Not Allowed

So I've been starting to do some online research on the nursery front. With the little nugget's expected arrival in a mere six months, I've got to get started soon, right? [grin]

Who's surprised?

One fun idea/trend that I see on flickr, Project Nursery, and HGTV.com all the time is incorporating a simple wall decal into the design.

I mean, how cute are these?

(both images from projectnursery.com)

Very.

Not surprisingly, there are oodles of designs to choose from. Birds. Flowers. Stars. Sports themes. And on and on. We'd both like the overall nursery "look" to be modern and simple and slightly whimsical. For the decal/wall art, I came up with idea of a dandelion.

It's sweet. I love the little round puff, and the seeds floating away in a graceful little arc. It reminds me somehow of dreams and wishes and and fresh air. I envisioned it very subdued, just giving some extra interest to one of the walls. Something like this, but in white and in a nursery setting:

(photo courtesy of flickr & aijographics.com)

Well then, my friends, I hit a road block. My husband.

You see, he works for a company that sells lawn and garden products. They have a number of different product lines, including grass seed, bird food, insect killer (it probably has a more professional name than that, but I don't know it), dirt (aka "growing media"), and fertilizer. Josh works specifically on the "lawns" team there.

And what, do you think, is the #1 most hated lawn problem?

Um yes. It's weeds.

Like dandelions.

They're particularly troublesome to lawn-loving folks everywhere.

And Josh refuses to include them in the decor of our baby's room.

[Pout.]

My New Office

For this room, Josh gave me the green light to do whatever I wanted.

We don't always agree on colors, but for all other rooms were able to work out compromises.

This one was all me. Josh never would have gone for the orange/aqua combination. But I wanted something bright and cheery and a little off-beat.

My biggest need, however, was storage. Since I work from home, I have a lot of work-related equipment and supplies. I'm also into paper crafts (scrapbooking and card making, mostly) and have mountains of supplies and tools related to that hobby as well. I find that I'm much more crafty if my supplies are organized and easily accessible. As in, not stuck in a dark, overflowing closet.

For both work and crafts, ample work space was also pretty important to me.

Enter Ikea. Ikea has great mix-and-match office furniture (not to mention great prices, of course!) However, the limitless possibilities were a bit overwhelming to me. Which shelf? how many tables? Which table legs? How many drawer units? How should I configure everything, based on my room size? Which color?

Enter Ikea Hacker - a fabulous blog for ideas on how to configure Ikea products to fit your needs. I was especially inspired by this post.

So one weekend, two trips to the Ikea in Cincinnati, many hours spent with screwdrivers in-hand, and multiple trips to a local hardware store later, we had it all put together.

On the left - work-y stuff.
On the right - crafty stuff.

The drawers are organized like that, too.

Business on one side.


Party on the other side. Like a mullet for my room.


Let me assure you the office is rarely this neat. I'm a big believer in spreading out (which is where the extra work space comes in handy) and there are usually papers everywhere. For your benefit, I tidied things up before I started snapping pictures.


I was a bit concerned that this would be too tall for the room. But it fit - just barely!

And all of these orange boxes? Also from Ikea. They're great for storing and organizing my assorted stickers, craft magazines, glue pens, ribbons, and envelopes. And at like $4 each, the boxes fit nicely into my price range.


One of the biggest challenges we faced was the fact that the drawer units weren't tall enough to match the table legs. But we eventually figured it out. I bought a 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch piece of wood, asked my neighbor to cut it into 3 inch chunks, and then spray painted each block orange. I attached them to the drawer unit and table top using a combination of wood glue and very long screws. And now that it is all set up I think the effect is kind of fun. Again, it's a little off-beat. And I like that.

I'm not finished with the room yet. It could use some curtains. And a second chair. I have a couple of plan wood pieces in there (one of which didn't make it into any pictures) and I'd like to paint them to match. One of these days I want to get some artwork or something for the wall. Oh, and a matching bed for Riley - of course!

He loves the chocolate brown one you see here, but I've been searching all over the place for an orange one. But orange dog beds are a little difficult to find - no surprises there!

Enter AllModernPet.com. I'd actually browsed around on this website and some of its' sister websites in the past, and I think they have a great selection of attractive pet beds. More than that, they sell all kinds of nice, reasonably priced modern furniture, bedding, artwork, etc. We're pretty interested in a couple of beds (the kind for people, that is) they have for sale, since we're still on a mattress on the floor.

Somehow the folks at All Modern Pet found me and this blog, and asked if I'd review a dog bed (that they'd send me for free!) on this blog. UM YES PLEASE. They even let me pick out any bed I wanted withing a certain (generous) price range. I picked this one (which is orange, of course) and I'm totally excited to receive it in the mail sometime soon. Stay tuned.


Disclaimer:
I know that there are many opinions about bloggers partnering with companies in such a way. This isn't something I plan to do often, but when a great opportunity to get for free something I'd been looking for all summer presented itself, I jumped at the chance. And in my correspondence with this company I made it clear that I'd be up front with you, Internet, about where I got my dog bed. They, of course, agreed. I also plan to be as objective and honest as possible in my review.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

Which wood is the fairest of them all?


Okay, it clearly doesn't have the same ring as the original Snow White line.

New flooring for the main level is the first project we plan to tackle in our new place. We've decided to go with hardwoods throughout, and are trying to decide which we like best. I think we've narrowed it down to these three options:



A. On one hand, we like Brazilian Cherry. We like the rich reddish color, and the varying shades in each plank. When we're looking at wood only, this is our favorite. But our couch is reddish brown. Our wood furniture is reddish brown. Do we go with this, knowing that for the next few years (goodness knows we don't have the cash for new furniture!) it will look like reddish brown threw up in our family room? Plus, we like our reddish brown furniture and look forward to using it for many, many more years.

B. Then there is Maple - stained with a "Cappuccino" color. Less expensive, still pretty, and unique. And there will certainly be a color contrast between this and the rest of our furniture. But if we're doing an entire floor of a house in this, will our home look too dark?

C. Or we could do a Brazilian Teak. It has a lot of the same features as the Cherry - a similar grain, varied colors in the planks, etc. But overall there is much less red involved. But (of course!) this is the most expensive of the three options.