It’s crunch time here at Chez Love Muffin and I’m feeling like we need to get going! My mom’s coming out to visit in early March and staying for a month, and we want to make our guest room beautiful for her.  

The furniture is “in progress,” but I’m totally stalled on the wall color. I keep changing my mind! We even offered my mom to pick the guest room wall color for her birthday. She knew better…

So here’s my crazy thought for today:

YELLOW!

It’s one of the colors in our house palette, but an accent color in other rooms. What do you think? Maybe with crisp white and chocolate? Or should we stay away from using an accent color as a whole room color?

Last night we made the decision: we had to delay our trip to Ikea.

No bed. No nightstands. No blinds. At least not this week anyway. There’s a winter storm in the mountain pass between Reno and Sacramento, and having lived here for quite a few years now, we take storms pretty seriously.

I thought maybe we’d spend today prepping to paint the guest room, but on our way to breakfast this morning we saw a sign on East 4th Street reading “Warehouse Sale.” Having no idea what kind of warehouse sale it was, Walter Allen, the Love Muffin and I decided to check it out.

Low and behold, it was an old casino sale - a warehouse filled with the remainders of the Golden Phoenix and Fitzgerald’s. There were lots of bar stools, sinks and bathtubs, casino art… and, sitting in a group of sad looking furniture, a cute mid century chair!

It’s upholstered in a black/beige tweed and it’s in great shape.

For the chair and two framed ink drawings (I’m luke warm on the drawings), I paid only $20. But then came my biggest score of the day… A vintage casino “free parking” sign, cut in half and distressed. I instantly fell in love and thought it would make a beautiful piece of found art for our living room…

I plan on mounting it to the wall opposite the fireplace (not leaving it propped up on the fireplace), and I think it’s exactly the shot of bright, warm, graphic color we needed. I’ve also been hesitant to pick out accent/ fabric/ rug colors, but this is now my visual anchor for the pops of bright color I’ll incorporate. I love it! And the people at the warehouse were so eager to get rid of it, they threw it in for free. So we didn’t end up at Ikea this Saturday, but ended up with an even better deal.

Some people have cork boards… Some have binders and albums… I have a folder on my desktop labeled “House.”

We all have different ways of collecting our favorite visual references, and granted, there is something nice about a physical picture or magazine ad that you’ve cut out and strategically placed within a collage of your most favorite, inspiring images.

For me though, the electronic version is just perfect. I’m a google images junkie! Whether I’m searching for ideas on how to work with my asymmetrical fireplace, or looking for exciting accent colors, it never fails.

Here’s a random assortment of internet images that have inspired me lately…

I love these stairs! We’re replacing our very non-stylish country oak stairs with wood planks like these…

This interior shares similar qualities with ours: low ceilings and a very mid-century fireplace…

This is the wall I dream of having in my kitchen & living room! I LOVE the floor-to-ceiling glass that folds back… In the summer I’d feel like I was living in a treehouse!

This room is totally minimal and sleek, but cozy at the same time…

Forgot to mention yesterday that Walter Allen and I spent the afternoon on Sunday shopping for housewares. It was lovely! Best of all, we found some fantastic deals…

I won’t divulge how much I actually paid for this fabulous, silver, alligator-skin-textured vase, but I will tell you it wasn’t a whole 10 bucks!

I also found these cute serving plates… They didn’t come as a set, but I found them, combined them, and decided I really like them. Especially because the most expensive one among them was $3.99!

I love the few, carefully selected things I got. Everytime I’d pick something up, Walter Allen would remind me that the mid century modern aesthetic is all about minimalism. No knick-knacks, no dust collectors, and “everything has to serve a function”… Less is more; love every single piece you have.

I can work with that.

After an absolutely crazy two weeks (we shot 5 commercials!), I needed a weekend of rest and relaxation. I finally caught up on sleep, went out to dinner with the Love Muffin, and had a few drinks/ a few laughs with friends. We still managed to get some things done… and though they were baby steps, they were steps in the right direction!

On Saturday morning, the Love Muffin and I picked up the remaining paint we needed for the fireplace (yup, STILL dealing with that). We had planned to paint together, but I was so exhausted in the afternoon, I ended up vegging & surfing the internet for furniture instead. The Love Muffin kindly picked up my slack and finished the fireplace without me. I’m happy to report the glossy finish looks great!

 
In the meantime, I found the perfect bed for our new guest room on the IKEA website and ordered it. What do you think?
Beware IKEA shoppers: they charge ridiculous amounts for delivery! The shipping charges for the bed were over $200, and when I told the Love Muffin that, he promptly had me cancel my order. Instead, we’re taking a little road trip to the Sacramento IKEA this weekend. We’ll pick up the bed ourselves, and I’ll definitely get some other things we need at the same time. Stay tuned! I’ll post my shopping list on Friday, and we’ll see how well I do on Saturday… 

It’s Sunday night and my weekend plans for renovation were once again postponed. I had a last minute commercial shoot come up in Vegas, so I’m in a hotel room 450 miles away. But being away doesn’t mean progress has to stop: a few idle hours this evening presented a perfect opportunity to catch up on some renovating inspiration. The topic of tonight’s google images search? Crown moldings!

