Hello, weekend!

Well, I don't have any fun DIY projects to share with you (just yet), but leave you with some fun images form around the house. Have a lovely Labor Day weekend, it's gorgeous here in the Scenic City!

Horses + Fall = Gorgeous

I've noticed several images lately in fashion and on interior design blogs that showcase horses as a theme -- which I love! Anyone Anthropologie's September 2010 Lookbook yet? Well here is just a sample, or view the catalog here:

These beautiful images from Curate + Love make miss my horse-riding days

even more than I already do.

Work of Emily Henderson

Ok, so I know that everyone and their mom is talking about Design Star's most recent winner,Emily Henderson, but I really have enjoyed some of her work that I have seen thus far.

Emily now has a show, Secrets From a Stylist, where she customizes a client's room layer by layer through her styling techniques.

Wanted to share some of her work that caught my attention - enjoy!

Dining Room Progress Report

Well, we now have chairs, thanks to IKEA! They are solid beech wood, and we like that, but are considering staining them with a white wash so the wood grain still shows through. I'll keep you "posted" ;)

So here is what they look like:

Now, my next dilemma for this room is trying to decide what to put on the big, blank, gray wall to the left, right over the sideboard... any suggestions?

An easy way to cover up this wall would be to do something like this, but am not sure I want to go this route -- however, like the uniformity here:

Suggestions are welcome! :)

Mod Chairs

New chairs! I like them and the statement they make (or shout!) but are smaller than I expected. These may just be used at the ends of my dining table, but am testing them out in different areas of the house. What do you think?

Dresser to Sideboard

I found this huge old dresser at a local thrift store for $25 and thought it would make a great sideboard. We have had a really empty dining room for while now, so I thought it'd be worth a try.

And of course, I had to put Josh to work as well :)

It took about 1 ba-jillion coats of white paint...

Then we replaced the 60's style handles with these clean brushed chrome ones that match the cabinet handles in our kitchen -- thank goodness for Lowes

We found the lights at Target for $16 each and match the handles perfectly, and then had the table top glass custom cut (qtr. inch) for about $40. And there you go -- a great sideboard with TONS of storage.

Office Progress

So I've actually had a real difficult time figuring out how I wanted the office to look. I painted it this white/blue color, "Organza" and liked that, but had purchased the shelves and desk from IKEA without giving it much thought... and it turned out to be too heavy for the room. Not to mention, it didn't fit very well in the room. It just felt sloppy and dark and that is NOT OK because this is a sunroom.

Nasty cheap fan was the first thing to go.

And was replaced with this interesting IKEA fixture -- wasn't sure how I felt about it at first but really like it now.

Then I purchased this cool old sewing machine table to replace my IKEA desk -- got it for $5! It was love at first sight.

I really wanted something big on the wall and thought a cork board would be appropriate for an office... but they are so boring. So, our solution was to put detailed trim on the edges, paint it white, and put burlap over the cork to give it a more interesting look.

The results were worth the effort -- I love the new look and think we got exactly what we were going for.