Inspiration and my 2008 Project List

It snowed again today.  Amazing, two days of snow in Atlanta.  That’s almost unheard of.   We did go out and play a little bit with our youngest.  And, of course, we HAD to build a snowman.  He’s only 2 inches tall.  Don’t you love his fabulous green polka-dotted ribbon scarf?

Now I’m cuddled up with a blanket and my laptop, surfing the web and dreaming of decorating.  (Yes, I do that a lot!  I can’t help it, I’m obsessed.)

After an hour of drooling over the sneak peak rooms at Design Sponge, I started thinking about my own decorating goals for this year.  We rent a 30 year old townhouse in the near suburbs of Atlanta.  Even though we rent, I’m pretty lucky that we can paint the walls and add our own touches.  Last year I focused mostly on getting bigger pieces of furniture and making our downstairs look more presentable.  I’m proud to say that it looks pretty good, not completely finished, but nice enough that we had two dinner parties during the holiday season.

Anyway, this year my main focus will be on our bedrooms upstairs.  You already know that I want to kick the toddler out of our master bedroom and create a mini hotel retreat.  In addition to that I plan on:

• Redecorating Catie and Ian’s room.  I’m so excited about the plan for their room.  We spent the last month trying to find colors that they both could agree on… something not toogirly and not too boyish.  Not too baby-ish because Catie is 8, but not boring because Ian is only 3.5.  Finally, we settled on a pale green, orange, and blue.  The walls will be painted with all three colors (I won’t even attempt to verbally explain my idea; you’ll be the first to see pictures once it’s done!) I may sew duvet covers for their twin beds, as well as pillow cases and their own special decorative pillows.  Fortunately, they don’t need much extra furniture, just a new desk and some shelving for all their books.  And curtains to replace the blinds that they’ve destroyed twice already!

• Redecorate Xavier’s bedroom to reflect his almost teenage tastes.  We got a jump-start on that at the end of last year when I scored a great new futon sofa on craigslist.  He needs a new desk and new posters.  Most of all, I need to make him give every surface a good dusting.  Geez, the dust in there is crazy.  But I will NOT be the maid for an 11 year old.

• Paint the hallway and put up some artwork.

Downstairs needs a little bit of tweaking.  I’ve arranged everything as if we were in an open concept loft.  It works well for the space and allowed me to keep a dining room “space” for formal dinners while also freeing up the actual dining room area for my office space.  Right now the office space is mostly empty and that’s going to be my first priority.  Goals for downstairs include:

• Finding the perfect modern loveseat or pair of chairs for seating in the office space.
• Adding the right coffee table or occasional table for that seating area.
• Two DIY art projects that I already have planned out
• Recovering the dining room chairs.
• Painting the hallway and adding family portraits.
• Adding more lighting.

Whew!  When I write it down like that, it seems like a lot.  In my head though, it doesn’t.  I guess it’s because I know where I started this time last year– pretty much at ground zero.  Now I understand the look I want to achieve, so the work of acquiring the right pieces and putting in the elbow grease doesn’t seem so bad.

Before I go, I have to leave you with some of the eye candy and links that have been inspiring me today:

• The most lovely nursery inspired by a handmade doll (by Laura Normadin)
• The artist book gallery at The Paper Studio
• Sneak Peaks at Design Sponge Online (hours of inspiration here!)

And finally, this awesome picture from artist Kim Carney, which reminds me of the return of Spring: