Lightening Up a Living Room

Recently, Robin wrote to me about her dark living room:


Hi Lauren,

I've lived in my house for three years and have hardly decorated it because I don't know how to put things together:

I hate the fact that my living room feels dark.  I want it to feel light, airy - yet cozy and relaxing. My living room is dark and I hate it.  I'd love to find couch covers of some sort since I can't afford new couches...I don't know what to do with the mantle?  paint it?  Please help!

Robin


Lightening up a dark living room? Don't worry Robin, I had the exact same problem in my own home. Here is what I would do:

I think a few things would help to lighten up your living room, but still keep that cozy feeling:

• First, I would either get a white slipcover for your sofa (I found one at Target - source below) or get a new white sofa - IKEA has some really inexpensive options - source below).
  
• Repaint your walls. Right now they look very flesh-toned/beige. I think a really clean light and buttery color would really brighten up the space.
  
• I would leave the fireplace and mantel as is, but add a mirror above to reflect light. Put your current candle holders up there, but add white pillar candles instead of red.
  
• Paint your entertainment center white - it is very heavy looking in the room.
  
• Since you are planning to replace your carpet with wood flooring, I've included an area rug. I would go with a medium tone for the wood floors.
• Throw pillows would tie the space together
• Lastly, keep your curent white curtains, but instead of having them cover all of your windows, I would just keep the two flanking the windows and add some sort of bamboo roman shade to the others for privacy. This would add texture and visual interest and lighten the room.
  
• Obviously you could buy brighter lamps as well (maybe a three-way 50-100-150) but I think your current lamps work in the space as far as looks. You could go more modern and get lamps with a white drum shade as well. Hope that helps! 

White sofa slipcover - Target
White Sofa - IKEA
Paint – Behr Sun Glint 
Seagrass Chair - Pier1
Toffee Pillow - Crate & Barrel
Mums Pillow - Crate & Barrel
Green Pillow -cb2
Mirror – Crate & Barrel
Coffee & End Tables - Target
Decorative Bowl - Target
Rug - Overstock
Iron Sconce - Pottery Barn
Glass Bottles - Pottery Barn 

I'm Loving...

Magpie Lovely - Cute toys, baby and kids' clothing, stuffed animals, and more! Definitely worth checking out:

What are your favorite places for cute baby gear?

How to Create Your Own (Removable) Fabric Decals

This is by far one of the easiest DIY projects I've attempted at the H-Haus. It came about when I was trying to decide what to do with the large wall of Violet's nursery. Having a teeny-tiny house has its challenges, one of which is some pretty crazy architecture. The nursery has sloped walls which throw a major dent into decorating the room:

First of all, we had to find furniture that was the right height. Anything too tall wouldn't be able to sit flush against the wall. After solving this issue, we were left with how to decorate. Pictures frames, shelves, and most other traditional wall decor were all out. My thoughts went right away to wall decals, but I couldn't bring myself to pay the price for the larger decals that I liked, plus it was hard to find something that was just right.

Image Source 

After some thought, I decided to paint my own image. The hubster and I decided on a tree. We're loosely doing a woodland animals theme in Violet's nursery (but we don't want anything too over-the-top or cheesy). First I drew the tree onto the wall with some conte crayon. Chalk would work as well. Just make sure you use something that can be wiped off easily:

Next, I painted it with regular white wall paint. Finally, (after the paint dried) I wiped off the conte lines that were still showing with a wet rag. I definitely wanted a few leaves, but I felt like paint wasn't the right choice. I really wanted something with more texture. I considered wallpaper, fabric wall decals from this etsy seller, and custom magnetic fabric decals from this seller on etsy, before finally deciding to go with DIY fabric decals made by moi. I knew the fabric had to be lightweight and I didn't want anything too busy - just a subtle texture. I ended up going with a grey suit fabric that I found on sale (Yay!)

