I haven’t been home before it’s gotten dark out all week, so I haven’t had a chance to take any pictures around the house. Soo I figured I’d share some of my favorite finds from a recent trip to West Elm. I wanted basically everything in there, it was just one of those days when they had a bunch of great stuff. I bought a lot, but nothing is ready to show yet so onto the list! 🙂

1. Organic Ironwork Bedding

I’ve loved this since I first saw it pop up in an email West Elm sent me. I already have 2 duvets for my king sized bed I don’t yet have, so I really had no need for this. Buuut, I picked up two euro shams for our new sectional that hasn’t come yet. More about those (and the sectional) next week 🙂

2. Parsons Desk in Polished White

This picture doesn’t do the finish on this desk justice, so here’s one I snapped with my iPhone…

I would looove to have one of these for my side of our new office, but at $299 and with no office plans in sight, I didn’t buy it. This desk was one of those things that I’ve seen online, but could never tell how sophisticated the finish looked in person. I really thought it was some in-store only version of the parsons desk.

3. Weathered Wood Spheres

I’ve mentioned these urchin thingys before, so I picked up both sizes for our family room. They still have the tags on them but I love them! Once I get some daylight I will be sure to snap pictures of my new friends 🙂

4. Spring Floral Duvet

Yet another one of those items that I’ve seen online, but it really caught my eye in store. I seriously carried around two of these euro shams for most of my trip, but then decided to go with the Ironwork ones above. Tough choice, considering they were on sale. I wish it was rational to have 100 duvets….

5. Lacquer Bath Accessories

I pretty much loved all of these and stood in front of them scratching my head for a while. We have soap dispensers and a tray for our master, but nothing for our hall bath. I decided to use some serious restraint and only get a small navy tray to balance all of the white in our hall bath. Our shower curtain has navy in it and I figured it would neaten up the stuff we keep on the counter for guests.

6. Harbour Rope Pillows

I went into the store with goals in mind and a shopping list of sorts. One of the throw pillows I planned to get for the new sectional wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, so I snatched up 2 of these in white. They were on sale and I already had 20 inch inserts I’m not currently using. Hello texture 🙂

7. Hammam Stripe Hand Towel

I’ve been fascinated by these things since I saw them on an episode of Dear Genevieve. They feel like a heavenly piece of fabric, but they somehow absorb water well. I passed these up because they didn’t match any of our bathrooms, but now that the powder room is dark gray, my little imagination keeps going back to them…

8. Floral Kaleidoscope Napkins

These were definitely not on my list, but I bought them anyway. I loved the pattern and I often use a napkin to line our bread basket. Then I got the idea that I might possibly want to sew them together to make a pillow. As if I need anymore throw pillows, I seriously have a problem.

9. White Lacquered Box

This is part of the Lacquer Office storage, but the box is no longer available online. I figured it would look great on our entertainment center (following Emily Henderson’s styling rules of books, boxes, vessels and structural items). I think it was like $40 though so I walked away 🙁

10. Dimpled Drinkware

We’ve had a few glass casualties lately and wouldn’t mind a few spares. Our current ones are hefty ones from Crate and Barrel that we got for $1 each on clearance. These were $8 each for the large size (which we use the most). I think I’ll wait for them to go on clearance…

I think I said this during my last West Elm list, but WE is my new go-to, I-know-I’ll-love-it store. Once I get my new pillows up and running (sectional is coming on Saturday!!!) and the tags off of my urchins, I will be sure to share them with you. In the meantime, is there anything I missed? What have you guys been drooling over at West Elm?

ps- I don’t get paid for my West Elm lists… in fact, I paid them for my addiction. But I got pretty stuff so it’s okay! 🙂

On Saturday, we set out to expand our search for a sectional. We hit up a bunch of stores: The Dump, Ashley Furniture, Thomasville, Mealey’s and American Signature. Thankfully, they were all very close to each other so it was easy to store hop!

At first, our adventures started off as usual. There were the chubby baby couches…

See those rolls? Not so cute on a couch.

