Wonderful Wallpaper!

Check out these pictures, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Scary, dated, sad, dull, and awful are some of the words to describe how I feel about this wallpaper. Over the past decade, many of us have hated wallpaper and spent a lot of time and effort removing every piece of it from our homes, but I am here to tell you that wallpaper is no longer a depressing subject! It has actually been my design obsession lately and if I didn't live in an apartment, I would be covering every inch of wall space with the amazing patterns available today. It is such a great jumping off point for any room. I am a big believer that starting with a wallpaper or textile will always help you to easily choose your colors and accessories for the rest of the space. I could go on and on about my love for wallpaper, but instead I will choose to share with you some truly inspiring interiors using, yes, wallpaper!

Updates and Accessories

Things have really started to come together lately around my apartment. We have had a couple of wedding showers now and gifts from friends and family have really allowed us to fill our home quickly! Some of the newer things to see include dining chairs and accessories. I like to think of a space in terms of layers. You have the structure of the room which is the bottom layer, then the furniture, the lighting, and the accessories. As you begin to play with and add to each layer of a room it becomes more and more interesting. Think about a table setting, for example. A table fully set with china, silverware, glassware, flowers, candlelight, eccetera will always look better than a bare table. I believe that a few well-placed accessories can add so much character to a room, especially if they are personal items that mean something to you and reflect your personality, or just items you love. Here are some pictures of my dining area with the new chairs and also some fun accessories I have collected!

Quick Fix!

As you all know, my fiance and I were lucky enough to have some great things given to us for our first home together! Some of the things given to us were awesome, but did not really go with my concept for the apartment. A perfect example of this is my chair, which looked old, sad, and plaid when I got it. Adding some fun fabrics to it's classic style really made this an beautiful chair that is now my favorite thing in the room! Another thing we were given is this lamp:

At first glance this thing doesn't look like its got a whole lot going for it. I really liked the shape of this lamp though and decided that a little paint would give it some new life. Yes this lamp is pure brass, and my mom was not too thrilled with my idea to paint it, but the way I see it, if I didn't paint it then I wouldn't use it and that would be a waste of a perfectly good, FREE, lamp. So after one can of blue spray paint here is the result:

What an improvement right?! I love the lamp now and it is the perfect accent piece in our living room. And this project was so easy that it could be done in one afternoon. So next time you are out at thrift stores and garage sales, make sure to look for lamps with great shape!