Happy Friday!

Looking forward to a great weekend! We have friends coming in from Chicago today and have a jammed backed weekend. Tomorrow we are hitting the beach with this 90 degree weather.

Don't forget to pick-up these beautiful Peonies at Trader Joe's, it will brighten up your day!

Stay safe and have a great weekend!

Pillow talk

I am infatuated with pillows at the moment. Maybe because I can't wait for summer so I can lounge outside on my patio furniture surrounded with beautiful comfy pillows. There are so many great pillows to choose from at the moment. Wanted to share my favorites and I'm hoping to add some of these to our home collection real soon!

MY FAVORITE!!!!!

Gold Class

The four pillows above are from Caitlin Wilson Textiles. She really has an eye for color. Just looking at her pillows brings a smile to my face, can't imagine how happy I would be if I were surrounded by them. I may have to save up for a few of these luxuries!

The two pillow below are from Joss & Main. They ALWAYS have something I can't live without!

Dandelion Indoor/Outdoor 

Pillows below may be purchased at Pottery Barn. 

I can picture myself laying on a hammock on a breezy summer night, with these pillows surrounding me. AHHHH!!

This blue one would be a beautiful addition to my bed.

Blue is my favorite color!

If you ever have been to our home, you can clearly see that blue is my favorite color. How can you not love blue, it's the color that reminds me of the beach, laying on a towel looking into the crystal clear ocean, holding a cocktail in your hand. True serenity! So I decided to add some more blue to our home and I'm so happy with the end results.

I have never stenciled before and I thought how difficult could it be.....well it was a lot tougher than I thought.  It wasn't the stenciling that was tough, but the wall I decided to tackle.  It's a 20' foot wall and well, Im 5'2 and so it became a challenge. Thank goodness for my hubs!!! This was a project I was going to do by myself. Nope!  It turned out he did most of the work and I'm so thankful for his help!

First, I purchased our Birch Forest stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. I have seen it on other blogs and fell in love with the design and feel of it - so why not!

Before. 

Now it was time to primer the wall....

Half way there.

Stenciling begins....... The truth is the first time we tried the stencil it looked horrible!!  I was mortified and so sad, but went on-line and saw that someone recommended adding adhesive to the back of the stencil as it would stick to the wall then you could peel it off. So we headed over to Home Depot and bought the 3M adhesive and sprayed away! It worked!! Made things quite sticky, but it made the stencil much more clear and sharp.  

This was a longgggg project because you are constantly spraying adhesive, measuring the stencil to the one you already painted on the wall, painting, removing the stencil and holding a hair dyer to the wall so it dries quicker. In all, it took us about 10 hours to complete the wall. Worth every minute!

Removing the stencil.

My hero!

Something was missing!

Taa-Daa!

Adding the wood mirror made it complete. I thought the wood went hand-in-hand with the forest theme. I think it looks pretty fabulous! The blue I used was from Dunn-Edwards - Rainy Lake. I also use this blue in our family room (Family-Room Makeover). It goes great in our stairway.

Office Inspiration

Sometimes you just need a beautiful quiet place to call your own. I am itching to change things around yet again at my house. I currently have our "office space" in the kids playroom. Thought it was a good idea a few months ago, but now after seeing all these gorgeous spaces I'm thinking I need my own space! It gets a little loud and overwhelming when you have munchkins running around and bumping your chair while they laugh and play. 

Number 4 is my favorite, I think it's just so clean and bright! The white desk and chair, with the hint of green and yellow would make anyone feel stressed free! 

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Before and After.....

A few years back we tackled our family room. Converted our tandem garage to living space and added about 150 square feet of extra family room. Here is the before and after......

Before 

The tandem garage

After

Love our built in desk. 

The doors close so you don't even know it's a desk!

Can you tell we LOVE the beach! The room is so tranquil!