The Entry - Almost Done!

I'm a little under the weather this week, but I wanted to share some photos today of how the wallpaper in the entry turned out. The pattern is Lotus by Farrow & Ball and I love how it is both so traditional and so modern. It's hard to imagine ever getting sick of this one.  :)

I think the paper works so well with the new chandelier we recently hung in the entry. It's the Tilda chandelier from Arteriors and it was a total splurge, even with my designer's discount, but the Lotus paper was just begging for something special I think. :)

I wanted a really unique chandelier in here, and this one definitely fit the bill! It has that same trad-meets-mod quality. There are five or six bulbs in the fixture, so it's not crazy bright, but it puts out a really pretty glow in the evenings when we have it on. I love it.

I'm still loving the black stairs, but I think it's about time to get going on the stair runner project, especially now that the paper is installed. I'll probably do something pretty neutral, like a sisal, to not fight the pattern of the paper and the Persian runner in front of the door.

We're getting there! Remember when the entry looked like this?

DIY Branch Light

This afternoon we finished the Domino shoot! I'm so excited to share all the projects we did to get the house ready for this spread. We did a few DIY lighting projects and I love how they turned out. And actually, for Phoenix locals, I've partnered with the Home Depot to make this project and to host a DIY lighting workshop on July 12 from 10-11:30am. You can register for a spot at the TEMPE (Baseline) location here. I hope you can come! I've attended a couple of DIY Workshops before (the one on tile was SO helpful!) and they're always a good time. I'm excited to help lead this one where we'll be talking about lighting trends - it will be super casual and hopefully a lot of fun. :)

So for this lighting DIY, I desperately needed a new fixture for the upstairs landing. The old one was a big bummer, and after splurging on a new Arteriors chandelier for the entry, I didn't want to spend hardly anything on this light. I remembered posting this idea years ago and it felt like the perfect quick solution for our landing light!

I picked up 12 socket splitters at Home Depot. They were about a buck each, in the electrical aisle by all the outlet and switches. In the same aisle, you can find a simple porcelain canopy socket for about two dollars.

After taking all the stickers off, I screwed in the sockets and figured out the overall shape I wanted for the light. What I love about this project is you can shape the light however you want. You can make it more organic and branch-like or you can keep it pretty compact like I did. The ceiling on our landing is not super high, so I needed to keep the fixture short. 

I spray painted the canopy and the assembled fixture (which is easier to spray when it's put together) and I used a little painters tape to protect all the electrical parts. After two good coats and drying time, the light was ready to install.

I also ended up buying a ceiling medallion from Home Depot. I like the way it finishes off the fixture and makes it look a little more fancy. I think it's so pretty to mix really traditional things with more modern ones.

Twelve of the splitters makes a pretty good-sized fixture that produces quite a bit of light. I used I think fourteen 25-watt bulbs. It's so sparkly! :)

And I LOVE how it looks with our new wallpaper! Such a quick and cheap project, but I am so happy with how it turned out!

PS The people at The Home Depot who invited me to host this upcoming DIY workshop sent me a link to a lighting contest they did with Instructables.com. The winning project was this pretty reclaimed wood lamp. That geometric shade is made from straws! Very cool!

Wallpaper in the Entry

I love how high the ceilings are in our entry, but it makes it a little bit tricky to decorate in there! The big walls just swallow up even two or three pieces of art stacked on each other.

I'm so excited to share more, but at the twelfth hour before the big shoot next week, we have decided to wallpaper the entry! I am beyond excited. 

The wallpaper arrived within an hour of the wallpaper hanger today - just in time! We saved a little bit of money by prepping the walls ourselves, but I wish I could have DIYed the whole thing. I've hung wallpaper a bunch of times before and it's usually a doable project, but this was definitely a job for the pros. A big part of it is we are completely out of time and this was a last minute decision, but the bottom line is I get dizzy just thinking about carefully hanging those long sheets on a 18' ladder! It is worth every pretty penny to get to admire from afar on this one! ;)

I can't wait to share the afters, but in the meantime, I'll show you my inspiration photos. I LOVE how wallpaper can stand alone in a room, and how it looks so magical layered with art and other colors and patterns!

A Bloomsbury Life

BHG

Meredith Heron for Style at Home

Anna Spiro (her gorgeous wallpaper line is HERE)

Celerie Kemble

Alison Womak Jowers

Markam Roberts

Timothy Whealon

Restoring a House in the City

Back to work! On my to do list for tonight: tuft a little headboard and dye six curtain panels. Sheesh - what have I gotten myself into??

Huge Prints for only $4!

Michael and I were married eight years ago in the Arizona LDS temple. It's such a beautiful place and is really special for our family. A while back I was looking for vintage maps of Mesa, AZ on eBay (we collect old maps of places we've lived) and I stumbled across this photo of the temple from the 60s. I loved how modern the shot is with all the white space!

Later I saw this tutorial on Pinterest and knew I wanted to blow up my vintage photo for our home. I scanned in the photo and brought my zip drive to Kinkos (Or I guess it's called Fedex Office now? Bor-ring!). For only $4 they printed my image on their large format blueprint printer. The largest size you can do is 48" wide, but mine is 36". It's so inexpensive because the paper is nothing special and you can only have black and white. But it's huge and graphic and so affordable!

I cut down the paper to size and then mounted the print with scrapbook tape on double thick foamboard I got at Blicks for $7 (which I also cut down to size using an X-acto knife).

After mounting the print I realized I could save a ton of money by not framing it and just painting the edges. I used an orange tester paint that I already had on hand and a square-edged artist's brush. It was easy to carefully paint just the edges of the foamboard.

I hung the mounted print on the wall with my favorite picture hanging strips.

I'm so happy with how this project turned out. I only wish my wall was bigger so I could have done the full 48" width!

From the side you get to see the pop of vermillion color. I love little surprises in design!

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Foyer Table

And since we're playing the dream foyer game, I'll add that I want a foyer big enough to handle a beautiful table sitting right in the middle of the room. Front and center.

Nathan Egan

Trad Home

Celerie Kemble

Jed Johnson

Elizabeth Martin via Habitually Chic

Frank Roop

There is a foyer/library table for sale at one of my used furniture haunts. It's tempting me, but as you can see, it needs some TLC.

Can you even handle those feet? to die for.

Seems a little familiar...

domino