House Crashing in the Bluegrass State (part one)

Hello-hello there, Sports fans! Welcome to the newest series here at MKDesign & Decor...House Crashing!

A lot of other home/D.I.Y. bloggers will have the occasional house crashing post. Seeing that I am a somewhat-dilettantish blogger, I am taking a whack at house crashing. What better way to start such a series than to show case the house "where the magic began"? That's right, folks, I am house-crashing the house where I grew up!

My love for interior design and all things homey can be definitely traced to my origins. Growing up, I always held the spot as faithful sidekick to my mom in most of the home improvement projects she took on. I just couldn't get enough of it!

Last week, I took a few days off work to visit my family. When ever I go home, I love to wander around and see what new changes or additions my dear mother has added to the family home since I was last around. You could say it is one of my (many) quirks. It's just something that I do! Although there were not any major changes discovered on this last visit, it still struck me that I wanted to share with you this bit of myself. So, sit back and enjoy a mini tour of my family's home.

As you know from my last post, the bathroom is a highly esteemed room in my book. So let's start there on this little home tour.

Now, I realized after the fact (as in, when I was upload the pictures to my computer after I returned from my visit home) that it would have been waaay classier if I had closed the toilet before taking this picture. As well as folding/hiding the hand towel that is so delicately draped over the drawer. But, alas, such a thought didn't even cross my mind. #comfortsofhomegonewrong Sorry, Mom!

Anyways, in the last six months, my mother re-painted and re-styled this bathroom, which is on the first floor of our house and the recipient of a lot of traffic. My mom painted that wall free-hand. You should be impressed. I am. You might notice in this picture and the following pictures that the patter doesn't show up on all of the walls. This was on purpose. This is a small room and Mom thought that the pattern would become very overwhelming, perhaps even dizzy-ing, if painted on all of the walls. She opted to reserve painting the fun pattern on only the opposing walls of the room. I couldn't agree more with this decision (especially considering the large mirror over the vanity).

I lack "before" pictures. But, trust me, this makeover is an improvement of divine proportions. Not that I necessarily hated the "before." It never really occurred to me to make a bathroom so darling and cute. I am in love with this new look!

Moving on from the bathroom, here is a shot (from the doorway of the previously shown bathroom no less) of the family room. Excuse me for bragging, but I crafted that gallery wall. Though I didn't plan on this being the only picture from this room, it turned out I didn't document this room from any other angle. But you can see that a similar color scheme is continued through the first floor of the house. I am pretty sure that my mom would describe her decorating style and preferences to be in the are of "English Country".

Here is the living room. Again, you will observe a consistency in Mom's decor choices. The look of Mom's style definitely has evolved over time, but I would say she has been pretty consistent in the vein of English Country/English Cottage. Trust me, I am in no way complaining. I love home! In fact, the living room is one of my favorite rooms in the house. It is so cozy. Oh, and the piano is also in the room. I spent many-an-hour at the piano in my youth. (But I failed to get a good picture of the beautiful instrument. Sorry! Better luck next time, I suppose).

The living room is right off of the foyer/front entry. I think this area was a bit of a thorn in my mother's side for some time. You don't see it here, but there is a very boring chandelier above. After living in this house for almost 15 years, I think things are looking quite nice. It helps that the living room is right off of the entry, so our guests have a loverly view as they are walking in.

View from the front door

Next up is the basement. We re-finished the basement about four years ago. It was a big to-do. Although the basement was technically "finished" when we moved in, it was nothing special to say the least. Mother schemed (in the most positive sense of the word) for years about how she would re-style the area once the majority of her eight kids were out of the destructive ages. Her patient, loving waiting paid off for sure. Don't'ya think?

I really like that lamp and table combo in the foreground

 This area previously was a (very) large, double closet. With the makeover, my mom had one side converted to a reading nook slash extra guest bed (i.e. when a lot of guests come one of us kids forfeits our bed to the guest and we get to sleep in the basement book nook). The other half of the monstrous closet became a sitting booth, as you can see. It is great for family movie nights. (We call them "picnics" even though it has been a long time since we spread out a picnic set-up in front of the T.V.).

