Bathroom Reveal

It is finally here. The bathroom renovation is finished. Ya heard me, finished! I think we started this project somewhere along the lines of 2 years ago. I wasn’t kidding when I said we work at a snails pace around here. Well the snail finally crossed the finish line. And I am pretty excited to share how it all came together.

It has been awhile since I have posted about the bathroom. So, here is a little reminder of what it looked like before. It makes the end result a lot more exciting, right!

Are you ready to see how it turned out? Drum roll please….

 

We went through a lot of tough decisions with this renovation. The first was I had to forgo my idea to have a dresser vanity. After a lot of searching and one dresser that ended up not working, I decided to order a custom vanity to fit the space. The custom vanity and foe marble top was from Menards. It is nice and rich looking. It also has cute rounded legs on it that you can’t quite see in the picture.

The other decision was to not have a chandelier. I really wanted one over the bathtub. And I still believe to this day, it would have looked amazing! My husband didn’t agree with me. He thought it would get in the way and blah blah more practical talk blah. He was probably right, but why do we always have to be so practical?

Another change we had was in the flooring. I originally thought cork flooring. After researching it and talking to a few flooring places, it was not recommend we use it for a bathroom. Especially one with a tub and shower. So we ended up with vinyl wood flooring. This stuff is pretty durable! And I love the earthiness it brought to the bathroom. My husband would tell you that it wasn’t as easy to put together as the box stated. I believe him. He came up the stairs sweating and out of breath, like he had just completed a marathon.

Despite all the changes, I really love how this bathroom turned out. I created some of my own artwork to pull some color into the space. I wanted the artwork to be colorful, full of texture and simple. I think it ended up working well. And it was incredibly budget friendly.

 I found this map print at the Lucky Star Market in Ames. It was done by the Red Door Press. I love the bit of vintage it adds to the space.

We were very limited on storage in the bathroom. So I felt we needed to get creative with some places to store towels, bath bubbles and other bathroom essentials. My handy husband constructed this ladder towel rack. He made it look so simple!

He also created this drawer on casters. It has some serious storage in it. The knob is from Hobby Lobby. If you have never checked out the hardware section there, you must. I usually stand there for 20 min just grabbing and staring.

The tile we used could not be more gorgeous. I originally found the herringbone tile on builder direct. When I went to look for coordinating subway tile for the tub deck, I found that they had both the herringbone tile and subway tile at Lowes.

I am incredibly excited to have this huge project off the check list. It is everything I wanted in a bathroom space. I am pretty excited to relax in it! Big thanks to my husband for all his work on this project. And a thanks to my dad for helping with the tile. They did an amazing job!

Thanks for stopping by to check out my bathroom,

Style Board Challenge; Vintage and Modern Living Room

I am bringing to you another mood board this monday! I was contacted by Chairish.com to be a part of a style board challenge. My task was to come up with a style board using some of their vintage home furnishings. Below are the furniture pieces I chose to use in a living room space. Chairish.com has exceptional and unique home furnishings from all eras and styles. I spent hours browsing through the site. I promise I wouldn’t share if I didn’t think you all would LOVE IT!

If you are a regular follower, you are probably familiar with how I like to design my spaces using vintage and modern home furnishings. And this mood board was no different. I like to contrast the curvy lines that you see in the arms of the vintage tufted couch and on top of the brassy gold lamp with modern straight lines that you see in the Art Deco dresser. I also use big bold geometric patterns with the rug and wallpaper to bring in more modern flair. In case you can’t see the pattern here is a zoomed in view of the wallpaper.

The color palette was inspired from this fabric I found on fabric.com. I have been waiting for a room design to use navy and coral in. Once I saw this fabric with the mustard yellow combined with the navy and pinky tones, I knew it would be a stunning combo.

For the walls, the overall color would be a soft creamy color. When there is a lot of color going on in a space, I like to keep the walls soft.  I used a wallpaper accent wall to add some depth. My vision would be for it to be in a nook where there could be a little bar area.

