Brown Bomb

OK.  So this is kind of embarrassing, but I'm gonna share anyway.  I was hoping to have a beautiful, new, white chair that I got a great deal on to show off today.  Instead, I have a brown chair that's being returned and I'm back to square one of my cheap chair hunt. 

First off, here's why I thought I was getting a white chair.

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That is exactly what the listing on the Williams Sonoma website looks like.  NO WHERE does it say that the upholstery is brown or "walnut".  Oh, and when I ordered my chair the sale price was $479, so I was in a pretty big hurry to place the order before such a great deal was gone.

Here's the embarrassing part:  I was so excited to get a chair at almost $1000 off the original price that I didn't even realize that the "walnut" in the description was referring to the fabric.  No warning flags went off, no thoughts, of, "Hmm, that's funny maybe I should call about that and possibly cancel my order."

Please tell me that I'm not crazy and that I had every reason to be completely shocked when a brown chair showed up at my house! 

After a short freak-out session and a chat with customer service (I kept the freak-out separate from the customer service call) I got them to agree to come pick the chair up and give us a full refund.  Whew!

Anyways, I have definitely learned my lesson.  From now on, every online order will be read and scrutinized a million times before I click "place order."

I'm a bit bummed that I didn't get the deal that I thought I was getting.  The chair really is great and very high quality.  It's comfortable and it's the perfect size and style I was looking for, just not the right color.  Now I have to start searching all over again. 

I'll let you know what I come up with!

A Liiiiiittle Bit to the Right

As promised, here's the little bit of rearranging I did in my bedroom.  Nothing big, just some shifting.  The bed used to be in the left corner which left a huge open space on the right side of the room (picture here). 

The last time I posted progress pics of my bedroom Andrea from Decorating Cents asked why my bed wasn't centered.  At first I couldn't remember, and I thought, "Why isn't my bed centered?"  I started poking around my room and I was reminded that the air vents are both right under the windows.  That's why I hadn't bothered to try and center the bed, 'cause I thought that the bedside tables would block he vents. 

Well, I got curious and pushed the bed and night stands to the center.  Turns out the night stands fit without blocking the vents!  (Thanks for the inspiration, Andrea!)

I love the new centered bed/sunburst focal point and that they're the first things you see when you enter the room.  I also think it will be less expensive to fill two small-ish corners instead of one massive expanse that was almost the size of our living room.  

The picture below is a quick break down of what I have left to do.

So I'm still looking at Craigslist everyday an making frequent visits to Home Goods and furniture discount places.  I've got two big ticket items to buy and I'm hoping to find some good deals.  I think it'll be a while before I come across anything at the right price, but when I do, I'll let you know!

Corner Inspiration

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Real Simple did a feature on corner makeovers years ago and I never forgot it, especially that changing corner (swoon).  Well, I did a bit of rearranging in my bedroom and now I have two corners to fill (pre-rearranged bedroom here).  I'll share the rearranging later when I get the master nice and clean.  Our bedroom was severely neglected in the weeks that I didn't feel too hot (I'm proud to say that the rest of our house stayed pretty clean, though). 

One corner will be a little reading nook and the other corner will be a little changing area.  I have a pretty short list of things that I need to buy in order to get these corners finished and have a mostly done bedroom.  I still need a fairly inexpensive, but comfortable chair, a large leaning mirror, and an ottoman.  I haven't figured out the best (cheapest) way to go about acquiring these things.  I may try to make an ottoman (like this one), places like Home Goods usually have large, relatively cheap mirrors, and lately I've been scouring furniture clearance places for a chair. 

There will be lots and lots of looking in my future until I find just the right pieces that are also the right price.

The hunt is on!

Big News

So basically that's why I've been MIA lately.  I was about 10 weeks along at the beginning of December and I thought I was going to make it through my first trimester without any symptoms, but then I just got slammed with nausea, heartburn, and exhaustion.  Anything that wasn't essential to daily life went out the window.  No Christmas tree, no advent calendar with cutesy activities, no baking (definitely no baking), and no decorating or household projects.  Thank goodness Little Man is not even two yet and won't remember the Christmas that Mommy ruined!

I'm still experiencing some sluggishness and food aversions, but now that I'm 14 weeks, I think I can feel them starting to go away and I'm ready to get back into the swing of things! 

