Red, White, and Blue

Happy 4th of July! I hope you're doing something fun and festive today. If not, that's fine too... because I'm totally just relaxing at home while my husband flies around to who knows where this evening for work. It's not always fun being home alone on a holiday (thank goodness it's not Christmas, although I've been alone then too), but this alone time did give me plenty of time to play around on the internet. Naturally I wasted tons of time online putting together a festive collage featuring some pretty home decor that I can't afford. While the husband's away, the wife shall play.... on the internet.

modern red, white, and blue room

I don't know about you, but I often find myself wanting to change our decor. Now if only I could strike it rich playing the lottery, then maybe I could finally afford some of these expensive pretty things I daydream about... oh, to dream.

Happy 4th of July

Buckets of Organization

A couple years ago I shared the storage problems of our last apartment kitchen. It had very little cabinet storage, but we came up with an affordable and functional solution for our tiny kitchen. Thankfully our current apartment has plenty of kitchen storage, so that's not the problem this time. The office area, on the other hand, leaves a little to be desired in the storage department.

We tucked the desk into a nook near our balcony, and we realized there are very few places to hide all of our my crap computer desk necessities. If there's one thing that drives me crazy, it's having all our little odds and ends out for everyone to see. Call me modest, but I like leaving the inner workings of our office space to our guests' imaginations. Nobody needs to see that stuff!

Our computer desk does have a small drawer for hiding things. It's perfect for things like bills, pens, a couple of cords, and notepads. However, that drawer isn't large enough to store away all the pens, pencils, highlighters, and scissors I've managed to accumulate over the years. I even threw away handfuls of old pens and pencils when we moved! How these little collections manage to grow so large is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with my hoarding tendencies?

Apartment living has its challenges, and we're no strangers to having limited storage. Enter Ikea fintorp rails, hooks, and buckets. Those nifty little buggers create storage in the least likely of places. They don't look too bad doing it either. We hung one rail with three galvanized buckets, and that gave us plenty of places to store the little odds and ends that won't fit in the computer drawer.

Ikea sells the fintorp rail and accessories as a kitchen storage item, but nothing says you can't use those items in your office. I'm even thinking of using a couple in our guest closet to hold some of my craft materials. They have no limits, those fintorp rails. Use them anywhere.

We still have a little work to do before the office area is completely organized. It's a good start though. There's a reason I didn't show you the floor to the right of our desk. I have a basket down there, and it's full of picture albums, coupons, and spray paint. No one ever said it's perfect in here. We're a work in progress.

How do you solve your storage problems?

Living Room Mood Boards

One fun thing about moving is having a new space to decorate, and that usually inspires me to change things up a bit. New year, new apartment, new decor... why not? We all know that moving itself isn't very much fun, so you might as well look at the bright side. Use your new space as a clean slate. Or just switch things up in your current space.

Lately I've had my eye on just about everything from West Elm. Their products have such gorgeous textures and patterns. The window coverings are exactly what I've been looking for, and the furniture is just the right amount of modern. Not to mention, quite a few of their pieces have a nice little rustic touch that fits into both mine and my husband's tastes, and that's a feat in itself. Without further ado, here is my living room mood board.

tali printed window panel | bliss down-filled sofa | oasis flatweave rug | rustic storage coffee table 

mirror gallery frames  |  bubbles ceramic side table  |  casablanca pillow cover

Obviously we can't afford all these things from West Elm, but I did learn a few things from putting together this mood board. I am obviously on a gray (or greige) kick, and I really love pieces that have some natural wood colors. Luckily my husband liked many of the items I chose, so agreeing on home decor and style isn't too big a chore.

The fun thing about making a mood board is it gets ideas flowing, and it helps you realize trends in your taste. You start noticing repeat colors (or lack of color in our case) and styles. If I keep these images in mind while shopping, I just might come across a similar, and more affordable, piece somewhere else. As much as I love West Elm, I definitely don't have the money to furnish our entire place with their stuff. A girl can dream though. If that coffee table didn't have a $699 price tag, it would be mine. *sigh*

Do you like making mood boards for inspiration?

