Getting cre8tive with a lamp shade
Life goes by way too fast doesn’t it? I can’t believe it has been 20 days since I did my last post! It feels like it was yesterday. One thing I have realized in the last couple of weeks, is that I enjoy reading blogs and pinning on Pinterest more than actually sitting down and writing a post for my own blog.
I am too much of a perfectionist when I blog, I re-read every sentence over and over again, then change it, {like I am doing right now}, then mess with my pictures until I can’t get them to look any better. Needless to say, one post takes me hours, so I would rather read and comment on other blogs and pin then do a post, it is less stressful for me. But I have to get over that perfectionist attitude and just go with the flow of what I have written and be ok with the pictures. I also had a sick husband for the last two months, so that has been more of priority for me. He is fine, doing much better, and is on the road to recovery. So I should be able to post more now.
If you can believe it, I have been working on sprucing up our guest house for over a year. It is 95% done, but there are just little projects that I wanted to do for the finishing touches. One of them is to use maps on a piece of furniture. So far it is a fail. So I won’t be showing you that one just yet!
Me and my grasscloth
I just realized the other day that I might have an addiction to grasscloth wallpaper. I first used it at our river house and fell in love with the texture and warmth is brings to a room
Last week I used it in my sister’s bathroom re-design here
I made good use of the extra I had left over from her bathroom and used it at my house for one of the guest house bathrooms.
And since there was even more leftover, I used it on the wall where the little dining area is (still no chandelier yet)
But since I was on a roll (pun intended) I decided to do accent walls in the bedrooms with another grass-cloth wallpaper I had ordered from Designyourwall.com
The bedroom with the famous Miss Mustard Seed Music Sheet Dresser.
I felt that the main wall above the beds had enough going on with art work and a mirror. No need for wallpaper there. But the window wall needed something. I didn’t want more art work or decorative accessories, I could see that start to get too cluttered looking. I didn’t want to take away from the rest of the room (aka The Music Sheet Dresser) But that window wall looked barren when you walked into the room because is the first thing you see. So I decided a textured wallpaper would do the trick rather than painting it an accent color.
Pottery Barn Knock Off Score
Yesterday I posted about this lamp from Pottery Barn I was thinking about getting for the guest house. 
I stopped by HomeGoods today to look for a bulletin board my sister wants. They didn’t have it, so on my way out I stopped in the lamp section. Woohoo, am I ever glad I did. Look what I found
I know it isn’t the same exact one, but the style is the similar and the price a WHOLE lot cheaper. $39.99 for the lamp and $12.99 for the shade. Compare that to Pottery Barn, $150 for just the lamp, no shade, score.
I think I might need to tone down the wood color a bit to match the dining table, and maybe distress it a little. But for now I am just going to live with it the way it is and enjoy my savings.
Guest House Progress
There will probably be a lot of post on my guest house progress, as I am moving rather slow on it. But since my last post on the living room area, I have made a little bit of progress to show you.
I had the two parson chairs slip covered
I bought the fabric from OneKingsLane a couple of months back, and the quality of the fabric was unbelievable.
Since the damask print was more expensive than the plain fabric, I decided to just use it on the bottom skirt.
I love the subtle strip on the main fabric. I had these made by someone else, I didn’t even try to attempt it, I know my strengths, and slip covering isn’t one of them. She did a wonderful job.
I bought the table at Pottery Barn. They had it displayed as a side table next to a couch, but I knew it would be perfect for the little dining area. I love the wood color and the rustic look of it with the more tailored chairs.
The rug, well it was the perfect color, but the style of it was nothing like I thought. That is the risk you take when you order on line. It is a popcorn loop, rather than a plush shag like I thought it was going to be.
I thought about returning it, but then decided it wasn’t so bad, and the color was spot on, so it is a keeper.
Revealing My Guest House Chaos
I am always asking myself, “why is it that I create so much work for myself?” Keeps me busy I guess now that there aren’t any children at home needing me every moment. But I rarely share it on my blog, my many, many projects. I think I don’t do as many posts because I wait until I have the perfect finished picture. Which takes a really long time to get. I love looking at pretty pictures of finished rooms on blogs, so I tend to wait until I have the best picture before I show it to the www. But that isn’t really being real. After reading Centsational Girl’s post today, and how she showed just random pictures of what is going on at her house, un-staged, I gave me the courage to do it myself. It made her seem more of a real person, and I liked it. I was so hesitant to show you these pictures because they make me cringe, but I need to get over that and start sharing with you the good and the bad and the ugly.
Here is a perfect example of one of the many projects I am working on at our house. This is our guest house.
