Painted Ceilings

Back in the day when I was a child of the 80's we had painted ceilings. Not white mind you , but the same color as the walls. Though back then most of the colors were a coffee and cream color or something pastely not the bright or dark hues we do now.

In time the trend was to paint the room a color and paint the ceiling white. Which works really well. My whole house is painted in that manner.

This spring I will repaint my bedroom and living room and I'm thinking that there is no reason to keep the same theme of colored walls and white ceilings going. My friend had her place painted a dark taupe and the ceiling the same color but a shade lighter, and it looks AMAZING. Granted she has high ceilings and floor to ceiling windows, unlike myself, so that's probably why she can do a dark color.

I have been collecting these images form around the web for a while, if one of them belongs to you please let me credit you. I think I might venture into painting my ceiling a complimentary color or even a lighter shade of the same color. If I had the ability I might even try the painted stencil on the ceiling, although I think it looks best with very simple walls.

What do you think? will this be a deterrent in this market if I decide to sell the house and my ceilings are something other than white?

How amazing are these examples, I esp. love the one that looks like its a mosaic, I first thought that someone tiled the ceiling. That's dedication.

Love to hear from you all  on all and any subject, comments make my day.

Jayson Home and Garden

Before the holidays I went to brunch with a couple of girlfriends. We decided to hit up Jayson Home and Garden afterwards.

This store is always amazing, the displays and furniture constantly changing. I love this place in the spring when they have the outdoor garden plants out already. This time around the theme was christmas, obviously, but a country christmas. I snapped a couple of pics with my phone so sorry the quality is crappy but you get the idea.

They have my favorite chair in a raw linen with nailhead trim, not like I can shell out 1,900 for a chair but hey, they have it. When you sit in and speak it sounds as though your speaking through a cardboard megaphone. The sound vibrates in your ears, it's really surreal.

What a cool concept with the brass pom pom flowers. To make an impact you have to put up a bunch of these on a wall. I wonder if there is an easy way to make these yourself? I think I feel a project coming on. 

If anyone has any good suggestions on how to make these, please feel free to comment. I always love reading your comments, they make my day.

Rue the day!

At least I hope you won't have to rue the day you missed checking out rue magazine. It launched its premiere issue this week, unfortunately there is only an online version but I can still pull up my chair with a latte and flip through the pages with my mouse. Here are a couple of my favorite spreads and color combos - the navy and gold I'm lovin' that combo!

Botanic Garden Antique Show

This saturday my girlfriends and I, along with our kiddies, went to the Botanic Gardens in Glencoe. It's a beautiful garden by itself but this weekend was the antique show and sale. Lets just say, I probably won't be coming back for the antiques anytime soon, or ever, but I want to come back to the gardens again when everything is in full bloom.

The antiques were for the most part, pretty mehh. And pricy$$$$$. There were a couple things that I took photos of that were a bit unique but even the more modern things were way too overpriced. I think I'll stick to the thrift stores and Broadway Antique Mall instead.

These were a few that caught my eye.

A great idea for any type of sports paraphernalia, maybe old football helmets, the ones that used to be leather, or golf shoes granted the shadow box would be thicker but I think it could work. 

I don't know for sure if that perforated looking egg is a garden stool, it looks a little fragile to sit on. The orchids, well they are just plain lovely, but the shell box that they were in was priced at $750.00 sorry, I think I'll pass. 

This installation has to be my favorite, for the kites. I believe that those are a permanent fixture in the gallery space and the table might have been temporary.  This would work if you had a large skylight in your home or maybe a sunroom, how pretty would that look with the filtered light coming through? 

Overall, it was a wonderful saturday, time spent with friends was worth it even though nothing was of particular interest or affordability.

Which natural fiber rug should I go with?

I currently have a ikea rug, it's not bad, but with a child and dog and shoes, it's seen better days. Not saying I don't try and take care of it, I try not to wear shoes in the house and usually someone ends up tracking in with shoes onto the rug.

Even last summer I washed it. Scrubbed, hard, on my hands and knees, to be exact, but it's not lookin' too pretty. So I think I want to go with a natural fiber rug. The one we currently have is a red rug with white and brown twigs on it, the white twigs aren't so white anymore. I don't even want to show you how ugly its become.

