Making the Den Pretty, part 2

To continue the list from the previous post, here's the remaining list of things we've done to the den in recent months.

6. I had these pillows made by this fantastic Etsy shop. I highly recommend their work. They are so easy to work with and their work is high quality.

7. Then I took a break on doing anything in the den (or the rest of the house, for that matter). Summer is busy and we went on some fun trips. Beach trip:

and the high school mission trip...where were both leaders. From the square dancing night:

a special western selfie.

8. So back to the den. I've been working on a "Wedding Wall" for a while. I started collecting some wedding family wedding photos (still collecting photos from various family members). For about 2 months, the "wall" was more like a "Wedding floor" in our front room:

Even though I haven't collected all the photos yet, I decided to go ahead and frame the ones I had and hang them. Here's the beginnings of the wall:

9. We FINALLY got a ceiling fan installed. This was so so so so necessary, as the sun sets on this side of the house and it really heats up in the afternoon. 

10. To really help with the sun issues (and make the room feel very real), we installed curtains! I got these curtains from West Elm for only $39/panel during an online special, which was a fantastic deal. I was considering a similar fabric that was $20/yard, so it would have been much more to make them myself. I'm sooooo happy to have curtains on the wall. It really changes the feel of the room. I'm loving it. 

I'm gonna try and take nicer pictures to do a "reveal" like all the fancy bloggers do. We'll see how that goes. I've been doing a lot in the kitchen too, since these rooms share space, it makes the most sense to show them together. I'll get working on that. I'll leave you with this lovely furniture arrangement from the first football games of the season. Phil moved our other TV into the den. It lasted like this for a few days...

Making the Den pretty, part 1

So....some things have happened on the home renovation/decor front, primarily in the den. I've started a list of things I've done since March.

Let me attempt to go in order:

1. We were gifted some chairs from a family member. They are kind of an orangey, muted coral. They swivel and rock and are just small enough to fit in the space. Most armchairs would be too big to fit in the space. So they fit perfectly and were free. FANTASTIC. Also, I had just happened to buy these pillows and they had some orange in them, so they connect the chairs to the rest of the color scheme nicely.

2. I rearranged the den several times trying to find the best configuration with the new chairs. I ended up with pretty much the same layout, but at least I now KNOW the other options wouldn't work. In the first pictures, you can see that I tried to move the table from behind the shorter sofa, but that just didn't work very well.

3. THE SOFAs GOT RECOVERED. After endless posts about this, I think I'll just let the photos do the talking. They look way more intense blue in these photos than in real life. They are more of a navy, but you get the idea.

before:

AND AFTER:

4. Grew my succulent garden

5. I finally got around to painting the back door. I decided to just paint it the same cream color as the rest of the room. Before:

and after (but with all the painters tape still on):

More things have been done in here, but you'll just have to wait for part 2, if I ever get around to writing it (hopefully tomorrow).

Austria: 50 Shades of Green, Part 1

So one of the reasons for my delay in posting (among many other, less exciting excuses reasons) for the past few months was my first trip to Europe, specifically, Austria. Phil's cousin was studying abroad in Vienna (or Wien) and so I went for a week to visit her and see the country I've wanted to visit since I was a child. Instead of taking you through a boring day-by-day trip recap, I'm gonna do things a little differently: by aesthetic themes.

Green is my favorite color and green was EVERYWHERE. It was wonderful. About 3 days in, I knew I had to document as many shades and uses of green as I could.  So here are some of the thousands of shades of green I saw. We'll limit it to 50...just to be punny.

On my way to Vienna, I had a layover in London. They had a lovely little Smythson shop in the airport, which I knew about from my love of engraved stationery. They all these fantastic and expensive leather goods. I bought this little journal to keep track of all my adventures during the trip. I chose this adorable kelly green and it was the perfect choice, foreshadowing of the Austrian scenery, if you will.

