More Animal

I want a puppy or kitty more than anything! Unfortunately, my hubby is deathly allergic so I have to get my animal fix in other ways. Simultaneously, our hallway in our home felt a little neglected. Soooo lucky me when I stumbled upon a woman here in town who has just recut her Bill Benson rug and had several square feet left over. Check out our new hallway look:

Poor hubby is not that thrilled :( What do you think?

Books

I'm not big on New Year's Resolutions but this year I decided to give it a go. My resolution was to read more books (too many nights I turn on the TV and stare aimlessly at some mindless show). Here is what I have read so far this year along with a few comments:

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (read while I was traveling in Asia)

the Twilight series (the 4th is by far the best & the books are better than the movies)

The Help (FANTASTIC! Read it!)

Water for Elephants

19 Minutes (THE BEST! A story about a school shooting told from the perspective of the shooter, one of the victims, the shooter's mother and the victim's mother-Gripping and makes you think! Incredible read! )

Decision Points (incredibly interesting. I enjoyed President Bush's sense of humor and a glimpse into his role as President)

The Botticelli Secret (the story of a murder and how it relates to one of the artist's most famous paintings. very similar to the DaVinci Code)

The Pilot's Wife (entertaining but sad without a lot of redemption in the end)

Right now, I am on the hunt for some good books on cd as I will be driving a lot over the next few weeks across the State of California during the Tour. Any suggestions, please send them my way!!

Also, just think. When you are done reading all these good books, you can use them to color and flavor your home like I described here. Enjoy!

A Cool New Way to Rug

I have discovered a very cool new way to make a rug and am contemplating it for our home office. Our home office is a narrow room off our Living Room. Currently, it has large 12x12 cream tiles, which look nice but need a little dressing up. Check out this new way to design with FLOR tiles! Here are some of my favorite looks:



I think these could be really cool in a playroom as well. Wouldn't it be great if something spilled and you could just replace a tile or two? What do you think?

Pursuit for Orange

Continuing with my quest for orange for our new office, I have found a few fabrics that are just awesome:

These are from a site called Spoonflower, which allows you to design and create fabrics as well as shop. I especially love this one with the orange and gray~

Though this one probably isn't going to work for me, this price is just too unbelievable:

IKEA Gunilla at $7.99 a yard

I would love to find something like Knight Moves did in her guest bedroom:

The orange trellis is just gorgeous with the black and blue! Looking forward to our new office coming soon...

Hats

Don't put away that hat just yet! For those that were sad to see the royal wedding come tand go and felt a tinge of sadness when it was time to put your hat back in the box until the day Harry weds, think again! The Kentucky Derby this weekend gives us another occasion to sport those unusual flower hats that we all love!

Philip Treacey, who's hats were seen all over the royal wedding, is probably one of the best known hat designers. Any why shouldn't he be with creations like this?...

But, if you aren't able to afford one of his creations or get one in time for this weekend, here are a few that I suggest on ebay, etsy, or Zappos. Happy hat hunting!

Inspiration in My Own Closet

I bought this skirt for $13.99 last November when I was in NYC visiting my sister. I wore it last week (it's already getting really hot here in Austin) and halfway through the day had an "ah- ha moment" when I looked down at it...

This is the color palette I want in our new study (I've taken to calling it a study or our "reading room" to avoid the negative connotation that comes with the word "office"...I already have one of those after all).

You may remember that I posted my ideas a few weeks ago here on the blog. Here is how I am hoping to incorporate this color scheme in the room:

First of all, we are painting the walls a soothing gray similar to the vertical stripes in the skirt:

I am also hoping to find an inexpensive 7x11 navy blue rug for the floors (the floors are a creamy white tile-neither Mr or I are crazy about them) perhaps similar to this one:

We also downsized our desk and ordered this one from West Elm. It has sleek lines and will give the room a little modern and updated feel. I chose white because I think it will look gorgeous against the gray and very pretty in conjunction with the molding and white built-ins already in the room.

I think this piece will look great in a high gloss dark gray against the lighter gray walls. I am excited to meet with a woodworker tomorrow morning to see how we can convert it given my ideas to turn it into a bar...

Finally comes the orange!! Orange with gray :) What have I been saying? Looking forward to finding some fun fabrics to use in this space on some cool chairs...

Stay tuned! More details to come...

Apple

I apologize for my mysterious disappearance from the blog world. I have been so incredibly frustrated lately (refer to pic above) dealing with a multitude of computer errors. I have been struggling with this since DECEMBER so my patience has pretty much worn out. Anyone that says "Mac users never have issues" has never met me!

After months of sending my computer off to be fixed and hours of sitting at the genius bar (they really shouldn't call it a bar unless they serve wine-which would be awesome by the way!), I finally received my new computer last night. I have to say that even though I feel like I've been through the ringer, Apple made nice by replacing my entire machine with an even better one. Yay for excellent customer service!

I am back on the blog train! Looking forward to sharing some updates and ideas with you...More coming soon!