To create my decals, I first gathered my materials. You will need some sharp fabric scissors, fabric of your choice, an old paintbrush, a plate, and liquid corn starch. To make this just buy a box of corn starch at the grocery store (usually in the baking aisle), add some cold water, and finally add some boiling water  and stir until you get it to your desired consistency. If your fabric is fairly thin, you'll need less starch. If it's a thicker fabric, add more:

Next, cut your fabric into the desired shape. Again, make sure you are using sharp fabric scissors, or your fabric may fray:

Place your cutout onto the plate, and paint both sides with the liquid corn starch. It should be well-coated, but not dripping.

Finally, place your fabric decal on the wall and go over it once more with the paintbrush. If any frayed edges do appear, smooth them back with a little corn starch. A light cornstarch film will appear on your wall around the decal. You can easily wipe this off later with a Cutip and a little water.

 

The decals can be easily removed by simply peeling them off of the wall and wiping off the cornstarch with warm water. And, of course, a post about the nursery wouldn't be complete without our little camera ham Charlie:

  

 Here are a few other sites you might find interesting:

How about orange - Starched Fabric Experiment

Apartment Therapy - How to Make Wallpaper Decals 

re-nest - DIY Vinyl Wall Art 

eHow - How to Make Your Own Wall Decals from Fabric 

Apartment Therapy - How to Make Removable Fabric Wallpaper

Nursery Sneak Peek

The hubster and I have been hard at work on the nursery. That is, I'm helping when I'm not having shooting sciatic nerve pain in my back! Luckily, I started my wall mural early before I had to hobble around like an old lady. I could have just gone with a wall decal, but couldn't find anything just right, so I decided to paint this:

 

The leaves are actually fabric - I wanted to add a little texture. Stay tuned for a post on how I got them to stay on the wall - it's actually really easy!

 

And a few of the handmade etsy creatures that can be found scampering around Violet's room these days:

And finally, I have a question for all of you. I have been working on giving this hand-me-down dresser a bit of a facelift:

I've painted it (sorry forgot to take a before picture - just try to imagine it being all oak-colored), but decided to leave some of the original wood exposed. Now it's time to change out the knobs, and I have a question for you:

Should I go with white or metal knobs?

I've been debating it for a while and am leaning toward metal, but I'm not sold yet. What do you think?

Violet's Baby Shower

So we had our first baby shower this weekend, and it was absolutely beautiful! I'd like to say thank you so much to my family and friends for all of your generosity. We had an amazing time, and Violet is going to be one styling baby - that's for sure. I'd especially like to thank my parents, grandmother, sister, aunts, and cousin for all of the hard work they put into making everything so special.

The beautiful cupcakes were dreamed up by my sister and created by my mom, and they were dee-licious

 

  

My sister hand stitched each of these beautiful little birds and shipped them the whole way from Australia, where my mom assembled them with the little buckets and Jordan almonds, which made for some fantastic favors:

  

And my mom also did an amazing job making pretty tissue paper poms:

  

And to top it all off, my grandmother hand-crocheted the beautiful flower garland:

  

The diaper cake was custom made by etsy seller BizzieMommy209 and further personalized with a few of those beautiful birds and sentimental items:

  

  

  

I still can't believe all of the amazing gifts that we received for Violet - she is one lucky girl!

 

  

  

  

Now the real challenge is - where do we put everything?! I think we may need to buy a new house!

Painted Brick - Tacky or Tasteful?

I recently came across an incredible fireplace before and after on the Nest via here and had to share.

Before:

And the fresh and fabulous after:

It's absolutely amazing what a can of white paint can do to clean up and modernize just about anything. I was honestly a little taken aback when someone recently commented that painted brick fireplaces are tacky. Maybe I'm a little biased because ours just so happens to be painted brick, but I think it can be just lovely. I present you with my evidence:

Another painted fireplace before and after found on Design Sponge:

Kudos to them for taking the time to not only paint the fireplace, but also to strip all of that wood! I don't know if I would have had the motivation for that one, but what a stunning transformation.

