My Office makover

One of our bedrooms, which started off as a spare bedroom, eventually became my "office".  I posted a while back about how I sent an application to HGTV to get a home office makeover.  I do lots of crafts, scrapbooking, projects and spend lots of time in there and wanted it to be cute.  But for months I struggled with the idea of spending money on a room that may not be able to remain "my office" for very long.  If we have kids one day, I will most likely have to give this room up for them, and not like I will have any more time for crafts and things anyway once I have kids, haha.  So after months of thinking about a way to convince my husband to let me spend the money to makeover my office, I finally got it.  I was going to design a room that could be my office for now, but be easily converted to a child's bedroom in the future.  I strategically picked the wall color, and furniture so that it could all be kept the same for a kids bedroom.

So here's what it started out like as the spare bedroom (barf):

After this is when I decided to makeover one of the other bedrooms into the spare bedroom and have this one become my office.  You can see my blog post on the purple room :)

So here it is once I turned it into my office.  It was basically just a bunch of random furniture that didn't have anywhere else to go with some of the old decorations.  It was a hot mess.

So I first organized/threw away a bunch of my stuff to condense it and move everything out.  I'm still trying to sell the brown bedroom set and I threw the fold up tables in the garage to use if needed.  The first thing I did was replace those awful vertical blinds.  As you can see half of them were missing and they kept falling off.  I got some nice venetians from Home Depot and also got some paint.  I picked a soft orange, sorbet-y color.  As I mentioned above, this was a very strategic decision.  First of all, I love the color orange (maybe it has something to do with going to UF :) ), second of all, if I ever had a girl in the future, I could add some pink to the room and it would work.  And if I ever had a boy, I could add some blues and greens and it would also work.  So that was my thinking with the color.  

So here's what it looked like after the new venetians and paint:

So I began to design the furniture for the room.  I obviously knew I was going to get it from Ikea because I love the modern styles and cheap prices.  There was an office room they had on the showroom floor that I fell in love with.  All of the furniture was from the "Effektiv" line.  So after drawing it up and planning on that, I went to Ikea to buy it all and found it it was discontinued.  Talk about heartbroken.  So back to square one.  My second choice was the "Besta" line.  What I loved about it was how customizable it was.  You picked the cabinet size, the leg size/type, the door you wanted, the handles, etc.  You can literally make whatever you need to fit your need with this line.  And looking back, I'm probably happier with this line than I would have been with the other one.  Not to mention it was cheaper (win!).  So I drew it up on paper how I envisioned it looking:

So I bought all the cabinet pieces and started putting them together.  And NO my husband didn't help for all of you who like to assume :)

I went with white because I thought it was fresh, modern, bright, and also would be good for a kids room.  Glad I didn't go with my original color of "birch".  Don't know if it would have looked as good. Bruiser liked to keep me company while I built it all:

Here's the first section done

And even though I wasn't completely done with the furniture, I couldn't wait to start decorating, so here are the first few pieces I bought.  The two flower pictures under the shelves were actually my inspiration pieces for the whole room.  I saw them at Home Goods for $20 and loved the colors in them so I decided that's what I was going to use throughout.  Because honestly, even though I had the orange walls and white furniture, I didn't know where I was going with it after that.

I saw the clock at Bed, Bath & Beyond as part of their "back to college" stuff for only $14!  The ends of each hour arm are actually paper clips that you can attach things to, which I thought went perfect for my "office" theme.  The lamp is just staged from my spare bedroom, the real one I ended up buying for this room was from Ikea for $19.

Here's the clock again up close after I added the numbers to it myself:

I decided my old TV fit perfectly in the open spot I left in the cabinet.  Like I said, the cabinets were completely customizable so I wanted to leave an open section in each one as kind of a display area and a space to add color to break up all the white.

This is me messing around with colors and decoration for the shelves.  (Don't get me started on how hard those shelves were to hang.  Stud finders, levels, screw driver, ughhhh.  All by MYSELF if I forgot to mention.)  I already had a lot of the glass vases leftover from the wedding and whatnot so I decided to throw some colored paper in them to match the room :)  Definitely a cheap design idea.

During one of my 15 trips to Bed Bath & Beyond, I saw these curtains.  I knew I wanted white panels for the room, but didn't want them to be so plain.  I originally thought I was just going to end up with some white panels with texture since I never knew I'd be able to find THESE.  They were absolutely perfect in my mind, even though they were far from it when I saw them in the store.  The flowers on them were black and taupe.  The black parts were fine and would match, but I thought about what I could do to the taupe ones, when it hit me that I would just Sharpe them :).  Yup, I brought them home and used my 30 pack of sharpes and colored the taupe flowers red, and orange and green to match the rest of the colors in the room.

Here's what they looked like before I colored them.  You'll see the after picture later.

So I went back to furniture building and decorating the rest.  I bought some cheap white & red frames at Ikea for only a couple bucks to add around the room.  I bought 2 white frame mirrors for only $5 each for the other wall.  (They are the same ones I used in my spare bedroom).  I also bought some circle sticky mirrors from Target for $10 to add interest.  Like I said, all the vases I already had around the house and just added colored paper and bought some silk flowers at Joann on clearance since they were out of season.  

I found a paper clip wall art thing at Bed Bath ($14) as well and freaked out when I saw how amazing it matched my new clock.  I bought two of them and hung them together on top of each other to make it bigger. 

I had been wanting a new chair to add a splash of color in the middle of the room but didn't want to spend much money because technically I already had a chair and didn't really "need" a new one.  Except that it was black and I didn't "want" it lol.  So I found this bright green one at Ikea and knew it was the one.  Only $24.

I bought the same rug that is in my spare bedroom because it just looked so good in here as well, and all that was left was the desk!  I got it from Ikea for only $140 and spent a few bucks on the desk accessories at Ikea as well.  Here is the finished product! :)

So in the future, my plan is to just remove the desk and replace it with a crib!  All the cabinets will be able to be used for the baby, whether it's diapers, toys, clothes, etc. and I'll just add a few new decorations depending on the gender and wah-la!  Let me know what you think!

Linds

Spare Bedroom Makeover

I briefly touched upon my spare bedroom makeover in my last post, but I wanted to dedicate an entire post on what I did and how I did it, since I'm so very proud of how it turned out :)

When we moved into our new 4[!] bedroom house, I was not sure what I was going to do to fill up all these rooms.  Ironically enough, I've now found a purpose for all of them and we don't even have kids yet! Yikes!  So anyway, this spare bedroom was my first major house project that I tackled.  It started out with lime green and dark green walls (eww!) and hideous baseboards.  After changing my mind 63 times, I decided I wanted to go with a purple/gray/white theme in the new bedroom.  My husband still thinks it's "too girly" but whatever.  Let me show you a few "before" pictures so you an see just how hideous it was.

This is how the previous owner had it:

And here's the other side:

And here's the room after we moved in and used it as our junk room lol:

So I picked out a soft gray color at Home Depot and designated a painting weekend and told the husband he better be ready.  After one coat of "Kilz" and two coats of gray, we finally got the result I wanted:

I also wanted to re-do the baseboard because they were hideous.  So I bought a nice thick baseboard from Home Depot to cover the gap between the wall and the wood floors.  Thanks to the help from my husband and stepdad for cutting them and installing them for me!

After the walls were painted, I painted on my own headboard.   I had wanted a white headboard and they were all around $200!  I measured the real headboard in my master bedroom and used the same dimensions, taped it off, and painted a white square.  Then I attached plain, simple baseboards to the edges, and wa-la! A $14 headboard!!

Next, I hung the curtains, as you can see in the last picture.  I bought them from Bed, Bath & Beyond with my wedding gift certificates.  I believe the panels were $30 each and I bought crystal finials to add to the rod.  I hung the rod much wider than the actual window to give the illusion the window was bigger (since it was pretty tiny).  So the window went from this to this:

Next, I painted an old dresser that I didn't like the color of and decided to once again save some $$ here.  I took this old dresser, sanded it, and gave it several coats of regular white house paint.  Changed the handles to some crystal ones to match and ta-da!

Then I hung a chandelier I had been eyeing at Ikea for months.  It was only $29.99 and I think it was a perfect centerpiece for this room!





















