project pinterest: gallery wall 2.0

So when my pal AP announced she was holding a new Pinterest link up, I knew this was going to be one link up I wanted to participate in. I am only just now getting the whole "Pinterest" thing and am just starting to use it, but in a short time, I've been a pinning fool.

So it's time to take some of those pins and put them into real life.

We've done a few Pinterest projects over the past few months and most of them have been a success but today I'm going to show you a Pinterest spin on my beloved gallery walls.

Truth be told, I've been a fan of the "gallery wall" for years. Growing up, my dream was to always have a house with an amazing staircase that I could do pictures up the entire wall going up the staircase.

Source: houzz.com via M on Pinterest

I've done a gallery wall in every house we've ever lived in. They have always been made up of just family pictures of all of us, in mismatched frames and I have always loved them. I'll do another big gallery wall in this house just like that because I love that look, but I wanted to do something different in two of the other rooms.

So I hit up Pinterest and loved the look of the gallery wall made up of art and mementos and pictures and decided that I wanted to do something similar.

Source: thesavvyphotographer.blogspot.com via M on Pinterest

Now my gallery walls are just beginning but they are both in smaller rooms with a much smaller area to cover than that wall. I would love to do something similar one day, but for now, these will do.

In our guest room (and I cannot get that one picture to hang straight for the life of me so we'll just pretend k?) up above the bed you will find this:
*Also ignore the cell phone pictures. The battery charger has temporarily disappeared in the big move.*

...and in Baby Girl's room..

It's a start, but I love them. And they add a lot to the rooms.

Now go link up with AP and show us what you've been "pinning"!

first halloween- part 3.

Final recap.

Maybe.

On Halloween night, we decided to add a new tradition to our family. Next year we'll do it the week before but this year was pure crazy town.

I actually got this idea from my friend Sara. We never painted pumpkins as a child but when I saw her pictures of how much fun her little boy (BG's boyfriend!) was having, I knew we would have to do the same.

So we rolled out some packing paper (yay for having it laying around..) and set her up for some painting fun in the kitchen.

It took her all of .02 seconds to dive in.

Good call on covering up the cabinets babe...

Yea. So it was messy. But an absolute blast. I can't wait to do this every year!

cleaning 101

Over at Kelly's blog today, the Show Us Your Life theme for the day is cleaning tips, and I can't get enough. I think it's my OCD tendencies, but I kind of love to clean. Now don't get me wrong, my house is certainly not spotless, and there are times when it looks more frat boy style than Martha Stewart, but overall, I enjoy having a clean, relaxing home.

I don't have a lot of tips, but I have figured out somethings that work for us, to keep our house in working order.

First of all, we have 4 animals in our house. Yes, I know, but we adore them. So pet odor is a huge thing of mine as well as their hair. Fortunately, we have almost no fabric in our house. Our furniture is leather, our floors are hardwood and tile, and we just keep area rugs around. So the smell is kept minimal due to that. I use a Shark vacuum or a dry Swiffer every day to minimize the hair. This is a necessity. We also vacuum the area rugs every day. Annoying? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

Other than that, I've broken our house down into rooms to clean. Meaning on Monday, I tackle the living room, Tuesday, guest room and bath, etc. Each day, the room of the day gets a thorough cleaning. Dust, fans cleaned, ceiling wiped down (told you I had OCD), etc. It really does not take very long, usually 30 minutes at the most. I try to knock it out when I get home and Mr. Perfect is cooking dinner. Then we have the rest of the night to relax.

I try to clean the kitchen nightly. Try. This is honestly where I slack off. I HATE the kitchen so dishes in the sink... I can ignore. But I'm working on this! I also make the bed daily (until lately, because I can't bend over!). Just making the bed makes the room look more put together. We pick up after ourselves daily to minimize clutter and we do laundry as it piles up. Saturday is my catch up day, but I REFUSE to spend my whole weekend cleaning. So.. do it during the week. =)

I swear by Febreeze dust spray, Swiffers, and a hardwood vac. Love all three. That's about it. I got lucky in that Mr. Perfect tends to help out a good bit. He gets home before I do, so by the time I come home, he's usually picked up some and vacuumed the house. He's also real good at cleaning the kitchen. I'm lucky, I know.

I can't wait to read some more tips from the rest of you guys. Cleaning tips make me giddy!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Christmas decorations, oh how I love thee.

