Well this was fun and totally humiliating all at once.  The lovely Zandra and Karen of Little Yellow Couch interviewed me for their podcast, Style Matters! You can listen to what I have to say about design and all my awkward giggles HERE!

There’s really nothing worse then hearing your own voice, but the good news is, I didn’t snort or say “ummm” too many times. So pretty much I feel like I’m winning.

Happy Monday Friends!

A couple weeks ago I shared my plan for the upstairs bathroom. Well, it’s done and I’m really excited for you to see this crisp, clean bathroom refresh.  After many many coats of paint, this room feels fresh and practically brand new.

I teamed up with The Land of Nod to bring some subtle color and texture to this very white room.  Here’s a sneak peek, but if you really want to see all the details and sources, head over the Honest to Nod today.

Here’s the bathroom BEFORE!

It’s amazing what paint and a few fun accessories can do for a room.

So, what do you think? Too much white? What do you think about the black windows?

I feel like I’m working on projects around our house all the time, but I don’t necessarily share that here on the blog. My snapchat friends see a lot more of that. I bore them with play by plays of painting a room or scraping windows on the second story of my house. But, really, every spare minute I have, I’m plugging away at some project. The last couple of weeks, it’s been the kid’s bathroom upstairs. So, I thought I’d share a little sneak peek with you, so you can see the direction I’m taking the room.

We do not have the time or money to invest in any serious construction or plumbing in this room, so I’m giving it more of a refresh with LOTS and LOTS of paint and some adorable accessories from The Land of Nod.  This bathroom has only a bathtub, not a shower.  So, I did some research and found a ceiling-mounted shower curtain surround. And while it’s not perfect, it definitely makes the bathroom more useable for the time being.

Shower Curtain // Laundry Basket // Pink Bird Print // Green Bird Print

Bath Mat

Tile // Basket // Small Pink and Green Planters

Shelf // Hook

Black and White Bin // Wash Cloth // Hand Towel // Bath Towel

The room has great black and white tile floors, so I decided to repeat that bold combo with accessories throughout the room. Fresh white paint EVERYWHERE gives the splashes of black a place to really pop. But, to keep the room from feeling too colorless, I’m adding some fun, colorful art, natural woven baskets, lots of plants, and some colorful little pots. This is my kid’s bathroom, so I want it to feel fresh and a little playful.

Fingers crossed this all looks as good in person as it does in my head. Stay tuned! I’m photographing the room today! I’m really excited to share this transformation with you. I can taste the finish line, it feels so good to have one more room DONE!

I hope your Monday is off to a great start or at least better then mine. Truthfully, I wrote this post in the early hours of the morning and somehow all of it was lost.  So, I had to rewrite it again and this time I don’t think it’s as interesting. So, I apologize, I’ve got a bad case of the Mondays happening over here.

Be sure to head over to Emily Henderson Design today and check out the post I put together with 8 Bathroom Accessory Combos to Rescue Your Drab Bathroom. And while I was on the hunt for fun bathroom accessories, I decided I pick out a few things for our master bathroom.

Someday, way in the future, I’d love to do a little remodeling on our master bathroom. But, for now, it’s a very functional space, just aesthetically very dated. The number 1 issue is the many, many mirrors. The bathtub is surrounded with three walls of mirrors! Really, it’s the worst thing possible, having to see yourself at every angle possible as you sit into a bath. These are the things nightmares are made of. The ceramic tile on the floor is also really very unattractive. It’s kind of a marble looking peach and rust, very shiny tile. The counter tops are a natural stone, but it’s a tough color, kind of a rusty red-brown. So, in order to make this bathroom work for the next couple of years, I’m spending a little money on some accessories to make the space feel more like me.

1. Hanging Plant Baskets
2. Gold Soap Pump
3. Black Waste Basket
4. Mr. and Mrs. Toothbrush Cups
5. Gold Wire Basket
6. Peach Hand Towel
7. Striped Bath Towel
8. Grid Bath Mat

So you can fully appreciate the all the 80s and 90s glam of my bathroom, here’s a sneak peek at the floor and counter top situation I’m dealing with (more pictures to come very soon). I decided adding a touch of peach might be nice with the rusty counter tops.  But, for the most part, picking accessories that don’t have a lot of color seemed the best route to take. Can you handle it?  Wouldn’t you agree, the floor tile is pretty bad?

So, did you check out the 8 combos? Do you have a favorite? Mine is the Manly Metallics! It’s really not manly, just not super girly and feminine (which is nice when you are sharing a bathroom with a man).

Color is sure fun! Why haven’t I noticed this perfect combo before? Sometimes I just get on a kick when I notice a combination that just works really well together. And then I start pinning and searching down inspiration and before you know it I want re-do a whole room (or at least change all the pillows on my sofa).

