A little warmth

I spy with my little eye something that is striped. Can you spot it?

 

If you said this rug you are an eye spy pro! I made a quick stop in at HomeSense (aka Canadian HomeGoods) to pick up a few baking items for Wren's party earlier this week, and you know that means scour the sale racks and every other aisle if your name is Holly. And that is how I found this dandy.

 

It is a simple flat woven rug (I am a BIG believer in flat woven rugs for high traffic-kid friendly areas) in a perfectly beachy striped pattern. But the part I loved about it so much was the fun pattern in some of the beige stripes made it kind of unexpected. Oh yeah, and this 9x11 rug had a price tag of only $149, but the best part was that I had a gift card from christmas still so it cost me all of zero dollars.

{ thanks for the new rug Grandma!!! }

 

You know that feeling where you would rather not buy something and make the wrong choice than just leave it as is? That is how I felt about it. I have put off finding a rug for in here because I wanted something I would love, but at the same time not quite as predictable as usual. BUT I was a little uncertain how a pattern would look near my happy chair. 

I think these two will get along just fine though.

Have you found any AMAZING after-holiday sales this January?

Pillow Perfection.....psssst there's a giveaway!!

** Edited Wednesday, August 22: If you left a comment already and do not see it below please feel free to re-enter. About 50 comments awaiting moderation disappeared overnight and I have no way to figure out who left them or what happened to them. Please check and see if you need to re-enter!!! Sorry for any confusion and let's hope it doesn't happen again**


My love of beach/sea side decor is never ending. I don't like 'theme' decorating, but just a few hints of naval fabulousness makes me feel like I'm on cloud nine. My long time blog friend, Katie, is one of those amazingly talented ladies who has taken her passion and talents, merged them together to form Etsy shop SaSea Decor and the results are beautifully simple pillows that girls like me dream about.

{ a few of Katie's designs that recently joined our family room }

Some of Katie's older designs, bumble bee pillow and french script pillow, are common sights in many of my previous posts, and home.

I am so proud of her new collection of hand printed pillows, they are truly works of art!

 

Katie is not only talented, but uber generous and wants to share 2 pillows with one of  you!! One lucky winner will choose any 2 of Katie's designs for their own home. The only thing you have to do to enter is head over to Katie's Etsy shop, SaSea Decor, and tell us which 2 pillows you would choose in a comment on this post.

My thrift store octopus pillow loves his new friends!

You have until Monday, August 27 at 9pm Pacific time to post your choice of pillows here so don't forget! I will announce the winner later next week.

If you are impatient like me, and could use a little retail therapy Katie is offering us all 15% off any order using code inthefunlane 

A big thank you to SaSea Decor

Good luck to everyone!

A little love for a tiny table

{ a new addition to our family room }

 

I saw this table at Goodwill a few weeks ago. It was only $4 and what drew me to it initially is that even though it is very small, it is tall! Not many old tables are tall enough for today's furniture, so even without a spot in mind I carted her up to the checkout and brought her home.

 

I didn't have the motivation to get it done until Ann Marie from The Hob Knobbery (one of our sweet Etsy shop sponsors) sent me a special little parcel. Inside the parcel was one of these pretty calcite knobs. I have to say, the gal knows my weakness: pretty hardware. I just can't say no to it even when I don't have a project lined up... reason #1,203,438 I stay away from Anthropologie sale racks unless absolutely necessary!

{ I got to work pretty much immediately after opening the mail }

ps- I took A LOT of pics to FINALLY get our Verathane step covered in paint perfection. Look for that post next week!!

 

All done, knob installed, I found a little spot in our family room for it.

Isn't that knob lovely? I love the texture and natural element it brings to the room. 

 

When it comes to white/neutral rooms, the thing that you need to pay the most attention to is making sure you layer textures throughout. Rough, shiny, smooth, plush, worn, soft, you need to have it all. I find this is the area that does not come as easily to me and I need to make an effort to keep it varied. 

