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Both colors a  little muted here and they compliment each other beautifully.

Love it with the lilac or raspberry too!

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The key is to blend the greens and purples with other neutrals, browns, blacks, or whites. Mixing in rich brown tones and/or black (as shown above) gives off a luxurious feel.  Or use white in the color scheme (shown below) to achieve a more serene & sophisticated environment.

Using gold with these 2 colors looks great too!

Bold colors = modern feel

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Just a few favorite items put together just for you!

a:  robert allen alpenglow fabric / b: suburban home ringo fabric   / c: centenniel sofa (available to the trade only!)  / d: cb2 rex chartreuse chair / e: z gallerie new hope plum art / f: rug (available to the trade only!) / g: crate + barrel link pillow / h: etsy decorative handmade floral pillow cover /  i: jonathan adler capri lamp /  j: jonathan adler lime lacquer cube

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(all photos link back to their original source, if known. inspiration board brought to you by yours truly.)

Last week, we finally finished painting! Okay that was a lie. We are not done thanks to the knotty pine bonus room from hell. I’m in one more coat denial so of course I believe this is the last coat. We shall see…

Our final paint palette ended up looking like this:

For our fun sized powder room, I decided to do an accent wall of wallpaper in the pattern below. My hope is that it will make it seem a little bigger. You know like maybe 4 x 5 feet instead of 3.5 x 4!

Perhaps the mack daddy news of all is that we just had the wood floors last week. For the first time I actually felt like this whole thing is finally starting to come together!

I love how they turned out!  It’s crazy to think just the floors and paint can make this much of a difference!

PS. We just moved everything in on Saturday!  I’m not going to lie – it’s a little strange. It doesn’t quite feel like it’s our home yet, but I’m sure that will come with time.  Kinda hard to feel homey when there are boxes everywhere I guess.

PPS. I am the proud new owner of this new clearance mirror at target. $19.99 . Come into my lovely home!

That’s all for now!  I promise to get back to the regular posts.  I’ll be back sooner than later xo.

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Today is the day – live like there’s no tomorrow!  Happy Weekend to you all!

xoxo Nat

All of my daydreams came true when I stumbled upon this unique home in Santorini while looking through Elle Décor’s website this morning.  Please, take me there!

So simple and relaxing.

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I can’t describe how happy this view makes me!

You lucky dog you! (Literally. He has no idea how lucky he is!!)

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All of the pictures link back to their original source.

I can’t wait to go this fall!

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A Doggie Farmhouse

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Dog Cube Condo by Gensler

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Rex Box – Greenest Design

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The Woof Stream

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The Barkelow – Best Fundraiser

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Doggone Vault – Best in Show

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Photos from Kara Mosher for Houzz and Barkitecture’s website.

See this other site for more pix from the event!

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I woke up yesterday morning thinking of my Grandma in the last few years of her life.  (A little back story:  I was raised by my Grandparents.  My Grandpa passed away when I was 18, and my Grandma passed away 3 years ago when I was 25.  I miss them dearly, but I’ve taken so many life lessons away from them.  In my memories, they still continue to teach me so much.)  Flashbacks of visiting her in her independent living apartment (or senior dorm as we jokingly called it) ran through my head.  I’d stop over for lunch on my days off, come by every Sunday to take her to church and fill her pill-box up, and other various times out of the week to help with laundry, doctor’s appts, and other household tasks.  As her primary caretaker, it was very hard at times to balance my  life and hers, but I thought of how happy she always was to see me.  Each time I walked through the door, it was like the best day of her life.  Although she never wanted me to leave, she was always so appreciative of the time I did spend with her.

In a blog post on my 28^th birthday, I came up with a list of 28 things I had learned in life thus far.   One of the things on that list was “Take your time and give it to others.  It is the best gift you can give”.  Remembering all my Grandma’s joy has just solidified how true that statement is.  Is there a greater gift?  I really don’t think so.  In time, there are memories made, relationships founded, love shared.  I think in the end this is greater than any amount of money or any material possession.

It seems like as life goes on we are always having a time struggle.  When you’re a kid, you have so much time you are bored.  When you’re in school (if you were like me) you procrastinate and you’re up at the last second trying to finish a 5 page paper.  When you hit the real world, there isn’t enough time in the day to do things around the house AND work your 8 hour job.  But then at some point after retirement, I’ve watched some older people feel like they have so much time on their hands alone, they get so lonely.

Ironically now I find myself complaining more and more that I don’t have time to blog, time for myself, volunteering, working out – the list goes on forever.  As we get older, our priorities change.  Truthfully, there aren’t more hours in the day then there were back then.  We gain responsibilities, and sadly the things we should make time for get pushed to the side.  I think we forget that we aren’t promised tomorrow.  So really we should me making the most of today, right?

