Copy Cat Design: Celerie Kemble Dining Room

I'm so thrilled you guys seem to love these copy cat posts from Colleen as much as I do! Colleen has the best eye and knows when to splurge and when to save. She also is a FANTASTIC flea market partner in crime. We always find gems together. My favorite find was these midcentury chrome and brass coffee tables for Colleen's living room. So gorgeous!!

Here's Colleen with an amazing dining room redux:

I'm so excited to do this reader-requested Celerie Kemble dining room; I worked on the issue of Lonny in which it was featured! It was absolutely my favorite interior.

1. Bowmont Chandelier; Circa Lighting, $1260

If this room were for a client, I'd trawl the flea market and Ebay for a vintage option, but I'm quite enjoying this new chandelier that nods to the original Murano. For a different but still lovely Murano-style look, try the Calais Chandelier from Z Gallerie.

2. Alexa Limed Oak Chair; Zinc Door, $500

Celerie used shagreen chairs of her own design in this room. Grey chairs with Mid-Century lines are still faithful to the look. Another option are these Klismos chairs from West Elm.

3. Java Mohair; Decorator's Best, $50.25/yard

Complete the chairs with plush mohair in a chocolate hue.

4. Bamboo d'Oro Flatware; Barney's, $125

I've been dreaming of this flatware for months now. It's on my "when I'm rich and fabulous" list. Target fortunately has an interpretation in stainless.

5. Lucite Curtan Rod; The Paris Apartment, $255

One of the Jonathan Adler decorating tips I've taken to heart is to replace your hardware with lucite. It's instant glamour!

6. Pinch Pleat Curtains in Sulfur Green Linen; I Dream of Drapery, $138

To keep window treatments from being over the top, pair the lucite rod with linen drapes.

7. Artichoke Candle Holder; Sears, $38

These ceramic artichokes would be cute on a mantel too.

8. Vintage Floral Wallpaper; SecondHand Rose, $150/roll

The art in the room is by Alex Timchula, but framing wallpaper is a great option. You could also get botanical prints from Etsy.

9. Dakota Dining Table; Crate and Barrel, $1400

Most lightly-stained farmhouse tables would do the trick here. Top with simple glass plates.

10. Nautilus Shell Paint; Benjamin Moore

This pale peachy-pink evokes just enough glamour.

11. Torsby Sideboard; Ikea, $300

Spray paint the hardware a brass shade and you'd be good to go! For something a little more Regency, try this buffet from Home Decorator's.

Winner: $500 Giveaway!

This post is sponsored by the makers of Clorox® Disinfecting Wipes, the quick and easy way to clean and disinfect your home!

Please email me this weekend to claim your prize, Julia. And thanks to everyone for entering!

Room Tour: Perfectly Pink Bedroom

My friend Kristen from Gypsy Soul Interiors always has gorgeous projects going on at her place! I loooove when her name pops up in my inbox!

She was inspired by this chevron rug DIY project and used a perfect coral pink color. The rug is for her daughter's newly redecorated big girl room. I love the Kristen eyeballed the taping! She wanted this to be a quick project and sort of liked that imperfectly-perfect look (especially for a kids room).

You're going to want to check out how adorable this little girl's room turned out. That bed (and bedding)! That chaise! Kristen embraces all things vintage and knows *just* how to update them with paint and fabrics. I feel like this space has so much more soul than a room filled with catalog furniture!

I'm sure you'll want to know just like I did - the wall color is Iced Apricot by Valspar. Definitely adding that one to the paint color arsenal! This elusive perfectly peachy pink color is hard to nail down!

Gorgeous job as always, Kristen! Thanks for sharing!

If you have a room submission for LGN, please email jenny at jennykomenda dot com. Thanks!

The Bean Jar Method (and a freezer paper DIY!)

This post is sponsored by Pine-Sol®. Clean & Disinfect with Pine-Sol: The Powerful Scent of Clean.

I've been on a bit of a cleaning post kick lately, so I thought we could talk about kids and chores. Did you get an allowance growing up? I've learned that kids need incentives in their lives (well, don't we all?). We've been using beans as an incentive/accountability tool for a couple months now and I love it.

We keep dried pinto beans in this old jar on the counter and every night the girls pull out their bean baggies and we square away our accounts.

The general idea is every bean is worth a penny. Every chore the girls do each day is worth a bean, and we also give and take away beans for their actions. Like fighting/yelling/not sharing results in the loss of a bean or two. Sometimes I'm feeling generous and will offer them 10 beans each to make the trip to the grocery store easy! It works every time. :)

The girls count their beans all the time (another bonus! Math practice!) and when they have earned a few dollars, we go to the toy store (i.e. heaven on earth). It's so fun to see that the new toys they earned and budgeted for mean more to them. I feel like they have a better understanding of and appreciation for money now.