Then I was finally able to start decorating.  I bought two night stands from Ikea (only $60 each) and then used the same crystal knobs (from Target, duh) I used on the dresser for the night stands.  So now I had matching crystal knobs on the dresser, the night stands, the chandelier, and the finials on the curtain rod :)  I also bought the pictures for above the bed at Bed, Bath & Beyond for $99.  The crystal lamps on the night stands are from Target too and the base was $30 and the shade was $14.

All that was left at this point was to make the bed, bring in the dresser and add a few decorations to the walls!  I bought plain white sheets from Bed Bath ($60), the purple quilt ($70), shams ($20) & fuzzy white pillow ($15) from Target, the big gray pillows on clearance at Target ($30).  I bought the white fuzzy rug ($27), 4 white & 2 gray picture frames ($20), 5 square mirrors ($20), 2 white frame mirrors ($10), 2 floating white shelves ($15), a couple vases and flowers ($11) all from Target.  And that's it! The room was complete!

Let me know what you guys think :)

~ Linds

Next HGTV stars?

So I've been watching a lot of HGTV lately and decided I'd browse the website to see what kinds of shows I could apply for. And boom - the second one down was specifically for South Florida Residents. Here is what they were looking for and below is my submission. Cross your fingers and toes!

If you own a home in the South Florida area, this is your chance to receive a home project makeover in just one weekend! We are searching for homeowners who've wanted to tackle a project for a while, yet find the thought of it to be entirely overwhelming for just the two of them. Our host will show you that it isn't too hard to create the room of your dreams in just one weekend.

The couple should be handy, since they'll be working alongside the host. The projects can range from bathrooms to backyards, mud rooms to porches and kitchens to closets and more! The home should have either an empty garage, backyard or driveway to act as a workspace. All applicants must live no more than 90 minutes from Miami.

Hello, my name is Lindsay and my husband and I are entering the HGTV project makeover for South Florida. Below is the application information. Please contact us if you need us to provide any additional pictures or information!

Lindsay and Ryan Dean

809 NW 126th ave

Coral Springs, FL 33071

Lhdean7@gmail.com

321-480-2777

* Detailed photos of the space from top to bottom and square footage of the space and house

The room is 11'5" x 9'9" for 111.31 square feet. The total house is just under 2000 square feet.

* What is your favorite design style?

I like modern, bright, simplistic styles with 2-3 colors. Bold wall colors and patterns interest me, as well as interesting accent furniture pieces or wall art with a possible antique yet modern spin. I also find faux wall finishes neat and illusion type designs that draw your eye.

* A detailed description of who you are and why you feel you need this home makeover

We are newlyweds, married this August, and moved to South Florida in April of last year for work. We are 25 years old, graduated from the University of Florida in 2009, and loving the new home we purchasef early this year. Ryan is a Sales Engineer who's office is out of our home, but travels the state visiting waste water treatment plants weekly. I am an Assistant Store Manager at a SuperTarget working the wonderful schedule of retail! We enjoy playing tennis together and visiting our friends and family all around the state. Ryan's second love (after me, of course) is Texas Hold 'Em. We even have our own custom poker table instead of a dining room table that I let him beat me on every now and then. While he's busy making some extra cash at cards, I love working upstairs in my office doing scrapbooking, invitation making, or anything crafty for that matter! It's a passion I've had since I was a little girl and I have a scrapbook for just about every trip we've taken, and have recently done all the stationary for a few friends' weddings (including our own!). It's been a dream of mine to someday start my own business doing this, but as you can see by the pictures, my workspace isn't exactly the most effective use of space to even try to make that happen. I need better storage and organization in this room, because I've caught myself buying supplies I already own because I didn't realize I already had them! I want this to be my escape room for when the effects of retail have worn on me a little too much. I want my friends and family to like my scrapbook room just as much as they like the scrapbooks themselves because I'm embarrassed to even leave the door open when I have company as it is. My husband is all for this because he know's it's something I've wanted and will make me very happy, and as he says - "A happy wife, makes a happy life!".

* What's been holding you back from tackling this project and how will your life be so much better once it's completed?