Nate Berkus at Target

Target released a collection of home decor items by Nate Berkus back in late October, and I had no idea until just a few days ago when I was grocery shopping at Target. I usually miss big releases and new collections at stores like it's my job. I'm not really one to keep up with news and follow fashion trends by the day. I really like Nate Berkus (and not just because he shares a first name with my husband). He always seems to have a smile on his face, and his designs are within reach. What's not to like about that?

The Nate Berkus line of items at Target appears very on trend and looks like it has quite a few quality pieces. I love the color story he went with, and I can picture plenty of his pieces in our place.

... here are a few of my favorite items ...

Have you seen the Nate Berkus line at Target?
what are your favorite pieces

Yellow and Blue Bedroom

Last week while spending some time on Pinterest {someone *cough this girl cough* has a slight addiction} I came across this chevron patterned duvet cover from West Elm. Let's just say that it really got my creative juices flowing. I love the idea of adding a fun pattern and a bit of punchy color to our bedroom.

The light brown and blue bedding we currently have in our bedroom just doesn't excite me anymore. If we get this chevron duvet cover, I would add some printed colorful pillows like these, a colorful throw, and maybe even this pillow .

Maybe the Florida sunshine is rubbing off on me a bit?

I created this collage as inspiration...

... and our current bedding...

Brown and blue... not exciting.

Change is in the  air  throw pillows & chevron duvet.

I see some room updates in the near future.

{ Do you have any favorite colors

for use in your own bedroom? }

Blue Kind of Mood

It's no secret that blue is most likely my

very favorite color in the whole wide world.

{ More specifically turquoise and any shade of it. }

Now that you have seen photos of our updated office/spare bedroom,

it will be no surprise at all how much I love being surrounded by lovely shades of blue.

I even went so far as to find the perfect shade of turquoise for my finger nails.

Many bloggers have raved about a nail polish called For Audrey by China Glaze.
It looked amazing in photos I had seen on quite a few blogs,
so of course I needed to give it a try for myself.

nail polish by China Glaze | For Audrey

I cannot wait to see how this
beautiful bottle of polish looks on my nails!

Apartment-Friendly Room Updates & A Drawing

As I mentioned last week, browsing the endless inspiring images on Pinterest inspired me to cook some new foods and also to update our office/guest room.

Here's one office space that I fell for on Pinterest...

not to mention we have the same bookcase, and this gave me
the motivation I needed to turn it on its side.

Source: livecreatingyourself.com via Ashley on Pinterest

Last summer you may have read about how I decorated our second bedroom/office in our apartment. Generic vanilla walls and bad carpet, which are fairly typical of apartment living, do not always make for very inspiring spaces. Even after giving quite a bit of though to that room, it still didn't seem right. It wasn't as functional or inspiring as I was hoping it would be.

{you can see some office before and after photos here }

We really need this very room in our apartment to do doubly duty, because it needs to serve as both an office/workspace and a guest room. There is no permanent bed in the room, only air mattresses used on demand (which isn't very often). Our rather small space needed some furniture re-arranging and some cosmetic updates to make it more functional as an office and as a bedroom, so that's exactly what we did last week.

{ Who says my architecture degree isn't being used?!
I did some good old fashioned hand drawing for this here blog post!
Yes... I even drew everything to scale. }

Notice the light blue rectangles in the drawing above: after moving our furniture
we gained some very valuable floor space for our guests' air mattress beds.


1: Our desk and chair stayed in the same place, but now our Ikea bookshelf is to the left.
We can still look out the only window to the right of the desk.
2: We turned our Ikea Expedit bookshelf horizontal. Our printer is no longer on the floor (:
Having the shelving horizontal allowed us to use the top for storage.
3: We put the bookshelf in the entrance to the room, that really helped open up the floor.
Plus it looks pretty from the hallway now.
4: There ended up being plenty of room for my craft folding table and chair.
I already covered the entire table in paper, scissors, and architecture supplies. Woohoo!