 

Thank you so much Ann Marie!! I am so in love with this little table and it is all thanks to your special knob~

 

It is nice to have a spot to put a drink when I am sitting at the sofa now.

 

Also, I want to thank my Aunt Carol who has increased my little antler collection recently. I particularly love this old, bleached, worn one.

 

The drapes seem to be closed almost constantly these days. A necessity with the heat. I voluntarily took down the ugly, old, brown venetian blinds last year during the ceiling/kitchen reno in here. I haven't looked back or missed the darker, yet cooler room it brought. Simple is usually best in my world.

Three's a charm

If you have visited my instagram feed recently (inthefunlane is my username), I apologize again for the large number of lilac obsessed posts. 

I just can't help it guys!!

{Sitting on an old tarnished tray on a sunny day they almost look like they're glowing}

 

 I did manage to break through my lilac induced coma long enough to tackle a project that I had brewing at the back of my mind for some time. I knew this wall felt like it was lacking something. Needed something.

But I have a confession guys... I was scared! Scared to mess it up somehow, scared to commit, scared to over clutter the room. I find that I have no troubles at all getting a room 95% there. By then it really starts to look good and I can't. quite. finish. it. I am scared to take that 95% of the work and screw it all up with making a bad choice at the end. I don't want to be the lady you see walking around with every piece of jewelery on, plus a few she borrowed from a friend. But in the decorating sense, of course. 

So I usually chicken out and leave well enough alone. 

But recently those 3M removable adhesive hooks became my best friend, and now I am trying to tackle the fear yall!

{waiting patiently for something more}

 

This wall kind of needs something too, but the weight of the lamp and tray table are enough for me. For the time being...

 

See? Nothing to be scared of! I can't believe I was such a baby all these years.

I didn't want anything too overwhelming or statement-y (yeah, I like making up decorating words), just some character!

{triple threat}

 

The best part was it cost all of zero dollars thanks to finding an old box in the basement. I had 4 of these Michael's frames that I matted and mounted scrap book paper too from my office at our last house (holla if you are a nestie and remember when people had bios, not blogs!). So I took 2 and got to mounting some family prints I had around the house.

I also had this 3 laying around that I've had for years but that recently hasn't seen a lot of love. Problem was it wasn't adhesive hook friendly! But I came up with a fast and easy solution to easy hang items or art like this.

First I knotted some twine so that the knot was bigger than the top of the hole but smaller than the bottom at a length I liked.

Then I cut it right below the knot.

and slipped it into the opening, pulling up. Snug as a bug in a rug!

I liked the texture the twine gives, but didn't really love the visual of the adhesive hook so I simply mounted the hook under another frame.

Because white on white can be a little... um bright? I decided to mount the pictures over some of the board and batten to allow natural light and shadows to give a hint of contrast so they don't just fade into the wall.

{my all time favorite picture of Wren. Soooooo her!}

 

What do you think, should I add one or two over the folding table??

{ is it weird that I love how plump lilacs are? }

{ the bigger picture }

I have had a lot of emails in the past year about how we are liking/adjusting to not having an eat in kitchen and whether it was a good or bad move. I think it deserves it's own blog post in the near future where I can elaborate on it all. But the short answer is: 

{ NO regrets }

Family Room shuffle

I am not sure if I've ever mentioned it, but I have a major love of milk. Totally random, but I drink a jug by myself every 2 or 3 days. So it funny that I never noticed my love of it creeping into my design style, specially in the family room (aside from the fact that milk is awfully white and so is our house!).

Milk crate? today it is a fire wood holder.

It has been a major evolution over the last 3 or 4 months as the kitchen finished up, but even on a dark, dreary winter day like this I can easily call this room my favorite.

It is a strange mix of formal and polished with fun and shabby. One thing not so polished? the silver tray. I have a love of tarnished silver (I'm sure my grandma and mom would cringe at the idea of walking past a tarnished item day after day).

There's my love of milk again!

