dining room mood board

It’s hard to believe my first semester at Georgian is three days away from being finished. Despite what feels like a mountain of homework and projects left to be completed, it feels so good to be in the home stretch!

One of my final projects involves the above dining room collage. It’s a little rough around the edges and needs to be touched up in PhotoShop, but it is turning out to be one of my favourites and thought I would use it to whip up a blog post to kick start the last week of class.

Looking forward to Christmas break and catching up on some other projects I’ve been meaning to complete, such as: my new black bedroom, the basement homework station I created, some holiday house tours I participated in, and some Re-Store finds : )

Tilda 5 Light Wood Iron Chandelier | Ameile Dining Table | Trophy Vase | Vintage Aivary Artwork I | Vintage Aivary Artwork II | Baxton Studio Halifax Arm Chair 

bedroom mood board + school update

This fall I began a new chapter in my life. I quit a job (that I loved and had been quite comfortable in) and went back to school to pursue Interior Decorating. It was definitely a risk and scared the bejesus out of me, but now that I’ve crossed the halfway point of the first semester, I’m happily settling into a schedule that involves juggling homework assignments, a minimum-wage job and living with my parents (none of which is actually as bad as it sounds). 

The biggest shock of being back at school was realizing the age gap between me and some of my peers—who knew I’d be 10+ years senior to my classmates!? I wasn’t expecting that, and even more surprising was actually feeling how large that gaping hole was. I joined the clique of ‘mature students’ and am actually quite happy to be there. Thinking back to how much I’ve changed since graduating high school, and being so unaware of…everything, I’m happy to be back at school with some life experiences under my belt and on my resume. I still have a lot to learn but am happy and content with the direction things are going. I’m looking forward to the next two years packed with homework assignments, midterm marks and a touch of student-debt, but will hopefully end with a fresh list of experiences to add to the resume or check-off the bucket list—and even more important: the beginnings of a new career. I’m happy I took the risk and listened to that little voice in the back of my head that kept pushing me towards this new adventure. 

Above is one of my first homework assignments (posting homework will likely become a trend…) We were asked to create a mood board for a room we would one day like to create. I chose images, quotes and products that I was leaning towards for my new room. As much as I love the way this turned out, my bedroom will be going in a completely different direction...

before & after: DIY white lamp

A few weeks ago I made, yet another, wonderful discovery in my building’s garbage hub: a brassy old table lamp. Stuck to its stained and dated lampshade was a note that read, Still works! :)  

I considered this a good find. Loved the look of the lamp, and was not 100% turned off by the brassy base (the lampshade was a definite no, and was left in the trash). After being left in its original state for a few weeks, I decided that a spritz of white spray paint would give it a more modern and chic look. 

Sporting a new $12 lampshade from Wal-Mart, my garbage lamp is complete! When I get tired of white, I can easily switch out the lampshade for something more dramatic, a la the lovely Rose Landscape Lampshade from Anthropologie (spending a few extra $$ on a shade is easier to justify when you scored the base for free) OR easily repaint the base in a new colour. Another option, would be to try sanding off some of the white, for a brassy-weathered-look (no idea if that would actually work…but worth a try one day) 

And, a friendly reminder to please vote for my bedroom in Apartment Therapy's Room for Color contest. Winner receives a $1000 gift card to Fab.com and some much-needed paint from Sherwin-Williams. Thank you! 

Apartment Therapy’s 2014 Room For Color / Colour Contest

I was definitely more than a little excited when I saw my bedroom had made it into Apartment Therapy’s annual Room for Color contest. And I have to admit to being more than a little obsessive about tracking every vote myself and my competitors fellow home décor enthusiasts have received. Living in Canada qualified me for the International Division, which makes it all sound very exotic! There are currently five rooms competing and I managed to hold second place for a few days, but was recently knocked down by Johanna’s “Belgain Summer” room. Contest closes October 3rd so there’s still time to move back up to second (and then work on first place!). If you haven’t yet, I would very much appreciate a vote! A quick and painless sign-up is required, but worth it :) Another exciting result of the Room for Colour contest was a retweet of my entry from my new favourite Twitter account, Potter Barn Teen, aka PBTeen. Despite being well out of my teenage years, they do tweet some great content and I was / am honoured to have been recognized by them! My bedroom is probably my favourite space in the apartment, and one of the most enjoyable places to spend reading a book or perusing the internet (despite having a very weak signal in there…) My previous apartment was on the ground floor and two feet from a fence that blocked most of the sunlight from both windows, so I was pretty thrilled to wake up to sunlight streaming in through the window my first morning after moving in. 
When decorating the room, my goal was to create a calm and relaxing space. The west-facing wall is a deep teal / blue colour called Plumage, Martha Stewart Paints collection (available at Home Depot), it was the perfect colour to ground the space and create that ‘relaxed’ feeling. To carry on with the ‘relaxed’ theme, I wanted the bedding and pillows to be simple and opted to keep it entirely in blacks and whites—to save money, I simply switched out my current floral throw pillows with the black and white checked ones in the living room. I had written about the nightstand in a previous post, the yellow was a bit of an impulsive choice, but being a fan of colour, I wanted something that would be a great contrast, and add some interest to the space. The downside to this second-hand nightstand was that it doesn’t have any drawers or hiding space for clutter. That meant keeping things neat and tidy with a stack of my favourite colour-coordinated books along with a few that were next up on my reading list. The pink dresser was another second-hand piece I had written a post about, it was also painted on a bit of a whim and was initially intended as a storage piece for inside of my closet. However, once it was painted, I loved it too much to stuff into a closet and instead added another pop of colour to the space with a coordinating arrangement of some prints (the Mayan Calendar I had purchased a few years ago while vacationing in Mexico and the Pink Grizzly Bear was a gift from my sister) an antique mirror my parents had bought at an auction 15 years ago (recently painted white) and my gold initial from Chapters Indigo.