Who knew that moving some furniture and adding a 5 foot x 2.5 foot folding table would make the room seem incredibly bigger?! Note that we added a folding table (not a stationary table), because it can be cleared off and stored in our closet when we need to make room for air mattresses.

Now that's what I call function.
You have to get a little creative and make good use of space
when you live in smaller spaces like apartments.


{ Did you read this blog post about how I
made the most of our postage stamp sized pantry? }

Have you done any DIY projects
that made the most of small spaces?

Utah {not California} Dreaming

Move over California.

The Mamas & The Papas may have sang a song about California dreamin, but not everyone dreams about you. The 2012 HGTV Dream Home has got this girl dreaming about the beautiful state of Utah. Yeah. You heard me. Utah!

Earlier this year my husband and I drove across a large chunk of Utah.

{you can read about our little road trip here}

The Utah landscapes were so beautiful it sometimes had me speechless. It seemed like every turn of the road revealed to us a new breathtaking scenery. Needless to say, we think Utah is gorgeous. The beautiful state is also home to one of my father's very favorite places, Arches National Park. For a few years he made yearly trips to Moab, Utah for mountain biking. Utah's natural beauty alone is enough to draw you into it's realm.

If you haven't been to Utah before, I hope you get to see it!

Anyhow. Utah is beautiful, and I would probably survive if we won the 2012 HGTV Dream Home in Midway, Utah. It wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to us. I mean moving is sort of a pain in the you know what, but we could most likely manage a move to Utah. The move from Colorado to Florida didn't kill us. With that being said I'm pretty sure I may die of shock if we won the 2012 Dream Home. I entered every day to win the house from last year. Maybe God had better plans in store for us though... aka the 2012 Dream Home in Utah! Of course.

Tomorrow HGTV should be revealing more photos of the 2012 Dream Home.

You'll know where to find me tomorrow. Right here in front of this computer screen.

{ mine, not yours. that would be weird if tomorrow you found me

on your computer looking at interior images of the dream home. no? }

Tonight I'll be Utah dreaming!

Home Sweet Seaside-Inspired Home

It's no surprise that I love anything inspired by the sea. You can't go very far, actually you can't go one step, in our apartment without seeing something that suggests you're on a beach or a boat. I think only a coastal-inspired soundtrack, filled with seagulls and waves crashing, would complete the experience. Either that or we could move into a house on the beach. Now that would be the day.

Until we buy and move into our perfect beach-side getaway, I'll continue decorating our place with items that make us feel almost like we're on a beach vacation while sitting on the sofa. Nautical looking lanterns, sea-inspired artwork, and seashells collected over the years take their places on our tables, shelves, and walls.

1. I found the starfish, glass jar, and cork stopper at Patina antique store in Denver. Since we have access to the beach now, I'm hoping to find some starfish myself. What better way, except maybe having an aquarium, to bring the sea to your home than by sharing these lovely little marine creatures?

2. I love filling jars and candle holders with sand and seashells. If you can't spend every waking moment on the beach, then bring the beach to you.

3. Even our bathroom has a sea glass inspired palette.

4. The lanterns on our dining room table sort of make it feel like we're dining seaside. Behind our table you'll find a piece of artwork featuring some delicious looking seafood. Since we can't afford lobster and crab, we might as well look at it while we eat chicken and rice, right?! ;)

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Recently I've pinned a few inspiring images
to my Pinterest boards.

You can see my love for sea inspired colors come to life in these images.

Source: blog.alicelanehome.com via Ashley on Pinterest

Source: designlectures.com via Ashley on Pinterest

I look forward to having a house
that we can make our own some day.

Until then, I'll keep pinning inspiring ideas!