There’s one person in my life (aside from the Love Muffin) with whom I love to brainstorm on renovation. His name is Walter Allen, and we’ve been debating the topic of crown moldings recently. We have a split vote on this. Walter feels like crown moldings, “make any room look finished.” I get that and generally agree, but in this case?

I’m trying to transform a late sixties/ early seventies split-level ranch into a little, zen, mid-century modern sanctuary. As previously discussed, we have low ceilings, and a very open, free flowing floor plan in the downstairs. I’m thinking crown moldings might look quite strange and out of place.

That being said, 47 pages of google images tagged “crown moldings” revealed a few modern interiors where the crown moldings look quite decent (although these look like older structures that are merely decorated with modern furniture/ colors).

…The cutest lights in all kinds of shapes and colors and designs…and all custom, made to order… and to top it off: AFFORDABLE!

There I was, on this overcast morning, sitting with my venti regular coffee (with room for cream), my Odwalla C Monster, and my browser window open to Ebay, when I made this discovery: Moon Shine Shades.

I’ve been dying to replace the hideous fan/ light (yes, ugh, one of those dreaded combo things) over our kitchen table with a nice, sleek, hanging lamp… Something simple, maybe Scandinavian looking.

Went to one of my favorite stores in Reno - a furniture store called Habitat - and of course fell in love with one that’s a thousand dollars. But then, poof! There’s Moonshine Lamps! Now I can design my own, from the shape to the color and texture, the pattern or image on it, and even the lacing! Happy designing!

Our low ceilings have continually beleaguered my interior design creativity. I’ll be honest: I hate them. They’re probably one of my least favorite features of the house, and make the rooms feel extra dark and claustrophobic. In a perfect world, I’d rip the ceilings right down and vault them to follow the roof lines. But, alas, back to the reality of right now.

The nice thing about this problem is that it’s common, so there’s plenty advice out there on how to deal with it. The unfortunate thing is that the advice is completely conflicting. There seems to be no tried-and-true, designer-approved consensus on this! Crown molding or no crown molding, ceiling color and wall color, paint finish, floor covering, picture rails, tall furniture, short furniture, mixed furniture… the advice is all over the map!

In my case, I do know one thing for sure: the combination ceiling fan/ light fixtures must go! This is pretty obvious, though… Especially since my tall friends have to duck to avoid serious personal injury.

My second revelation came today, while sifting through pages and pages of forum posts on this topic. Somebody recommended window treatments that extend all the way from the ceiling to the floor. I was skeptical - not only because we don’t have massive windows, but also because it sounds a bit counterintuitive. But I searched for images, and low and behold, found some shots of floor-to-ceiling window treatments that look fantastic! Here’s one that I think really illustrates the concept. What do you think? See how the curtains extend higher than the actual window?

By now, many of you know that I’m a commercial producer. I haven’t shared too much about my job, but basically I’m part creative, part number-cruncher, part mommy. And my director? He’s part rock star, part diva.

Like any professional diva-rockstar, my boss definitely has a taste for the finer things… and that makes working with him totally fun. Fabulous restaurants, chic hotels, and, as of today, a 42″ Panasonic HD flat panel TV!

My boss got a new toy, so we got this! It’s a lot bigger than the flat screen TV I envisioned buying for the fireplace, but the Love Muffin is totally loving it… and I have to admit, it’s pretty sexy for a piece of A/V equipment!

It’s been a month since my last post, but I’m finally back. What can I say? There are times in everyone’s life, I think, when things suddenly come to an abrupt halt. That’s what happened to me in the last few weeks. My father died. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Right before the holidays.

I wanted to share this for two reasons: as an explanation for why I haven’t posted in so long, and because we’ve adjusted our renovation plans because of it. It’s more important now than ever to have a pretty, inviting guest room since I’m hoping my mom will stay with us for a while. Right now, it needs new everything: from new flooring, to new paint, better lighting, a new closet door, and even a bed frame. We’ll probably do things bit by bit in there for the moment… Focusing on furniture first, and then tackling the bigger things like flooring once we’ve finished the downstairs.

And where does everything else stand?

Our fireplace is completely primed and is ready to be painted. We picked out the shade of white and thought we wanted a matte finish, but then seeing the wet primer on the fireplace made me realize glossy would look fabulous! I imagine we’ll pick up the new paint and get around to finishing it this coming weekend. Then walls, or course, and floors after that hopefully. I also spotted some chairs while at home for the holidays that might work really well in our new living room (vintage mid-century modern chairs in my parents’ basement). Anyway, it may not have been the happiest of New Years, but we’re looking forward to a busy and successful 2008 at Chez Love Muffin.

We’ll miss you, dad…