I managed to wait until the Saturday after Thanksgiving to decorate. That is some major self control on this girls' part.

But once Saturday rolled around, I dragged Mr. Perfect to the nearest Christmas tree farm Food Lion (hey, I live in the city and have no idea where a tree farm is), and bought our tree.

He might have been a little bit sick, sorry sweets, but he was more than willing to go buy the tree. Might have had something to do with shutting me up, but whatever works.



Let the madness decorating begin.


Putting the first ornament on...


Our tree! It's still pretty bare, but we get a few new ornaments each year. I don't have the room for multiple trees, so right now I love my hodge podge tree.

Up close

Don't know if you can tell, but we have no ornaments at the bottom of the tree... I have mentioned my deep love for out cat right?!?

DVD shelves


One end table


The other end table with my favorite plate


The coffee table. That gold hook should have something hanging from it, but I thought it was an ornament and put it on the tree and now I can't find it.... Hmmm

The hearth. Ignore the board holding up our mantle please. That's a home improvement task gone slightly astray. We're figuring it out. I'm also trying to figure out a way to conceal the satellite and dvd boxes, but haven't quite gotten that one yet either...

The mantle. The Mr. was loving him some "Cops" while I was trying to do this.

Another shelf..

Back door

Dining area with Baby Girl's mattress just chilling out.

Place settings

pantry door

My Christmas village in the guest room..

Another view of the tree

Well there's my little tour. Hope you enjoyed a glimpse into our little holiday home! I'd be perfectly fine with doing more and more each year!!

i need a breather...

This month has been insane. It's almost October and I have no idea where September went. Maybe it's because I turned 27 this month. Old age does tend to make the mind go...

Kidding. Kind of.

We've had family or friends staying at our house every night for the last 3 weeks. Our current tenant is the Marine. Now I love my brother, but I have to close the door to my guest room currently so as not to cry when I walk by and see my perfectly decorated room covered in boy stuff. Either that, or I run by the open door really fast with eyes averted. I don't know how I'll ever live with a teenager.

We've had someone at the house every night. Every. Night.

I love company, I love games, I love good food, but I miss my quiet nights curled up on the couch with Mr. Perfect. I miss my tv shows. I miss my slow quiet life!!!

I need some Mr. Perfect time. We've both been falling into bed exhausted every night. I barely remember what it's like to hug that man.

But I'm so thankful for this time with the bro before he heads to A-stan. And I guess I can breathe in October.... It's just a few days away!

decorating 101 dilemna.

I need your help ladies.

We are in the never ending process of decorating our house. Currently I am at a loss for what should go above the bed in our bedroom. I'm actually at a loss for the guest room too, but one thing at a time for my sake. Our bed looks like so at the moment. We don't have a headboard on the bed. We don't have one that goes on the King frame. I thought about having Mr. Perfect make one and covering it in fabric which I am still debating. If I did so, I want to do a gallery sort of prints over that. Smaller prints or not that many so as not to detract from the headboard.



Photo taken from Good Housekeeping
Something along those lines. Or maybe a few more but smaller.

Then I saw this picture on a blog and just loved it. I don't remember where I got it so if it was from you, much appreciated!


I know that's a couch, but I love how commanding that is. Your eye is just drawn right in. If I did something like this, I would not have a headboard. I'm pretty sure that many pictures would be able to hold their own.

They would all be in white frames, probably not matted. Sepia pictures of different trees to match the theme the bedroom. Thoughts?

Show Us Where You Live Friday - Master Bedroom

I'm kind of excited that it's master bedroom day on Kelly's house tour. If you remember, this is the room that we ripped up the carpet and played Norm Abram in, I mean put tile in. I never want carpet in any of my future homes. Seriously. I heart my tile floor.

As with all previous posts, this room is not completely done. I've mentioned it before but will remind you that here in the Imperfect household we lack some serious sticktoitofness (come on Blogger spell check, that's totally a word!) and moved from this room to another without completely finishing up. But it's the closest to done in the house.

Gah, enough of my jabbering, here's our room.



Headed into our room from the hall. I've known from the very beginning of re-doing this room that it would be brown and blue. Of course the Mister fought me on brown walls but now he absolutely loves them. You'll remember the same thing happened with the paint color in our bathroom...



Another view coming into the room. That's our laundry hamper on the right which we hardly use. We usually just leave our clothes on the floor so the dog's can sleep on them. I can't believe I just admitted that.