We've been keeping their beans just in little baggies, but I'm committed to the program now, so we upgraded to these cheapie little coin purses from H&M that I personalized with their monograms.

It's a super easy DIY. I just typed their initials into Word (Futura font at 165 pxls) and lightly taped a small piece of freezer paper on to my computer screen. I also bumped up the brightness on my screen so there was lots of contrast.

I softly traced the edges of the letters and then cut the letters out on a cutting board with an Xacto knife. Here's a little tip for cutting anything out with an Xacto knife - pull, don't push the blade. You'll have much more control of your line if you're pulling down all the time, so move your project around so that you're always pulling the blade down.

Next, you just layer a dish towel on top of the freezer paper (wax side down on the purse) and iron until the freezer paper is secured on the purse.

I used a regular paint brush and some gold latex paint to dab on the letters. I did about three coats of paint with a bit of drying time between each coat. Try hard to keep the paint smooth and even, but don't push the paint down too hard. It will get in under the edges of the paper if you're too agressive.

While the third paint layer was still wet I peeled off the freezer paper.

Ta-da! Personalized bean purse! I also switched out the old zipper pull for a mini gold/black leather tassle I whipped up while the last coat of paint was drying.

The girls love our Bean Jar method - it's sort of incredible actually how well they have responded to it! - and they were extra excited when we worked on these purses together. It makes the whole idea more special to them. Claire sleeps with her bean purse under her pillow. And I think they're so cute I might actually make one for myself. Lipstick holder maybe?

Do you have a method for getting your children to happily help around the house?

Three Free Minutes

This post is Sponsored by Clorox. Help stop the spread of germs with Clorox® disinfecting products.

Clorox is putting together an eBook on what busy mothers/women can do with just three extra minutes, and I was super excited that they invited me to contribute! I've never been more busy than I am right now and I'm juggling so many things, but I feel more at peace now than I did a couple years ago when I was a new mom. I felt like I had lost a bit of my identity while I was so buried in the newborn phase with Grace and Claire (it was a little easier with Evie). After surviving three of those phases, I figured out a handful of quick fixes that help me feel more efficient/put together. And they're so helpful now too as I'm trying to find a good balance in my life.

1) Put on your shoes or work out clothes if you're staying home and just trying to get things done. There is something about wearing shoes that puts me in the efficiency zone. I'm cleaning, I'm busting out projects, I'm doing the laundry. It's awesome. Also, don't laugh at me but I started buying old lady shoes for those times when I'm going to be on my feet all day but don't want to wear running shoes. I bought these loafers and these boots from Aerosoles! (yikes!) I feel like I should be embarrassed but they are so comfy and cute!

2) Put on some jewelry or paint your fingernails. Even when I don't have a stitch of make up on and my hair's up in a top knot, if I take 30 seconds to put on some pretty jewelry I feel put together enough to go pick up my kids from school (which turns out is a bit of a fashion show here in NY). I've completely fallen in love with Meredith Jackson jewelry, and all these earrings would do the trick.

I also like to have my nails painted. I don't mind painting my own nails (or using those Sally Hansen sticker packs), but manicures here in NYC are so cheap! Rather than going out for a movie or for dinner, I meet up with my girlfriends for chit-chat and a mani/pedi. My favorite is the shellac manicure. Crazy shiny and lasts for WEEKS without chipping. Not even oil-based paint sticks to this stuff!!

3) Make a list. The fastest way for me to feel organized on a busy day is to sit down and make a list. I use those electronic sticky notes a lot and I still use Teux Deux on my phone and my computer (they sync with each other!).

I use it as an appointment calendar too. If I have an appointment, the entry is made in all caps and I put it at the top of the list for the day. But sometimes an old pen and paper work best for getting my thoughts organized - and it feels a bit more satisfying to write it down somehow.

4) Do something creative! When I had Gracie, my best friend suggested I start a hobby that is easy to pick up and put down - like knitting or playing the guitar or piano. I think it's so important to do something creative every day, especially if you're a stay at home mom. Learn to be a better photographer. Take up pastels or charcoal drawing. Teach your children how to draw a puppy or a flower. Push yourself in the kitchen and try new, tricky recipes. Write a blog! :) I'd love to learn how to better sew clothes this year or make the time to sew presents (like these dolls from waaaay back in the day) for my girls for birthdays and Christmas.

