A Fun Black & White Playroom

What little kid doesn't dream of a playroom like this?!?  My niece is one lucky little lady to call this playroom hers!  Where she can get lost in a book while curled up on her shag rug under the tepee!  Let her creative juices flow on the hand painted chalkboard wall.  Or dance around in circles as she loves to do on her chic black & white rug!  I know my sister and her family will be creating a lot of memories in this cozy spot of their house!  

My sister's goal for her daughter's play room was to start with a neutral black & white color palette.  From there, she introduced color into the room with artwork, fabric, pillows, and her daughter's artwork!  Anyone can achieve a playroom like this!  It doesn't have to take a lot money.  All of the big pieces are from Ikea, except the tepee which was ordered online at Etsy and the sofa.

What really makes this space work was the planning my sister did ahead of time.  There is absolutely no wasted space.  Each little corner has a purpose -- reading corner, art center, storage for toys, and a place to watch cartoons!

How fun is this DIY mounted deer head made out of paper-mache?!?!

I bought the paper mache deer head at Michael's and it comes as an unfinished brown paper color.  So I spray painted it gold.  

The wood mount was also purchased at Michael's unfinished and then stained brown.  These wood plaques come in lots of different sizes and shapes for projects.  The deer head already came with a little hook on the back so we could easily just hang it on the plaque!  

One of my favorite things in the room! 

Got me thinking about some holiday decorating!!  This is an image of the same paper-mache deer head used for holiday decorating, from Micheal's website.  

Find more pictures and more details about this sweet black & white playroom on my sister's blog including my adorable niece playing in her new room!

JLM Moments

My Favorite Rugs Under $100!!

Here are my favorite rugs under $100!  And some tips on purchasing the correct rug size for your home. 

It's no secret my favorite place to buy rugs is from rugsusa.com!   They have amazing, quality rugs at the BEST prices I have ever found!  (Even compared to Home Goods!)  The rugs generally ship and arrive at your door step within a week of ordering.  And shipping is usually always FREE!  

Currently, they are having a sale on $99 rugs!  Finding a rug of this quality for under $100 is such a steal!  So I am sharing my favorites from their sale with you today.  

Rugs in order from top to bottom, left to right:

Satara Marrakesh Trellis Nickel Rug

Tuscan Lattice Grey Rug

Homespun Medea Chevron Black Rug

Epiphany Trellis EU06 Orange Rug

Radiante Xue Trellis Cotton Titanium Rug

Tuscan Elmer Flatwoven Cocoa Rug

Satara Meera Trellis Nickel Rug

Cenon Confetti Multi Rug

Homespun Trellis HK107 Dark Grey Rug 

If you miss the sale this time, don't worry it will be back soon!  Sign up for their emails and Rugs USA will keep you updated with all of their sales.  They have sales all of the time.  So I would suggest looking through their thousands of rugs online, find the one you like for your home, and wait for that sale to show up again before ordering!  

WHAT SIZE RUG SHOULD I ORDER?!?!

This is always a tough question for people when it comes time to buy rugs!  Here are some tips and good rule of thumb for purchasing and placing rugs in your home! 

A good rule of thumb for a rug under a kitchen table or dining room table is that all four legs of the chair should be on the rug!  Ideally, all four legs should remain on the rug when they are pulled out as I have shown in the first image.  But you may only have the space to have all four legs on the rug when they are pushed under the table, which is still okay.  As shown in the second image.

But if the legs of the chair don't stay on the rug even when they are pushed under the table -- then it is probably TOO SMALL for your space!  As shown in the last image!

All of this depends on the size of your space and the size of your table.  The table shown here is a normal kitchen table size.

Rule of thumb for rug size in a living room?  The front two legs of your sofa or chair should be on the rug!  Even though the rug does cover a lot of your floor space, the larger rug is actually going to make the room feel larger.  The smaller rug, shown on the right, actually tricks your eye into making the space feel smaller.

When in doubt, a larger size rug is always better!  :)

Don't forget!  I can always help with even the smallest projects of just helping purchasing the right rugs for your home!  

(This is NOT a sponsored post, just truly love RUGS USA rugs!  I use their rugs in my own home and almost all of my client's homes!!)

High or Low?

