Favorite Pins

Happy Monday! I had a lovely weekend with family and friends, enjoying the amazing weather and St. Patty's Day festivities. Yesterday was especially productive since I finished our new headboard with the help of my dad. I will share pictures of it as soon as he is able to come over and help us hang it up. So exciting - the fabric is so FUN!

Today I want to share a few Pinterest finds. I love that I can keep track of things that I love all in one place.

Love these pigs - cutest salt and pepper shakers I've ever seen. They're available here at Terrain.

These vases are the PERFECT colors for my house. And they're just very "me".

 

I have a Fossil watch from Ted a couple Christmases ago that I love. However, that doesn't mean I don't "need" another one :) My Fossil watch is silver and this adorable Kate Spade one is gold - a color I find myself gravitating towards more and more again lately. Never thought that would happen!

I found this great website called 20x200 that sells high quality art prints. I've been looking for something interesting for our guest bedroom for a while, and this would be so cute and cheerful in there.

These drawer knobs from Anthropologie are too cute! We have a standard black/brown Ikea Hemnes dresser in our bedroom and it would be really fun to upgrade the knobs to something fun like these.

I've got a weakness for cute bags, like most women. This Kate Spade bag is super adorable and would hold a lot of junk ;) I saw it on sale one day and should have talked myself into buying it. Maybe next time.

Anyway, this is just another wish list. I need to stop shopping

Ready for a new chair

After one long night sitting in our old (free) plastic desk chair, I decided it's high time we got something more comfortable. I can't believe Ted hasn't complained about it before! He uses our office a lot more frequently than I do, and for longer periods of time, so I never really noticed how bad our chair is. 

This is our current chair. It's actually pretty cute, but definitely not functional for more than a short time.

Working in the office furniture industry, I'm surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of options for seating. It can be a little mind boggling to say the least. I'm debating about finding something used from our warehouse to get us through another few years, or if I want to bite the bullet and invest in a new chair that will last (hopefully) 10 years or more.

This is a top contender for replacement right now. It's a knockoff of a Herman Miller Eames Aluminum Group chair, for about half the price of the real deal. I love, love, love the look of this chair, but the only problem is that it's still not the most comfortable option. Not sure if it would fly with my hubby for that reason.

These are two options from HON, which is probably the manufacturer we sell the most of (new) at my work. Everything is ordered custom, but we have samples of them in our showroom. I get to try out new chairs at my desk whenever I want! The first chair is called an F3 and the second is a Ceres. I like the mesh back look and Hon's mesh is really soft and comfortable.

I also like this last option a lot. It's also an Eames look alike "pleather" style chair, but it has a lot more padding on the seat and back, which looks pretty comfortable. I'm still in the thinking about it phase, but hopefully I'll figure something out soon.

Presenting...

Our new iMac!!!

Ahhhhhhhhh! I have dreamed of this day for a long, long time. We have been a one laptop household since before we got married, and while I still love my old macbook, it was high time we got something with a bigger screen. I've had my macbook for 5 years now and have NEVER had one single problem with it. Oh, except once when I got a library CD stuck in it - nothing a little googling couldn't fix.

Ted has had several Dell laptops in the past few years that have all bit the dust for various reasons. After seeing the quality and benefits of a Mac, he saw the light and I've officially converted him. Yessss!

One of the perks Ted gets as a medical resident is a book/technology stipend. He had some money left this year and they allowed him to combine it with next years' money to buy a new computer. Since he constantly needs the computer for important things like work and studying, I basically never get to use it at home. 

The next item on my wish list is Adobe Photoshop Elements 10. I learned Photoshop on the full CS version, but sadly that is not going to be in the budget. I think Elements does a really good job of capturing all the basic functions though, and it should serve my purposes well. It's just going to be a matter of learning where all the buttons are again. 

As much as I hate to admit it, I think we are going to need this too. Ted needs a lot of these programs for work and it would be nice to have a better typing program available.

In a nutshell - I'm beyond excited about this computer. I've been a Mac geek for years now and can't wait to see everything this baby can do.

