

My best solution has been to keep an old pillow close at hand and try to remind them to dirty that one up instead of our nice ones.

Do you contend with "others" messing with your design plan? How do you feel about throw pillows? Are you minimalist- one or two does the job or maximalist- the more the better?

New Living Room Rug- Merry Christmas to Me!

Hello All! Has everyone gotten their Christmas shopping done? Me neither... oh well. I did get a present for myself though- Hee hee. 


If you follow me on Twitter you might be able to guess what I'm talking about. About 2 weeks ago I got this mystery package in the mail:

I've been searching hi and low for a rug that I liked that was a decent price. Sure there were plenty that I'd love to have but they were all so pricey! Enter Fab.com a website that has deals on high design stuff every day! Well about a month ago they had a deal from Safaveih Rugs. They were 70% off! Score!! 

This one in particular caught me eye. White leather shag- yum! I've been looking for a neutral rug that had some texture to give it interest. I didn't want a patten (call me a chicken) because I was worried I'd get tired of it after a few years. This one fit that description and it was an awesome price. 

It's been down in our living room for a week now and we've been enjoying it. I think it really makes the room feel more cozy. And it gives your feet a mini massage when you walk across it. Con-Man was especially excited when it arrived. He ran all over it and rolled across it and everything.

Here are some overall shots. And please try to ignore the piles of baby toys in the corner; as much as I'd love to have a perfect home I do have a kid. ;)

I will say, though I love the way the rug looks and it's exactly what I wanted I am paying some prices for it. I didn't think Con-Man would get such a kick out of pulling the shag pieces up. I'm hoping this thrill wanes soon.

And I mentioned that the rug gives my feet a nice massage; well our 50 lb black lab thinks so too. She loves to roll all over it and use it to scratch her back. The website said the rug was durable and easy to keep clean- they must not have kids or a huge dog. 

Anyway- I still like it and I think that despite these minor "setbacks" it will last a long time. I'll be sure to keep you updated!

Next up for this room, besides maybe finally reupholstering those orange chairs, is finding some accent pillows and accessories to add some pops of color.

Do you buy your own Christmas presents?