Moving Moving Moving

I am so excited to finally be moving into our new apartment!! I can't wait to show you all pictures of the new place all painted and pretty!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Paint Colors

I finally decided on the paint colors and the hubbs and I went out today and got the paint at Lowes...yay!!

The Living Room will be Bay Mist by Valspar:

{and I think that I am going to do the kitchen white!}

The bathroom and guest bedroom will be Coastal Jetty by Valspar:

I can't wait to show you the final product. We start moving in on Friday and I am so excited...and stressed!

Inspiration Rooms

Here are some rooms that I am going to use as inspiration for the living room in our new apartment!

{source}

{source}

{source}

What do you think?? Look at my post below for my design dilemma and give me your thoughts!

I need your design help!!

As I have mentioned before, we are moving into a new apartment on April 2nd {wow...that's soon} so I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with the new place. It is my personality to want to have everything done the weekend we move in so, I have been racking my brain over what colors to paint the walls, where to put the furniture, what to hang on the walls, etc!! Here is where I need your help. Besides adding my furniture and painting the walls, there are just some things about the apartment that I cannot change because we are renting.....the kitchen and bathroom!

The layout of the apartment is very strange, but I am not too worried about it from a furniture standpoint. The living room and kitchen are an open to one another....this is why I am really having trouble deciding on a paint color for the space. A color that would look great with our sofa and furniture looks weird with the apartment-grade cabinetry. Here is where I am going to share a horrible {very horrible} picture that was used in the apartment ad. This is not our furniture and the person living there now is a single guy so everything is definitely mix-matched.

{ugh...the lighting is just horrible}

{the kitchen is directly opposite in this picture and

the huge master bedroom is down those stairs}

Here is a picture our our living room right now so you can get an idea of the furniture we have. This is the picture from right when we moved in so, I have made a few minor changes from this picture but you get the idea.

I would love to here any advice you can give as far as paint colors or any updates you have made to apartment kitchen or bathrooms.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Where does all of my time go?? / Top 2 Tuesday

Sometimes I ask myself that too. I feel like I don't have time for anything....and I hate it!! The newest task that is taking up ALL of my time is moving. We have officially found a new apartment, and I love it!! We are staying in the same neighborhood {which I am super excited about}but the new place is in a more trendy area of the neighborhood. Want to hear the best part about the new place....it is on the FIRST FLOOR!! Coming from a 5th floor walk-up apartment to a first floor is going to be amazing. Other positive things: the laundromat is next door, it's on the first floor, my favorite grocery is down the street, did I mention it is on the first floor, but most importantly the apartment gives us some room to grow...wink, wink! I am not going to lie. I am going to really miss the amazing view of Manhattan from our living room...that is the main benefit of the 5th floor.

The hardest part about looking at apartments is imagining your stuff in it. It seemed like all of the apartments that we looked at just didn't seem right. I kept thinking about how awesome our current apartment. The hubbs had to remind me that we made the apartment awesome...we definitely did not move into it like that. When he told me that it really opened up my eyes, and we wound up choosing the next place we went in. It does need some work, but I am definitely up for the challenge....and that is also taking up a lot of my time. All I want to do is plan for the new apartment!! Get ready for LOTS of home decor, DIY, and Ikea post!

I need to try and remember to take pictures before we move the stuff in so, that I can give you good before and after pictures. We have already decided that we are going to do something that we have never done in any of our apartments before....PAINT! I am so excited to pick out paint colors that I am about to burst!! I do need your help in picking one of the main paint colors. Our couch and my husband's man chair are both tan.....what color should we paint the living room??

The master bedroom doesn't have a great closet so, I have really been eyeing up some of Ikea's closet ideas. I am loving these!

{Life Begins At Thirty, Right? If you don't already follow this blog you should...it is awesome!}

{Ikea}

I would love to hear any of your thoughts on creating a closet or paint colors or anything helpful about moving into a new place!

Top 2 Tuesday - Random Facts about You

I am finally back to participating in Taylor's Top 2 Tuesday!! I am determined to get back into blogging...I have really been missing it. This week's topic is Top 2 Random Facts about you....easy, right?? Not really I have had a really hard time with this one because there are so many random facts about me.

1. My all-time favorite foods are BBQ and Mexican, which is why I loved living in Austin so much. There is the best BBQ and Mexican there.....ok, I am drooling just thinking about it!

