Happy Friday all!  Yesterday was the airing of my design plan for Tamika and Jamaal on The Nate Berkus Show.  It’s surreal watching yourself on television, but what an honor to be given the task of designing a space for a wonderful family.  For those of you who missed it, here’s a bit of background.  Tamika and Jamaal are a happily married couple with two young children.  They were not feeling ‘House Proud’ so they submitted their family room dilemma to Nate.  The Nate Show called me and asked if I would put together a new design plan for Tamika and Jamaal to suit their lifestyle and personality.

Tamika and Jamaal were looking to add comfort and style to their bland family room space.  Tamika has been busy pursuing her masters degree so she hasn’t had the time or energy to create the colorful welcoming family room of her dreams.  If you saw the opening segment yesterday, what was clear was their room suffered from two design dilemmas: disproportionate furnishings and lack of color.

Before:

In the questionnaire submitted to the show, Tamika’s revealed her favorite colors were orange and pink, so that became the starting point for adding color to the new space.  As much as Jamaal loved his huge TV, Tamika envisioned a comfortable space that would serve more than just TV viewing.  She wanted a space where her family could gather for not only movie nights, but also a room where she could entertain.

We were in a time crunch because the segment and room design came together mere days before the show was filmed so I had to work with readily available décor, nothing custom or special order this time.  Big props to The Nate Show for their ability to grab these home furnishings in a quick turnaround!

Here’s a clip from the show talking about the new ‘After’ design:

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My friends, if there ever was a bandwagon, this carefree DIYer is jumping right on it.  For months, I’ve seen fabulous versions of the sunburst mirror pop up all over the blogosphere.  And for weeks now, with every stop in the paint department, I couldn’t help but notice how those paint stir sticks might just make a very cool version of this decorative favorite. 

I couldn’t figure out how to stack them nicely enough around the center to make it worth my effort, but that little road bump didn’t stop me from snagging more than my fair share of free stir sticks at a time, like 8 or 10, over the course of a month.  When I read how Danielle used an embroidery hoop, that convinced me to make my own version too!  Those free stir sticks led to this latest creation:

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The other day a series of tweets went around on a very serious subject, one that is near and dear to my heart.  There is a dangerous illness sweeping the nation, and it is a grave problem.  I’m warning you, if you ever get bit by this bug, it is unlikely that you will recover. 

Here’s a real world example.  It seems my friend Lakeitha was shopping the Goodwill, and she was struck by a sudden case of what shall now be dubbed ‘Goodwill Stashing’.  Allow me to illustrate.  The conversation began like this. 

To which I replied,

Quickly more chimed in.

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Hey there!  Hope you all had a fine weekend!  I spent the weekend working on a few projects, like building an upholstered ottoman, and also taking a very cool class.  I hope to share both with you later this week. 

The best part of our weekend was spent working on our Alma Project, transforming the bare walls of the entryway to not only provide more storage, but also make this hallway a much more functional space to help the families living within these walls stay organized. 

Take a peek at what we started with in the morning:

And ended up with in the afternoon!

So much better!

I started by painting the hallway in Kelly Moore’s ‘Graystone’, a nice neutral tan color.  Usually I opt for Ben Moore paints, but KM was right down the street, and I was color matching the new paint in the great room (more on that to come!)  I chose these wide plank grooved panels from Lowe’s because the adjacent kitchen has the same style paneling on the lower half of the walls, but in that icky 1970’s brown.  I had all of the new panels cut in the lumber department.   I intend to prime and paint those brown panels in the kitchen and eating area to pull all three spaces together and make it more fresh and modern.     

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Greetings and happy weekend!  I am trying out a fun new weekend series called “Best of the Blogosphere” or “BOTB” for short.  I better be careful not to mistype that ‘T’ !  This series will be a roundup of the best of home improvement and decorating that we see in blog land. 

When I say ‘we’ I mean I’m in cahoots with some new Contributive Writers recently brought on board.  Together with my accomplices, we will be scouring the internet, looking for the most inspiring and original creations!  We live for it, we love it, we can’t get enough of it.  And we will be bringing it to you!  Let’s kick if off shall we?

Have a look at these stylish yet functional built-in spice shelves over at Tidbits from the Tremaynes.  With some help from her handy dad, Mandi fashioned all the details, and then completes the look with her custom labeled spice jars.  Now we’re ready to fire up the power tools and take advantage of some space in the walls! 

We’re loving this simple sew tutorial for pillow shams over at Jilly & Mia. 

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