How did some of you mamas deal with pregnancy, a small child, and everyday life?  Also, any tips on having an infant and a toddler would be welcome.  I'm so thankful and very excited, but I am kind of nervous about learning how to take care of a newborn and a toddler at the same time.  I'd love to hear what you have to say!

I'll Be Right Back!

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Please excuse my terrible blogging etiquette of just takin' a little break with zero explanation whatsoever.  I've got a really good reason and I'll do some explaining when I start posting again next week.  Until then,  hope y'all had some great holidays you've had a great start to 2012!

Bah Humbug

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I'm being a bit of a Scrooge this year.  I still haven't put our tree up, I haven't made our Christmas cards, my advent calendar is no where near finished, and while I'm done shopping, I'm dreading the wrapping and making a trip to the post office.

I think I spent so much time cleaning and getting organized that I just don't want to make a mess...and Christmas decorations and wrapping paper make a mess!

I'll be spending the rest of today getting over it and getting stuff done!

Have a great Wednesday!

Dead Ringer: HDC Brookefield Table Lamp & JCP Linden Street Balustrade

I love the look of balustrade lamps.  So timeless!

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This one is from HDC and it's $129.

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This one is from JCP and it's $59!

Check out some other high-end versions of this lamp:

1.  Ballard Designs: $219
2.  Layla Grayce:  $196
3.  Anthropologie: $268
4.  Pottery Barn:  $200


Have a great Monday!

A Little Break To Do a Little Celebrating

We've had a lot going on here for the past seven days, so I decided to take a little break.  My husband's family came into town, we had our 5th wedding anniversary, we completed round one of Christmas, and my husband turned the big 3-0!  Little Man and I had cupcakes waiting on him when he got home!

I've been catching my breath for the past day or so and everything is slowly getting back to normal. 

I'll be back on Monday with a regular post!  Y'all have a good weekend!

DIY Mercury Glass....Kind Of....

I'm a bit late with this, but here's my little ornament tutorial that's hardly a tutorial!

Ok, so I started working on ornaments for my advent calendar.  I had planned to try and do some DIY mercury glass based on this little tutorial by Martha.  Well, my "plan" was really just an idea and I hadn't really looked into the cost of that Krylon mirror spray paint or the places that it was available.  Turns out, most people have to get it from Amazon and it's about $11 a can...and it's a small can.  (Some people have been able to find it at Wal-Mart and I've read that it's available at Hobby Lobby, but we don't have one of those).

I had some liquid silver leaf laying around, so I decided that instead of paying $11 and waiting a few days for the mirror paint to get to me (I'm impatient!), I'd try out the liquid leaf to see what happened.  I followed the steps laid out by Martha and put a little water into my clear glass ornament, swished it around, and got all the excess out.  Then I basically did the same thing with the liquid leaf.  I let it sit upside down for a while to get all the drips out and then I just turned it over to let it dry.

The result is definitely not as shiny as the mirror paint, it's more of a gunmetal color, but I kind of like it.  I also have some gold liquid leaf, but the lid had dried to the bottle (dangit!).  Maybe my husband can get it off.  I'm curious to see what the gold looks like.

I might still order a can of the mirror paint just to have on hand 'cause it's so cool, but the liquid leaf is not a bad alternative, plus it's only about $5.  I bet a combination of the two would look great. 

Hope y'all are having a great Friday!

I'll be linking up to:

Advent Inspiration

Can you believe tomorrow is December 1st!?  I'd planned to have a complete, home-made advent calendar by well...tomorrow, but I haven't even started yet.  I've actually had the plan for my calendar in my head since last Christmas.  I have the ornaments, I just need to buy a few more things and get going.  I really want my calendar to be a special tradition for my little man, and since he's still pretty young I think it's OK that we won't really be able to use it this year, but I'd hate for next Christmas to roll around and still not have a calendar.  I think I'm going to work on the ornaments little by little over the next few weeks to get all 25 done.  Hopefully I'll have a little ornament tutorial by tomorrow.

Since I don't have my own calendar yet, I figured I'd post some that I think are pretty inspiring. 

1.  Don't you love those little mittens?!
2.  I like the idea of having a separate little tree for advent ornaments.
3.  Love advent action cards that encourage children to do things for others.
4.  So pretty!
5.  Genius!  Little magnetic containers that you could put on any magnetic board or even on the refrigerator. 

Have a great Wednesday!