The Happiest Place on Earth: Ikea

Andrew and I visited his parents in Atlanta this weekend, and in addition to family time, celebrating his mom's birthday and eating some great meals, we visited Ikea for the first time! Ikea, y'all, Ikea. For the first time. A new (financially limited) homeowner's dream. We walked out with some goodies and lots of ideas for future home improvements (bigger items that we'd like to measure for before purchasing, mainly). So I don't forget some of our ideas, I'll share. But first, our loot:

One. Two. Three. Four.

The candles are on our mantel, which is coming along quite nicely with the DIY succulent garden.

And the Picasso prints hang on the main wall in our living room—we've been in search of original artwork for this wall since we moved in, but who knew a $40 Ikea print would do the trick? (We mainly like this one because of the little dog in the middle.)

The brandy glasses were Andrew's purchase. He's wanted them (for beer—however, he seems to be filling them with wine) since we visited the Cheeky Monk a couple years ago in Colorado. (I thought I had a really cute photo of one of us with the giant glasses at the Cheeky Monk, but alas, I think it died with my last phone.) However, here is Andrew hand modeling his new glasses:

 

So that's our loot! We stuck to small stuff this time around, but have some serious ideas for the next time we visit Atlanta. (You think we would have, um, gotten chairs or bar stools so we can eat without Ham trying to jump onto our plates from the back of the couch. Alas, we did not. Maybe later?)

Here are a few of the ideas we have for our future Ikea trips:

We're going to do some major work on our deck this summer, and I love cozying it up with a small patio set:

5-piece outdoor suite—$119

I also love this small bar cart. (Perhaps to display these monogrammed cups that I do not own?) It's $25, so it may be a little flimsy but I loved they way they had it set up in the showroom. (See below.)

Bar cart—$25

 I wouldn't go for such a retro look, but I think it's pretty cute for $25!

And last, but not least, shelving. I love shelving, especially when maximizing space. I have a vision for our dining room that involves some type of gallery shelving that displays mason jars of rice and couscous and other items, making it functional and cute. At Ikea, we found multiple options but I liked these the best:

White wall shelf—$14.99

 To sum up our trip (excitement yet slightly crazed) here's a crazy eye photo:

Where do you shop for inexpensive, cute home decor? Do you like Ikea?

Green Thumb - Succulent Garden

It was in the 70s and sunny on Saturday, so I dropped Andrew off with a friend (to clarify, we are talking about my husband—we share a car) and set off to plant a succulent garden. I've been looking for something green to go on our problem fireplace for months now, but I'm not very good a keeping plants alive (fingers crossed for the succulents), so I thought this might be a good way to add a pop of green with little maintenance. Last time we had succulents, Ham got onto the kitchen counter (long story) and ate them out of the windowsill. Thus is life.


You need:

A container with a large opening (Martha says a large opening helps prevent accumulation of moisture.)
Succulents
Cactus, palm and citrus potting soil
Stones

These are pretty simple to plant, although one of my little succulents fell apart. I planted a few pieces of it anyway and am rooting for those tiny ones to take root! They're the three small ones that look alike in the photo below.

I ended up arranging these on top of the fireplace, and while it's not quite there yet I think this is a definite improvement! (Check out part one of my house tour for the mantel's last arrangement.) I have plans to put flowers or branches in that brown vase for height. That cute glass frame was an engagement gift from Nikki at the Fashionable Wife! I still love it.

I won that cute A print (by Arian) a few years ago through a giveaway at This Life of Ours. It's the only giveaway I've ever won, though I did win a pair of boots recently in a Pin It To Win It contest. The boots, however, did not make it onto the mantel.

What to do, what to do about that empty space in the middle? Ideas are welcome. Our fireplace tends to collect clutter, so I put a ceramic flower pot up to hold things like wallets, keys, dog leashes, etc.

Did y'all have nice weather this weekend? If so, did you plant anything? Linking up today with Molly and Carly at #YOLOMONDAYS.

Picture Window

Andrew and I picked up an old barn window at an antique store the other weekend with the idea to turn it into a picture frame and it actually worked! This is a big deal, because our DIYs don't normally end in successes. Or, they just don't happen at all. Also, it has been 2 1/2 years since our wedding, and this is the first time I've hung wedding photos on the wall. A big deal all around.