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

I have been doing some major shopping for a client recently!  All of the furnishings and decorating for a Living Room, Master Bedroom, Master Bathroom, Dining Room, Guest Bedroom, and Guest Bath to be exact.  This is a new construction home that is in need of all new furnishings.  So when you are buying this many pieces at one time, it is really crucial to find some good deals and to shop around for the best prices!

Can you guess which one is HIGH and which one is LOW??

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Well technically they are the same, exact piece of furniture, just different finish and color!  Same manufacturer, just sold by two different companies, at two totally different prices!

HIGH

Kittle's

This is the Jofran Dining Room Eli Media Unit from Kittle's Furniture.  I saw this in the store and fell in love with the reclaimed wood look of the cabinet.  It was the perfect size and perfect piece that I was looking for as my client's TV media cabinet.  Only problem was, at $635, it was slightly over our $500 budget for a media cabinet.

LOW

Decor South

This is the Urban Lodge Brown 60" Console from Decor South sold online.  After loving the other one so much, I searched for the same piece online and came across this one!  It is the exact same manufacturer, exact same piece, same size and everything!  The only difference, this one only came in the darker brown finish versus the gray finish like the other one.  But the dark brown actually works better for us in my clients space.  And this one sells for only $519 with FREE shipping!  That is a savings of a side table or an extra piece of artwork on the walls!! 

It really helped my decision that I was able to see this piece of furniture in store at Kittle's before buying it online.  I could open the drawers, look at the quality, and be sure this is definitely the one to order.  

It just goes to show that it helps to shop around to really stay on budget without having to compromise high quality and high end design.  I always Google large furniture items to see who else makes the same piece at a lower price!  

Here is a sneak peak of what my client's living room will look like with this media cabinet!

Just a couple of more weeks now until final closing and move-in day!  And then I get to move in all of the pretty stuff I have been buying for them!!  (And then of course show all of you the after photos!)  

This is where we are in the building stage right now.......

wall color is Amazing Gray by Sherwin Williams

Decorating a Bathroom {My Home}

I finally got around to decorating my master bathroom.  After living here for over 3 years, the room has always been unpainted (white walls) and un-decorated!  It needed painted -- in a bad way!  It was just finding the time to do it.  Well, to my surprise, I went on a weekend trip with some girlfriends over the summer, and I came home to a painted bathroom!!!!  My sweet, sweet husband took on the challenge himself while I was out of town and he did an amazing job painting the space!  

But, no worries, I had the color all picked out prior.  He knows better than to pick a paint color himself! We decided to use left over paint from the living room, which is Sherwin Williams Sea Salt.  This is one of my all-time favs!  I have used this color in multiple client homes and no matter what the lighting is, it looks beautiful every time!  

Our adjoining master bedroom is painted dark gray with coral accents.  So the light blue color of Sea Salt is a bright, energetic color for the bathroom that will look great again with pops of coral.  

You should always keep the Master Bedroom and Bathroom coordinating.  Especially, if they are connected.  A great tip is to paint the bathroom the accent color of the bedroom, or use the same accent colors throughout, like I am doing! 

I decided to just do a quick and easy little collage of frames for my bathroom.  I gathered a couple of coral frames from Home Goods, some more rustic, wood frames also from Home Goods, two framed art prints from Hobby Lobby, and a couple of frames I had around the house.  

I always start by laying the frames out on the floor to get the design layout.  Once I like the grouping of the frames, I snap a couple of pictures to remember what it looks like.  I look at the image before hanging every frame, to remember the exact layout and position. 

From there, I just start hanging!  And of course, choose just the right pictures to fill each frame. 

This is my secret weapon for hanging pictures - especially for gallery walls!!  It is literally a lifesaver and the easiest way to hang a smaller picture! I bought this Hang & Level tool a couple of years ago on Amazon and I use it all the time when hanging pictures.  The picture just hangs on the tab, you line it up on the wall where you want it to hang your picture, and press down on the picture frame.  The tab has a little pointy metal piece on the back side that pokes a hole into the wall so you know exactly where to put the nail or screw to hang the picture!!  SO EASY!  For only under $10, this is a must buy!

These will be images we see first thing every morning and the last thing every night.  So I decided to do some fun quotes and pictures that we love. 

The wedding photo is from my brother's wedding South Carolina.  The colors were perfect for the bathroom so I thought it was great for the space.

The black and white image is actually a fabric swatch I had lying around my office!

And this is a quote from one of my favorite Lumineer songs.