Maybe it is the change in season, but I’ve been loving this warm camel color. It’s somewhere between brown and yellow and it feels warm and cozy. It also has this fun vintage vibe to it, probably a 70’s look and feel that I love. And blush – well I still love all these soft, subtle shades of pink.

shapes print // dusty pink plate // velvet arrow stitched pillow

camel tealight holder // woven cross pillow // camel paisley sheets

triangle pillow // camel serving bowl // blush arrowhead pillow

peach quilted pillow // blush linen pillow // round camel pillow

blush planter // pink leather pillow // blush folds pillow

Ok, now let’s observe blush + camel living together in the wild. I’ve got a few examples that are going to make you want to scheme up a plan to make this color combo a part of your life right away! This is such a pretty pairing.

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Well, I can’t believe we’ve been in our house a month now. It feels so much like home already. So far, we have tackled the sunroom and unpacked almost everything.  And so, I guess it’s time to move onto another room. Next up is the upstairs bathroom, the one the kids use. It has adorable black and white tile floors and the original subway tile on the walls (see the before pics below). It has a lot of storage and it’s a nice spacious room. But, there is no shower, it’s just a bathtub. With two teenagers, that is just not going to do.

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So, I did a lot of measuring and searching online and found a shower curtain surround that mounts to the ceiling and wall. And if you follow my snapchat (I’m oleanderandpalm), you would have seen yesterday that I figured out how to retro fit the shower head hose to the new shower head that came with the curtain surround. Feeling pretty proud of myself! It’s not ideal, but for less then $100, we now have a working shower upstairs.

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Now that the shower is working, it’s time to make the space cute. Fresh paint is a must! The cabinets and trim are pretty beat up. And as much as I really do like Toile, the wallpaper is going. I really want to keep this room bright and white with some crisp black. I’ve been pinning and these are some of the ideas I’m considering. I love the idea of painting the door black, at least on the inside. I also think if could be nice to paint either the walls above the subway tile black or add new black in white wallpaper in a more modern pattern. And if I don’t paint the walls black, maybe it would be nice to paint the cabinets black.

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And here’s a look at the bathroom now. Here’s the BEFORES!

So, what do you think? Are black walls too much?  How about just painting the cabinets and door black? Chime in, I’d love to hear what you think.

Today’s post of full of good good things. I have some fun, free Fruit Art Wallpapers for you to download and I also have an easy way for you and I to do something good for someone else. I’m thrilled to partner with Naked Juice on their crusade to raise awareness for Food Deserts and to take action on helping make fresh fruits and vegetables accessible to everyone. 

I chose three colors that I’m considering adding to our new home – white (which is a definite!), rust (I love this earthy, orangey-red hue), and yellow!  And then I challenged myself to find as much fresh fruit as possible, in those colors, to create pretty images for phone wallpapers and lock screens.

I often take for granted that I can go to a number of good grocery stores in my neighborhood and find pretty much any fruit or vegetable.  Did you know that there are food deserts in areas of our country, places where fresh produce is not accessible?  This is a crisis that is affecting 1 out of every 10 people in neighborhoods across America. Naked Juice helping fight this problem with their Drink Good. Do Good campaign. They’re are spreading the word to bring awareness and actual fresh fruits and veggies to these places.

I live in an agricultural hub, it seems nearly impossible that there are food deserts in the cities surrounding me. But, there are! Here in California, both LA and San Francisco, residents face food desert issues. As a mom, I can’t imagine not being able to provide my kids with fresh fruits and veggies daily.

This is such a cool program you guys, you can use your social media to do some good.  Here’s how it works!

1. Take a photo of yourself holding a fruit or vegetable.
2. Share it on social media using the #DrinkGoodDoGood hashtag
3. Tag a friend to do the same!!!!

For every fruit and veggie selfie shared using #DrinkGoodDoGood, Naked Juice will donate 10 pounds of produce to communities in need.  Naked Juice has already given 250,000 lbs. of fresh produce to kick off this campaign. Now it’s our turn to help!  Last year I created 3 pretty fresh fruit phone wallpapers, you can check them out HERE.

And this year I chose three more colors to play with. You can download 1 or all 3 of these FREE phone wallpapers HERE! Right now I have the sunny yellow hued image on my lock and home screen. Do you have a favorite?

This post is sponsored by Naked Juice, thank you for supporting the companies that help make this blog possible. 

Lately I’ve been loving round mirrors. This simple organic shape is the perfect accessory to break up a boxy wall or room. Loon around your home, chances are most of the things on your walls are squares and rectangles. Why not throw another shape into the mix. Over sinks, in entryways, over dressers, in gallery walls, round mirrors just look great everywhere.

I decide to hunt out some good sized, modern and even reasonably priced round mirrors. And I found some really great options. Round is a shape that’s going to work with any style. Your probably going to want to add a round mirror to a room in your home. I’ve listed the width and price of each mirror for easy reference.

row 1 : Rope Hanger // Dark Acacia Wood // Natural Wood

row 2: Wood Barrel Frame // Copper Frame // Tapered Edge Frame

row 3: Thin Brass Frame // Silver Leaf // Wood and White Frame

row 4: Rose Gold Frame // Black Metal Frame // Thin Bronze Frame

I recently bought a huge (like 4 feet wide) round mirror for our new house.  It will be hung as soon as a strip off the 2-stories of wallpaper in our stairway.  If you want to help, I make a mean iced coffee and I always have treats on hand.

