Friday, September 26, 2014

Lighten Up!

When we first built our home in 1999 I loved my warm color scheme with it's 
reds, greens and golds.  






Then, after living with and loving it for twelve years, I began wanting to lighten things up.  I didn't exactly dislike what I had; I was just ready for a change.  Do you ever feel like that?

I decided to start the redo by looking for wallpaper for the formal dining room and when I came across this Farrow and Ball paper called Lotus on the pages of Better Homes and Gardens, it was love at first sight!



Source

My love affair with this paper made me think of the old torch song..."You made me love you.  I didn't wanna do it.  I didn't wanna do it.  You made me want you and all the time you knew it.  I guess you always knew it."

  It is normally only sold to the trade (professional designers) and was out of my price range.  I worked really hard to find another paper I liked as well--or even almost as well--but I couldn't.  

Then enter my hero.....I have the world's most generous and understanding husband who urged me to splurge.  I rarely "go crazy" like that but this time I did.  This one choice was going to impact all of my future choices for the house since my rooms are all 
open to one another.  But I still had a problem--I don't like to pay full price unless there is no other way.

   Thank goodness for Google--I found a company online called L.A. Design Concepts that gives their customers access to "trade only" home goods--and at a good discount!  
Still, it was a splurge for me....I'm so grateful that I only had to paper above the chair rail!

Here's how it turned out...




These pictures were taken with a little point and shoot camera and they seem a bit dark but I think they give you an idea of how the room looks.  I would like to update with a new chandelier but I'm waiting for just the right one to come along (and for the budget).

In upcoming posts I'm going to share some before and after shots of other rooms I remodeled at home in an effort to build up the resolve to redo our master bedroom.  I need some courage to tackle that project.  Living through a reno is not for sissies.







2 comments:

  1. VICKY!!!!! I thought I'd lost you!!! I am so nutso nuts......I guess I had you in my blog roll under your very last post of last yr....so every time I hit your link, nothing new ever came up and I thought you'd left blogland. Figured when you finished your house on tybee you were gone. Then I JUST saw your article in the magazine and knew I had to come find you. Only to find out you're still here and it was me being too crazy to just have your general blog link in my roll.....
    So excited to see you're still posting and I plan to spend some time going back thru all your posts. You're famous too!!!! Published!!!! You Go Girl!!
    Love the room above..........and that rug??? where did you find that one??

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    1. Welcome back--I've missed you! It's always so encouraging to read your comments and I was sad when I thought you had decided to stop reading. I'm not posting quite as frequently now but yep--I'm still here! To answer your question...The rug was purchased from a rug company in Atlanta that sells to the trade only--I had a designer who works by fee-only help me buy it and she passed on the wholesale price to me.

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