kayla aimee: only slightly neurotic

Office Makeover Peek + Giveaway!

So I decided to go with options B & C because while making a headboard would be awesome, I'm trying this new thing called "being realistic." I'll let you know how that works for me.

I've been saving up gift cards for about 4.3 years and finally used them on the daily system from Pottery Barn. Because I decided it would be useful to own a calendar after I kept scheduling Scarlette's different doctors appointments on the same day. At the same time. Because I'm insane.

Remember how I mentioned the private shopping event at Homegoods, where I was able to get out of the house for the first time in three weeks take some girlfriends and shop at a new store? You can see what I bought for the office/guestroom but also? Homegoods is generously giving away a $100 giftcard to one of my readers (I KNOW!) You definitely want to click here to enter.

My birthday is coming up so I fully expect the office/guestroom to be finished after I get my matching bookcase that I have no idea my family is getting me (winkwink) and some of these beautiful wallflowers by lilac saloon. Scarlette and I spend most of the day in here because it's the coolest room in the house (and by coolest I don't mean phat, I mean "I'm way too cheap to run the air in the front of the house") Since the basement playroom/scrapbook room renovation is a long way off, I am excited about this room being pretty.

P.S. I'm turning off comments on this post to avoid confusion about entering the giveaway.

Decorate My House : The Office/Guest Room

My mother and sister got me this bedding set for Mother's Day. I love it so much. Not so much that I've taken the time to iron it, but I mean, one day I'll get around to that. Like say, when I don't have a two and a half six month old wanting to eat every second of the day. Iron? Who has time for ironing? Besides, I still have an aversion to ironing from the that time my iron was invaded by killer ants. Well, just regular ants but still. Creepy.

Anyhow, I am really pleased with the bedding because do you know how hard it is to find bedding that works with dark blue walls? Note to self: randomly choosing paint colors based on paint chips that look pretty in Home Depot is not the smartest way to decorate your house.

My issue is the same issue that I always have: I have no idea what to do with the vast wall space around the bed.

Should I: a) make a headboard because that's a totally do-able project for a woman who can't find the time to iron a duvet cover, b) buy a bunch of different sized decorative pillows and line the whole bed with them like some sort of anthropologied-faux couch or c) put some art on the walls, although which wall to put something on has me all in a kerfluffle. I heard the word kerfluffle somewhere recently and really wanted to use it.

I would love your input. I'm going to a private shopping event at Homegoods this weekend and I want to pick up whatever I need to make this room look better while I am there because mama is trying to pretty up the office without spending any cash. That sounded so blog cheesey. Also, BlogHer and Homegoods are giving away ten $25 Homegoods gift cards so I want to share the love and tell you to go read this and enter to win one.

So what do you think? A, B or C? None-of-the-above is also an acceptable answer, but all-of-the-above is not as I am confused enough already. In theory I'm a great decorator. As in, I can totally make cute home decor boards on Pinterest. In real life, nothing comes together like it does in my head. And thus, I turn to the internet to tell me what to do.

Scarlette's Room | Sneak Peek

For the past few weekends we've been spending Saturday working on Scarlette's room and bathroom and then going to the hopsital at night for bathtime/storytime/bedtime. I wanted to share a peek at the progress with you. It just needs some finishing touches and...a crib, lol.

It's kind of hard to tell but three of the walls are a very pale pink. That was the previous color of the room when it used to be my scrapbooking space. Let me tell you how the bright pink wall came about.

Scarlette had just been born and Jeff rushed over to see her. Then he came back and was holding my hand and showing me the photos he took of her. At this point she is about three minutes old and I am still on the operating table (and they weren't sewing me back up yet either, they were still looking to see what caused me to go into labor so early.) And Jeff looks at me and says "I just love her. Can we paint one of her walls bright pink?"

It just struck me as so sweet, him seeing her and wanting to paint her room pink for her. It also makes me laugh, him asking me about paint choices in the middle of my c-section.

Everything that went into her room was very purposed and almost all of it was stuff we already had or gifts/hand-me-downs because our budget for her room was literally $0. I went exactly $50 over that budget :/

Here are a few details: My mother picked up that chandelier at an auction featured on the Auction Kings show. I'm pretty excited to have that little piece of history to share with Scarlette. The dresser was my mother's when she was a little girl, I'll share before and afters of it once we get the rest of the handles. We are planning on cloth diapering once Scarlette gets a little bigger, in case you noted them in the basket. I'll keep y'all posted on how that goes.

The whole room was based around the vintage pink and yellow Three Little Pigs record above the dresser. On the shelf is a photo of my grandmother Vonne that Scarlette was named for, a canvas to do her handprint on, an Anthropologie flashcard, my mother's tiara from winning a pageant when she was three (Hello 1960's Toddlers & Tiaras) and a frame decoration from my baby shower.

TFL! I can't wait to share the rest with you soon! And I really can't wait to bring her home and show it to her.

Decorate My House + Before & After | The Kitchen

Thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes!

We finally finished the living room and I should have photos to share with you this week with my NEW CAMERA!

Y'all are probably thinking to yourself "Self, can this girl NOT make a design decision on her own?" and the answer to that is no, I can not.  
(click to see the pictures bigger) I bought this table for practically nothing before we got married just for the chairs. Now it's moving to it's new home as Tiffani's sewing table and we're putting a high pub table in it's place. That's why the shelf is so high, because I was thinking ahead.

My problem is, I don't know how to use patterns. I love this tablecloth but I have no idea what to do with the windows.

Wooden blinds? We found some turquoise curtains but then I was like "Maybe that's too bright?" I was thinking about making matching curtains out of the cloth napkins but then I remembered that I don't know how to sew and now they're out of stock.

Whatever we do, I need to get something on the windows and quick, because I keep forgetting there are no curtains up and for some reason, I seem to always need to go in the kitchen when I'm in nothing but my undies. It's very inconvenient. For the neighbors.

The Living Room: Come Together, Right Now

 
So, after hanging 5,923,364 pieces of newspaper on the wall in all of the framing combinations presented here, I decided to take the advice of those of you who recommended going more minimalist. I wish I'd taken your advice in the beginning because all that newspaper being strewn about the living room totally confused the puppy.

We're waiting on some sort of special cords to get here so that we can move the cable box and such to the shelves and then I'll get full room photos. Because this room? It's ALMOST DONE. It's the only room in the house that I will be able to call finished after this week.

I'm pretty happy with how it is coming together, it's not been easy trying to mesh my love of girly colors, thrift shop finds and oodles of trinkets with my husband's love of massive televisions, neutral colors, and zero clutter. I dare you to take that project on, Genevieve Gorder.

Although I can't believe I PAID MONEY for rocks and branches. But none of our trees have those kind of branches. And besides, I'm kind of avoiding trees in general, after that whole baby bird incident...