I know mood boards are the popular form of getting room ideas out there, but I’ve never made one and I’m not sure if they are totally me.  I normally don’t find stuff then decide to put it in a room, but rather I think of things then go out and find them… or make them, if possible.  I notoriously drew our condo living room with colored pencils while I was still in college, before we even owned a piece of furniture.  David Bromstad would be so proud.

I looked into getting some sort of software that I could use to get my room’s actual dimensions, where I could try paint on certain walls, a piece of furniture over here, see how the wall color looks with this or that in front of it.  But from the little research I did, they are rather expensive.  My latest method of planning things out/making things visual so Mike stops looking at me like I’m looney? Paint. As in, Microsoft Paint.

It started with some frame arrangements for over our mantle… (note: these are not drawn perfectly as they were made in like 2 seconds..)

We decided to go with neither of these.  Then I whipped up a similar type deal for one of the walls in the office…

The idea of green office walls has since gone out the window.

Then there was the idea for our Expedit bookcase…

This one is very rough but I wasn’t planning on sharing with everyone.  It was again a way to show Mike what I was picturing in my head.  The green cubes are storage bins, the gray ones are left open, the white are Ikea inserts, 2 cabinet doors and 4 drawers.  But I’m not planning on keeping the white totally white.  I just didn’t have time to sketch that in

So I figured I’d share, since I like using this method to see what options are most visually appealing.  Plus it takes about 5 seconds to make these things… no new software or techniques to learn!  Of course, Photoshop is an option as well, but everyone has Paint!

How does everyone else normally get ideas out of their heads? Mood boards? Sketches?

I mentioned in my last post that I had a new Sunny inspiration…

Since our bedroom is all fancy looking with it’s new floors, I’ve started to think about what I want to do with the room.  Okay, I’ve been thinking about it for months and changing my mind over, and over, and over again.

Originally, we registered for king sized bedding from Macy’s…

We only had a queen sized bed, but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to afford nice, new king sized bedding when we moved into the new house.  So when we spotted this, we both loved it and wanted it.  Problem was, it was discontinued.  Since we are picky, my mom ran out the next day and hunted down all of the pieces, had them mailed to her and gave it to me at my bridal shower.

I still love the refreshing teal tones in this bedding, as well as the crisp white, but I have a habit of decorating with blue.  Our family room/kitchen is blue, the dining room and living room have shades of blue.  I didn’t want to get trapped into the blues/browns again.  I love white crisp bedding and against our new dark floors I knew white would look great.  But with pets, white is very hard to maintain, as is anything too dark.  So I knew I wanted something primarily white, but I was leaning towards a neutral toned bedroom.

I first wanted this Marimekko Poloneese bedding from Crate and Barrel…

Then I saw it was similar to the bedding in the boys’ room on this season of Jersey Shore…

I was nervous about what was going to go down in those beds this season, so I decided to shop around.

(Btw, I loved the living room area on this season of Jersey Shore with the graphic red/white curtains…)

So some other neutral, patterned bedding I was considering was…

This West Elm bedding which was similar to the above Crate and Barrel bedding.  It’s apparently not available anymore.

I also like the organic factor of this Imperial duvet cover, also from West Elm…

So I was obviously favoring West Elm.  One day a week or two ago, I went to the West Elm website to see if they added any new bedding when I discovered this…

It’s the Octagon jacquard duvet cover… it’s orange and reverses to a side with more white than orange. Given my new love for orange and after spotting this, I decided that I wanted some white and orange bedding.  But this bedding wasn’t exactly doing it for me, so I set out to look around.

Crate and Barrel has an orange and white set, the Marimekko Madison Persimmon duvet…

But it was too orange and not enough white for me.  So I checked my usual places, Target, Pier 1, Ikea, Google, but I couldn’t find anything I loved.  Then in a last ditch effort, I went to Walmart.com…..

Exactly what I had in mind! It’s the Divatex Diamond Duvet Mini Set in Spice, and it also comes in black and white.  The great part is, it was on sale when I ordered it so I paid $35 for a king duvet and shams, plus like $2 to ship it.  The whole ‘mini-set’ aspect (just the duvet & shams) was appealing because I could still use my nice Hotel Collection white sheets and bedskirt that my mom gave us as a wedding gift.   A little mix of high end, a little mix of low end.  Throw some accent pillows on this bad boy and we’re set!

I plan on putting the teal bedding in the guest room, since I still love it and can’t bear to part with it.  And I figure since I plan on using white sheets, I may want to change around the bedding from time to time.  That is, if it goes with my fancy plans for the rest of the room

A discussion came up on Twitter a few days ago about whether it’s better to schedule blog posts in advance or post spontaneously.  I always have a idea of what I want to talk about and I’m constantly jotting things down, but I prefer the spontaneous route. Things change by the day and sometimes a great idea comes out of the blue.  This is one of those spontaneous posts.

I logged into my Twitter feed, where I receive updates from HouseBlogs.net, which gives new posts from their group of house bloggers.  This post from The Box House popped up and I had to immediately read it.  I know I’ve mentioned losing our part Maine Coon kitty Sunny here and there, like my new appreciation for the color orange, our wedding favors or how we ended up with the cat who ruined our carpets. For the most part, I’ve tried to keep this blog house related though it’s hard not to mention something that has impacted your life as much as Sunny did.

When I started this, many of my friends reminded me that this was not indeed my first foray into blogging… my cats once had a blog, macandsunny.com.  We stopped posting after Sunny died because it just didn’t feel right.  But since I know so many people enjoyed reading it and I am thankful that it is saved forever on the internet, I figured I’d share it with my new friends.  Gives you a glimpse into us crazy people a little more

So tomorrow, I will give you my newest Sunny-inspired house addition.  For now, hug your pets, make your pets hug each other and if you have some loving words for The Box House, please head on over. I’ll leave you with this picture of Sunny’s beloved brother Macky…

Yes, he is in my wood basket and no, he does not belong there. Someone is going to end up with a splinter in their you-know-what….

They grow up so fast :::sigh:::

The Oreos obviously bit the dust.  Besides Oreos, I also have an unhealthy love for Stauffer’s animal crackers. When I was in college, I used to buy the giant bear shaped tub.  I have since learned to stick to the mini sized bag often available in the dollar bins at Target.

No I didn’t trace that horse, though I tried.  That right there is pure artistic talent. And yes, I did smear the writing  One of the downfalls of working with chalk.

After we made our chocolate covered pretzels, my mom (knowing my love for animal crackers) brought over chocolate covered animal crackers.  How come I didn’t think of that! I suppose it was our rookie attempt at chocolate covered pretzels and we didn’t think outside the box of what we could possibly dip in that chocolate.  Next time I’m dipping whatever is in the fridge…..