Where do you start?

So basically every. single. time. I finish up a big project, I swear up and down I’m going to take a few weeks and do nothing but finish up little projects around the house.

It’s all the little unfinished stuff that no one else notices but me, but it’s also the little stuff that drives me just a teensy bit nutso every time I walk by – molding corners that need to be caulked, holes that need to be spackled, spackle that needs to be sanded, sanding that needs to be touched up…you see where I’m going.

The BORING stuff. Yawn.

So yet again, I’ve found an excuse to not do it.  ;)

Our office has been calling out for a redo for quite some time. I really love it, but (yet again), we never had an overhead light installed in this room and we’ve been told it’s virtually impossible (save tearing down the ceiling) to get one in there. Awesome.

I’ve decorated it in dark, deep tones for all the six years we’ve lived here, because I figured I’d work with the stupid-no-overhead-lights-decision-because-I-was-cheap and just go warm and cozy:

Hubby has always loved the darker tones but it’s always driven me a little batty. Every time we’re in there I ask if he thinks we need another lamp and he tells me the four we have in there is probably just fine. Ummm, I must have more but there’s no more outlets. Gah. I need light folks!!

So this week I made a decision – the room is getting a redo! A light and bright redo! A beautiful redo! A cheap redo!

I hope to show you what a difference just fabric and paint can make to a space. In my head it’s absolutely transformed – and in my head there is molding so we may have to add that to the whole fabric and paint transformation thing. The difference fabric and paint and molding makes that is.  ;)

So when you are decorating a room from scratch or starting over completely – where do you begin? Well, I always suggest what I NEVER do. This is another do as I say, not as I do thing folks.

I highly recommend you start with something that inspires you – it could be just about anything… a piece of art, a vase, a pillow, drapery fabric. Anything! I think it’s WAY easier to start with one of these inspiration items than to pick a wall color and work backwards.

Ask me how I know. And then ask me why I keep doing it. I’m a sucker for paint chips I think.

Case in point – our master bedroom:

OK, actually…let’s just say every room in our house. I ALWAYS fall in love with a paint color first and then get all giddy and gung ho and start painting…and then try to find drapery fabric or pillows or any kind of accent color and it’s always a major pain in the booty.

I painted a lovely grayish green color in our bedroom all by myself, stood back and adored it, ooohed and ahhhed and maybe rubbed my cheek up against it. (Or not. Maybe. Shhhh…) I loved it! Then I started looking for new bedding and couldn’t find anything that worked with the color.

I ended up going with a white duvet with a chocolate brown accent, which we do love – but I’d love to be a bit more daring with the fabrics in this room. Picking the paint colors first really narrows down your options.

I picked the dining room wall color before anything else (told you I do this in every room!):I fell in love with the paint so much that I figured I would just make the fabrics work.

Luckily I did – but the drapes are a bit of an illusion:

The design looks chocolate brown, but it’s really has a green tone to it. If you hold them up to the wall color and really look close, they don’t match!

No one would ever notice, and I adore that fabric, so it works. I loved the wall color so much I was prepared to just use a solid white drape if needed.

I painted our family room before we even moved in, and I totally lucked out with the Sisal color from Ralph Lauren:

Six years later and I still love, LOVE, love it. It’s a great neutral and pretty much anything works with it. LURVE.

Overall I would save myself a TON of time and effort when decorating our house if I would just stop working backwards. :) So for the office, I’m practicing what I preach!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked through the fabric store and lovingly touched the rolls of beautiful fabrics -- wishing I could use them somewhere in our house. This time I decided I would start with a fabric I loved and use it at the jumping off point for the whole room.

I went to Joann’s and found a fabric (or three!) I adored – and I’m working the redo off of them. This is so different for me, but I can already tell it’s going to be SO much easier working this way, rather than working off of a wall color!

The room totally fell together in my head as I looked at these:

Aren’t they gorg?? I am in love with them! Can you believe I’m using BLUE again? Yes, I’ve already checked my temperature and it’s normal. I think I may just be a blue convert. (Never say never.)

Now, instead of staring at a paint deck forever, or standing at the paint chip display at the department store for hours ever…I have the wall color picked out for me already!:

   

You’ll just have to stay tuned to find out which color that is and where these fabrics are going!  ;) Yippee! I’m so excited to get started on this one!

The spackle can wait, yes?

So how do you do a redo? Do you go backwards like I usually do or do you start with inspiration?

 

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