secrets

i like to watch HGTV.  and i do it a lot.  there are occasionally rooms and ideas that i like....but then a lot that i don't care for.  i still like to watch them but i am always wondering why there isn't a designer with a style that is really inspiring to me.  well i was an avid follower of this season's design star and liked emily from the beginning.  guess what. she WON!!! and i think she may have solved my HGTV conundrum.  i watched her first new show tonight, secrets from a stylist, and was in love with practically everything i saw.  i loved it.  and want to watch the episode at least twice more.  and i am going to try to make my husband watch it with me (ha ha!)

here are some shots from her first show:

photos via 

and some other photos from her portfolio:

love this vintage swiss flag!

photos via

and then two makeovers from a designstar challenge that i really liked: 

glass house challenge

white box challenge

photos via

isn't she great? go to hgtv.com and you can learn more about her and see lots more photos.


ps. while we're on the subject, i also have to add that this season on sarah's house, she renovated an old farmhouse and i saw a lot that i liked there too.  see pictures here.

my life in a construction zone

besides all of the summer road construction that is going on here [that i have no control over] i have voluntarily turned our room into a construction zone as well.  we are finally on the home stretch however, and the ladders, drywall mud, paint buckets, and plastic dropcloths are finally gone.  i have been married just over a  year and my husband and i made the impossible choice......to live in my parents' basement for our last year of school (ha ha).  with graduate school tuition, yada yada, its inevitable.  so we are redoing my 13 year old teenage girl design choices in our room and bathroom.

lately i have been loving the almost all white, monochromatic, light and airy look.  i knew i wanted to brighten up the room but was also thinking about doing some sort of plaster looking treatment on the walls.

here are some of my assorted inspiration pictures for this redo.

via desiretoinspire

i love the arrangement of this room

                          

via designsponge

isn't this a great desk?  it is so pretty and perfect. i just wanted to teleport it into our workspace.

via knack studios

i deviated from the plaster wall treatment idea when i re-found this in my haus file archives.  i thought this texture would add a lot in this room.  i had decided on doing one gray wall, but i was trying to pick a pretty light color.  now that i look at the finished product, though, it looks just about exactly like this wall at knack.

also via a designsponge sneek peek

this is kinda the light, nearly-monochromatic look that i was going for.  however the dog is not something you'd find on our bed :)

and there's lotttsssssss more where that came from.

progress has been made. you will see it soon.