I love my bedspread!! I looked forever and saw this randomly at a SteinMart of all places. I'd never even been in there, I just happened to walk through one day on my way to Old Navy and saw this. It was a bit more than I would have wanted to pay but it's so worth it. Of course now Mr. Perfect won't let Lacy on the bed.. Price you have to pay.

Our bed is a California King and is the best investment ever. We need a headboard, but I don't even care. We had a bed set to go with our queen that's now in the guest room, but we were going to kill one another if we didn't upgrade to a larger bed. Apparently I move in my sleep. A lot.




The Mister's night stand. This is actually his childhood furniture that we stripped down, painted, and put new hardware on. We've been all about the DIY projects this year.



My dresser on my side of the bed. I love that picture. It's a yellow lab sleeping on the bed and is called "Master Bedroom". I'm just looking for a white frame to mat it in and it will hang above my dresser.



The dresser across from our bed. The TV in our room was a huge deal to get. I HATE televisions in the bedroom. I just don't think it's the place for them. I fought tooth and nail to not have one and then came home one day to this. I lost it! But after my meltdown I got over it and now have to admit it's not so bad. We actually hardly ever watch it. It's been my best friend after surgeries in the past though.

We are still looking for a mirror we're both in love with to put above the dresser. And when I say looking, I mean we hardly ever think about it and it wasn't until I went to put this post together that I remembered we don't have one. Oops.




My closet with the Mister's belts and shoes in it. I won the closet, I can let him keep his shoes in his room right?!



Our room! Isn't the tile divine?! I can't say enough about how much I love it. Mr. Perfect was definitely right on that call. I have a project I'm working on right now for above our bed. But that gets a big fat to be continued...

Show Us Where You Live Friday

...It's back!!

Or I guess I'm back since this little bloggy carnival actually went no where. It was just off touring little rooms like nurseries, playrooms, and fun little rooms that I don't have. But this week it's bathrooms; and those, I've got.

Our guest bathroom is pretty basic. It has a skylight which is fun, but completely pointless. Whatevs, I didn't pay for it. I actually want to change this room. I want to put tile down (it still has linoleum), change out the sink, put wainscoting on the lower half, and paint the top half either lime green (working on the hubs) or a bright blue. But I would also like to eat, so all that will have to wait.

Looking in from the hall


side view


The wall by the vanity. I realize that a) the picture frame looks like a dog tried to eat it, but I don't care, I'm not buying a new one, and b)that UGA doesn't really match. I personally think he should not have to be banished to the bathroom but the Mr. is not a Georgia fan so here he sits. Sad. =(


The wall opposite the throne. You see that nice strip of blue? Yea, the morons perfectly nice people that had the house before us kind of painted the walls and the tub.


Crass I know, but I love it. I found this at an antique store Downtown.


skylight


blech, linoleum.


Now onto the master bath. Our bathroom is TINY, but it doesn't bother us at all. We leave for work at different times every single day so we are never trying to both get in there at the same time. If we're going out or anything, I do my hair in the guest room. I designed our whole bathroom around a mirror I found that the previous owners left in the garage. I knew right away that the bathroom had to be purple. The Mr. and I argued about this for months til he finally gave in. Now he loves it. Only problem. For some reason (I guess we chose the wrong paint?!) the water from the shower steams up the bathroom (I like my showers to the point of scalding) and then leaves water marks all over the paint. They never go away. So I guess we'll have to repaint. But I still love my bathroom!

Entering from our bedroom. We (go ahead and assume that "we" means "the hubs") ripped out the sink and put this one in. The mirror is the one I found that I lurve! We also put up the light fixture and tore down the horrible brass monstrosity that was up there.


See what I mean about the water?!? I want to get some sort of cabinet thing to put on this wall and move that picture to the other side. We (still means "the hubs") have too many "products" in here and not enough storage so I'm trying to find a cabinet for him to put them in so they aren't out, but they also aren't stuck up under the sink. Then we are both happy. Where do mine go? Secret: I really don't have any. I am freakishly low maintenance.


The tile!! Oh how I love my tile! The hubs did this all by himself! I'm so proud!!


The mirror and the products that need someplace to go. Hence, the cabinet above the toilet.

*ok.. so like 3 of those are mine..

That's all folks. I'm off to put in my miles now that it's out of the 100's and into the 90's here in Coastal Town, GA.