Inspired Room: Cozy Elegance

I adore Maria's dining room from johns journal. Her design mix is everything from an Okinawa dumpster find in a contact paper covered tv stand turned wine rack, an owl picture from Goodwill, chairs form Ballard Designs and a table from Thailand.Such a beautiful mix. The mix of rich warm colors, mirrored details and the white and espresso, the lovely gray walls... works together perfectly. Really though, her entire home is well done, check it out here.

love fresh white hydrangeas in a simple vase

I always love a good bust.

Spray painted overstock chandelier.

The contact paper dumpster tv find, with a wine rack added inside.
Love the various candles and their glass and metallic holders. I'm sure it puts off a lovely glow.

Homefront: Our 1960's Kitchen

I love this table cloth. But really, it's a nice cloth shower curtain I got on major sale. Perfect size, cute colors.

My shabby candleabra that I painted a soft apple green, in one of my first blog posts ever.

I have this changing table my husband painted that housed plants in our former, pretty home and holds extra kitchen dishes and such. We couldn't find a place to put it, so I thought... how about in this here ugly spot? It's the best we could do since we are renting this here house.

Presto-change-o! Now there's more storage, more counter space for a lamp and a catch all bowl and papers.

The top of this cabinet got ruined while painting it, so I lined it with leftover shelf liner. It makes clean up much easier and adds a punch of color.

To hide ugly buills and coupons, I found this letter A at an antique mall. I just put a white cardboard strip under it. and place it on top of everything else to hide the clutter.

Yeah, the fridge got banged up during the move. White spray paint made it look somewhat better. I am fully aware the counter tops are uneven, and a weird yellow color, and that horrid copper tinted tin tiles, improperly used as back splash are a nightmare, but we are stuck with them for now. Though, what Nester did with her renter kitchen back splash was wonderful, we just don't have the resources for that yet.

 The Dreamy Giraffe's Eat Your Veggies Fairy print is trying to hide a poor patch job in the corner.

Keeping an even and neutral color palltte up here just seemed like the best thing for this hodgepodge kitchen.

Here we have it, leading into the playroom. And yay! After a month, our oven was fixed today.

Urban Childlike Design

Holly of decor8 interviewed Jan Eleni, a designer and artist on her inspiration, design, education. The entire interview can be read here.  Jan's online portfolio and information is here. Her work is so free and comfortable. A little happy and eclectic mix of old and new, organic beauty and whimsical, childlike touches.  Click on photos to enlarge.

This piece she created by using scans of children's artwork, and I absolutely adore it. She talks about the process below:

Jan: While I was working on children’s spaces – I wanted to time capsule their moment in art – and I started making these beautiful art frames – a way to archive your child’s art in a modern way. It is a labor of love – a time consuming process – the end result is a grid of hand cut miniature images – a gathering of your child’s artwork. It is amazing if you think of how we can influence the next generation of artists and creative types.