THE QUEEN OF QUIRK

girly room ideas

The girls have been through so much this past month and they miss their friends dearly. So, we're going to be putting a lot of energy into getting them settled in first when we move into our house. Lara and Mia have commented lately on how pretty they think chandeliers are so we're going to find one to put in their room to make it extra girly and sparkly. We're going full-on-glamour for their room and I can't wait!

I want it to be mostly white with a fabulous rug and a few punches of color. 

image courtesy of brocade home

This is a bit too white, but I love this as a starting off point. I am going to help the girls design their own pillows and I want a fabulous Persian rug on the floor of their room. I want something really calm and luxurious for them. 

This is more in line with what I want to do...

The walls will be a pale shade of blush and I'll be hunting for the perfect rug. I want something really worn and faded with that "lived in" look.

They'll all share a room since Norah's almost 4 now. That frees up one bedroom to use as their playroom. We're also planning on building them a reading cave at the bottom of the stairs. We have a huge stairwell that runs the height of the house. In the basement, where it ends, there's an empty spot underneath that would be perfect for a pint-sized reading nook. Colin suggested it because our kids like to hide and Mia, especially, likes to pretend she's a cat and squeezes into the smallest places to get comfortable. My twist on Colin's idea is that we give it a Moroccan theme with a Persian rug, quilted pillows and punched brass lighting. Since it's such a small place it won't be that hard to accomplish, right?

I think they'll love it and it will be one more place that will be truly "theirs".

So many ideas running around in my head right now...

gathering

The ideas are swimming around in my head for our house-to-be. We'll be moving in in 4 weeks and I have some serious planning to do. A lot of our living room furniture is being re-purposed for another room in the house. We lovingly refer to it as the Man Cave. We have a room in the basement that we're going to use as our game room/lego room/air hockey room. Colin will most likely have the big TV down there along with one of our couches and most of the media furniture. That leaves me with a blank slate for our sitting room on the ground floor. I love entertaining so I don't really like having a multi-purpose room. I like a room without a TV and then I like a separate den. I think it makes everything cozier and I'd love to have a wall to use for artwork instead of a black glass box. My new colors are very different from what we had before. I'm moving away from the khaki and jumping into grey.

 

I like unusual colors and I love it when things look a bit "off". I don't like it when things match perfectly. I love that "collected" look. I scoured the web and came up with a few examples to show Colin. He likes a visual. For some reason, he's just not happy if I say, "I wanna redo the living room and now I want it to be grey, orange, green and purple." He'd probably ralph. ;)

Apartment Therapy is a bottomless well of inspiration...

images courtesy of apartment therapy

I even searched for some fun new basic pieces since we'll now have to fill up the living room. We can't afford a new couch, so we'll be getting a new slip cover instead. So happy that IKEA has a grey one now.

la vie pillow, layla pillow, element throw, ektorp slip cover, ikea chair, ikea august bank, rand rug, footstool, floor lamp

It's not perfect by any means and we won't even be able to afford all of these specific pieces, but it's nice to have a little inspiration board and to be able to keep track of your thoughts. My main priority, though, is the girls' room. I've been tossing some ideas around and I'll post those tomorrow. :)

it's been a month? seriously?

I am absolutely floored that it has been a month since my last post. We've had zero time for anything lately. We're still not in our house. We've found one that is perfect but we can't move in til Nov.28th so we are in a furnished apartment til then. The apartment's great but we have to keep it super clean because it's for sale and we have to be ready to show it when asked. Our routine has completely changed. I'm no longer working except for Songbird Ave. We get up at 5:30 instead of 8 a.m. now because the girls have to catch a bus that's 30 minutes away. Then when they get home at night they usually have 1-2 hours of homework each and then we start the whole "make dinner, clean up, get ready for bed" routine that needs to be finished by 7 because the girls have always needed 10-12 hours of sleep per night.

So, the weekends are completely taken up by all the errands we don't get to run during the week. Norah's not in school yet, so we spend our days baking, cleaning and taking long walks around downtown Frankfurt. I feel totally European right now. I don't drive. I walk about 20 minutes to the grocery store every day and only buy what I can carry. I no longer have a huge pantry full of food. We have no parking by our apartment unless we are extremely lucky so we park about 15 minutes away and walk home. Needless to say we don't pile the car with stuff to bring in. :)

The washing machine in our apartment doesn't work so we go once a week to the base to do it all at once. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It's just so...different.

We have none of our stuff either. We packed like absolute morons. We brought no winter clothes, just some light jackets and stuff. We didn't think we were going to be living out of our suitcases for 2 whole months. I was seriously kicking myself when we had to go out and buy winter coats for everyone...that was an expensive mistake. ;)

So right now I feel a bit displaced. I'm not good at being in limbo. We move around a lot so the moving has never really bothered me. I guess it's because we always had our things with us and we had familiar surroundings no matter what house we were in. This time is so different. It's definitely shown us how much we can go without, though. In one way it feels good to pare down and live with less. We don't have so much to tidy up now that we have so little. ;) On the other hand, though, I miss my scrap stuff. I have been itching to make some handmade cards.

I'm also not working so there's that sense of restlessness that's eating away at me. I've been sketching and creating patterns like crazy but I've had no time to play with them in Photoshop. All in good time, I guess.

Gosh, this feels like a total whine fest! 

Wish I could liven this post up with some photos at least but the cords and camera have run away from me this afternoon. I'll have to search for those tonight after I pick up the girls.

On a more upbeat note (and also in line with todays' post's mood) I got a little award the other day. :)

 

I think I've been pretty honest today, huh? It's awarded to those who write from the heart. (Or in my case, a blogger who whines and wants her scrap stuff.) ;) Lien nominated me and now I have to nominate 9 other bloggers. I'm just passing it on to 5. So, here goes.

--paislee press

--kimberly mahr kwan

--jen caputo

--shimelle

--laura alpuche

The next part is to offer up a few honest tidbits about myself. This will be fun, right?

--I have very long toes. Most shoes don't fit me but I can pinch the crap out of your love handles with them if you're not paying attention. 

--I do not like bathrooms. They freak me out and I stand on the sides of my feet so that my points of contact are even smaller. I know. I'm insane.

--I've been battling sever acne for a year now. I hate it and it makes me feel self conscious. Bare Minerals, however, is profiting nicely. 

--I love to sing. I used to sing the National Anthem in high school and at State track meets and basketball games. I always thought I was going to be a singer when I grew up.

Well, that's it for me, folks. I've gotta finish cleaning up the apartment. A woman is coming to look at it today and I need to move some of our junk into the cellar.

I hope everyone is well and happy. Hopefully my next post won't be next month. :)