New light in my office

Hi friends,
You may remember that we chose to forego the option of a dining room (I sound like Chris Harrison's note from The Bachelor show....'should you chose to forego your individual rooms and stay as a couple in our fantasy suite'.....he writes the word 'forego' on his fantasy suite note each and every time just like he has to always tell us exactly when it is the last rose, like we can't count! Am I right? Or am I right?).....anyway, sorry for that.....we chose to forego the dining room so that I could have a home office.....

Old light in my home office which I thought was too large and ornate for this casual space:

New light (from our old house in Virginia) in my home office that my husband recently added for me:

I am a little worried that the scale of this new light is not quite right for this room and for my large craft table. It's funny because the light we had in here before was definitely too large and ornate but now I am afriad this light is too small. But....I really love this light and wanted to reuse it somewhere in our house. So, it will stay here for a while. Either it will grow on me or maybe I can come up with another suitable home for it somewhere else in our home......

What do you think?

In this room, still need to:

1. Purchase a small 5 by 8 area rug for under the craft table.

2. Paint, paint, paint....probably a soft, light blue.


Happy decorating & living to you,
Megan
megan@cottagebluedesigns.com

Eat-in Kitchen Make-Over Progress

Hi friends,
I wanted to update you with our progress on our Room Make-Over Design Plan for our eat-in kitchen.

I am crazy about interesting light fixtures! It's true! Whenever I go to a new restaurant I am always looking around at the decor and especially checking out their lights. Earlier this week I shared the new light we added (from our old house in Virginia) to our living room. Well, that awesome and handy husband of mine has been at it again. He changed out two more light fixtures on our main floor that I wanted to share with you.

Here's our new light in our eat-in kitchen. Thanks to my wonderful brother, Richard, and his wife, Noriko, who gave me this light from Ballard Designs (they're currently having a lighting sale right now) for my recent birthday:

Sorry that the kitchen pictures are so dark- it's because of the coffee colored painted ceiling.

Old eat-in kitchen light:

You might have noticed that I painted our rattan/wicker chairs cream and added green pillows to the two arm chairs for a pop of color- that was Kristi's idea- thanks Kristi!  I changed out the accessories on the tray on the table from blue to green as well.

Here was my Room Make-Over Design Plan for this room:

I still need to:

1. Find some type of small buffet for the kitchen.

2. Paint a chalkboard on the large wall. We decided to save money by painting our own chalkboard instead of buying one.

3. Figure out some artwork to add to the smaller wall.



I want to add an addition interesting and pretty pendant light or two right here in the kitchen over the bar area:

Stop back by my blog in a day or two and I'll share my new office light that my honey changed out for me.
Happy decorating & living-
Megan
megan@cottagebluedesigns.com

Really digging Rattan!

Hi friends,

I wanted to share something that is really inspiriting me lately that I am seeing a lot of...... rattan!

Who would have guessed? I am really digging the cane or pole bamboo variety that homeowners paint.

I am really wanting to find some cool pieces to paint myself and incorporate into my decorating designs:

I think rattan really speaks to my Coastal Cottage Chic vibe that I am into these days. What do you think?  Do you dig rattan? Do you have any rattan in your home? Is it painted?

Happy decorating & living-

Megan

megan@cottagebluedesigns.com

New lights!

Hi again friends,

You might remember that I shared earlier this week that I was in Virginia last week visiting my mom with the kids. I left my husband at home to work and tackle his 'Honey Do List' that I left him. I wanted to share one of the many things that he tackled last week. He changed out the light in our living room. We had a simple Half Dome Ceiling Light that was pretty hum drum. He switched it out for this beautiful green and clear glass chandelier from Pottery Barn.

This room needed some sparkle and it got it!

The vibe that I am going for in this room is Coastal Cottage Chic:

I recently took this small starfish pillow from the family room and decided to let it stay in the living room for now. I think it looks good in here:

Notice the sweet watercolor that Steve brought back from his Camino Santiago walk in Spain:

Recently I was talking to a dear friend on the phone who lives in Ohio and is an awesome photographer. She shared with me that if you want to have bad light in a room, paint the ceiling a color other than white. It finally made sense to me why the pictures that I take on the first floor of our house are always so dark! The ceilings are painted a coffee color! The light will always be dark in these rooms until we paint the ceilings white. We might bite the bullet and hire a professional to paint the whole first floor eventually since it would involve painting the ceilings. We are waffling between a soft blue (which we always tend to gravitate towards) or maybe we'll spice it up a bit and go with a warmer, bolder medium shade of blue but definitely with white ceilings. We love the blue paint that Claire and Phil have in their hallway/entry way on the show Modern Family (you never know where you'll receive inspiration from!):

Our coffee colored ceilings which translate to poor pictures (no surface for the light to reflect on/ the warm coffee colors soaks up the light instead of reflecting it- hey, now I am glad that I learned something teaching that fifth grade science unit on light!):

What's left to do in the room:

1. Add a soft blue and green 5 X 8 rug.

2. Find something to place on the wall above the two gingham tan chairs.

3. Put the new chandelier on a dimmer switch. I am crazy about dimmer switches and think just about every room in your house should have this option to control the lighting.

Happy decorating & living to you-

Megan

megan@cottagebluedesigns.com