And then there were the couches that were characteristic of some different rolls, the Rolls Royce sectionals…

Complete with heated massage seats…

Then while at Mealey’s, one of our last stops, we spotted this…

And angels sang.

Cuddler piece? Check. Clean, modern lines? Check. Build-your-own configuration? Check. Choice of fabric? Check.

The rainbow of colors on the top are just the microsuede options. Underneath that are stacks are larger swatches of non-microsuede fabrics.

The best part of this sectional? It was even cheaper than the one with the piping I wasn’t crazy about at Raymour and Flanigan. Weeeeee!!!

A few of you recommended looking into Rowe sofas, which I actually did before my last post. I had seen them mentioned around and read they were of great quality, but on their website I didn’t see any cuddler pieces for their sectionals. But, I did see that they sold pieces to a lot of major retailers, which is why we decided to head to more large stores. I didn’t even look to see who manufactered this sectional, but the sales person told us it was manufactured by Jonathan Louis… which she said is a division of Rowe and is made with the same quality. I couldn’t find any info on this online, but it was an added bonus to a sectional I already wanted 🙂

So, we decided to buy this baby (not the chubby baby). We went with the same fabric as the floor model, which is a slightly velvety, medium toned, twill type of stuff. We didn’t want to go too light or too dark, so we decided to go with a color similar to what we currently have. It’s funny, I’m picky until I see something I want and then I don’t think too much about it. I know what I want and when I find it, I choose a configuration, pick a fabric and sign the order sheet in about 10 minutes. We went with the cuddler on the right (when looking at the couch), an armless sofa, then a chaise on the left. So it will be the same as the picture above, but with this added on the left…

The lighting in the store was awful and when combined iPhone photos, I know the color looks different in the two pictures. They were two different displays in different areas so while the fabric was the same, they even looked different in the store.

I sat on this cuddler and it was a dream, I am so excited to get ours. I’ve already claimed this spot as mine 🙂

Mealeys had some great bright turquoise accessories (our current accent color of choice for the family room).

I loved lamp.

And vase.

But my goodness are accessories in furniture stores insanely overpriced. Like the lamps were $125 I think, which was minimal compared to a lamp I looked at while browsing around The Dump that was $250!! I guess they make a pretty decent profit off of them. I say go to HomeGoods on your way home 🙂

We also spotted some consoles we liked and we thought one might work well next to the cuddler and up against the half wall. The first one we spotted was insanely overpriced at $1000 but I snapped a picture thinking we could make one.

But then we spotted this one at American Signature that I like more, plus it’s only $199 compared to the hefty price tag of the other one.

I love the side storage on this one and that we could still stick our shoe basket on the side. But we’re going to hold off until the sectional arrives to see what kind of space we’re dealing with. Same goes for this round storage ottoman from Target that I’ve been eyeing as a coffee table…

I think that if they all work out, our family room will be much more functional and way more sleek looking. The sectional should take around 3 weeks to come in and I am so excited to be able to check this purchase off of our list!!

I”ll just cut to the chase here, WE FINALLY HAVE OFFICE CHAIRS! Wooo!

Incase you’re new around here, we spotted these white Belisse chairs at Staples back in November (they’re not available online). We fell in love with the idea of white chairs after spotting some at Crate and Barrel. However, they were $999. No, Macky didn’t step on the ‘9’ key there…

We’ve had parson style chairs that were rejects from our dining room in the office up until this point. I thought maybe I’d reupholster them, until we got backaches and had no where to rest our arms. We realized that we needed chairs meant for an office, as badly as I wanted some chic stylish ones. After a little searching for affordable white chairs, we ended up paying just $99 each for these beauties!

I love them. I love that they are a nice bright white, I love that all of the “hard” parts are a nice shiny chrome, I love the modern lines, I love the comfort. And mostly, I love that when you peek into the office from our french doors, you see something less expected. They’re still traditional enough in that they are office chairs, but they add that ounce of modern that makes it look like 20 somethings work in here. They have wheels and armrests, but they’re not the standard CEO-style chair.