Busy is an understatement for both of us. We're new in our careers and putting in over 50 hours a each week. By the time we get home all we want to do is relax. Owning a new home has been quite a handful and we've had many other projects that have taken priority over this one. And I can't forget to mention I spent the last year planning our wedding by myself. Besides not having two spare minutes between us, we just honestly don't even know where to begin with this room. I consider myself pretty creative when it comes to decorating ideas, but this one just stumps me. The room has what we call "secret" room attached to the closet and we want to somehow incorporate it as part of the room, but can't figure out how. When it comes to finding decorative ways to maintain lots of storage and a semblance of organization, we are at a standstill.

Our home will finally be complete if we could just get this project tackled. It's the last room in the house that needs a makeover and we will finally be able to enjoy our new home even more once it's done. Ryan knows how OCD I am when it comes to being clean and organized so I'm sure he'll be happy when my anxiety levels come down once this room is complete. On top of it, I may actually be able to live out my dreams of owning my own stationary business one day - which will only make me that much more busy right? But like they say "if you love what you do, you'll never have to work a day in your life!".

* A photo of you and the front of the house, the garage/driveway/yard which will act as a workspace

The front of our house:Ryan in front of the house:

The driveway/yard area:

Us at our wedding:

* Do you have children? Pets?

No children or pets at the moment, but plan on getting a puppy in the next few months to start our little family.

Thanks,
Lindsay and Ryan Dean

Embarrassing

What's embarrassing you ask? That October 26, 2010 was the last time I posted in my blog. Way to go with keeping committed to your blog, Lindsay. Anyway, it goes without saying that the last year has been the busiest in my life thus far, and I couldn't be happier. Here's a quick highlight reel of the last 12 months

- I bought a house

- I started a stationary business on the side

- I planned my entire wedding

- I got a promotional raise!

- I had awesome bridal showers and bachelorette parties

- I got married

- I went to Paris, Rome, and Venice

- I remodeled/redecorated my spare bedroom

- I bought a dog

I think that about sums it up. Our new house is in Coral Springs, about 20 minutes north of our old apartment in Plantation. The location is amazing, including a gated community and neighborhood gym and pool. We have a 4bed/2.5bath house of our dreams. We are slowly but surely putting in a little TLC to make it pretty and make it OURS.

As far as the business goes, as of right now it's more like a "business". As most of you know, I absolutely LOVE scrapbooking and anything of the crafty sort. Friends and family started noticing the invitations, stationary, etc. I was making for my wedding and told me I should make money at it. It sounded like a pretty good idea so I ran with it and created a Facebook page for "Formally Invited" and have done quite a few orders so far :) I've done anything from baby announcements, graduation announcements, wedding invites, to recipe cards! I had to put the business on the side for a while during the last few hectic months before my wedding, but now that the wedding is over I'm ready to start it up again and see where it takes me~!

Planning my entire wedding was quite the adventure and lots of fun. [Of course, don't forget the stress, tears, and disappointment that come standard with that]. But it's par for the course right? My wedding turned out to be more than I could have dreamed of and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to literally have my fairytale wedding dreams come true. My parents and friends were a HUGE help and I can't forget about Ryan - who dealt with my bridezillaness for almost a year AND the tears I cried for days on end while we were on our honeymoon in Paris - the place I've wanted to visit since 7th grade! The poor guy thought I was nuts but I was just SO devastated that the big day I had anticipated for over a year and spent every spare minute planning was over in the blink of an eye. It's so hard to explain the emotion but the best way to describe it all is a "whirlwind". We are still waiting to get the video back [Dec. 6] and can't wait to re-live that day!

Target is going really well and I still don't mind not having to figure out what to wear every day. This past June I got a promotional raise and before you know it I will have been there 18 months and will be ready for a new position! They will probably move me around Feb-March of next year and I can't wait to see what's in store for me next. My Target peers are some of my best friends and I love them all so much. I feel very lucky to have such an amazing team and work at a fun and exciting place :)

Our honeymoon was just "WOW". I literally felt like I was walking through a postcard for 11 days. All the pictures we took don't even look real. Just like the wedding, it all felt like a big whirlwind. {Like, am I really in Europe? I've dreamed of coming here for 12 years.} Anyway, it was amazing minus the food. Shocking right? We thought the food was supposed to be the best part, too. Don't get me wrong, we had some pretty great food here and there, but it just wasn't the {OMG THIS IS AMAZING FOOD} that we heard it was going to be. Maybe it's because we American's eat so poorly and do everything we can to make food as unnatural as possible that it makes it difficult for us to appreciate real, natural, cuisine. Hmm...