Given my love of design and interiors and architecture, the majority of my photos are kind of bizarre angles of small parts of buildings or interiors. I'm not the most patient photographer and sometimes I was not obeying the rules by taking pictures....so I apologize for the poor photo quality in some shots. Also, these are a collection of iPhone photos and my lovely fancy DSLR photos, so it's kind of a hodgepodge of quality.

It was the first week of December and it was...magical. Austria is apparently the "buckle" of the European "Catholic Belt" or so I'm told and Advent was EVERYWHERE. It was just Advent this, Christmas that. There were little Advent Markets everywhere throughout Vienna and in every town I visited. They pretty much all look the same. Little huts filled with vendors and their respective goods: ornaments, soaps, wood tows, Christmas decorations, Gluwein (kind of like mulled wine), PRETZELS, PASTRIES, artisan jarred foods, blown glass, etc. My personal favorite was all the felted ornaments. I am now the proud owner of a great felted wool ornament collection....maybe 30 pieces in total.

Yes, that is a marionette of an ostrich, which also happens to be my spirit animal. It's just too perfect.

Perhaps the most magical part of the Advent markets was the live music. It was just.....so magical. I apologize for the repetition, but I just can't think of a better word to describe wandering about quaint huts selling lovely Christmas things while listening to a brass quartet play Christmas carols in front of palaces, fortresses, baroque churches, etc. I probably went to 10 advent markets in the 7 days I was there. They were just everywhere. Maybe I'll post a picture of the Advent musicians in another post, but they aren't green so they didn't make the cut.

One could argue that any town/city/metropolis in Western culture would be covered in green at Advent, but the Metro system is Exhibit A that it is not just Christmas-specific. Station after station was decked out in the most beautiful mossy green. These are just a selection of the way too many photos I took in subway stations. I often got strange looks as confused people would try to figure out what I was photographing. They must have been colorblind, because it's quite obvious to me what was worth documentation.

 These two pictures (above and below) are from this weird little hallway/foyer/stair landing at the Karlsplatz station. You have to walk through this random (VERY smoky) bar to get to the metro...if you go through this entrance. There are plenty of other ways to get to the station, this is just one of the more quirky and scenic routes.

Whether you recognize green as the greatest color ever or not, I believe most people can appreciate the design details tucked into these hubs of mass transit. It really made daily travel so much more magical enjoyable.

A significant amount of the buildings I saw throughout the country were painted various shades of yellow with green accents in the doors, windows and architectural accents.

 2 shades of green right next to each other!

 If you look closely abover, you can see the scalloped top of the doors' kickplates. Love that detail.

 3 shades of green, one building.

I love laurel wreaths, so I was particularly happy to see this exterior detail at the Hofburg Complex.

The sun was setting and so it's hard to tell, but the facade of this part of the Hofburg complex is a pale yellow and a pale green. And of course one source of never-ending green are the oxidized copper roofs.

 Interiors were filled with green too.

I stayed in at Pension Neuer Markt the first night. On the landing outside the pension, the doors and windows were painted in this vibrant green lacquer. None of my photos do it justice. I know because I took sooooo many that first morning trying to capture it. This photo is the best I got.

Um this is the WC at the Secession. I just couldn't believe that even the bathroom had 3 (beautiful) shades of green.

Wallpaper at some palace...I can't remember which one.

Vienna is the home of the coffeehouse concept and the original coffeehouses were outfitted with the iconic bent wood chairs. They have a huge selection of these chairs at the MAK museum, but this was the only one painted green.

A diorama of the city of Vienna as it looked 500ish years ago. Dioramas are so wonderful and the Wien Museum had several. The Wien Museum was right down my alley because it tells the history of the city through art, applied and decorative arts and architecture. It brought my love of art and city planning together. It's free on Sundays, so that's nice.

 Painted floor in a museum exhibit.

Wallpaper reproduction at the Imperial Furniture Museum aka Hofmobiliendepot. Look closely and note the softer green used on that chair. So beautiful.

I joined in on the fun as well by sporting some green while at lunch at Neni....perhaps the tastiest place in the world. That's all for now. I'll do the remaining 50 shades....tomorrow.....later.