2. I love to sleep....probably too much! I especially love when both the hubbs and I can sleep in together. It seems like recently we haven't had much time for this :(

Have a great week!

Weekend Photo Project!

I had the urge to do a crafty photo project today with items that I already had around the apartment. There is the blank white wall in our living room that really needed some TLC so, it was my inspiration. In my search for some items to inspire my creation, I found a roll of natural twine.....then my mind went running! I decided to make it simple with only 4 items needed: twine, B&W photos, paper clips, and clear thumb tacks.

Here is the before:

The next step was to decide how to hang the twine. I was torn between having 2 seperate rows or just one piece of twine draped side-to-side twice. The hubbs chimed in with his opinion and this is what we decided on.

The hardest part was deciding what pictures to use. I tried to use mostly family pictures, but a few friends made the cut too! I have this thing for black and white photos so, I printed them all out in B&W. Lastly, paper clip the picture on the twine , and you're DONE!

{hi hubbs}

The hubbs made fun of me for doing this especially since we are move into a new apartment in a month {which we haven't even started looking for yet, whoops}. But I will enjoy looking at it for the next month and maybe we will have a wall in the next place to do this with too.

Anyways, just a little weekend project...I hope you like it!

Have a great week everyone! Eeeekkk...my parents are coming in town this weekend and I am so excited because I haven't seen them since Christmas!

Winter Wonderland

I just had to share the beautiful Prospect Park that is 2 blocks from our house! Being from Louisiana, I would have never believed that I would live in a place that looked like this in my life. I have to admit though...I have a love/hate relationship with the snow. It is so pretty right after it snows, but then when it gets all dirty and nasty and slippery I hate it! Here is an example of why I hate it....I started my morning off by slipping on a patch of ice in Manhattan on the way to work and completely busting my a** in front of like 20 people. The best part was no one reacted to it at all. They did not look at me or ask if I was ok or help me up!! Crazy!

Here is why I love the snow....the park in all of its glory!

Have a Happy Friday tomorrow!!

I am so embarassed by how long it has been since my last post...November 21, 2010 {two months ago}. I guess that things just go very busy with visitors, the holidays, and work. I promise to get back into the swing of things, and I am starting with a mini bedroom makeover. I am emphasizing the word mini because all I did was change the bedding.

The bedding that we had on our bed was a wedding registry gift. We have been married for 2 years now so, I thought it was time for a change. I mean don't get me wrong...I loved the bedding when we got it, but I like making changes to the decor in our house pretty frequently {my husband loves this hobby of mine...yeah right}

Here is the before:

OK, maybe these are not the best pictures in the world, but I forgot to take a picture right before I did the makeover so I had to look through my hard drive for an old one.

So now on to my ideas for the makeover. I knew I wanted something light and airy because we do not get a lot of natural light in our room {but that is NYC for you}. My vision was WHITE! I would have loved to paint the walls and do an official makeover, but I know we will be hunting for a new apartment in 2 months {stay tuned for that} so, that would have been a waste of time.

I fell in love with a "gathered" white duvet cover at Pottery Barn...but it had quite the price tag. It was $159 for only the duvet cover and then the 2 shams are $39 each. It was exactly what I wanted though...

{isn't it beautiful! Here is the source.}

I then turned to google to see if I could find a more economical option. Much to my surprise Target had an option that looked identical for only $60 for the duvet cover and 2 standard pillow shams...WOW!! To make it even better, my grandma gave me a Target Gift Card for Christmas so, it was free to me...yeah!! The only tricky part was that I also have 2 Euro size pillows and a small boudoir pillow and Target did not have an option for these.

I turned back to Pottery Barn and found a great option that went well with the ruffled duvet from Target...and it was on sale {cha ching}! And to make this even better, my mother-in-law gave me a Pottery Barn gift card...I know, I really racked up for Christmas! I was able to get 2 Euro shams for $24 each and a boudoir pillow cover for $14 with free monogramming!

{source}

Now for the final product:

I love how it came out and I think that it definitely makes the room look more bright! There is one more step in this mini makeover that I am still trying to sell the hubbs on! I want to DIY a new headboard like one of these:

{source}

{source}

I hope everyone had an amazing Holiday and a Happy New Year! I promise keep up with blogging more because I really do love it and I love reading all of your blogs too...I have kept up with yours, just not mine!

Stay tuned for a homemade King Cake post this week!!

Have a Great Sunday!!