And of course there's the entire room of brick that Young House Love transformed with paint:

 

It's literally like a completely different space. Again, kudos to them for tackling such a HUGE project. It was certainly worth it, as evidenced by the light and airy after photo!

And if you still need more evidence of the effect of painted brick after that stunner, check out this one featured on Apartment Therapy:

This space looks so much more updated and contemporary now that the brick has been painted out. Now just to be fair, unpainted brick can be quite lovely in the right space, so all of you brick-lovers out there, please don't get out your pitchforks and come after me! Here is a perfect example from Sarah over at Pewter + Sage:

She updates her mantel decor seasonally, and it always looks so elegant and fresh.

And a couple of other natural brick beauties:

Found here 

Found here

Now that I feel I've done my best to defend the honor of painted brick, I'd like to know...
Which look do you prefer? Natural brick, painted brick, or none of the above?

Registry Roundup: Feeding and Changing

Part three of the registry roundup will focus on feeding and changing. I figured these two categories kind of went together (if you know what I mean). 

I guess we'll start with feeding, seeing as how otherwise we'd kind of be putting the cart before the horse. I plan to breastfeed Violet, but we'll still need bottles of course. Lucky for me, my sister-in-law will be lending me her breast pump. Yay! 

Image Source

Eventually Violet will get to an age where she'll want some other things (AKA solid foods). Thinking ahead, we put a few items for solid foods on our registry as well. Then of course there are the items for the food that doesn't make it down - burp cloths, bibs, etc. So lots more gear here than I thought there'd be. Here's what we decided on:

Clockwise from upper left:

Boppy with Organic Slipcover - Babies R Us
Boppy Protective Slipcover (not pictured) - Babies R Us
10 Pack White Bibs - Babies R Us
think baby Feeding Set - Amazon
Organic Cotton Burp Cloths - Babies R Us
Boon Saucer Slip Resistant Plate - Amazon
Orange Monster Placemat - re:modern
Dr. Brown's BPA Free Infant Set - Babies R Us
Dishwasher Baskets - Babies R Us
Boon Toddler Catch Bow - Amazon
Tommy Tippee Bib - Babies R Us
Innobaby Stack n Seal Containers - Amazon

I also decided to register for this nursing cover:

 

And of course, if you feed baby, you must also change baby! We originally planned to put a diaper changing pad on top of our hand-me-down dresser. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that the dresser is actually too small for a standard changing pad. The dresser is the perfect size for our tiny space (not to mention free), so it will be staying. So we had to come up with another solution. We looked into some wall-mounted changing stations and decided that we really didn't have any wall space for one.

Image Source

Next, we came across this beauty from Oeuf:

But unfortunately at $230 (ouch!) it is more expensive than even our crib, and we couldn't bring ourselves to spend that much. I've seen people make their own, but we have plenty of other projects. Eventually, I found this gem on the web:

 

Not quite as stylish, but very functional and it has great reviews. The really nice thing is that it will actually hang on the side of the crib when not in use. It's also sold (and for much less) on Amazon and at Walmart, but is currently out of stock on each site. Although I know that you can really change a baby anywhere, we would kind of like a designated spot. Hopefully this does the trick!

Here are a few essentials we picked out in the diapering department:

Clockwise from top left:
JJ Cole Diaper and Wipes Pod - Babies R Us
Boudreaux's Butt Paste - Babies R Us
Diaper Genie - Babies R Us  
Diaper Genie Refills - Babies R Us 


There were a few travel diaper pads that I really loved the look of, but in the end I picked something practical (read easy to clean) and inexpensive. Plus my sister-in-law has this one and really likes it.


This one is very pretty though:

etsy seller Turtle Park Tots

 So there you have it! If you have any other suggestions for us, as a first time mom I'd be glad to hear about them.