My Sanctuary and Some Pinterest Inspiration

In the past few days, we made some minor changes to our office. Both of our diplomas now hang on the wall next to the desk, and we relocated the router to decrease the messy pile of cords at our feet. There's still some work to do, but this room is coming along nicely. It's definitely my new favorite room!

{ the bedroom is pretty cozy too, but I spend more time in the office }

 

Some day we'll have a house where we can paint walls and really make the space our own, but until then the office will do! I'll just continue pinning inspiring images to my Pinterest boards so that the creative juices keep flowing. Watching every episode of 'Secrets from a Stylist' doesn't hurt either. I love Emily Henderson's style, and she always tackles each space with such enthusiasm and excitement. When we finally do get to buy a house, I'll be armed with plenty of inspiration and creative ideas!

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Latest Pinterest Loves:

Source: stylebyemilyhenderson.com via Ashley on Pinterest

Source: stylebyemilyhenderson.com via Ashley on Pinterest

Source: elledecor.com via Ashley on Pinterest

Oh Pinterest, you never cease to help me gather my thoughts and ideas.
Thank you!

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One more more thing. Have you read about this Pinterest challenge that Young House Love is hosting with a few other fellow bloggers?! It almost makes me want to go all DIY crazy on our tiny apartment.

I already used Pinterest as 'pinspiration' (as they're calling it over on YHL) for my DIY jewelry organizers. { which you can read about HERE. } Who knows what might happen with a little more browsing the internet. I just might find the inspiration I need to build us a life-size house out of marshmallows or something!

Office Before and After

Remember my posts from a week or two ago?

[ you can read them here and also here. ]

I really hate to keep you waiting, so I am getting straight to the good stuff.

(a.k.a. the pictures)

Our office/guest-room has really come a long way
since I started this little project.

Here are some 'before' photos for proof of the changes:

We have tons of stuff!

There were few places to put all of that stuff.

We needed organization badly.

Piles of things invaded our space.

We threw some things out, and we stored others.

I had big ideas for this mixed assortment of picture frames.

Who has this many frames, anyway?!

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I hope you enjoy our sea-inspired room!

It's feeling much more like home, and the sea inspired touches make me feel relaxed.
It's nice to wind down and spend a little time in our office.
Come and visit now! This will be your guest room. (:

I just love the Expedit shelves we bought at Ikea!

All of the boxes and baskets that fit the bookshelf provide tons of much needed storage.

1)  I put my collection of Coastal Living magazines into these fun

navy and white magazine boxes from Ikea.

{maybe I got my nautical outfit inspiration from these boxes?! }

2)  This stack of books, in varying shades of blue, livens up the dark blue boxes

on the shelves around them. I placed a Crate and Barrel vase full of seashells,

that I gathered during our honeymoon, on top of the books to 'weigh them down'.

3)  This pretty blue glass bottle came from Patina antique store in Denver.

A blue and white coral frame from Target is the perfect home

for a photo, of a cruiser bicycle, taken during a trip to Mackinac Island.

Our bookshelf no longer has piles of things in front of it,
and I added a few things on top too.

1)  The collection of frames on top of the bookshelf

mimics the colors of our desk and office chair.

2)  I recently purchased this nautical looking Scentsy warmer from a friend of mine.

The rope detail reminds me of being on a boat, and the beach-y smelling waxes

make this room smell amazing!

3)  While visiting Coronado Island, I picked up a hand painted post card

of the Hotel del Coronado. I would love to stay there some day, but until then

this framed post card will have to do.

Check back tomorrow for photos

of the gallery wall!

Office Update & Gallery Wall Love

Alright, blog friends. I know that last week I promised an update on how the office/guest-room was moving along. You saw my sea-inspired palette, and you saw the new shelving that we picked out for the space too. Unfortunately, the room is not nearly as far along as I had hoped.

There have been a few new additions to the room though,

so I will share that progress with you now!

