A new Addition

The man room upstairs den now has a fridge. Sweet. Happy Birthay, Austin!

Austin's Den is Looking Good!

As you can see, little Reuben likes to hang out in here, too! I think it's a great space for Austin to have upstairs with his office/TV/xBox, etc. all in one place!

Successful Shopping Trip

So today me and Austin set out for the following:

• Target: for 4 euro pillows; wanted to see if they had them before we went to West Elm.
• West Elm: to use our $75 in cards before they expire.
• Ikea: to see some of the things online i'd been loving. In other words - to see if I loved them as much in person and if Austin loved them too!

We went to Target first - walked away with four Euro pillows for $10 each - woo! Had a gift card so $0 spent.

Went to West Elm next. Walked around. Fretted. Couldn't find anything we liked for the right price. Finally settled on two brown matted frames for $44 each (not a good deal but free, right?) We went to the front and they were sold out. Then they tell us about this deal on chairs - 50% off the display chairs on the floor. By this time, there's not many to choose from and we really liked two of them. They retailed for $300 and $200. They were on sale for $120 and $80. We told the guy we'd take them both if he'd do $150. He said sure and we got them both for $87 after our $75 cards - YAY! We got the car, drove it to customer pick-up and are now the proud owners of these:

We didn't get a cushion for the one on the left (they were $40... more than we ended up spending on the chair), but I figure it's a pretty standard size seat so i'll find one somewhere else. I'm thinking we'll use it in a guest room or as an accent in Austin's office. For the chair on the right, we think it's perfect for the built-in desk in the kitchen. Either way - we're PRETTY pumped about our new purchases. I'm so glad you and Dev are proud, Mom! Can't wait for you guys' help with decorating!

Desk Area: Likes & Dislikes

I am so envious of this space! Note: I'm not envious of the rug, all of that brass hardware/frames, the nick knacks, etc., but I do love the chair, having this space with all of the cabinets to hide messes away - but still having a space to display things, etc. I definitely need a space like this for me (it will be more sawhorse desk with shelves over it - but still). I'm still planning to have my scrapbook stuff in a closet - it's just too much to store you know? Sigh.

This Looks Sharp to Me!

I could very well be off though... but I love this simple idea of three shelves over the desk - in this pattern. Mind you, I think these shelves are way too cluttered, and the lights hanging down, too? Um, no. But I do love the look (not white for me - but ya know). What do you think? By the way - Pottery Barn has updated their rooms for spring. Not my colors, but I can still get inspiration for placement! I could even black/white them so the colors won't distract me!

A Home Office

So, I'm still working on an official inspiration board for this room, but it did involve my first purchase for the house I don't own so I thought it made sense to post about it! First, know that the office is more an Austin thing then a me thing! He loves sitting at a desk, working at one, etc. The idea would be to have an office on the main floor that's closed off, but has french doors so you're not completely closed off. I'd love to see it have molding, high ceilings, wood floors, etc. For colors, we're sticking with our current colors, Austin's favorites, chocolate, black, taupe/camel and cranberry red. We already have a desk, computer, etc., and plenty of stuff to hang on the walls. He is lacking storage though and bookshelfs.

Here are some photos we like:

We like the shelves, idea of having a flat screen in there, etc. We also like the colors here. We don't like the whole shelves on each side thing.

Here we like the ladder shelves and the leather parsons chair. That's Target! Only $94! Here it is


In this one we love the idea of having two ladder shelves side-by-side, but with space in between. We also like that these have sides. However, we'd use them more for storage bins.

Like this one! We love that it has so many spots for hidden storage, and that big oganization board in the back is cool.

With this one we really just liked the art... the rest wasn't us.

So here is the desk we have now, it looks kind of small in this pic with the high ceilings/big art, but it's a great size for Austin:

We thought about getting the Parsons chair above, and getting two ladder bookshelves that we could get baskets for to put his stuff in (i.e. CD towers, cords, etc.). My favorite site, This Young House, suggested J.C. Penney's ladder shelves! I'd never thought of that store, so I checked it out and for TWO they were on sale for $89 each - AND I found a promo code online. So these below (we got in black) were $157.30 for TWO including shipping. Sorry, i'm very impressed, especially since they're much, much more at your Pottery Barns, etc, and I trust This Young House to not have me buy crap. Here are J.C. Penney's below - just picture them in black covered with Austin's books, records, and baskets like those filled with stuff. And ours won't be so side-by-side like that - we'll leave some space between.

They arrived on Saturday. I'm SO excited, our first purchase for the home we don't have! Austin won't even let me open them though. Sigh.