what would you spend on a pillow?

I have been coveting this Anthropologie pillow.  I think it is textural and different and fresh and I love it.  It would look awesome in my living room.

Its also $198, which I find to be many multiples more money than I wish to spend on a pillow, ever, even if I win the lottery.  But if I did win the lottery, I think I draw the line at about $80 for one single pillow.  Which would allow me to get this other Anthro pillow:

Would you spend $198 on a pillow?  Ever?  

black and blue ideas

The thing I love about the design blog world is that there is so much out there for inspiration.  I've come across two things lately that made me say "oh! I must do that!"

The first is from Little Green Notebook.  Jenny is currently painting her fireplace black, and she posted a number of inspiration photos.  I have planned for a while to paint our fireplace white, but I haven't gotten to it yet.  But seeing all the black fireplace pictures I was seized with a "ACK MUST HAVE BLACK PAINT NOW" moment.  

Here is our fireplace in the living room.  I think the black would be fantastic focal point to break up all the white. 

Eventually when we redo the floors I plan on redoing that entire fireplace, but for now, I think that would look so fab.  (You can look at more black fireplaces here, if you like.) 

The other thing I saw was this gorgeous living room at Nuestra Vida Dulce.  

I love how the green chair and colorful painting play off the navy blue curtains, the metallic lamp and the white walls.  I am using this room as inspiration for the guest bedroom.  I put together our guest room a few months ago using what we had on hand, but as one commenter said, "its so...brown."  

Here is a sneak peak of where I'm going with it. 

Master Bedroom (In Progress): white lamps

Over the past few months I've neglected blogging, in large part because life was just very very busy. Also, I hate painting and 90% of my to-do list for the foreseeable future is painting, so I was procrastinating. Things have started to settle down a bit, so I'm hoping to get back on track.

One project I have been avoiding for months is the lamps in my bedroom.  They were previously emerald green, which didn't go well with the master bedroom.

 I thought I would spray paint them white.  Back in June (!) I started priming them.

It was a fiasco.  I had three consecutive cans of primer get clumpy.  Every time it happened I hand-sanded all the clumps off and started over again.  I didn't have a lot of large chunks of time, so it seemed like I was sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding in all  my free time.  Finally I in July I said enough of this and started spray painting it white.  The primer wasn't opaque enough, and after five coats of white you could still see the sanding marks and peeks of emerald green.

I said ugh, I will just go buy new lamps.  But these lamps are enormous (about 34 inches tall) and enormous lamps are expensive and so I kept giving them the side eye out on my patio and wishing someone would come and paint these damn lamps.  In the meantime, we kept stubbing our toes and lamenting the lack of ability to see our clothes in the dark.

This weekend I picked up the sandpaper again.  And sanded everything down again.  I started again with a fresh can of Rustoleum flat white primer. (The previous primers were Zinsser and Killz. Boo, hiss.)  I put on six fresh coats of non-clumpy primer.  These lamps have now received 16 coats of primer. I am so done with these lamps.  I skipped the white glossy paint and put the flat-primed lamps back in the room.

I kind of like the flat texture.  Even if I didn't like it I'm calling it good enough for the army and moving on to the next painting project.




  

missed opportunities

Lately I've had a number of craigslist items that just haven't worked out.  For instance, this delightful blue velvet sectional.  Sadly, the long arm is on the right side, and I need a left-side sectional.  No matter how I arrange this sofa in my living room, it would either block the fireplace, or block all access to the dining room. 

Sad face.

For months (years) I have been stalking craigslist for a low loft bunk bed.  Today I came across this Room and Board bunk bed on craigslist for less than a quarter of its retail price:

Score, right? I drove down to check it out.  It was a little scuffed, but my kids will beat it up anyways, so that wasn't an issue.  What was an issue was the weight.  It weighs One Million Pounds.  As in, I couldn't even lift it off the ground.  There is no way the Mister and I would get it from this guy's garage, into our minivan, into our house, up the stairs, and into the boys' bedroom.  This one has me gnashing my teeth.  I looked into moving companies but it will cost a few hundred dollars, and I'm also a little worried that the bed might not make it through the doorway into the bedroom because the top bunk is all one piece (the legs don't come off, which makes it sort of unwieldy.  And a gazillion pounds.).

Have you bought anything awesome on craigslist lately?  I can't seem to get anything to work out.  

relief paintings

That was an unintentionally long blogging hiatus.

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I was paging through the CB2 catalogue the other day and came across these two paintings.

Deer Mom painting

Color Blind print

The techniques are essentially the opposite of each other--in the Deer Mom painting you have a shape laid down on a canvas and then painted over, and the shape is removed at the end to show the shape in relief.  In the Color Blind painting you have a design or shape laid down on the canvas and then painted over and around and left on the painting as a mixed media.  I love both of these ideas.

I'm so inspired by this! I have been looking for something to put over my fireplace mantel in the living room, and I think I am going to create something along these lines.  I have a 48 x 48 canvas out in the garage just waiting for paint.  Now if I can just find a few hours to actually get started.