Beige begone

One of the more problematic aspects of building was the paint color; builder beige as it is more affectionately known. It's in our whole house and while it's a nice beige, its not what you want to stare at day after day. So on Labor Day weekend we decided to chip away at the beige. We had already painted our living room and part of the front room, but we decided the front room was too dark so we did a redo of the three walls in New Bamboo by Behr. The forth wall we did in Weathered Moss by Behr. Take a look:

I'll be honest, the green is bright. I'm not sure about it. I love the grey, I am considering doing the whole room in that color but I'm going to live with it with the floors in and see how I feel. We also decided to paint our bedroom as well in Pencil Point also by Behr.

I love how the dark grey contrasts with the white furniture, but it's so dark I was scared to do all the walls so I stopped with one and will again live with it for a bit before I decide what to do. I will also take opinions on all of the above, please and thank you!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Project budgeting

Like I said in my last post, things have been busy in the SalTal household. Andy and I decided a few months back to start a monthly project budget. We decided that we would take X amount each month to tackle major projects on our list for the house. This does not include small DIY or crafty projects, which rarely are more than $50. For example things like painting a room, redoing floors, a kitchen backsplash, we would consider a big monthly project. We decided to do it this way so that it didn't seem to overwhelming and it's been working out nicely. We have taken on three big projects since we instituted the budget: the kitchen backsplash, the bamboo floors, and painting two spaces. All of which I plan to blog about in the near future. Three projects may not seem like that many since we have been utilizing the project budget for a little over five months, but we created a rule that we could roll over a previous month's budget to tackle something we really wanted to do. We had to do this with the floor project, which was totally worth it. I don't think that we will always have a project budget every month, eventually the house will be settled and we will only want to take on bigger projects as needed, but for now with so much to do I think this system will work.

How does everyone else tackle major projects? Do you save a little over time or just budget it in each month? Or some kind of combination of the two?

 

Posted with Blogsy

I'm back! And in need of some advice.

 

Why else would I be back? I kid, I kid. I just haven't had regular access to a computer and the idea of blogging from my iPad scared me, but I finally took the plunge and it doesn't seem to hard yet. We have done a ton of work around the house and I am very excited to share that with you all but first I want need your advice. Our living room is looking great but there is one area that is giving me fits. Take a look and see if you can guess:

It's that massive space behind the couch. I'm not really happy with the branches, they just don't give the look I wanted them to. So I found some options I liked, let's take a peek shall we:

 

All images are from Aldari Art Studio Etsy Shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/AldariArt?ref=top_trail

This is where you come in, I can't decide if I like the three prints or the four (and which would look better behind the couch) and if I would rather get the prints in burnt orange or dark teal or a combination of both. So please help a decorating-challenged blogger out and tell me what you think. Thanks everyone!

 

Posted with Blogsy