 

Both the chair and desk are new to this room since I last blogged about our office/guest-room. I'm loving the crisp white desk, and our Henriksdal chair from Ikea is perfectly at home with it's linen cover and birch legs. Now all we need is a water view and maybe even some fog rolling in off of the water. That would be my ideal office space.

Aside from the desk and chair, I also put my collection of Coastal Living magazines in their place. {Don't worry. I didn't tell them where they could go; I just placed them neatly in their Ikea magazine boxes} I also re-purposed some things, like that vase filled with seashells from our honeymoon. Slowly but surely, things are coming together in this room.

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Even with the addition of some new furniture, there is still one big empty wall next to our shelving unit that could use some serious help. By help, I mean that it can use some space filler. The first thing that came to mind was to create a gallery wall. I am in love with gallery walls!

We have a crazy assortment of frames, so I'm most likely going to do some painting in order to tone things down a bit. I don't want the mixed colors of the frames to become the focal point in this room... or do I? Either way, I think they could use some paint and pretty new colors. This is really exciting, because we've never had a gallery wall before. (:

Here are a few inspiration images that

I 'pinned' to my Pinterest boards:

Source: theletteredcottage.net via Ashley on Pinterest

Source: potterybarn.com via Ashley on Pinterest

I love the mixed colors and sizes of frames in the second image.

What do you think? All one color...
or frames with a mixture of colors?

Sea the Potential: Our Office/Guest-room

Before moving to Florida, my husband and I never lived in anything bigger than a one bedroom apartment together. We're pretty happy with the "spare room" in our current apartment and the extra space that comes along with it. Having more than one bedroom is reason enough for celebration alone! Sadly, though, our first office/den/guest-room is kind of, sort of a mess. (See evidence below).

Obviously, at the moment, our office/guest-room looks like nothing more than a place to discard things that have no place. However, I think that with a miracle some more creative storage ideas, the floor will be clear sometime next year in no time. Seriously though, this will eventually be a room for relaxing and resting.

Our extra room will also be the place where I blog, scrapbook, and whatever else I feel like I wanna do. Gosh! (Sorry, now and then a little Napoleon Dynamite slips out). I know that our office/guest-room looks like a disaster area now, but I promise it will look much better once the new office desk arrives and things get put away in boxes and baskets in the shelving unit. Promise!

My major inspiration for this room is the sea. Honestly, growing up on a lake I've always loved the water, and if the color blue were any more soothing I'd be drooling right now. Now that my husband and I live in Florida, it seemed an obvious choice like he even had a choice to deck out our office in sea-inspired things. Heck, I may even print some photos I've taken recently and slap those up on the walls too. If you're a guest at our place, I hope you feel "at home on the beach" in our sea-inspired room.

I know it's hard to sea the potential of our office/guest-room at the moment, but I swear it will be a welcoming and organized room eventually. Try not to fret. {It's our bedroom closet that scares me the most}. Hopefully the desk I ordered arrives soon, and then I can put the pieces of the puzzle together. I can't wait to share our guest-room with you all once it's more organized! If you're going to visit us in Florida, you'll have a place to relax soon enough.

What's the inspiration for your favorite room?

Kitchen Problems... and Solutions

Last Friday I promised some photos of our Ikea purchases in action. We bought some Ikea items for a few different rooms in our apartment. However, today I'm going to focus only on our tiny kitchen. I say "tiny" because our current kitchen quite possibly has one fourth the storage that our last two kitchens did, and that's being generous.

Our current kitchen has me dealing with one of those you-don't-know-what-you've-got-til-it's-gone moments. The last two apartments that we lived in had kitchen islands. How I wish we had a kitchen island right now! Lack of kitchen storage forced us to put some dishes into our storage closet, and I realized that we would need a shoe horn in order to put everything else away in our tiny kitchen. Thank goodness there was a little extra room in the pantry for storing some things.

