You CAN use what you have......a makeover.

First of all...thanks to everyone for all of the wonderful comments about my shelter room.  I appreciate you taking  time out of your busy days  to read my post, much less comment on them.  I am still feeling warm and fuzzy when I think of how I changed her space to feel more like a home.

A couple of weeks ago one of my readers emailed me about coming to her house and doing a re-design [one day makeover].  Now I used to do these all the time but I will admit that it has been a while since I have pulled one of these off.  We met with Kara to find out what she wanted to accomplish and if she had anything in her budget for a few accessories.  The room we decided to concentrate on was the LR and maybe a little fluffing of the DR.  Having 2 small children has limited her time to concentrate on decorating.

The first thing we do is get a tour of her home to see if anything stands out that we know we can use.  Upon entering her guest room we saw this wonderful rug she had purchased at Scott's a while back.  We knew right then that this puppy needed to be in the LR for all the world to see.  We decided to put the one from her DR in the guest and had her purchase a seagrass for the DR.

So lets cut the chit chat and get to good part.

Here is a before shot.  You can see she did have some beautiful pieces.

As you can see...no rug made the room feel unfinished.  

Here is an after picture.

Changes...brought in the chair from another room and added the pillow.  Re- purposed  the rug from the guest room.  Found the wicker end table and broke up the lamps that were on either side of the sofa.  Moved the large bookcase away from the corner to make it a focal point.  We had her change out the curtains from another room to a solid.

Re-accessorized the whole cabinet....took out kids books and made it more cohesive.  Here it was in the corner.

Here is the corner now.

Moved the mirror that was in the DR to here to brighten up the corner.

Below is the mantel before.

Now the mantel after

Again...working with what we had.

She was on the wall where the cabinet is now.  We think she needed a more prominent place in the room!

A before shot of the sofa.

Really tough room as the FP is off center in the room.  There is often the question as to where to place the sofa in a situation like this.  The room really felt way too crowded by the front door.  We decided to center it in front of one window as you can see in the next picture.

Here we added the 2 blue pillows that we bought.  We turned one table in a different direction.  Re hung a few pictures.

She really helped us by having some great art!

We did change out the lampshades to give some texture in the room.

We also opened up one of the tables to give it more presence.

By moving the sofa down a little and turning the table longways, we were able to balance the space a little better. .

Same coffee table just accessorized.  Can you see that beautiful rug!  

Some more small touches.

Once again...before...also notice we had all the curtains rehung as high as we could, in both rooms....hang em high people :)

And after.

One day...3  1/2 hours....3 new pillows and 2 new lampshades.  Everything else was hers.  I forgot how much fun this is....and the first thing she said was : Did I have all of this????

Just a little in the DR.  Before.

And after

Moved some art...picked some flowers from her yard and added a bowl of fruit.

Moral of the story....shop your own house.  When ever I go for a design consult and we start talking budget...the most important thing I can say is finish one room at a time.  If you spread your money out nothing will look finished and you will be mad at me.

So it is the weekend.....I am alone as my husband is flying.  Here is a little ditty of a conversation we had yesterday morning....I think you can relate.  Me:  Stripping the beds.  Husband:  Is Herman [my wonderful cleaning person who comes every other week] coming today?  Me: No why?  Husband:  Well you are taking the sheets off.  Me: Well honey...here's a news flash.... I do wash the sheets in between Herman.  If it was up to him...well I really don't want to think what it would be like if it was up to him :)
Husbands.  Gotta love em.