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I’m trying something a little different with the blog. I used to do a personal blog & I kinda miss it. So, I’m bringing it back… Prepare yourselves!

I live with my boyfriend & his cat & my dog. His kids are here when they’re not at Mommy’s. With that in mind, I’ll sum up my interior design style as: kid-friendly, easy to clean & comfortable but still cute. Got it? Also, a bit of my “design philosophy” is to work with what I’ve got as much as possible.  I don’t go so far as to make mobiles out of egg cartons but I do like to shop my home before buying new things. (But I also like to really REAL shop too.  Favorite places: IKEA, Target, Home Goods/Marshalls/TJMaxx, Goodwill.)

Just before Thanksgiving we had little bit of a grease fire, so we were forced to re-do a few things.  We redid the kitchen cabinets, had the downstairs ceiling & walls painted, and had new baseboard put down (when your house floods the clean-up guys rip all yours off!). Plus since then we’ve made another trip to IKEA as well & bought plenty of new bits for the house. I still want to go through & “design” or “style” each area though. So that’s what this is…

First project – re-style the entry area of our little villa:

Before pics

It’s lookin’ pretty bland right now, especially in these super dark photos I took.  We took down all the pictures we had hung to get the walls painted. We went with Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige SW 7036 for the walls with plain white on the ceiling.

 

Detail of the entry table.  It’s an IKEA sofa table (similar to the Lack)

I took one shot with the light off so you can appreciate the cool new light my mister put up (from Home Depot). The original one was very OL (old lady).

My thoughts on what to do next:

I’m mainly thinking that it needs some style & color, as well as some clutter-hiding bins.  (I love bins!).

• Move: Relocate the speakers.
• Keep: the cute orange tray I found in the Target dollar section.
• Bring: a turquoise lamp from my desk, a grey/black/white striped rug from the kitchen & possibly some decorative items from my bedroom to use instead of the Target items I was considering.
• Buy: 2 large baskets, 3 smaller matching baskets (maybe these), possibly some decorative figurines like this, this or this.

Hopefully investing a fairly minimal amount of money & time will brighten up this area & make it even more functional.