I am SO proud of our new spare bedroom, that it makes me want to run upstairs and gaze at it some more as I type this. I do have to give some credit to my mom for suggesting what to do with the baseboards and furniture placement, but overall, I think Ryan and I did a pretty damn good job :) The room had nasty dark green and yellow walls with terrible baseboards before hand and we ripped up the baseboards and put down fancy new ones and painted the room gray. We even replaced the light fixture and put in a pretty chandelier. [Yes, chandeliers can go in bedrooms, too.] Anyway, it's absolutely beautiful now with a modern white and gray base and a few splashes of purple. Ryan still thinks it's way too girly but he's entitled to his opinion ;) Basically what I'm saying is, COME VISIT US! :)

And finally, we are proud to announce the newest member of the Dean family, BRUISER. Contrary to what you may assume by the name, it's a GIRL. Long story short, Ryan's always wanted a BIG name for a little dog and despite the fact we wanted a girl, it didn't stop him from wanting to keep the name. And to be honest, I think it's cute. So Bruiser it is. She's a mini yorkie and should only be around 5-6 pounds full grown. Ryan's only rules with Bruiser is that she can NOT be put in a purse and she can NOT wear any outfits. [Crap, my plans are ruined]. Bruiser is only 6 weeks old and we can't bring her home until she's 9 weeks old. So in the next post I'll let you guys know how many times I've cleaned up her accidents and how many sleepless nights I've had...until next time.....

[and hopefully next time isn't October 26, 2012!]

Playing Catch-up Already

It's pretty pathetic that I only got 2 posts in before I abandoned this blog. It's been 2.5 months since I updated, and what an amazing 2.5 month's it's been! I believe the last time I wrote that my family was going to come visit Ryan and I in South Florida. Well they came down the first weekend in August and it was great. They got to see our apartment, visit the new city that we now call home, and even went to my Target to see my office and the place I spend the majority of my time!

While my parents were here, Ryan's plan was to ask their permission to take my hand in marriage! The topic actually came up at my Target and obviously my parents said yes and are excited to have Ryan be a part of our family. I actually knew before hand that Ryan was planning on asking them while they were visiting. I know -- it's weird that we discussed those things, but Ryan and I actually bought the ring together back in July and I was just so anxious for him to ask me that I helped him arrange getting my parents permission!

He finally popped the question on the morning of August 28th. We were out with friends the night before at the Casino and I went home early since I had to work at 7am the next morning. Ryan stayed out with our friends and came home around midnight and immediately started setting up his plan for the morning. I woke up at 6am to Ryan standing at the edge of our bed with a rose in his hand as he said "Come out here, I have something to show you." Immediately I knew what was happening and I began balling my eyes out! I walked into the living room down a path of red glass rocks, roses, and candles. At the end of the path were the words MARRY ME written with roses. He got on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him! (I mumbled a 'yes' in between the sniffles and tears). The best part of it all was that he got it on video! I can't thank him enough for capturing that special moment on video to share with our kids one day :) He knows me so well to know that was something I would love and I will cherish it for the rest of my life!


Of course I starting planning the wedding right away! I began googling for venues until I was cross-eyed! Thank goodness that all my hours spent on the computer finally paid off and I found the venue of my dreams within our budget. My mom and I visited it a month ago and we absolutely love it. We're currently just going over the details and costs with them until we officially book it (which will be August 6, 2011).


Ryan's mom was sweet enough to throw us an engagement party last weekend (10/17/10) at her house in Tampa. It turned out absolutely fabulous! The turnout was great (about 40 people!) and everyone had a great time! His mom is such a good host! We even got a surprise appearance by my family who drove all the way from Cocoa Beach to be there with us to celebrate. I will never forget it! This is the picture of the cupcakes that his mom and I made together the day of the party. They turned out so good and were pretty tasty too :) It matched our theme for the wedding which is Pink, Black & White.


Well I think that pretty much gets me caught up on life for now :) The holidays are coming up around the corner, which means a crazy 4th quarter for retail, and my parents will be moving into their new house soon -- can't wait!!