Whew...

It's been a whirlwind during the past few weeks. Been trying to tie up loose ends and get the house at least 90% finished. LOTS of changes...some new furniture, new art, new paint, and on and on. Plenty of annoying nitty gritty things like caulking and changing the light switch plates have occurred too. I would really like to not have Home Depot on my errand list ever again. Here are some shots of how it looks now:
Front living room...
I snuck a little animal print in here on the pillows and Clay hasn't revolted yet - yay! The key is to just not take him with me when I shop. He can be a Negative Nancy and sometimes has a hard time seeing things out of context.
New convex mirror above fireplace...I love it. Perfect amount of interest for that spot.
New sofa and one of my favorite things in the house, the cloisonne lamp with the orange shade! This lamp is crazy good. Perfect shape, perfect colors, quality construction--obviously I am completely obsessed.
Seriously, even the finial is stunning. A huge thanks to Layla Grace for tracking this one down for me!! There was a major production problem (i.e. the manufacturer quit making it) and there were only 2 left in the world and they made it happen. Got the metal baskets at Round Top and that's white birch firewood. Almost too pretty to burn :) And how could you miss our new GIGANTIC tv. Next thing on the list is having a carpenter come modify the cabinet to hide it.Here you can see how I painted the inside of the bookcases a peacock blue and more importantly, you can see the gorgeous painting Clay gave me last week for our second anniversary. It was done by an extremely talented artist named Michael McConnell, who is based out of Aspen. I saw it when I was up there for my brother's wedding and couldn't get it out of my head. These photos don't do it justice - the colors are simply amazing. It is a showstopper in the room and I couldn't be more excited about getting to look at it everyday.
Also painted the cabinet interior over the bar the same peacock blue and filled it with white pitchers.
Just got these three books and they are all beautiful in very different ways. As a side note...with all of the bookcases, this house has made me realize the importance of buying hardback books. I'm a little mad at myself that I always cheap out and buy the paperback (even though paperbacks are silly exp now). Going to try and put a stop to that!

HomeGoods Round 2

The "happy trend of the week" for HomeGoods' Happy Spring Challenge is True Blue...which is right up my alley! So, I entered a pic of our den since it has lots of blue accents.

Plus, the turquoise lamps are from HomeGoods. They are among my favorite bargain purchases at only $39 a piece (with shades)!

I mixed lots of different shades of blue in the room. From the pillows and the throw on the sofa to the peacock blue paint in the bookcases, there are little touches of it everywhere. It's the main color that I gravitate towards (along with orange, of course).

On another note, tomorrow is my husband's birthday so we are heading out to his family's cattle ranch to celebrate with some friends. That means no post for Friday, so I'll wish you a happy weekend now :)

Peacock and Butternut Bedroom Mood Board

It's been a while since I dosed out a mood board. So when I spotted this pretty bedding from Brocade Home, I thought it would be fun to build a little scheme around it. I love the color name...butternut.

Tier Cascade Faux Chandelier - Urban Outfitters
Sunburst Ventana Mirror - Jonathan Adler
Nailhead Bed - West Elm
Butternut Moroccan Bedding - Brocade Home
Peacock Citrine Bedding - Dwell Studio
Robert Abbey Peacock Blue Ceramic Lamp - Lamps Plus - seen on Stylish Bird :)
Coil Side Table - Urban Outfitters
Russian Medallion Rug - Urban Outfitters
Amelia Tufted Storage Ottoman - Overstock

What do you think? Any favorites items? 

I'm so in love with the coil side table from UO...it's only $78 too!

Click 'n Paint

There is only one bedroom in the house that has yet to be painted since we moved in a year ago. Tonight that will change and its walls will transform from beige to a deep peacock blue. Crown molding will be installed as well, but that won't happen until my husband can assist since he is the trim guru.

Here's how the room currently looks:

I really wanted to use a dark blue but wasn't sure if a deep tone would work in such a small room. So, before buying the paint, I played around with Benjamin Moore's Personal Color Viewer 3.0 (the paint I got is not BM...it's Behr, but their "Paint Your Place" application wasn't working very well). 

Depending on the photo you upload, the Color Viewer takes some maneuvering. Once you learn how to set the paint areas, it's smooth sailing from there. The fun part is clicking through the paint chips and testing any or all of them without getting a brush dirty. Ultimately, the tool confirmed my inclination to use blue, but it was nice to see how different shades would look in the space.

The color I chose - Behr Restless Sea UL230-23

Here's a simulation of the paint in action. I'll report back with the actual "after" photo!

The two images below served as inspiration. I fell in love with this wall color in the Austin boutique, Mercury and have been dying to use it.

A similar shade was put to work in West Elm's catalog. They used a color from their Benjamin Moore collection, ben. It's called Newburg Green.

Hotel Saint Cecilia

We were in Austin earlier this week for SXSW. My husband's company helped develop a super-cool iPhone app called Tabbed Out that was part of the interactive conference. I've been dying to stay at the Hotel Saint Cecilia for a while now, and was thrilled to book a room there for this trip.

The design aesthetic of this hotel is beyond amazing...it's unique, fun, stylish, and luxurious in an un-stuffy way. I was so impressed with the overall vision/concept of the hotel. It definitely effused a cool, Montmartre-meets-Austin vibe. Kudos to whomever designed the place! They masterfully mixed old, new, traditional, and modern. There were countless details that made it one of the most memorable hotels we've ever stayed in.

Suite 4 was our abode which included this private, fenced backyard and firepit. We did a little post-dinner fireside drinking on Sunday night.

This is the patio off the lounge. Black and white stripe heaven!

Some sort of vintage car...sorry, that doesn't fall into my realm of interests :)

Old house...our suite was located at the back corner of this structure.

View from the pool area.

Most amazing umbrella ever!

Poolside

Suite living room complete with a turntable (they have a vinyl library for guests). The decor mix in here is pretty awesome...suzani-covered chair, Noguchi coffee table, Chesterfield sofa, huge red Chinese chest, gilded mirror, and brass chandelier.

Swanky mini bar area in the living room...they take it to the next level with fancy cheeses, caviar, booze, etc.

Dog biscuits for our girls...as with most high-end hotels, they are dog friendly so we brought the pups.

View from living room to patio.

Homemade caramels - delicious and prettily displayed in a vintage silver/crystal coaster.

I must have a black and white chair like this.

Boudoir - I took this pic as soon as the bags were set down before anything could get messed up! The headboard is a tufted peacock blue number.

Gorgeous chandelier and rockin' curtains. Note the Saarinen Tulip table too.

Close-up of the pelmet boxes. 

The black bathroom was neat but a little small. It had great fixtures, tile, and toiletries!

A parting shot of their quaint little sign.