Odds and Ends

I keep a running list of things I want or need for the house, and a new ottoman was one of them. I found one at Target yesterday that ended up coming home with me. 

 We had a small square one, upholstered in some sort of brown microsuede type material, but it was a major dog hair magnet. It was also dirt cheap and not very comfortable due to its lower height. This one is a faux leather and I like that it has a lot of room for storage inside. We keep Murray's dog toys in it and it works quite nicely.

I'm also super excited that I finally broke down and ordered some fabric for our new upholstered headboard. Originally I was thinking about using a striped blue and green pattern that I would have to order through my work, but it was going to be pretty expensive and I still wasn't sure I was in love with it.

This is what I ended up going with. It's Robert Allen Rowlily in Jungle and I found it in the special order section at JoAnn Fabrics. The color is a little off on this image - it's much brighter and fun in real life. This is a big step for me to pick something so loud haha. I usually pick things that are much more safe, but I really wanted to make a statement with the headboard since our bedding is a solid green quilt.

I'm also excited about finally finding curtains for our bedroom. I have looked all over the place for the color/length/price that I needed, even checked out the possibility of making my own. I decided there was no cost savings in doing that, and it actually ended up being more expensive than the ready-made ones I bought. The ones I picked out are from JC Penney and cost around $34.00 per 84" panel x the four that I needed. They include blackout backing so my poor hubby can sleep during the day when he's on the night shift.

I have plans for a little craft project with them that will hopefully help spice up the plain fabric. To be continued...

In other news, my dad came over for a couple hours on Saturday and completed everything on my daddy-do list (since my hubby isn't handy, I'm really lucky to have a dad who is!). On my list was:
- Put on shoe molding in the living room (there was never any there since I bought the house and it has bugged me for two years) - it looks sooo much better.
- New caulk on our bathtub surround and sink
- Fixed a towel bar that was falling down
- Hung up a big picture in the basement (I can do the smaller ones, but this one required toggles and a lot of leveling)
- Hung up my new curtain rods in the bedroom
- Fixed a table fan that has been making a weird rattling noise

That's a lot accomplished in a short morning. I love my dad!
Our next big project will hopefully be the garage - hope he's ready for it :)
 

Catalog Companies

The internet is a great resource for anything and everything you could possibly want to buy. For some reason though, I still love to get a good catalog in the mail. Here are a few that I'm liking right now.

Garnet Hill

 

They have a lot of fun bedding and rugs, etc, as well as accessories and clothing items too.

Chiasso

A lot of their stuff is a little modern for me, but they do have some interesting accessories and furniture pieces.

Sundance

I've had my eye on those state pillows for ages, but the price is a little steep for me. I would love a Michigan one someday. I also love that quilt. If I was a little more ambitious (or a more proficient seamstress!) I would try to make one of my own in a similar style.

West Elm

It's no secret that I loooooove West Elm. If I could pick one place to have a shopping spree, they would definitely be in the top running. They have a great mix of retro/contemporary, ethnic influences, and natural materials that I love. I really wish we had a store in my area, but that would probably just be trouble.

Boden

Boden has some really unique stuff. They are a British based company and seem to have a totally different stye than most of what you see in the US. I absolutely love that yellow trench coat, but sadly it's out of stock. 

There are tons of other companies out there, but these seem to catch my eye the most lately. Nothing beats a good mail day, when my box is stuffed with new, fun stuff.

Anthro Finds

We recently got a new Anthropologie store in my area and it's become one of my favorite places to be inspired. I know it's been around forever, and I've admired things on their website for years, but I can now finally understand and appreciate why people like it so much.


Because they have COOL stuff.

I bought both of these shirts today. Their clothes are definitely on the expensive side, but I really liked these and I've been trying to branch out style-wise from what I normally buy. I just donated a bunch of my old summer stuff to Goodwill (some of it was probably 8-10 years old!), so I need to start replenishing my wardrobe. With things that I didn't own in high school or my freshman year of college.