And some time in the future I'd love a little studio where I could pop in for a few minutes to paint every day. The mommy fog starts to clear every time I start using the creative side of my brain.

5) Be still and take time to reflect. My life is SO noisy! The streets are crazy and my kids can be pretty loud. I find myself craving a little quiet time by the end of the day. No sounds. No screens. Just sitting still for a couple minutes to reflect on the day. I've been using one of these Line A Day journals to jot down a little reminder of something that made me smile. It's fun to look back during what I know were hard or stressful times and seeing that there was always something to be happy about every single day. Today I wrote a sentence about how Evie's latest thing is to walk around fake sneezing. "Ah, aaaAAHH, AHHH-CHOOOOOOO!!" It's so loud and so ridiculous, but I hope I can remember it forever.

I have to add, that I'd like to get better at thinking about other people outside my immediate family for a few minutes every day. Helping out a neighbor or someone on the street -- It feels so great to think outside myself every now and again.

I'd love to hear what you do when you have three free minutes in your day. And if you feel like sharing with the Clorox people who are writing the eBook, feel free to head on over to their FB page.

Knob Favorites

I get bored of furniture really fast, but sometimes it just doesn't make sense to move or get rid of a perfectly fine piece of furniture, especially when it's functional and fits a space well. I was super bored of this console last month, but before I looked into replacing it with something else or painting it another color, I switch out the hardware on the top drawer with these brass ring pulls from eBay (you can see the old knobs here) and BAM. I like the console again!

I'm sort of funny about hardware. I love taking a peek at Anthropologie's offerings because their hardware section is like bins of gorgeous candy - all glossy and colorful! But when it comes down to it, I feel like most of the knobs they have are best suited for a kid's room. I prefer hardware to be a little more simple - mostly metallics and usually just one or two colors.

Here are some of my favorite classic and quirky pieces out there right now. I'd stick with more classic pulls on a colorful/funky piece of furniture and consider the quirky options for a super tame piece (maybe something you kept wood, or painted all white or black).

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11

Copy Cat Design: Lilly Bunn Weekes Living Room

It's Friday! My lovely assistant Colleen from There Comes A Yes is joining us for another round of Copy Cat Design. Lilly Bunn Weekes is an amazing NYC designer and just an all-round lovely person! She blogs at Lilly's Notebook. Here's Colleen's twist on her gorgeous work:

I adore Lilly Bunn Weekes' full-on commitment to color. She doesn't mess around. Color on the walls, color on the furniture--this is not wimpy stuff!

1. Purple Ikat Throw Pillow, Zazzle, $68

If you're feeling some trepidation over color or pattern, start with the baby step: a throw pillow. Pillows are gateway decor.

2. Arrowroot in Hyacinth; Decorator's Best, $27.50/roll

Grasscloth is a genius wallcovering. It works wonders for rooms without much architecture, but there's no pattern to potentially get sick of. Perfect!

3. Meurice Square Table Lamp; Jonathan Adler, $325

A nice, simple brass lamp.

4. Quartz Crystal Cluster; Blue Moon Crystals & Jewelry, $20

Another lamp option: get some crystal clusters, a lamp kit, and drill a hole through the clusters to fit a lamp pipe. DIY instructions here.

5. Ektorp Loveseat; Ikea, $379

Ikea to the rescue for this sofa. Bemz has a range of slipcovers for this style, including an orange cotton.

6. Chambord Velvet in Mango; Fabric Guru, $14/yard

Or have the couch upholstered in this lush orange velvet!

7. Ikat Pillow Cover in Pale Plum; Uzbek Alive, $28

More purple ikat!

8. Auberge Chair; Ballard Designs, $649

A bergere ready to be upholstered.

9. Cotton Ikat Fabric; Fabricadabra, $24/yard

Lilly's chairs (and pillows) are done in Madeline Weinrib fabrics, which are spendy. This fabric is a brilliant alternative.

10. Winston Gold Leafed Coffee Table; Worlds Away, $1375

I like that the coffee table is architectural and not overly pretty--a counterpoint to all of the feminine elements.

11. Quatrefoil Mirror; Shades of Light, $329

With a coat of brown-black paint, this mirror is a dead ringer for the inspiration one!

12. Mid-Century Nightstand; West Elm, $249

Simple wood end tables, another smart juxtaposition.

13. Dash and Albert Woven Diamond Rug; Wayfair, $514

A black and white rug for that punch of graphic pattern.

Thanks so much, Colleen! Feel free to email us if you have an inspiration room you'd like to see interpreted.