Monday, April 20, 2015

2015 Spring Home Tour & a Husband Who Hates Painting

Ive been enjoying many spring home tours from design bloggers I admire, so I decided I would share my own. Forgive my amateur photos; I am learning and taking notes along the way!

My husband and I have lived in our small bungalow for just over three years, and we recently completed our last planned update, which was painting all the ceilings. You need to know that my husband detests painting . . . to the point where hed rather do ANY other possible jobor have any limb removed. I have learned to do one of three things regarding painting where David is concerned:

  1. Stay away completely while it is taking place. As in, be in another town. Or state.
  2. Disobey his orders that HE is the master painter and I am not to touch or look at the paint brushes/rollers, pretend I am asleep when he leaves for work at 7 a.m., and at 7:01 a.m. fly out of bed and paint like a madwoman until he arrives home at 6 p.m. (me with paint all over myself and a cheeky Im so precious grin), all day having found ways to technically not lie when responding to any texts or phone calls.
  3. Act ridiculously stupid while he is painting and turn his grumbles into hysterical laughter.

I have done all three multiple times now, and I havent yet decided which is the best choice. I can tell you that the day he came home to our living room completely painted by yours truly, he acted mad for about three seconds and then I was the best thing around. So, with all that, a heartfelt thank you to David for our lovely, freshly painted ceilings. Youre the only one Id want to go through home improvements withall the planning, dreading, fun times bargain shopping, returning, arguing, glaring, bribing, laughing until we cry, and, finally, relaxing and enjoying the fruits of our labor. Youre my favorite partner in home improvements and in life.

LIVING AREA











SOFA INFO & EXPLANATION FOR THE GIRLY GLAM
When I selected the fabric for our tufted sofas, I had gone to the furniture store in the early afternoon and spent hours narrowing the choices to three: a dark gray, a dark navy, and the tan fabric shown. David met me there after work, and I suggested that he choose. David does, after all, indulge the current girly-glam decor style going on, claiming he is man enough to be around pink and bling.

In my defense, I never had the glam decor style in mind until we had an opportunity to purchase our living room rug at a ridiculous discount. It had a retail of $1200, and we bought it at a steal-only $25 due to a small tear that David fixed with latex. Anyone who has shopped for a large, quality wool rug knows that they come with a high price tag. Please let it be known that purple is one of my LEAST favorite colors. I am a blue-and-green, black-and-white, modern-with-some-antiques-thrown-in gal at heart. But alas, we were in emergency rug-finding mode as we had just installed the new flooring. David had looked at me and said, Its such great quality . . . for $25, cant you figure out how to make it work??? So I did just thatembraced the navy-and-orchid-purple I love you, you love me, were a happy family rug.

So, back to sofa fabrics. I, of course, had a favorite, which was the very one David pointed to. A neutral tan but fun, very small animal print. I know our decor will change when we finally decide to get rid of Barney . . . I mean, the rug . . .and these sofas will stand the test of time and fit into any decor style.


KITCHEN/DINING AREAS
Painting the cabinets white was one of the best home improvement decisions we made!



The beautiful teak credenza is one of my most cherished pieces, a gift from a very dear friend.







HALLWAY & BATH





OFFICE/GUEST ROOM

GUEST ROOM






MASTER BEDROOM/MASTER BATH
Please note MORE purple. I choose clearance stickers over favorite colors, so when we needed a duvet set and I found this one at Target marked from over $100 to just $19.99, I knew that purple was my destiny once again.






HELLO FROM SHELBY :)

I hope you enjoyed my first spring home tour and had a laugh or two along the way. 
Let me know in the comments below what your favorite part of decorating is, as well as your least favorite! 

~Kara

6 comments:

  1. Oh, you always bring a smile to my face. I can actually see you and David painting 'together'. I love how you updated the house. Miss the guestroom - time to use it again .#2016

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    1. Thank you :) I'm really glad you like the updates...The guest room is ready Inge!

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  2. The photos are BEAUTIFUL! I love your style 100%--please come visit so we can have round two of decorating my apartment. ;) I absolutely HATE painting, but I love going shopping to find things to decorate with, especially now that I have finally found my style (thanks to you!). The house looks amazing!

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    1. Thank you so much, Nicole! It's been so much fun joining you in the process of decorating your own beautiful apartment. You didn't really need any help though :) However...Any reason to go to HomeGoods is a good reason! I'm in!!

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  3. Literally laughing out loud at you talking about your husband hating to paint. No worries...he's not the only husband who hates to paint ;) Your home tour is beautiful!!! I love all of the details. I actually died and went to heaven after seeing that credenza in your dining room.. and that horse print was the icing on top. So good. AND your photography is great!!

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  4. So funny, what it is with husbands and painting?!?! Claire, you have no idea how flattered I am that you stopped by my blog, and thank you so much for your sweet compliments! Coming from someone with such a beautiful eye for design, that makes my morning :) The horse print was one of my very favorite HomeGoods finds of 2014! XO

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