It was fairly difficult to get a good shot of the basement in such a way that did it justice. Here is the best-of-a-bad-lot of attempts to capture the book nook plus sitting booth relative to the couch area.

There are many more beautiful rooms to share with you from my family's home. However, as you might imagine, time with family is so precious that I got distracted after photographing the above rooms. Thus I didn't finish capturing the rest of the house during my stay. Thank goodness I don't live an egregious distance away, so I am able to travel back with relative frequency. Next time I spoil myself with a visit home, I promise to get the rest of the house and share it with you after the fact. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this house crashing adventure!

Bathroom Bonanza, round deux

Get excited people--We are back to talk about business going down in the bathroom! Woohoo!

Everyone has to use the bathroom, right? After the bedroom (and maybe the kitchen?), the bathroom is one of the highest-traffic rooms in your house. I am sure that there is some researcher out there who has done the  work to figure out "how much of his/her life the average person spends in the bathroom."

If you are like me, you might be in the "above average" category for how much time you spend in the bathroom. I am not admitting to having a spastic colon or anything (that would be totally TMI and I am known for my attention to delicate discretion). Rather, I spend time in the bathroom to do what any girl does--getting beautiful. In this regard, the bathroom is kind of like a secondary office for a woman. It is a sacred work space.

Just like I fancy up my primary office at work, I prefer to a pretty space to get my pretty on. Last time I updated you on the bathroom, this is what was going on:

I was quite pleased with these little improvements. That was all well and good, until I stumbled across an awesome, picture-less frame at an antique warehouse.

This is the closest thing to a before picture that I have. Sorry.

It was gold. It had great details. It was super affordable. It made me think of this

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and this

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 And this:

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Okay, just kidding about that last one. At least for now.

Long story short--I think it took me about 57 seconds to decide to buy it. For the first time in my life, the hours I dedicated to Pinterest paid off and I experienced what has been called a "pinspiration."

Within 48 hours, the mirror (which I forgot to take a "before" picture of due to my excitement) was hanging in the bathroom.

Don't you love it? I do. In fact, there might have been some jump-up-and-click-my-heels-love going on after I successfully rigged the mirror to support the frame. (Again, totally forgot pictures of this process. But it was totally easy).

Here are a few close ups:

As you can tell, there are a few dings and cracks. I will get around to touching it up one of these days. For now I am still basking in the afterglow of this upgrade.

Mix-n-match: Bathroom Bonanza

I should probably admit, right off the bat, that this post's title is a bit of an overstatement. I didn't go all crazy and redo my bathroom. I just made a few tweaks, but I think they are splenderific tweaks at that. 

Until last weekend, I really hadn't put much effort into spiffying up the downstairs bathroom. 

If ever were the saying, "If you snooze, you lose," true--it was true for this bathroom. And that is a fact. Although this bathroom is on the main floor of the house, I don't really use it all that much. Without going into much--if any--detail, it seems that Mother Nature calls me at home only when I am upstairs. Yet, whenever I have visited the first floor commode (whether it be to tidy things up for guests, or to figure out why the toilet is running yet again, or to check out my awesome self in the mirror), I never left that closet-of-a-room without thinking, "Ohmuhgudnizz, something has to be done to that room."

Now, despite the underwhelming state of the bathroom, I am making a very conscious effort to spend as little money as possible these days. Instead of acquiring new stuff to stave off my decorating woes, I wish to use what I have before succumbing to hoarding at my relatively young age.

I did succumb to hoarding urges, slightly, while visiting a local consignment shop. But it was only $6 (total) for two sweet pastoral landscape scenes in lovely ornate frames.

Thing One

Thing Two

Aren't those classy and elegant? I instantly fell in love and, at $3 a pop,  it was $6 I happily parted with. My purchasing weakness behind me, it was back to the bathroom with my treasures. With some quick rearranging and a few extra nails, this is what I had.

Simple and not super glamorous (or even all that different, I suppose), but it does make a difference. Believe or not. I also pulled in a dried floral arrangement, previously was in the kitchen, and put it on the vanity counter.

Here is a quick before and after for you:

Again, not much, but it's a start. Maybe one of these days I'll go crazy and paint a mural on one of the walls. 

But--for now--I like it. 

Anybody else making small-but-still-worth-it adjustments to any rooms in your home?