guests welcome (#17)

It gives me great, great pleasure to say that we are done with remodels.  Done.  Finished.  No more.  I love a good remodel as much as the next person but they are always inconvenient, especially now that we are a family of there (plus two dogs).

Our town puts on a tour of homes every Christmas to benefit a local family or charity.  There are usually four to five homes on the tour.  It's always lots of fun to see how different people decorate and to get to be a little nosey.

This year, we were asked to be on the tour.  I said no but after a family dropped out, I decided that there is no time like the present which brought us to our final remodel.  The guest room.

This is actually the second time our guest room as been remodeled.  When I first moved in, Daniel let me paint and we put down new carpet.  It is amazing to see how your style transforms over the year.  I don't know what I was smoking when I chose tar heel blue but it was definitely not fitting in with our decor.  Working with Jennifer has also given me confidence in my style and I decided to tackle the decorating alone.  It's really scary especially when you know half the town will be judging it.

We decided to keep the remodel simple since we didn't have much time.  We painted the walls a shade of white which meant we had to repaint the trim because the old color looked a little yellow.  We covered holes and really just tidied up.

The biggest job really was decorating.  I decided to go light and bright.  I chose a color palette of blues and greens since they were already being used in other rooms.  But my starting point really was my maps.  If you read my blog, it's obvious that we love to travel.  I had the idea to get maps of all the places we had travelled and to frame them.  I found maps that fit our color scheme and took it from there.

What's even more surprising is that I did the decorating on a budget.  Let me say that again.  I stuck to a budget.  My sister-in-law found the bed frame on clearance at World Market.  I bought the side tables from One Kings Lane and the lamps were on sale at Kirklands.  The credenza was a scratch and dent that I got half off but you can't even see the scratches.  The frames were on sale at Hobby Lobby and I painted them using paint that we already had.  I felt so thrifty!  I did get the bedding from Pottery Barn so that was a little expensive but you can't have it all.

So without further ado, here is our new guest room!

The bed and maps of France, NYC, Spain, Italy, and Paris

The credenza and a map of London (I have two more maps for this wall)

The view from the door

Since the tour of homes is Christmas-centric, I decided to do two trees.  We collect ornaments from our travels (if we can find one) and I thought a travel tree would be perfect in a room full of maps.

The travel tree

That is our room!  I love it and am so proud of it.  You would think I made a world-altering discovery.  I am really that proud and often find myself just standing in the room checking out my hard work.  Our guest room is officially open to the public!

Howdy 2014!

It's a new year!  I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty excited about 2014 and what it holds. I may be the worst about making resolutions and keeping them but I do it anyways. 

My biggest goal for 2014 is to cross more items off my 30 before 30 list.  I'm running out of time so if you see my knitting while running, you'll know why.  I will run a half marathon this year and I'm hoping to run the OKC half.  I know I can do it so know I just need to do it.

I also want to enjoy life more.  I recently lost a friend who lived in every sense of the word.  Michelle looked at each day as a gift and said yes to life.  I want that for my life in 2014.  It's so easy to get caught up in nonsense, but I want to honor my friend by looking at the forest, not the tree.

Of course I have the same-as-every-year goals.  I want to strengthen my relationship with Christ, continue to build a strong marriage, and grow in my role as a mother.

2013 was pretty solid so I can't wait to get the ball rolling with 2014!