I had some trouble finding tutorials that didn't involve taping the photos to the front of the glass, so I used clear contact paper to stick the photos onto the back of the glass. Does that make sense? I put together a short tutorial below, if it doesn't. (You can kind of see the contact paper in the photo above, but in real life, the camera flash isn't reflecting off of the frame so it's hardly noticeable.)

You'll need:

Window frame
clear contact paper (you can buy contact paper rolls on the shelving aisle of Wal-Mart)
razor knife or scissors
eyehooks (2)
metal cord

Step 1: Roll contact paper length of one piece of glass. 

Step 2: Using a razor knife or scissors, cut contact paper to fit the glass.

Step 3: Center photo in the middle of the glass. Peel back off contact paper and press, sticky side down, smoothing it over the photo. (It's OK if there are some small air bubbles - you can't see them.)

Step 4: Drill two lateral holes on either side of the center of the window frame and screw in eyehooks by hand.

Step 5: Knot metal wire onto one eyehook. (Andrew used a fisherman's noose, but alas I also can't find this when I Google it. He said it's the same knot used to tie fishing lures.) Stretch wire across the back center of the window frame and knot onto the other eyehook.

You're done! Now hang the window frame. (If your frame is really heavy, you may need some more support. I'll update the blogosphere if ours falls off the wall, but it seems pretty secure.) In keeping with the theme of bare downstairs walls, we hung ours at the top of the stairs, in between the master and guest bedrooms. I think it turned out really well!

Because it's really hard to do anything in our house without dog interference, here are a few outtakes from the window frame glamour shots. (P.S. - is "glamour" a word? Spell check says no.)

Sawyer butt.

Sawyer head.

House Tour: Living Room/Dining Room

Andrew and I definitely appreciate space, but in the search for our first home, location won. We closed on our 1,000 square-foot downtown condo in September and have been trying to maximize space ever since. We feel like we've made great progress in the six months we've owned our condo, but we have a long way to go. Note that the dining room table in the photos below has no chairs, for example.

I'm sharing the living room and dining room tour in one post, because they are basically in one room (along with the laundry room/pantry, but I will write about that later since I shoved all the clutter from the other spaces in there to take these pictures!) The kitchen is in this area too, but we're hopefully getting a new addition to our appliances this week, so if all goes as planned I'll be able to post about that room soon. (Andrew is already talking about taking doors of things and is measuring our doorway as I write, so this may not go as planned.)

Our tour begins at the front door, looking into the living room with the dining space in the background. (I took this photo standing on the stairs that are to the left of the front door when you walk in.)

Please excuse the mantel—I have a few vague ideas about what to do with it and I really dislike the random assortment of stuff that is up there right now. The fireplace is really deep and the television is mounted freakishly high (Andrew likes it that way?) so whatever I arrange up there is going to need to have some height. Right now, it kind of collects clutter. We have eventual plans to get pillows and turn the chest to the right of the fireplace into seating, but right now Ham likes to lay there so I put his dog bed on top of it. We also have big plans to get rid of that bright orange extension cord.

Our (tan-in-real-life) rug was $79 at Target. We'll be adding this chair (or one similar) to the empty nook on the left of the fireplace soon. 

Here's a before-and-after of the dining area, looking into it from the living room:

No chairs!

We also have plans to get bar stools for our counter (you can kind of see it to the left in the photo above) which means we literally have no dining seating right now. I'm looking for bar-height saddle stools in a dark espresso or chestnut, but the search is proving harder than we thought.

I'm pretty much obsessed with it our paint color, Behr Ultra Porpoise. It's a light gray with lavenderish undertones (but not girly, Andrew says) in bright natural light. At night, it darkens and is very calming. Behr Ultra goes on really smoothly, is easy to peel off of the floor if you drip on hardwood and comes off of skin easier than the Color Run color. (I'm serious - we can't say enough good things about Behr Ultra. And, I had to scrub for days to get that colored cornstarch off of me!)

If you can look past the beagle in the below photo, I think this picture best captures what the porpoise color looks like in natural sunlight:

So, that's the living room and dining room! I don't have photos before we painted the walls, but they were white and very, very dirty. We love the progress so far and try to do a little work on the house each weekend. Anyone out there have any mantel decorating ideas?