Looking into the kitchen/sun room. I think subconsciously I have blocked out the amount of time and work I put into the ceiling. It was such a nightmare, from the priming of every piece, to the dry wall and plaster crumbling in my hair and eyes as we installed it... a labour of love is a major understatement!

Just some proof that we do have a toddler running around here! I could probably up my basket/toy organizing game but this will do for now.

Easily the most awkward area is this little spot behind the couch. It was hard to locate a sofa table so this little sideboard worked out well as the perfect storage spot. Some old baskets were recent auction finds and infuse some texture and warmth to the room.

More baskets piled by the TV often hold borrowed library movies and books.

I scored this fun folding table on clearance at HomeSense for $20. It is a little small for the corner but I am on the hunt for a cool lamp that will add some substance and ground it a little.

Looking into the kitchen. I am SOOOOO happy that we didn't color match the wood floors to a trim for the ledge. It was super duper cheap to do white trim and also makes the step noticeable from the kitchen so people don't trip or fall. I didn't realize dark floors were so dangerous until we had 3 different people fall there!

If you are just stopping by for the first time or haven't had a chance to see what the original room looked like be sure to check it out by clicking here.

And I will be updating the "semi-finished Family Room" link under our renos tab soon with these photos and all the details on the transformation.

A little flair from a chair

See that crazy patch of color just beyond the flowers on our coffee table?

It is the new super happy chair we bought last week! Remember when I told you that we've had some new purchases for the house? This was the by product of one such purchase. When we were out buying a totally different item (which I am almost ready to show you guys) my mom told me to go look at this chair. I was completely shocked when Sean expressed his love for it. Um, hello, who is this guy? was basically all I could mutter. But with an approval stamp like that I couldn't leave it behind!

I think it is going to be right at home in our family room. It's a fun place where there are often toys out and about so it will blend in well opposite our sectional.

A happy chair for a happy room! Makes me smile every time I come in here.

And a super happy, fun day to you as well!

Putting our life back together

We're getting there folks! It finally feels like home again, no longer a family of 3 imposing on a construction site.


Of course we are reminded constantly of the loose ends that will be tied up this week when the cabinetry is finished on Thursday. But life actually is starting to resemble normalcy in all areas aside from cooking/eating.


So much has changed even in the last couple days since I took these photos. The crown is up along the ceiling now and all of our trim work is done in the family room. Sean still has 1 light to fit as you can see, and I have a small repair to make on the fireplace thanks to our clumsy electrician chipping off a chunk of marble with his ladder.


The one thing that will be a bit of a wait is the edging along the step into the family room. We have to order a minimum of 400 feet to get the color and wood to match ours and so we are waiting until we finish the stairs and have room in the garage again to finish all that up. But I am REALLY proud of all the floors in here. Sean's back has been horrible this summer and I represented girl power to my best ability by single handedly laying all our floors in the kitchen (just one of the many things that had taken my time away from blogging!). I am pretty proud of them if I do say so myself!


One of my favorite finds this summer was actually not even found by me! My sister was driving over one afternoon when she scouted this old dresser at a garage sale. We went back and even though it was missing the center drawer I decided I would try to find something to do with it since it was only $15.


To me $15 is a screaming deal but for most people I am sure you couldn't have paid them to take this thing because it was truly in sad shape


I did various layers of white and cream paint to give it some interest and dimension, scratched it up a little to play up the already obvious defects and threw on new Anthropologie knobs.


I scratched my head for about 2 days after bringing home trying to decide what I should do with it when I took the dimensions and realized it would be perfect for the TV.


new knobs and original escutcheons (lock cover).


I cut and glued some beadboard into the drawer opening and had Sean drill me a hole for all the cords.


Original casters always make my heart melt, and those curvy legs are so dramatic!


I still have A LOT of work left to get this room fully furnished and accessorized but I am soooo happy to be in here in time for fall so we can get the fireplace up and running on those cool fall evenings.