I also bought this candle. They had it burning in the store and I couldn't resist. It's seriously the best smelling candle I think I've ever smelled. Can't wait to use it at home and the jar is adorable too.

Something I didn't buy, but want to very, very much is this perfume. It wasn't in the budget today, but I'll be saving my pennies for it. I put on a spritz from the tester in the store and can't stop smelling myself. I don't usually like perfume that much, but this one smells heavenly and it doesn't hurt that the packaging is cute too.

I looked at this magazine and thought it was full of very interesting stuff, but the $12.00 price tag made me put it down. I wandered over to the sale area and found an issue from last fall that was marked down to $3.99 - perfect. I bought it and am excited to start reading it tonight. 

I also found this book and put it on my Amazon wishlist. I keep a running list of books I either want to buy (if the price is right), or ones that I'd like to check out at the library. This one would probably be a good library one to start with and if I like it enough, I'll try to find a good deal online somewhere.

These two vases were super cute. They went on my mental list of possible things to buy. I like to think about my home decor purchases for a while before I buy though.

I LOVE these curtains. Like really love. What I don't love is the $128.00 apiece price tag x 4 panels that I would need for our bedroom. So I'm not going to buy them. I'm going to make them! I ordered pre-made curtain panels from JC Penney today (with a blackout liner) for a much more respectable $34.00 per panel. I'm planning to buy a stencil or something to re-create a similar pattern to these with fabric paint and hopefully it will all work out.


So I could go on and on. I'm really loving Anthro right now, but I need to stay away for a while I think. Yikes!

OCD

I tend to get focused on something and become borderline obsessive about it. A few years back, when I worked part time at a scrapbook store, that was my hobby and passion with my free time. I studied up on all the new products coming out and loved looking through idea books and online galleries. I could recognize the manufacturer of almost any product based on the style, and memorized pricing for hundreds of things because we didn't use a computerized system at the store where I worked. 

I made this shadowbox in 2009 using a bunch of random scrapbook supplies.

Somehow I fell out of that world when I quit my job there. Maybe because I wasn't confronted with cool new papers and things everyday anymore, or because I was too busy working my real full time job (I worked 2 jobs for about a year and it became too much for me). 

Anyway, I still love the idea of scrapbooking and hope to get back into it someday - probably once I have kids, but it's not my hobby anymore. Now I'm too consumed with furniture and the design world. 

I am a magazineholic. If that's a word. I love, love, love any and all design magazines (and fashion related ones, and other stuff too). That used to be my main source for inspiration, but now I love the internet and blogs/Pinterest too.

Here's a shot of my Pinterest which can also be accessed by the button on the right of the blog. This has become my newest obsession. There has always been such a huge wealth of information on the internet and I never had a good way to keep track of it before. Now it's so easy to categorize things that I want to remember and not have to write it down. I have a running list of things I want or need for myself, the house, recipes I want to try, crafts and just plain old things I find interesting. 

Lately, I've started to become a lot more interested in clothes and shoes, etc. I always had an appreciation for them before too, but as I get older and farther away from my college days, I'm realizing that my wardrobe could use some serious help. I wish I had the money to just go out and buy whatever I want, whenever I want, but I can't afford to do that. I also want to invest in things that will last me a long time and buy less cheap stuff that ends up falling apart after a few washes. 

One thing I've found really helpful are these Polyvore ensembles that people can upload and later get pinned on Pinterest. I'm not always the best at planning outfits, so these really help me when I'm shopping to stick to a goal to find certain items. I love the color combo of this and actually own that exact nail polish, and a similar cardigan. I have a shopping list to look for similar dark trouser style jeans, a scarf in a berry shade, and I hope to find a similar coat, since I don't currently have a nice dress coat in that length or weight.

Here's another example of something I saw and liked on Pinterest. I bought this Boden dress when I saw it go on clearance, and still have my eye out for a cute colored belt to go with it.

I've had my eye on a necklace like this one for a while now. I pinned it hoping to drop a hint to my hubby that it would make a good birthday present this year. 

So anyway, there you have my latest obsessions. They can change at a moment's notice, but while I'm interested, they have my full attention.