I’m a little concerned about them getting dirty, but we’re usually in socks and pajama pants within 5 minutes of getting home, so I imagine some leather wipes will keep them tidy. Though they’re not real leather, so no cows were injured in the designing of this office 🙂

My second fabric sample should be arriving tomorrow. Once that decision is made, I can order fabric for curtains to bring some more white into the room. But for now, our white bookends have some crisp friends to keep them company.

I mentioned last week that Mike and I were headed to Ikea over the weekend for some extra storage. I also had another mission in mind- an area rug. You were all very helpful in my past office area rug plea, but after painting the stripes, I decided I no longer wanted a patterned rug. This was one of the reasons why I started this blog, to chronicle the adventures of me changing my mind and rooms evolving 🙂 I just thought it would be a little much to have a large graphic rug with such dramatic walls. I remembered that when I went to Ikea looking for a patterned rug, there was a perfect color green solid rug. So my main reason for going to Ikea Friday night? To pick up that rug.

When we finally made it down to the rug section (who am I kidding, Mike and I go to Ikea so often that we fly through the upstairs in about 15 minutes!), I spotted the rug and ran over. It was marked as “last chance” and the only size left was the larger one, which was nearly 7’x10′. Right before we left, I measured out a 5’x7′ area and figured that would be a good size. I was fairly certain this large one would be too big, but it was a low-pile and the perfect color. Oh and it was $199. Seriously Ikea, every other rug you have is like $19.99, yet I manage to find a $200 rug?! The price scared me and the size scared me, but what scared me even more? The fact that it was “last chance”. Our dining room furniture was last chance and I wanted it for months. When we finally went to pick it up, we ended up on a wild goose chase to Brooklyn to find our table. “Last chance” brings back awful memories for us, so we decided to pick it up and if it was too big or we had buyer’s remorse, we could always return it.

So now we’re carting around a nearly 10ft rug when we once again walk by the Mongstad mirror I’ve wanted for years.

I have just been waiting for this thing to magically disappear, since every time we go and decide not to buy it, I feel like I’m playing with fire. We have an SUV now and we figured our desktops are 80 inches long and they fit, so maybe this would too? We measured the Mongstad and it was only 75 inches long with packaging!!! Score! Let’s bring that home too! Here we are with our carts of oversized purchases, that’s Mike in front of me…

We also got some doors for our Expedit bookcase, 2 white planters for the porch in the spring and some more storage boxes. We waited on line for.ev.er. Really we walked through the store and picked up all of this loot faster than this line moved.  We paid for our stuff and headed out to the car…

We put down the seats and start to slide the mirror in… it doesn’t fit. Wait wait! We can move our seats up a little! So we do. And it’s still sticking out of the back of the car. It’s about 25 degrees and windy, so I really don’t want to drive with my rear door open. Plus we couldn’t figure out where the heck to tie it down. We realized at this point that we are morons. The desks are much more narrow than this mirror and we were able to put them diagonally and push them up on our center console a bit. No such luck with this giant mirror. So we figure we’ll move our seats aaaall the way up just to get the mirror in and once we get the rear door closed, we can push them back a bit.

So Mike pushes the driver’s side seat up and I push the mirror in and close the rear door. I get to the front of the car and I see Mike, completely smooshed against the steering wheel, as if he is driving a clown car. I couldn’t hold it in, I doubled over with laughter. I asked him if he wanted me to drive and he said no, he just wanted to get out of the parking lot before someone saw him. I also tried to take his picture to insert here and he told me that he was suffering enough and did not need the moment documented on my blog for all eternity. I respected his wishes and will attempt to show you the ridiculousness of this situation with a picture of my own knees…

My knees are normally no where near the front of the car. I actually had to reach back to reach the cup holder. We laughed the entire way home and hoped that no one would stop next to us at red lights because we looked that ridiculous. I believe my seat was actually angled forward because by the time we got home, my back was killing me.

But I got my giant mirror finally!!!! 😀

On Saturday Mike cut holes in the office wall to hide the TV wires, but the power cord we had was too short so he had to order a longer one. I’ll take pictures of the much cleaner looking TV when the last wire is hidden! But we did install these guys…

We planned to go with white doors but when I saw these glossy dark gray ones, I couldn’t resist! Mike also drilled some holes in the backs of these to hide the Mac Mini and the battery chargers to our Shark Stick Vacs (every pet owner needs one!)….