Is there one that catches your eye? I love the wood and white frame. That combo always gets me and the price is so good. I might use this mirror in one of my bathrooms.

Well, it’s been a week. We got the keys to our new house late Friday evening and then had to be out of our old house be noon the next day. And to add to the fun, we got to move on the day that was 111F. Sheesh, pretty sure that was the hottest day of the year.

But, we are in our new house and LOVING it! Yes, there are still boxes everywhere and soooo much unpacking left to do, but believe it or not, we’ve already made over one room completely. There were some late nights, but our new sunroom is officially our favorite room in the house. This is one of the smallest rooms in the house, so it seemed like a good place to start.

I’m so excited to you to see our new place!

Here’s the room before. It really did have a bad case of “old lady” and a whole bunch of floral wallpaper. But, it has gorgeous built-ins, a very fun leaded glass door to the hallway, and a wall of windows and french doors.

So, before we moved furniture into the house. I took 20 mins and ran around the house and took before pics. But, somehow I totally missed this room. So, I dug up some photos from the listing and ones I had on my phone from the first time we looked at the house.

Lots of wallpaper and lots of windows.

The trim, doors, and windows were all in need of a fresh coat of paint (or 3, which it turned out to be).

Olivia posing with the fabulous leaded door that was lost with the wallpaper behind it.

I teamed up with World Market to give this room a fresh modern look and feel. This room isn’t very big, so I wanted to keep the space as light and airy as possible. So, I decided to go all white with the paint. I painted the walls flat and the trim, doors and moldings all semi-gloss (the color is the same white in my old house – Alabaster White from Sherwin Williams). Taking down wallpaper is no joke.  It took 3 of us the good part of a day.  But, I think we have a pretty good system (I’ll share the details soon). Then I prepped the walls by patching holes and caulking around all the trim.

The best feature in this room has got to be this gorgeous door. Pink, green and gold – it was meant to be my door. Now that the room is white, the door really stands out as a piece of art.

I kept the art on the walls simple and hung them on the picture rail (which I LOVE, no more holes in my walls!). I also added this cute leather strap mirror to the wall right beside the kitchen. The back door is in the kitchen and I thought this would be a great place to quickly check your lipstick or hair before leaving the house.

The new brass and wood pendant replaced a broken glass ceiling mounted fixture. I love this light fixture, you may see it in other rooms in our house in the future.

I love these rattan hairpin chairs, they don’t weigh down the space and they are extremely comfortable. And they look really great with my vintage table that I found on Craigslist for just $20. I gave the legs a fresh coat of white paint and added brass caster wheels to it. I plan on doing a lot of my food photography in this room, so I wanted to be able to move the table closer to the windows with ease.

After giving the built-ins a fresh coat of paint, I changed out the knobs for simple brushed brass ones to play with the light fixture. Then I filled the cabinet with baskets and pottery from Papua New Guinea (where I grew up). I thought the greens and browns of these pieces would stand out nicely in this all white room. And it’s just really fun to have a special place to display these.

I know we will be eating most of our meals in this room. I can’t wait to have my coffee in here every morning.

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• Rattan Chairs
• Brass Pendant Light
• Gold Faceted Glasses
• Napkins (and these)
• Cherry and Lemon Soda
• Gold Wire Basket
• Placemats
• Oblong Planter
• Square Mirror
• Vase
• Ocean Oil Painting (Thrifted – $5)
• Table (Craigslist – $20)
• Stool (Flea Market – $30)
• Framed Art

So, what do you think?  What’s your first impression of our new home? Don’t you think every house should have at least one leaded stained glass door?

It’s really nice to have one room completely finished. Now onto the next room.  I think it might be out master bedroom or maybe the little studio attached to the garage. This is going to be fun.

This post was sponsored by World Market. Thank you for supporting the companies that help make this blog possible. 

Well, it appears another week has come and passed and we will not close on our house. It’s not the end of the world, by no means.  But, it has been kind of a stressful time and it has totally thrown my blog for a loop. We made offers and they were excepted in May! It’s going to be August before we move.

So, much for an editorial calendar. Living in a house of boxes, my hands are kind of tied for creating new content. And the plans I had for the new house, well they just can’t be executed until we are actually in the house.  So, I say all this because (yes, I’m making excuses for myself) and also to thank you for sticking in there with me.

I still have hope that it will all work out, but just not in the timing I was hoping for. But, let’s pretend we are moving in and let’s talk about the awesome staircase that’s going to either need to be sanded and refinished or else replace the carpet stair runner. I’m not a fan of carpet, and I love hardwood floors. But, a stair runner could be a fun opportunity to add a little color and pattern.

Here’s a few fun options that I have me seriously considering a carpet stair runner.

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So, what do you think? Is there one in this mix that you like best?