The little moments I spent with Grandma I can never get back, and I’m so happy and thankful I made the time for her when she was around.  I encourage everyone to give time to someone you love today, or this weekend.  Whether it’s a phone call to friend,  dinner with a family member, volunteering in the community.  I think we should all pay it forward because one day we will be 83 and be hoping someone walks through that door to see us.

CONSTRUCTION & MAINTENANCE

This tops the list for a reason.  The most important thing you need to consider above anything else!  It’s such a large investment, you need to carefully consider the types of woods available, their price, their installation method, and how to maintain them.

It being an older home, I reallllly wanted to put down solid flooring, sanded and stained on site.  I soon found that the labor costs would bust the budget.  Then I explored some prefinished solid wood options.   The greatest advantage going with solid is that you can always sand the floors down and restain.    But when we began looking at engineered, I found there were so many more options, styles, and colors available, and usually at a better price.

Putting wood in the kitchen is big right now, but you need to remember: wood + moisture = disaster.  So if this is in your plan, make sure to order extra wood so you can replace boards in case of a leak or water damage down the road.

Hardwood in the bathroom is never a good idea, but have you seen the new plank style tiles that resemble wood?  That’s actually tile in the bathroom below.

WOOD SPECIES

In search of something in a medium color, I realized I do like some color contrast in the planks.  Certain wood species are more uniform in color, while others have more variation.

This hickory and pecan floor mix (below) is really pretty. Variation but subtle.

Certain species (like Pine shown below) are very knotty, giving a very rustic feel.

Researching the different types of wood is a great way to learn their characteristics and what to expect in terms of hardness, color change over time, etc.

PLANK SIZE & TEXTURE

Smaller planks (2-3″ wide) tend to be more traditional, and can be found in older homes.

Most of the plank sizes you find right now are 4 or 5″ wide or even larger.

Hand-scraped patterns for engineered floors are really in right now, most of what you find will be that.  Distressed and hand-scraped are more forgiving than smooth floors, as scratches will be much more noticeable.

COLOR/STAIN

I love the look of a dark stained wood floor, but the maintenance is something to be desired.  I’ve watched it go into many of the projects we do, and let me tell you every piece of dust, dog hair, and footprints would show up on this.

The look of very light wood is great too, but is a lot more contemporary and informal.   For my project, it’s  almost too modern for the look I want to achieve.

When considering color, you need to remember it’s all part of a bigger plan for your room.  Think about the colors of the furniture and fabrics you’re putting on top of it.  For example, if you have all very dark furniture or want to paint the room a dark color, it may not be a good idea to put down dark wood floors.  You could put a light-colored rug to create contrast, but more often than not the whole room will seem very dim or smaller.

OUR DECISION

After weeks of looking at different products, we finally decided to go with a natural walnut.  Not too light. Not too dark. Beautiful color variation.  The downside?  Mucho dinero.  I swear if it’s ridiculously expensive, I gravitate towards it.  Luckily, I found one that we carry that had been discontinued so I got a good price on it! It looks similar to the floors in the picture below:

Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

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(Image found on Pinterest, original source unknown)

So let me give you the grand tour.  Here is a pic of the exterior.  (You may have seen this on Instagram/Facebook – if so sorry for the repeat )

When you first walk in, you come into the Living Room area.  For an older home, it has a pretty open layout, which I’m totally a fan of.  You can see the lovely laminate floor – it actually doesn’t look too bad and was in decent condition, but we want to put in hardwood before we move in.  So adios.

Then you walk right into the Dining area.

The Dining area flows into the Kitchen.  The kitchen was updated in the recent past.  Aside from the hole in the vinyl floor, it is definitely very photogenic.  Up close, it’s another story.  Honestly, the previous owners kinda half-assed their updating efforts.  The countertops, cabinets, backsplash – all items that I want to replace, but the kitchen project is years down the road.  I’m sure the new hardwood will warm it up, and we will make little additions to make it more presentable.  (first purchase: A FRIDGE!!)

That doorway you see in between the Kitchen and Dining Area leads to the 2nd Living Area/Bonus Room. Lots of wood paneling you see!

Here’s the hallway that leads to the bedrooms.

In that hallway is the smallest Powder Bath of life! I kid you not – all 3.5 x 4ft of it!

Then you come to the Master Bedroom.  (Awesome shot isn’t it?? Can’t see anything – we clearly need better lighting)

A cute little bath suite is attached to the Master.  Pineapple frame mirrors – oh boy.

I love the fact that it has a jacuzzi tub, but eventually we will be tearing this up too.   Some have told us this is cray cray, but there is no shower in the Master or a shower/tub combo in the whole house, and we want to put one in for functionality and resale value.

Bedroom #2… complete with built-in drawers and desk!

…And Bedroom #3

(There’s a jack-and-jill bath that connects to Bed #2 & #3 that I didn’t take a picture of!)

Can’t wait to see how it all progresses!  Anybody out there have any advice or past experiences with remodeling their home??? I’m welcome to your opinions