So far I’ve only stuck a few things on this bookcase since I knew Mike would have to move it again this week once the new wire arrived.

Saturday night we rolled out our giant rug. Upon first roll, it was ginormous and I was nervous. We had to wiggle it under Mike’s desk since his computer was already hooked up, so we didn’t get that immediate feeling of the size. But once we rolled it out? It’s perfect! Macky obviously agrees!

He seriously did this about 2 seconds after we let him back in the room after rolling out the rug. He should be an Ikea spokesman…and yes he’s playing with a roll of frog tape, sign him up to sell that too! 🙂

Here’s a room shot from Sunday morning.

At least now the price doesn’t seem so outrageous for such a large rug! Really, I think any smaller would have looked funny and once we get chairs in there they will roll right to the back edge of the rug on either end. Speaking of chairs, we did stick to one plan…

We picked up 2 of these chairs I first spotted in Staples back in November. They were actually even cheaper than the “sale” price back then and we got them for $99!! The boxes were stacked on the floor in a display, so we were able to judge the size and thought they’d fit in the car. We almost had a repeat of Friday night, but thankfully we got them in…

We still have to put them together, but we’re almost there!

For those of you wondering what these fabric samples I posted yesterday were for?

Curtain panels and possibly covering some of the storage bins we have. I want something with some white, gray and green in it to bring everything together so I’m working on a solution 🙂

One last time for that Macky video!!

Isn’t he adorable?? 🙂

Okay so remember this shot of our family room after we hung our roman shades?

Well it’s a little blah, missing something. My original plan was to keep the family room fun since it’s a room that can be fun.  I didn’t feel the need to make it classy or formal and I wanted to get away from my blue/brown color scheme. So I thought I’d add pops of green in.  I’ve known since we went to Hawaii that I wanted to add some of our amazing pictures above the mantel, so I decided to go for a Hawaii inspired color scheme.  I figured we could incorporate some green from these pictures…

So for a few months, I had some striped throw pillows with various blues and greens on the couch and some green plants around.  But the plants died and I couldn’t think of how else I would like to incorporate green to give it enough of an impact in the room. Then I found this gem in Crate and Barrel…

And my plan switched. That pretty gemstone of a blue? That is my new accent color.

We have no shortage of Hawaii pictures to work with…

Seriously, are those not the most inspiring pictures you have ever seen?? That dolphin is not photoshopped… AT ALL.  And this is just a small sample I pulled out of the over 3,000 pictures I have sitting on my laptop. I couldn’t even find some of my favorites at this very moment. I love that place.

So I had my vase and my pictures for a few months now, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it in elsewhere, when we decided that our white roman shades weren’t enough and we needed panels.  Cue the Merete pretty blue panels from Ikea…

Then I got sick and didn’t get a chance to hang them.  But while we were at Bed, Bath & Beyond last weekend getting some hardware to hang them, I had a throw pillow revelation.  I knew I wanted some texture, but I didn’t want anything too solid against the curtains. Then I found this beauty…

I cautiously walked it over to Mike, half hiding it, because I could have sworn he was going to say “TOO GIRLY! NO WAY!” but he loved it.

I love the texture, shades of blue and how it almost mimics water. We picked up 2 of them to add to my collection of pretty blue accessories…

That picture in the frame is one of my Hawaii favorites that I didn’t stumble upon tonight. It’s in one of the millions of folders!

After finding those pillows, I am so excited to finally accessorize this room. We’re planning on getting a sectional one of these days and If I could only refrain from getting sick and having mass amounts of homework for long enough to hang some curtains, I’d be a happy camper. Almost as happy as I was here…

Not another soul in sight. This is the first time I’ve seen this picture because we have just so many.

I received an email today about using my frequent flier miles and within an hour of that, I received a promotional email from one of the resorts we stayed in for part of our trip. I take it as a sign from god that it’s time to go back. Until then, I’ll be snuggling with my Hawaii blue curtains and pillows…