The square gray frames with the aqua and coral print are from Hobby Lobby and were under $10 each!

I now have a little area to store my perfume bottles.  And I decided to hang my headband I wore on my wedding day in here too.  It was once stuffed in the back of my make-up drawer, but now it is displayed!  So that makes me happy!

I would love to frame my builder-basic-mirror and change the lighting fixture out here.  But since this isn't a home we will be living in forever, I can live with it like this for a while!  I am just SO happy this space is finally painted and I have things on the walls!!

Decorating a bathroom can be a challenge.  What do you put on the walls of a bathroom?  It is a question I hear a lot!  Anything really!  It can be one large canvas art, some cute bathroom art about washing your hands, or just some pretty floral prints.  I think a bathroom it is a great place for bright, cheery artwork!

Restoration Hardware Bookshelves for LESS!

I don't know a single sole who can honestly say they don't LOVE Restoration Hardware.  It is the one home decor store even our husbands love walking through.  But lets face it, most of their items are so expensive and overpriced that we end up just walking through their showroom only for inspiration, knowing we won't purchase anything.  If you're like me, you walk in to swoon over the decor and maybe even snag a couple of paint chips to take to your local hardware store for matching (YES, they can do that!)

Recently, a client asked me to give her formal sitting room in her home the 'Restoration Hardware'

look.  I could have just went to Restoration Hardware and bought everything off the shelf, exactly

how they have it displayed, but what fun is that?!?  I am more about the hunt of finding a good deal

and creating that high end designer look for less!!

I am sharing a few of my shopping tips on how to get the RH look

for less when decorating your bookshelves.  I'll tell you where to

shop.  What to look for.  And how to put it all together! 

The sitting room houses the family's piano also.  So the Mozart and Beethoven sculptures are perfect

for this space!  I am definitely going for more of the classic style RH has to over versus the
industrial style. 

I actually think I like the Home Goods coral better!  It is the same size as the RH ones, but it has that awesome clear acrylic base!

Okay, these might be one of my favorite finds!  I love that they are a little out of the ordinary and

quirky.  This will definitely be a conversation piece! 

This really is a copy-cat from Home Goods.  You can tell by the sticker still on it!  I really don't know what the difference is here.  This Home Goods agate is a ROCK!  I mean, it is heavy and gorgeous just like the RH ones.  These are SO popular right now, so if you see them at Home Goods, scoop them up before they are gone.  They make great book ends or paper weights.

I am comparing the small RH cloche in the middle to this one from Hobby Lobby because they are similar in size.  They are used to protect and store things.  They are great for showcasing smaller objects in a bookcase, making it a little more predominant. 

This is the horse I first saw at RH and loved it for this project, but opted for the less expensive one instead.  My favorite horse ever, that I have ever, ever seen is really this one from Z Gallerie, but it was too big for the book shelf.  So I decided on this one from World Market instead.  At least my horse has all 4 legs!!  :)

Where I Shop for These Treasures

Wayfair.com 

Overstock.com
Home Goods
Cost Plus World Market
Target

All of these places are great because you can search for specific items on their website.  Wayfair.com sources materials from different sites and offer them on their site, so it is an easy one-stop-shop.  And when in doubt, you can usually always find it at Home Goods if you really search for it.  

You can find all of Restoration Hardware's Source Books online.  Objects of Curiosity is my favorite

to flip through for styling bookshelves.  It shows you lots of different styles and specific items that

you can then look for on the web for less.  

from RH's book 'Objects of Curiosity'

The Restoration Hardware Handcrafted 18th Century Journal is one of the easiest things to replicate for less for a bookshelf. Every bookshelf deserves a stack of books. So, why not keep them all uniform with the same color. Or rip the outside cover off to give the books a deconstructed look.  The books will really complete your look and keep the bookcases from looking cluttered with too many objects.

This is a little rendering I do with bookcases to plan out the items I will need, the number of books I
need, and give me an inventory of what I have bought or what needs to still be bought.

Yes, I am a little crazy for doing this, but when you have one day to install and get it right, it is all about planning, planning, planning! 

When it comes to deciding whether to splurge on a piece or to save, it really depends on your needs and your budget. You get what you pay for! So, if you can afford Restoration Hardware, you are most likely getting a much nicer, better quality product. But for those of us who like to change out our decor every year or just simply can't afford it right now, there are lots of options out there to get a similar look for less!