Uggh. All those frames hung on Julianna’s walls are starting to drop off, over a week after putting them up. They’re attached with 3M’s Command Strips - adhesive backed velcro pieces that are supposed to be removable and won’t mess up your walls. The problem is that our walls our plaster and impossible to drive nails into without tearing the walls apart, so I have to go with the 3M option. I have no idea why it isn’t working … I followed the instructions properly and paid careful attention to weight restrictions. The entire adhesive just seems to detach from the wall, and actually DOES take a little paint with it. The walls were prepared well before painting - they used to be wallpapered, but we removed it and primed twice before painting with Benjamin Moore’s EcoSpec paint. And what’s weird is that lighter frames are dropping before slightly heavier ones, with the same sized Command Strips attached. AGGGGGHHH!

I’ve entered a few pictures of Julianna’s playroom in Ohdeedoh.com’s nursery colors contest. Check it out and vote for us! The 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes are a crib, toddler bed and children’s table with 2 chairs, respectively, from Argington furniture.

Here’s my first photo:

I am, of course, proud of the room but I think I also have an advantage in the fact that I may have a little more experience with photography than the other entrants. It’s amazing how much better a room looks when you put the camera on a tripod and only allow natural light (no overhead lighting, no flash on camera).

I think this room is a testament to how much color can compensate for a limited budget. The only items that were bought especially for the nursery are the IKEA Malm dressers and the Wal-Mart rocker - everything else came from other rooms in the house. The most expensive item in this room is the rocker, which was only around $150! I discovered I needed a good, comfortable rocker when Julianna was born and I began nursing with c-section pain. The second priciest item is the Eames (actually, it’s a 1960s knockoff from a company called Krueger) chair, which I picked up on eBay. The chrome legs were rusted and peeling, so I recovered them with black duct tape. You can’t tell unless you get up close. The 1950s turquoise ottoman was my grandmother’s and it’s been in my family for a loooong time. Andrew gave me the blue lamps as a birthday present a few years ago - they’re from the Crate & Barrel outlet in Kittery, ME. The curtains and floor lamp are from IKEA.

The artwork above the “Eames” chair is by Charley Harper (very trendy right now). Sitting on the chair is Andrew’s old teddy bear, “Mici Macko” (Winnie the Pooh in Hungarian) and my old Paddington Bear. The white children’s rocker was a gift from my grandparents to me when I was born.

The striped bins are a Pottery Barn purchase from a few years back. The orange leather-covered box was a Christmas gift from my mom - I think it’s from TJ Maxx. The artwork is all mine - I created the silhouettes from vintage postcard photos, except for the dog image - that’s actually our dog, Bingo. We had some old frames laying around and I decided to paint them with Benjamin Moore Color Samples. I created the artwork, painted the frames and designed this arrangement rather quickly and explicitly for this contest. When I find the time, I’ll tweak the colors in the artwork a little more to my liking.

Thanks for looking!

I really like these photos of animals against the kitschy wallpaper backdrops. It would make a fun series of prints to hang in Julianna’s room.

Catherine’s Animals by Catherine Ledner.

Via Angie McKaig.

We have two “family” rooms in our house - one we refer to as the “TV room” and the other, the “piano room.” I prefer to keep the TV room strictly for TV watching (pretty much just Netflix movies, Frasier reruns, The Office, 30 Rock, and Masterpiece Theatre - “Cranford” is SOOOOO good!) and the piano room for entertaining and, of course, piano playing. The piano room has really been neglected lately and now that the weather is so much nicer, we’re thinking about finally tackling the walls. I’m thinking of going with a light blue - possibly “Jamaican Aqua” or “Barely Teal” from Benjamin Moore. They’re the 2 lighter shades of our kitchen, which is “Tropicana Cabana.”

I’d post a picture of the piano room as it currently looks, but my camera battery is charging at the moment and I’m just really excited to share my Google Sketchup 3D mockup:

The details:

1. The pear print above the sofa is a canvas Marimekko print from CB2.com - a gift from my parents for my birthday a couple weeks ago.
2. The sofa is the Arild sofa from IKEA.
3. The side tables are IKEA Lack.
4. The plywood chair is an Eames knockoff I ordered from American Modern Furniture last year.
5. The bookcases in the back are Billy bookcases from IKEA. We don’t have these yet.
6. The rug is also nonexistant … I’m thinking of going with some moss green Interface Flor tiles.
7. The lamps are from Crate & Barrel - purchased a few years ago.

Our kitchen is still unfinished … no backsplash, no central light fixture, no window treatment. I’ve been having fun with Mosaic Tile Supplies‘ “Mosaic Maximizer” and have come up with some tile blends that might work for our kitchen backsplash. I’m also trying to decide what to do about the walls in the adjacent mud room. For the past year, I’ve been planning on painting the walls either the same blue as in the kitchen or some sort of orange. But then I saw this wallpaper, “Stem,” from Orla Kiely at Anthropologie and am reconsidering. I’ve mocked it up in Google Sketchup, as you can see in 2 of the 3 pictures below. I like it, and I don’t think the pattern is too much when paired with the checkerboard floor. But I worry that it competes too much with the pattern in the backsplash - especially if I go with a rainbow of colors for the backsplash. Sometimes I think I should just stick to Google Sketchup, because I’m just too afraid of commitment!

I’ve had thinking about a new furniture arrangement for our living room. Ever since we bought our house, I’ve been struggling to come up with a layout that works. The biggest issue is the piano - I really feel like it needs to remain in the back of the room since it’s so honking big. Also, with a grand piano, it needs to face a certain direction so that the lid opens towards the audience and not towards a wall. The fireplace, which we don’t use, just seems to be an impediment. The IKEA Lack bookcase isn’t really cutting it - it’s difficult to arrange books in it and is probably better used as a display case or an artfully designed bookcase/display case hybrid.

Here’s the current layout (designed in Google Sketchup - all pieces are to scale). The arrow represents the entry way:

In Sketchup, I recently came up with a layout that works much better, I think. I’ve placed IKEA Billy book cases (which we don’t have yet) against the far wall flanking the oddly-sized windows we have back there. I’ve moved the piano to a less than ideal position, but I think in the grand scheme of things, the room is a lot more comfortable this way. Unfortunately, it does block the fireplace a bit and I’m not sure how I’m going to like that. I kind of wish we could get rid of the fireplace altogether.

Here’s the improved layout:

If anyone has any suggestions, I’d welcome the advice!

Take a look at this new chair from IKEA, the “Tobias,” which sells for $89.99. I’ve always wanted the Phillipe Starck Louis Ghost chair, but I’m sure this would do just fine until I win the lottery!

Take a look at this fantastic kitchen (from Flickr user zuess) using IKEA’s red and white Abstrakt fronts. Reminds me of my own kitchen with the VCT floor and formica countertops.

We need ceiling fixtures for our new kitchen, bathroom, mud room, den, and 2 hallways. I am totally bored by the options at Home Depot, Lowes, and a local lighting store, so I’ve decided to search online. I really have no clue how to choose … I’ve never really paid much attention to ceiling fixtures, and the ones we inherited with the house may very well have been the original 1950s fixtures. I’ve found great modern fixtures which come with steep price tags, so I have to pass on those. However, Lamps Plus actually has a few interesting options in their “contemporary” category:

Possible fixtures for the kitchen and the mud room:
Orion Square, $129.99

For the mud room:
Pollux Collection Crackle Glass Orbs, 30″ wide, $249.99 or Robert Abbey Anemone, 13″ wide, $149.91

For the bathroom and hallways:
Square Collection, 5 1/3″ Wide, $64.91

Are the den choices too wild? I worry that they’d be incongruous with the choices for the kitchen and other rooms. But since the den lighting isn’t really for function (I normally hate overhead lights, but the den is supposed to be our dining room and came with it), I figured I might as well make it more attractive.

I came across this walnut-veneered side table and console at Overstock.com - they’re from La-Z-Boy and only $55.99 and $129.99, respectively. I love the hairpin legs and the storage possibilities in the side table. Apparently, Overstock has a shipping deal going on right now - only $1 for everything. I’m tempted to get these side tables to replace the IKEA Lack tables in my TV room.