Help me decide which rug to go with. I like the dark chocolate since it is so dark, stains and dirt shouldn't show up to easily on it. But the diamond juste from west elm is pulling at my heart strings. Its thicker and that fab diamond pattern is a bit more contemporary than the jute/sisal rugs I saw at pottery barn. But either way I would like to know if you have experience with either of these rugs or natural rugs in the past and any comments are welcome.

Reupholstered chairs

I might have mentioned that I stalk craig, on a regular basis. I have a restraining order put on me by my husband as of late; so I can't go and buy anything currently. But I have to show you my best craigslist find. It is a pub table and {6} – really 6 pub height chairs. All for $300.00 Thats a steal in our neck of the woods, new ones don't come that cheap and this one has 6 chairs AND the table expands.

My dad and I drove 45 minutes to pick it up, we stuck it in his van with all 6 chairs and didn't need to disassemble anything. The table and chairs were in a great condition. The only thing that I did not like was the cushions that came on the chairs.

I thought that's an easy fix. I was going to go and buy fabric for them right away but I wasn't sure what I wanted to put on them, plus I didn't feel like spending a lot of dough on fabric either. So being the resourceful girl that I am; I used the leftover fabric from our couch fix that the upholsterers left for us. Which essentially was FREE since they were repairing a tiny rip and they kept sending us the wrong side, after the rip was repaired the guy who was out here fixing it let us keep it, which came out to 5 yards.

So thats what I did I covered the chairs in the leftover couch material. It was ok, but was not what I really wanted in the end. Plus it was way to matchy with the couch being in the next room and I can see from one into the other. They were microfiber, which is fantastic when you have kids, cuz everything comes right off. But they were boring.

As you can see, it's not bad, just well, ho hum I guess. They come clean real easy. I know since my daughter, Ari, drew with ball point pen, red marker and highlighter all over that material on the couch. It all came out. Thank God for her sake.

But one day on a whim I was trolling Hancock fabrics and out of the corner of my eye in the discount bin I see something. Ohh its grey, and yellow, grellow, my favorite combo and its reduced. I look at the pattern and I instantly fall in love. I have to have it. So I went home without it. 

I know, what the hell was I doing? I didn't want to impulse buy so I went home to think about it for a few days. Needless to say I couldn't get it out of my mind so I went back 2 days later  and was going to get a few yards.

As I was at the cutting table it seemed like such a waste to grab only a few yards, I took all of it, all 6 yards for $32.00. I thought that was a great deal. I wanted to come home and change the cushions out right away, but I held back. Don't ask me why, maybe I was just lazy and didn't feel like striping all 6 chairs again and stapling with that heavy duty stapler. *Note to self or to whomever reading this, if you are ever going to use a staple gun, get a good one; one that is comfortable in your hand cuz after awhile the sucker hurts.

I waited till after the holidays and after the winter blahs and decided that today was the perfect day. In between making Rick Bayless enchiladas, come back for pics and recipe later, I recovered the chairs. 

So without further ado, tada... oh wait I'll show you the material closeup, it's a nice heavy nubby material. 

And NOW for the chair, who knows, maybe in another year or when we move into a different house they'll get another makeover. But for now I love them.

Have you seen Lonny?

Lonny February Issue is out, I have read Lonny since its premiere issue, but this is the first time blogging about it. If you haven't check it out. It is online only so no need to spend a dime on it. 


I would have picked a different photo for the cover, there are many more interesting ones inside. They seem to have a knack for picking meh covers.

Here are some outtakes from the mag itself... 

Simple don't you think, which is really not Lonnys forte. I have something like this, I'll save it for some other post.

Not particularly crazy about this kitchen, its too much for me. I thought the wallpaper was fabulous - in small doses. 

Here is another one, it did not have all these antiquey mementos all over the place like some did in this issue, or the stacked books on the floor which is clutter and space hog. Too much stuff everywhere, your eye has no place to rest. Also there wasn't a styled tray of stuff, not to say its not apropos in some instances but does one really need to dust all that crap?


I think I picked this because I'm a sucker anytime I see orchids en-mass like this. I cant seem to grow them after the flowers drop. But thats another story.