Our major problem is that we have lots of kitchen items and not enough places to store them. Isn't that a fairly typical problem with apartment living?

I stored most of our pots/pans in our only lower cabinet. Yes, we only have one lower cabinet. The architect of this apartment (or possibly interior designer) should be spanked for that. Seriously. My guess is that the person who designed this kitchen has never even set foot in a kitchen. If they had, we might have two lower base cabinets. Don't get too excited!

The only place for some creative storage seemed to be inside of our kitchen pantry. I saw a bare expanse of wall, and a light bulb went off inside my head. My initial idea was to install some hooks and hang the pots and pans, but then we spent an evening at Ikea and everything changed! My husband actually spotted these Fintorp rails and it was love at first sight. I grabbed the coordinating hooks and off we went into the sunset into kitchen organizing heaven.

After a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears elbow grease, we had ourselves some extra kitchen storage. No more pots and pans on the ground inside of our pantry! It's really fun solving storage dilemmas with a little bit of creativity. (Did I really just say that? Nerd!) The designer in me loves seeing every bit of space utilized, so going vertical with storage seems like such a simple, but not often used, solution for our storage issues. We bought some extra hooks just in case I found some other things to hang from our new rails.

So far I'm really liking our new kitchen storage solution. Who needs base cabinets when you can install railings inside of the pantry?! Yeah. Score one for the small kitchen. Even the Swiffer wet/dry mop found a new home. Not to mention our coffee making funnels and a couple of random utensils found a new place to hang (pun intended) too.

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Maybe some day I'll be brave enough

to tackle this part of the pantry:

For now, though, I'll enjoy our

new and improved kitchen storage! (:

My First Ikea Experience

Just this past Sunday, I forced my husband asked my husband nicely if he would "pretty please" go with me to the Ikea in Tampa. First of all, let me tell you that I had never been to an Ikea before this past Sunday. I had heard so much raving about Ikea that I'd been dying to go there myself! I like to call this my first "experience" with Ikea, because after spending time at Ikea I know it's truly an experience and not just a measly visit.

Those darn Swedes have designed every moment of your Ikea experience, from the escalator at the entrance to the path you follow through the store. The escalator takes you to the showroom where you can "test drive" everything, from shelving units and desks to sofas and kitchen cabinets. After winding your way through the showroom, you head downstairs in a giant elevator to locate the goods that you "test drove" just upstairs. You view things, test them, find them, and then buy them. Everyone wins. I think?

Our main purpose for spending time at Ikea was to find a shelving unit for our office/den, but we also managed to pick up some other "organizational helpers" along the way. I blame the winding path through Ikea's showroom for making me lose my focus. Either way, we did get the shelving we were looking for, however, we did bring home some other lovelies too. Oops.

After browsing every square inch of Ikea the showroom and warehouse area, we brought home some goodies including the Expedit shelving unit, a couple of very handy Fintorp rails and hooks, and some other assorted things like boxes, baskets, and a closet organizer. I'm going to justify this collection of items from Ikea by saying that the prices are really affordable. You really do get a lot for your money, but do beware of things adding up quickly since you'll probably "need" many of the things that you see.

You can find just about everything under the sun at Ikea. Seriously. Everything. Be prepared to spend some time at Ikea, because it's not one of those stores that you just quickly run into for something. The size of Ikea alone can overwhelm you. Not to mention, the winding path through beautifully designed spaces can be a bit distracting. (As you can see from two pictures above). Take your time and enjoy the "Ikea experience". They even have a restaurant/cafe just in case you get hungry while browsing.

The incredibly interesting design of almost everything affected me the most during my Ikea experience. I couldn't help but feel inspired by so many out-of-the-box solutions for organizational and small space issues, and that is something I can appreciate since we live in, what I think is, a relatively small apartment. All in all, my first Ikea experience was a good one. (:

What do you think about Ikea?

Love it... or hate it?

* Join me on Monday

and see how we're using the items

that we purchased at Ikea! (: