Fresh Pickin'

Spending time with the Farmer means picking wheat for my wedding centerpieces! 

Bridal bouquet anyone???

Living Life to the Fullest and finding inspiration all around!

-Rachel

What's your color personality?

I recently took this color personality quiz which was pretty fun.  I was expecting the simple green, blue, black, white colors....but I came out with the color personality of: CORAL

 *elegant*

*down to earth*

*sweetly feminine*

It finally clicked.  I'm elegant yet down to earth and sometimes I'm even sweetly feminine.  So coral is most definitely my color personality.  I love natural blues, greens, whites, etc and a pop of coral would look beautiful in every room in my apartment.  I'm so excited with this!  I've never LOVED orange or LOVED pink, but I'm always drawn to them...and coral is the best of both worlds!

Some Inspiration in shades of Coral:

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Love the blue walls, carpet, art work and oh ya, there's coral

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Love that the coral is on the wall and everything else is neutral.
But because of the walls this room has a bright character!

Love EVERYTHING about this collage - patterns, blue, white, coral, texture, gold!

Love the symmetry. Love the blue and white with pop of coral

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Love the blue and white again, but also the texture in the pieces from nature
Oh, and there's a pop or coral!  It totally makes a room for me!

Don't get me wrong, sometimes coral triggers the thought of an old lady's 1970's condo or a retirement home in Miami.  But I find relaxation in both of those examples. 

An old lady with nothing to do all day...yes I'd love to be her.

In Miami living off my retirement?  Can't wait for that day either! 

And yes, I'm sureyou thought of coral and thought of the photo below (which I LOVE)

No matter how you look at it, I'm smitten by coral.

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Living an "elegant, down to earth" Life to the Fullest with hints of coral!

-Rachel

Blue Roof House

Ok, so this won't come as a huge surprise to my 1 follower...but if you happen to read this blog and don't know...I am moving! 

I'll be leaving the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex for My Man...he lives in the plains of the Texas Panhandle, or is it known as West Texas?  I don't know and I only have about a month to figure it out! 

I'll be leaving this

For This

Seriously, it'll be a BIG change. 

In order to save money for the wedding and our future we've decided to stop the $500/mth expense of traveling to see each other.  Instead I'll move there and travel for wedding and family functions.  This will also cut my living expenses, which will be awesome!  No $650 rent or $150+ in utilities.  Just gas money (which is about to hit $4.00/gallon what a joke!)

My Man lives near his family.  His sister lives across the street and his dad is renovating a house on the corner.  Technically the Man is living in his sister's house and she is living in his house.  But her house is SMALL and she has 4 kids, so being the AMAZING man he is he's letting her live in his house.  He is was a single guy, so a 30' x 30' house was plenty of space.  Yea, 30' x 30' that's 900 sqft.  That's larger than my apartment, but not by much.    It's a cozy house and I like it.  There's PLENTY of room to expand on the land...it just hasn't happened yet.

But my move IS happening and I'm going to make this house into a home!  I have all these plans for this cute little cottage - yes, I've convinced myself it's a cottage.  So while I'm dreaming of all these amazing things I'll share with you the progress.

Big change that recently happened:  New roof on the house.  Very cool, great for insurance purposes, metal roof so very modern however the roof is blue.  Yes. The roof is bright blue.  I have to keep reminding myself this technically isn't my house....but wow, a blue roof.  I am stunned, I really couldn't think of what to do to that house to make it look nice with a tacky blue roof.  But when I saw it in person I realized the potential.  #1: no one in town has a blue roof so we can say "we're the house with the blue roof" and everyone will know where we live!  #2 character.  Roofs can really speak to the character of house and they are an easy way to add character if the house or landscape is bland.  Like say the plains of West Texas....

My inspiration so far....

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Technically this is a Garden Shed, but it looks like a cottage!
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   So alot of white houses with blue roofs.  I'm not really feeling that blue house with the blue roof AT ALL.  I would still need some type of nice accessories, so I'm thinking copper would work well. 


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But first, we'll need to paint the house white, it's an off-white color now...actually kind of yellow.  But it will soon be white!  Which will go LOVELY with the dust storms out in West Texas.  I'm not expecting this to be easy...but I know it will be fun! 

Feel free to share any ideas for the look of the Blue Roof House!

Living Life to the Fullest by moving out West!

-Rachel

Screen Time

Watching movies is something me and the Man do often.  It's an inexpensive date night option which we need since our date nights cost over $100 (due to our long distance relationship and gas at $3.50+). 

Recently I got to choose the movie - let's face it I always choose the movie, he's so awesome.  I picked:

I love movies like this....where you think it will all end happily ever after and it doesn't.  If you haven't seen it, don't worry I didn't spoil the movie. 

Side bar: If you watch New Girl (on Fox) you would have heard Schmidt say the following when Winston talks about what to do on Valentines Day:

Winston (Lamorne Morris): She just wants a relaxed night in. It actually sounds kinda sexy. Dude, we’re just trying to figure each other out. That’s all.

Schmidt: You know where that puts you in six months? Watching It’s Complicated on DVD while you cradle your newborn baby to sleep. And guess what! It’s not complicated. It’s about a bunch of rich white people who are remodeling their kitchen.

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Yes Schmidt it is about their kitchen and that is  one of my favorite things about this movie!  

Take a look:

Love Spanish roof and wall of wood. 

Also varying heights of potted plants

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Love large window, open shelving, ceiling shelf collection and draped cabinets

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Love hanging pots, corner stove, two islands (one on wheels)

(one as a breakfast bar) and love the pop of color everywhere!

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Also love the extra large open double door into the dining area

and finally the chairs at the table - gorg!

What is your favorite TV kitchen?

Ever seen the (now cancelled) TV Show 'Brothers and Sisters'?  Everything happens in the kitchen - I'll have to share that with you next time it's 'Screen Time'!

Pinterest!!

For the creative person in us all....who is overloaded by work and a million other things in life....I give you the BEST creative outlet I've found so far

Clicking that logo goes to my Pinterest Boards
Check it out!



Have you heard of Pinterest??????

If not, get on board!

Some define Pinterest as the following......

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  But I have completely fallen in love with this virtural scrapbook.  Instead of tearing pages out of magazines and storing them away in my "future house" file or "outfits for fall" book (both of which I only run across when I'm cleaning out my desk); this online pin-board is a continuous reminder of EVERYTHING that's going on in this crazy head of mine!

  Something to keep in mind when pinning.  TRY your hardest to FIND THE ORIGINAL SOURCE of what you find.  I honestly have no clue how to go about finding the original sources for the above images.  But things like photography, interior design, menu ideas, etc. need to be credited to their original creator.  People make a living taking pictures, designing homes, creating menus, and it's only fair to acknowledge that and help them drive their business.  Having said that - if you are a business owner, you MUST have a Pinterest page for your product (or your services) so that you can easily be shared!  It's free marketing!

Best of luck and Happy Pinning!!!

My new place

I am now renting a multi-family house in a very distinguished neighborhood.  It is a $600k house and I only live in 1/3 of it, but I'm going to make it seem like I live in all $600k.  I've decided I need to decorate as soon as I get in the house.  This way it feels more like home sooner rather than later. 

I stopped by yesterday to take some measurements.  The living room is 11'x11' but the walls are at least 10ft tall.  I'm thinking of painting the walls either blue or yellow both with an accent of black and white.

I would consider painting these walls myself but they are 10 feet tall! 
a) I don't own a latter
b) I don't trust myself not getting paint on the ceiling
c) I'd really just like to pay someone $100 and get it over with - is option c even possible?  I'm looking on craigslist for someone.  I bet the paint and supplies would be $100 alone, so maybe a day of my own labor is the best option. 

My kitchen is a small 11'x4' with nice cherry wood floors and those 10 foot tall walls again.  I'm thinking of painting the kitchen green but only going up 8 feet, since it's such a tight space, knowing the height is 10 ft might make it seem smaller.  I could definitely paint the kitchen up to 8 feet on my own.  I have some red accent peices for the kitchen already, so the color palatte would look something like this:

I also want to add these silver tiles as the back splash - my sink is a nice deep stainless steel sink and the vent over the stove is silver, so I think this would look very nice.

Here's the BEST part.  My space is small, but I found these FABULOUS well decals that will work to make the space look larger like this cut out for the kitchen wall from ragingvinyl.com

and this chandalier for the "dining" area.  I don't even have a dining room table yet, but this will define the space for sure! (also from http://www.ragingvinyl.com/) 

For the bathroom I think I'll use these stick ons from www.2jane.com to look a like tile border going around the bathroom:

Other sticker options:

Bed Headboard at www.dezign.fr.com

This coatrack hanger from http://www.domestic.fr: This might really be the Coat Rack I want to buy (in black?)

There are also some cute decals that would look great in the closet and there is even dish decals that should which cabinet is for which dish (cups, plates, etc.)

Needless to say, there are many options out there.  It is interesting that alot of these decals are from european stores (probably because they don't have much room in their "flats").

I know, I haven't really even gotten to my bedroom yet - but as along as there is a bed in it that room is functional!

Goal for today: stop by Lowes for paint samples and pricing.