Thinking house decor

I wasn't totally happy with my main floor bathroom decor.  I was looking & looking for a certain picture, which I finally found to hang up, so that helped.  I wasn't loving what was on the shelf either.  So I "Pinterested" a few old wine bottles & that helped some.  I still don't feel like its just right, something is still missing?  Or not right?

 Spray adhesive, hot glue & twine on one.  Hot glue to spell love & oil rubbed bronze (ORB) spray paint on the other.  Next to bed sheet curtains, ORB is my newest obsession.  Pinterest has me convinced I need to ORB 1/2 of the things in my house.  Light fixtures I have done (and plan on doing most of them in the house one by one as I can convince my dear husband to take them down & put them back up.)  But other people have done cabinet hinges, door knobs & faucets.  I really want to try some of those things!  If they could hold out for a few years until our kids were in school, we could spend that daycare budget on some new lights, doors & faucets.

 Suggestions?  Any of you ORBed anything?
 

I have a project lined up to bling out the mirror & make it look a little less "stock."  Some glass tiles & liquid nails.

 The picture!!  One of my favorites!  I spent a month in Costa Rica one summer in college.  2 weeks of volunteer work & 2 weeks of fun travel.  We stayed with a host family & helped with this church.  Poured the concrete floor literally by hand.  Leveled the dirt & packed it down with tree stumps tied to branches.  Filled the floor with large rocks to save on the cost of concrete.  Mixed the concrete with shovels on the ground & hauled it in with wheel barrows.  It was a very eye opening experience & something I always want to remember. 

 After the kids coats got kicked around the floor for days & days because I was too lazy to get out hangers & pick them up in the coat closet.  I decided that what the laundry room/drop zone needed was a row of hooks.  Walmart had the perfect one!

And I've been thinking & planning other rooms....

I'm dying to start digging through boxes.  Getting pictures hung up.  But I have to get everything painted first. Then I can start laying out pictures & such. 

Yellow is going in the toy room.  Jeff's going to have a big, big project in there building us storage galore.  So this one might not be done for quite some time....

This is my ideas for the entryway/family room.  I have since eliminated 2 swatches.  Our kitchen into the family room is just open enough that the two need to tie together just a little bit.  And the kitchen is that burnt orange color that we want to keep.  I found some curtains for the kitchen that will tie it into this (which is how 2 swatches got eliminated) and I'll show you them as soon as I get them hung back up.  I'm currently ORB-ing the curtain rod :)  Trying to decide how dark or light of a blue to pick for accent walls?

The curtins are long, so I will cut & hem one curtain to make a valance for the window above the sink.  And the remaining fabric I'm going to use to cover the bar stool seats with a little padding underneath.  And maybe make a pillow for the family room if there's enough left.  I've been searching Craigslist for better bar stools since the day we moved in.  And have decided that these are fine.  We only have two (and I'm so over the kids fighting over them) so I bought 2 more like them from Target for $30 rather than a used Craigslist fancier set for over $100.  But I'm trying to decide what to do with the legs.  I'm not sure I like the black with the blue?  Suggestions?  They make a cool Copper spray paint?  Or White?  Brown? 

 

 Office.  Green above chair rail.  Dark grey/brown color below.

I'm currently mid project to try to upcycle the hideous ceiling fan that is in that room.  The kids broke one of the light globes with a puzzle piece a few months ago, so it was in even more dire need of a makeover than it was when we moved in.  Guess what I'm using..... ORB!  I need to look through my old camera card, I think I forgot to take a before picture.  It was white (and dirty).  But the light kit was gold.  The globes were clear with etched flower designs on them.  It was straight outta 1980.  I went to the Habitat Restore this week to see if there was any awesome finds (like a new light kit for the fan)... and laughed when I found hundreds of the lights exactly like the ones in our house!  I guess I just as well re-hab my own fixtures then.  Someday when we no longer need a toy room, that room will be a dining room & I will want a cool chandelier type light over the table, so I didn't want to invest much in it for now.  The habitat store was pretty cool though.  I want to go back with Jeff along sometime.  And when I get some things painted.  They even had furniture & file cabinets!  I'm going to collect all the old cabinet handles & lights & things we pull down from our house to donate there, rather than trash. 

 

One other thing I really want is one of these to put by the front door.  We accumulate such a huge pile of shoes by the front door & it drives me a little bit batty.  I'm trying to sell some stuff on Craigslist (strollers & such), to make some money for things like this!  Someone is coming to buy the triple stroller tonight.  That gets me 1/2 way to this!!  And I sold a old toy bin yesterday that paid for my barstools I bought!  And I sold some of the kids old shoes to the consignment store that amost paid for the pieces I bought to fix up the ceiling fan.

 

I'm up for a few beers & a painting party anytime anyone wants to come over :)