{ love me some color }

I don't care about resale value.

At least right now, anyway.  We don't have any intentions to move anytime soon, so why should I worry about what future owners will think of my home?  Since we are the ones living here for the next foreseeable future, we paint and decorate for US.  We don't worry about what others will think of it.  If/when the time comes that we decide to sell, if we need to, we can always slap some paint around. 

But for now, our home is for us.  :)

I had always wanted a bright, fun bathroom.  I feel like bathrooms are one of the rooms in the house where you can really go crazy with color and fun.  It took some convincing (2 years!) to get my husband to agree, but, I was finally successful, and even better, he is happy with the results too!

Here is our guest/kid bathroom before:

(please ignore the inspiration studio lettering on all the photos, apparently I deleted my original pics (ah!), so this is all I had to work with)

Nice STARK white walls...

Don't you LOVE how the shower curtain blends right into the wall? :)

I had known what I wanted to do in here for a long time.  A long looooong time.  Once the hubsters was on board (okay, okay, even before he was completely on board...), I got all gung-ho over this project.
I may or may not have started experimenting with paint colors all over the wall while he was at school one day.  Obviously when he came home and saw the wall all splotched up like that, we couldn't just leave it.  People see this room, for crying out loud!  So, clearly, we had to paint it.  That night.  :) (Ah, I just love that man! He puts up with so much! :)

Just a few hours later, we had taken the blindingly-white, boring-beyond-belief bathroom to this little beauty:

Ack!  Could you just die?  I LOVE it!

Since I just kinda sprung this project on my husbad, we were trying to keep it at low-cost as possible.  So we took the towel rod, hand-towel holder, and toilet paper roll holder, light fixture, and some accessories all down and spray-painted them a nice sleek black.  Then, using extra paneling from when we did faux board and batten in Taelie-girl's room, we fashioned a quick frame around the mirror and glued it right back onto the mirror.

Hung the same decorations back up.  But with the new wall color, it makes a WORLD of difference!  Look how that shower curtain pops now!  It's hard to tell from my spectacular phone pics, but the green stripes match the rest of the green in the bathroom perfectly!  And, when I couldn't figure out the best way to fix that annoying fun little gap above the shower curtain, I had a sweet suggestion from a fellow blogger to add some trim to the bottom of the curtain and raise the whole thing up.  Genius!  Of course, I have yet to do it, but I can definitely visualize how awesome that will look when I get to it. 

Also, I am 99% sure I am going to paint the ceiling too.  My hubs wasn't convinced that we should, so we agreed to live with it for a little while and see how we felt about it.  Everytime I pass it though, I can't help but think how much better it will look without that obvious contrasting line between the wall and ceiling, so I'm itching to get 'er done! (I am totally a tiny bit nervous about it, although I've seen many others that have done it and it's looked awesome, so I'm trying to be brave. :)

So, once again, the boring before:

and the beautiful after:

What do you think?  Have you gone big and bold with color before and loved it, or do you prefer a neutral palette?  Are you a "go big or go home" kind of decorator, or does the sight of bright purple bathroom leave you shaking your head?  Share your thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

Linking up to these awesome parties:
Thrifty Decor Chick's Before & After Party
It's a Hodge Podge Life's Hodgepodge Friday
Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday
C.R.A.F.T's Making Monday Marvelous
Domestically Speaking's Power of Paint Party


Head on over there and check out these super talented bloggers!

{ thankful it's mine - a place to call HOME }

With so many decor blogs out there, and so many talented and amazing people running them, it's totally sometimes it can get a little overwhelming trying to do so many projects and get your home into a "perfect" state.  It's easy to feel like everyone is so much more talented or has so much more time or money or whatever it is to deck out their home the way you want to.  I'm sure many of us feel like our home is never up to par.  With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I fee; like November was a fitting month to express appreciation for what we DO have.  No matter how big or little our space, or how much (or lack of) money we may have, we can ALL find things we LOVE about our home. 

I feel  so lucky to have a place I can call HOME:

Welcome to the A's home! 

Here at Number 10, we laugh, cry, love, argue, tickle our kids, play fetch with our dog, watch movies, host dinner parties, clean, decorate, refinish furniture, paint, work, study, relax, and most of all, just enjoy being with each other.

Number 10 is many things to me:

* where we brought our children to from the hospital after birth

* where we brought our dog to when we were told we wouldn't be able to have children (take THAT doctors!:) )

* the first space we bought together

* where we curl up on the couch to cuddle for a good chick flick (pretty much the only movies I watch -- my hubs puts up with a LOT!)

* where our daughter learned to crawl and later, took her first steps

* where we get to come back to after a long summer away for my husband's work

* where we spray paint and refinish furniture on our 12x5 foot deck

* a place that (hopefully) says, "classy, with kids welcome here!" :)

* a place just for us

And above all, Number 10 is the place we call HOME.

It doesn't matter if you own, rent, whatever, if you have a place that you feel comfortable in, that you can breathe a sigh of relief when you walk through the door, then you have a place to call home! That one little fact alone makes us very, very lucky. 

What about you? What do you love about your home?   

{ in total awe }

When I saw this transformation, my eyes about bugged out of my head.  No joke.

This kitchen should totally be in a magazine.

Erin from Rare & Beautiful Treasures took this tiny rental kitchen from this:

to this:

 for less than $100!

And you'll never guess how she did it!  You seriously need to head over to her blog to check it out.

I was honestly amazed at her ingenuity.  I don't think I EVER would have thought of it.

Isn't that such a wonderful thing about blogging?  Finding so many new and awesome ideas from all the millions of people out there who are SO much more creative and talented than I am!  I LOVE it!

My favorite part about her new kitchen? 

This:

I adore how she strung up pictures with clothespins! 

Such a fun, easy way to make a bold statement.

Remember this little awkward area in my kitchen?:

(I'm talking about the small weird space between my cabinets and counter next to the fridge.  Sorry, wish I were home to take a better picture!)

Wouldn't a line of clothespin pictures look fabulous there? 

I cannot wait to put some candid ones up! 

Thank you Erin for inspiring me with your gorgeous re-fab!

{ fall wreath obsession }

Um, I love wreaths. 

Like, totally, completely, 100% love them.

and when I found this wreath over at Dream Home, I almost freaked out.

Okay, okay, I totally freaked out.  But how could I not?  I mean, look at this beauty!

 It is simply GORGEOUS!

I LOVE the simplicity of it.  Oh, and those adorable rosettes.  To. Die. For.

When I get back to Utah, I'll be replacing my store-bought wreath (which I do still love):

with a knock-off of Kasia's adorable wreath!

Any other wreaths I should be checking out and swooning over?  Point me in their direction, and I'll gladly come drool over 'em!

{ i had a baby }

Which is why I've been MIA for so long.

That plus moving from Maryland back to Utah to have the baby, then back to Maryland, and now to Pennsylvania for my husband's work equals VERY little time for crafting projects.

Also, it has taken me awhile to get the hang of two kids.  Cause, you know, they outnumber me now.
I feel like I am finally getting there though.  Course, since I'm in Pennsylvania for the next couple weeks, so my projects will be severely limited.  But I'll be here, lurking around. (um...not in the creepy way that that sounds though :))

And while I wait to get started again, I'll be enjoying giving mucho smooches to these two lovebugs.

sorry for the quality...crappy phone pic

Ah! Love those two. 

I will be back shortly with some projects to show you.

Until then, thanks for continuing to inspire me with all your crafty genius.