I like the idea of using a dresser as a mini bar. It brings unique character to the space verses using your typical box store looking cabinet. The Art Deco dresser not only has character, but adds some much needed earthy tones in. With the couch and chairs being more colorful, I felt the rest of the furniture in the space needed to be a little more neutral.

Okay, I am kind of obsessed with pillows. It truly drives my hubby crazy, but it is the easiest way to splash some color around the living room. I haven’t shopped on One Kings Lane very often for pillows, but I found some amazing choices there. My fav is the Zodiac sign pillow. And if you can’t tell the coral pillows have little poms in the corners. LOVE!

Using vintage furniture in a space adds such character and uniqueness that you can’t find at your typical home furnishings store. It is fun to think I have a one of a kind furniture piece that not many others have in their house. This was a really fun challenge and I would love to know what you all think!

Thanks for stopping by!

Art Inspired Mood Board

Our master bedroom is pretty blah and in need of color and lots of inspiration. I checked out invaluable.com to get my creative juices flowing. Invaluable.com is the world’s largest online auction marketplace with several choices of fine art to browse through. I searched through several of the paintings, and found the painting below. The colors are striking and I was drawn to all of the texture. Gorgeous, right!

Striking color and texture is something our master bedroom definitely needs. I also have to keep in mind that my husband gives me “the look” every time I show him something floral or “too girly” as he puts it.  So, this bedroom design needs to be masculine, but still fill some of my girly flair. Here is the space I came up with.

The color palette for this space was inspired from the painting. The wall color I kept soft to contrast the bold furniture and rug. I wanted to use a lot of different texture in this bedroom to give it a masculine feel.  I used  a brick accent wall, layered rugs, leather tufted headboard and fur pillow.  I added in the gold sequined hello pillow and other gold accents for a little girly flair. The contrast of the two fits us perfectly.

A room is never complete at my house without some vintage finds. The emerald campaign style dresser could be tough to find, but I LOVE it! It has the masculine look my husband wants, but the brassy gold hardware that brings a little glam to the space. For the chair, I am hoping to find something to repurpose and transform it into something similar.

Most of the items in this mood board can be found at Target, West Elm, Crate and Barrel, Joss & Main and I often go to Etsy to look for pillows. And as mentioned earlier, the painting is from invaluable.com.

We work at a snails pace around here. So the chances of us redoing our bedroom are probably not in the near future, but a girl can dream, right? And it is crazy wishful thinking that I could have a white bead spread with a farmer for a husband!

Thanks for stopping by,

Pallet Signs; How I Create My Artwork

One of the most popular questions I get asked is “How do you create your artwork on your signs?” Well today I am going to share with you just that. My way isn’t exactly a beginner way of doing things, but I like my signs to have a hand done quality that I believe gives them more of a personal touch. I have really enjoyed making these signs. It combines my love for graphic design and home decor!

I first create my artwork on the computer. My favorite piece of technology I use is a Wacom tablet. It allows me to create flowing type and helps me illustrate art a little faster. I do all of my illustrating in Adobe Illustrator. This is a custom sign that I did for a wedding. She wanted something that incorporated the fall leaves from her invite, some love birds in a tree and a flowing script font for their last name. Here is the digital artwork I created to show her before I began painting.

Next I usually take a pallet apart and use the boards to give a rustic worn look. I connect my boards with mending or bracing brackets. I usually get my brackets at Wal Mart or Home Depot. Basically any hardware store would probably have them.

For this specific sign I ended up purchasing the wood at Home Depot (BTW they will cut it there for you too!) It is difficult to find actual pallets that have wood nice enough to stain. I bought pine boards that I distressed with a hammer and other heavy tools. This part was way too fun!

After my boards are all put together, I transferred my artwork by chalking it out on the board. This gave me the freedom to mess up a little and still be able to erase it. If you saw my handwriting, you would understand why this step is necessary. My handwriting is somewhere along the level of a 2nd grader. Maybe even younger. HA!

The artwork that ends up on the board isn’t an exact replicate of the digital version, but I like the line quality it gives drawing it out by hand.

Finally, I paint over my chalked out lines with paint.

Here is the final piece! This sign is probably one of my favorites. Okay, my absolute favorite!! The warm, rich background along with the delicate type is a beautiful combination. I can’t wait for the couple to see it.

I am leaving a little gallery of some of the signs I have done. I have several more that I didn’t get photographed. I am trying to do a better job of photographing them to share. Thank you to all of my supporters! If your interested in your own custom sign, please feel to contact me in the comments below or at lindsay.moxie.design.studio@gmail.com.

Back Roads Vintage Market This Weekend

Good Morning Moxies! The Back Roads Vintage Market is this weekend! I have been working to create some fresh new items for this market. I will be bringing some new styles in pallet signs, new pillow fabrics and a few new unique furniture pieces too. I will also be offering the $5 dollar prints and $10 pillow covers. Please come out and say hi! I would love to see you!

Check out The Back Roads Vintage Market Facebook page for more info. and a peek at other vendors that will be there. You don’t want to miss it!

 

 

FEATURE FRIDAY | Gray Matters | With Rachel

Happy Friday! Today I am excited to feature a guest blogger, Rachel Serene. She is an artist, designer, wife and mama of two, soon to be three, littles living in the Iowa countryside (but not too far from Target or she wouldn’t survive out there!).  She has an Esty shop (The Burlap Bungalow) where she specializes in hand drawn and hand lettered designs.  She also has a home décor blog over at Home Serene Home.  You can find her THIS weekend (June 7^th and 8^th) at the Vintage and Made Fair in West Des Moines selling prints and paper goods. You don’t want to miss it!

She is one busy lady and a very talented one at that. Here is Rachel, with her post that I think most of us can relate to. Plus she has some great tips for you that you might want to pin to remember later.

By now, most people have tried painting a room in their house gray. A lot of times it doesn’t turn out the first time, or even the second or third. Gray is such a tricky color. You would think it would be pretty straightforward but it can look purple, blue and even green once in gets up on a wall. Have you had this happen to you? It’s so strange because the paint swatch by itself looks GRAY but when you start comparing it to other types of gray, you can see that it becomes a little greener, or a little bluer. Gray is confusing!

I am pregnant with my third child and for the first time we decided not to figure out the gender. This is how planning-type people surprise themselves. We have a son and daughter already and so figured we had everything we needed that this time we could throw caution to the wind, get crazy, and WAIT until the baby is born to find out the gender. I know–we are living on the wild side!

I quickly knew I wanted to do gray walls in the soon-to-be-son-or-daughter’s new room with pops of Kelly green throughout that would easily accommodate a boy or a girl. Honestly a lot of wanting to know the gender of our babies before they were born was because I wanted to decorate a room accordingly. I was NOT about to a have a frilly little girl in a stark, unisex baby room. Some women plan their weddings their whole lives; I planned my baby rooms. Now that I’ve done a baby girl room and a boy room however, I was up for a new challenge. I settled on a style– a little modern/industrial/vintage— (basically the story of my life) and then threw together an Olioboard.

The walls will be a medium gray with darker velvet curtains. The crib that we have (a curvy Jenny Lind-style one, not as modern as the one pictured) will be painted Kelly green, and I will incorporate a mix of white, wood tones, metals and, maybe if I get really crazy, some cute little Narwhals.

This brings me back to gray, the first step to transforming this room in my head to a room in real life. I went to Home Depot and picked up a million swatches of gray. I was super-leery of any that looked blue-ish or green-ish. This would be the third time I have painted a room gray and I really wanted it to be the best gray room yet.

I compared swatches, brought them home, taped them to the wall to see how they caught the light, compared swatches again, decided what gray I wanted, consulted my husband, changed my mind on what gray I would use, talked about it more, prayed about it and then finally headed back to Big Orange to get my gallon of paint. I settled on a Martha Stewart color—Bedford Gray—and was pretty confident it would be the one. I bought it in the Glidden Duo brand with the paint and primer together.

So let me just say, THIS GRAY IS AMAZING. It’s the gray of my dreams. For me, in this room (‘cause ya know, gray can change depending on the light) it was exactly what I was envisioning. AND, I would also like to add that the Valspar paint with primer is so smooth and so worth it. I barely did a second coat—just a few touch ups. I LOVE THIS GRAY PAINT!!!

I realized the key to picking the perfect gray (IMHO) is finding one with a little brown/taupe in it. The brown tones down any strange blues and greens but won’t look brown once the color is on the wall. The Bedford Gray that I chose went on light and more taupe at first and then dried the most beautiful shade of medium gray. I seriously want every room in my house AND my exterior to be painted this color. We are re-siding our house soon so the exterior part MIGHT just happen 🙂

Just to wrap it all up, here’s a little check-list when going to the store for gray:

• Go a few days before you plan to paint the walls so you have time to compare paints chips and decide.
• Pick tons of swatches, from all different brands, tints and shades. They are free so get them all!
• Come home and tape some favorites against the trim in your room in an area that gets decent natural lighting. Let them hang out for awhile as you get used to your options.
• Come back when the lighting has darkened some in the room and assess your choices. Star your favorites.
• Come back when the lighting is bright again and move the swatches to another part of the room to see if your favorites still make the cut.
• Remember to try to avoid ones with purple or green undertones, and when compared side-by-side, find one with a little more brown than the next.
• Ask advice from someone you live with.
• Take a deep breath and go buy your paint.

Or scratch all that and just choose Bedford Gray by Martha Stewart 😉 Maybe get a sample first—but really—if you’re room gets decent lighting (the room I used it in has two windows and is on the north east side of the house) it should be a pretty decent choice. I am in no way affiliated with Martha herself, but shoot, I just LOVE this color and am so happy how it turned out. Bedford Gray FTW!

One last tip I learned from a friend: if you feel the small swatches are hard to compare, buy a couple samples in the paint colors you think you may choose and paint a square of poster board as a large “swatch”. Once they dry, use those instead of the little chips from the store to get a better feel for the color against the wall. This is a more expensive option and could result in going back to the store a few more times to try different samples but may be worth it to you. I almost NEVER pick the top three choices I like at the store, and this time ended up picking one I was hardly eyeing at first, so this method would have been tricky for me this time but I still think it’s a great tip.

There you have it. Gray is gorgeous; it warms up any room and matches all colors. You cannot go wrong with the concept of gray, but when gray becomes a reality in a room it can often be a disaster if your eye isn’t trained to pick the right color. I hope this little guide gives you some confidence next time you set out to choose the perfect gray!

Good luck and happy swatching!

Rachel

Thanks, Rachel for sharing. I know exactly what you mean about finding the right gray. I have ended up with purply looking walls that were intended to be gray. Great tips I will have to hold on to. And I have to mention that kelly green is my fav color this summer. I must find a way to bring it into my house somewhere. LOVE!

Have a good weekend, Moxies! Remember if you are needing to get out of the house this weekend, stop by and say hi to Rachel at the Vintage Made Fair in West Des Moines.

Sunroom Revamp

Good Morning, Moxies! It has been a long time coming for a new post, but my own house was in need of a little TLC, okay a lot of TLC. I have several half started projects that I haven’t had time to get finished or projects that just seem to lack priority in comparison to other things on my to do list.

I decided to tackle my sunroom first. It was probably the most noticeable unfinished project. I started sewing new cushion covers for my sunroom  back in February and it was left with half old green cushions and new grey cushions ever since. I wish I would have snapped a picture of it, because it was interesting looking for awhile.

My inspiration for the sunroom started with this chest that I transformed here. I removed the wicker tables and decided to add some character to what I call a very wickertastic sunroom. Yes, wickertastic. Everything in the sunroom was wicker, there wan’t much character and the green cushions have bothered me pretty much ever since I bought them. I had to dig for these pictures, but I found one of my son at Easter time in front of all the wicker and a picture showing the ugly pattern on the cushions so you can truly get what I mean. Staging this picture together for the chest transformation below, made me realize that I wanted to bring in more pink, orange and turquoise into the room with pillows and other accessories. I loved the way the turquoise of the book and the pink and orange in the decorative balls looked with the mint green. For my fabric choices, I looked at fabrics by Joel Dewberry on fabric.com. I really love his floral prints. And in a sunroom, I felt it would be nice to bring in some bright florals. To bring some character into the sunroom, I repurposed an old typewriting table that my mom had in her attic and used it as a side table. I thought the color turquoise would be perfect for it. As the color turquoise is perfect on just about everything, right! If you attended the Lucky Star Market you may recognize the super adorable coaster. I just had to have one for myself. Another piece I repurposed was this old side table from my grandma. I love the geometric detail on the side. It looks lovely all creamy and distressed. And it makes a perfect TV stand! My good friend Megan over at 421 Design got me addicted to this copper spray paint. Seriously addicting, I mean it! I could not stop finding things to paint copper. I found my can at hobby lobby. And don’t forget to bring your 40% coupon with you! Don’t mind the sparse yellow flowers. My boys won’t leave them alone. They keep picking the flowers off and giggling. I may or not replace them until they figure out to leave them alone! I love the feeling of finishing up a project. My sunroom is ready just in time for beautiful sunny weather. I can sip my coffee in the morning and kick my feet up and enjoy! And here is one of my little princess dog Siena, who refused to leave the sunroom for my photo shoot. HA! I don’t blame her, the sun does feel good. Have a good week and enjoy the sunshine!  

Lucky Star Market Is This Weekend!

Is everyone ready for the Lucky Star Market this weekend? It is down to just a few days away. I just about have everything ready! I have a few more sneak peek pictures  along with some special discounts that I want to share with you.

Here is a peek at a new pallet sign I created. I had a lot of fun exploring a more sketchy style of art. There is also a print of the same flower.

I have been working on some new prints. Be sure to bring $5 with you! Ya heard me. I am selling my prints for $5 including tax. There are several different prints to choose from.

I am selling a lot of the pillow covers for $10 a piece including tax. All the pillow covers pictured in this drawer will be $10.

I hope to see you at the Lucky Star Market this weekend. Please stop by and say hi. Below is a coupon that you can use on any one item with an exception of furniture pieces. You can either print it or show me it on your phone. One coupon per person please. Have a great weekend, Moxies!

 

Sneak Peek for the Lucky Star Market

The Lucky Star Market is almost here! Keep the 26th of April open, you don’t want to miss it. Here is the link again in case you didn’t see the last post Lucky Star Market.  I have been working to come up with some new items for you and I am bringing back some popular items from previous markets as well. You ready to have a peek? I have the display sort of mocked up in my living room. People give me funny looks when they stop by, well maybe just the UPS man. Everyone else I know already knows how crazy I am, HA!

Painted wood tree slivers are a new item I am bringing this year. I have a large size that you can use as a trivet, or hang on the wall with a collage. I also have a small size that works nicely as a coaster. How cute would one of these be next to your desk at work? I also just finished up the marble top dresser by adding some crystal knobs. It would make the perfect bathroom vanity. Can’t you just picture a white vessel sink on top? (if you are a regular follower, yes that is the one that didn’t fit in my bathroom!)

I am bringing back some pallet signs too. I have a couple of new signs made and I also have recreated some that were popular from the last market.

Of course there are pillows! I have created some new gold striped pillows, Ampersand pillows along with many other new fabrics.

I have gotten attached to this cute little orange chair, but I have decided to sell it!

I have a few more unique items I am working on that I hope to bring to the market. Stay tuned for more peeks and a printable coupon that I will be sharing the week before the market.

Mark Your Calendars for the Lucky Star Market, April 26th

Yay it is Friday! Thank goodness, right! I decided that I would wait and share some fun news for today. I am going to be a vendor at the Lucky Start Market, April 26th! It is held at the Prairie Moon Winery & Vineyards in Ames.

I am working on some new pallet signs, painted tree slivers and other art along with some small furniture pieces and of course, new pillows! There are several talented business that are going to be there. The other vendors are listed on their web site here. Wine and shopping, a perfect combo for a fabulous weekend. Don’t miss it!

In the up coming weeks I will be giving you some sneak peeks at some of the stuff I am bringing. In addition, I will be releasing a special discount for all my followers. So stay tuned. Have a great weekend, Moxies!