I've been browsing for coffee table and sofa sets !  We're not buying anytime soon as we're waiting for Peanut to hit at least 2 or 3 year old.  Our white leather dining chairs have been decorated with pen marks and paint here and there so we know better not to buy anything right now.  Our furniture is practical and meant to be destroyed at the moment.  I can't help but dream of the day where my tables doesn't have plastic corner covers.  I like to do online-browsing just to get ideas of what I want.

Currently I don't really have a theme or a look I'm after.  If I have to come up with words to describe my taste I would say urban rustic.  Modern design with lots of wood furniture, clean lines, no curves or fancy work, just plain straight.

When buying I like to buy for longevity.  Furniture are expensive so you want something that last and doesn't scream a certain era.  The big ticketed items like sofa and table and accent tables, I like to stick to neutral solid color.  This allowed the piece to easily match up with anything.  To add colors and set the tone with the room, I like to spice it up with cushions and accessories.  These are usually not very expensive and with careful planning, you can change the look of the room according to season without spending too much.

Here are some ideas of living room set up that  I like.  I wish I have large living room with tall ceiling, exposed beams and lots of windows.  Instead I have a long narrow living room so I find it quite challenging to lay out the furniture.  So far it looks ok but I still need to play around with the set up.

One of my go-to table top accessories is a pot of plant !  greenery never go out of style in our house.  Twice a year I like to change it my table top for different feel and look.  Right now is a lot of wood on wood and while it's pleasing to the eyes, I like to add some color into the mix, just to jazz it up a bit !  Below are some beautifully styled tables that I looked through for inspiration.  Enjoy !

I heart craigslist !  I've found many awesome deals and sold many of my no-longer-needed items on this site.  I think it's important to recycle, not just newspaper and plastic, but recycle in the form of buying used item, keeping it out of the landfill !  If you got things you no longer want, before dumping them, try to sell or offer them for free on craigslist first.

A while back I found a console table for $80.  It was solid wood and super heavy.  It took us and 2 other gentlemen to carry it to our car !  We hauled it home on our SUV and got my bro. to help us taking it into our garage.

It sat there for weeks.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Then one day my husband said to me, "I've been sanding it here and there, it looks like it's a lot of work.  I don't know when I can get to it.  Please don't take home junk !!!  we have so much stuff in our garage already".  Eeekk, I forgot that I  bought it !  I went down to take a look at it, saw the streaks of sanding, and thought, man, this is too big of a project.  I shared it with C and we both decided to use it as storage in our garage.

Then one sunny Monday, (we sure got lots of sunny days lately !) C got a day off so we dragged the table out of our garage, attempting to clean it up one last time.  He spent 5 hours or so sanding off just the top, front and sides.  It looks promising so C quickly ran to Rona and grab walnut wood stain.  It's now early evening so I asked my mom looked after the kids so I can help C stain this baby.  If we don't finish it today, I know it will be a long time until we get to it again !!!

We spent the next 4 hours staining the table !!!  It took 4 coats to darken it.  After each coat we have to wait for it to dry a bit before we continue on with the next one.  When done, we shared a victory smile while our arms were super tired, they're about to fall off.  

After the stain dried, we noticed some stain dripped but not very noticeable on first look !  overall, it turned out even better than how I envisioned it.  We enjoyed working on this so much we don't mind doing something similar again !  Cheers to our next project !

I've been obsessing with teak credenza as of late.  Been hunting antique stores & craigslist for an old one for a steal of a price.  So far my search returned null :(  There are a few thrift shops on my hit list but I can't go there just yet.  Hubby got me all creeped out, feeling the hibby jibby of antique furniture at the moment :-(  It happened during our last excursion, he would say stuff like "I wonder how the owner died ?"  or "I can see the dead people using that thing".  I yelled at him but it was too late to un-heard what he said !  so now when I see antique stuff, all I can think about is dead people.  And I'm a bit of a weak sauce when it comes to the sixth sense O_O

While waiting to find that perfect credenza, I've been browsing at new ones :-S  You know, in case I'm destined to buy a new one, because I know my crazy hubby will pull off every stop to prevent me from bringing an antique into our house.  He has this phobia with old stuff !  His problem really but I want to respect it.  I have no choice anyway !

So, here are some beautiful credenza/sideboard that I really like, that I can only admire online, simply because I can't afford it:

 

A Vancouver shop called Full House Consign has beautiful beautiful storage pieces.  Price point for some of these nice ones are a bit steep.  I'm waiting for a good sale :)

Here are some reasonable priced ones from Moe's Home, West Elm and Mod GSI:

I hope within a month or two I can find the perfect one.  Wish me luck !



I feel like I'm forever decorating and redecorating my living room.  The size and the placement of the fireplace give us very little room to work with.  I'm constantly dreaming of winning a home makeover contest.  OR wishing that Candace Olson from Divine Design would choose our home and help me redecorate this space.  It needs color, life, more stuff...I just don't know what though !  My husband play moving furniture all the time and we always ended up with something similar to what we have before.  There's very little room to switch things up in a small long space !  Until I come up with something decent, I won't be posting any picture ! 

I hope to at least semi finish this living space before I head back to work in 2014 !  Lots of time but it's not much when most of my time are spent with my 2 princesses.  I've been looking at these pictures below for inspiration.  If you have a cool or functional layout of your living room please do share.  I'm always on the look out for design ideas and suggestions.

The last 2 pictures are of the same room.  I really like how it look.  Very well lay out and thing just come together but also stand out on their own.  So pleasant to look at don't you think ?

I have some old Ikea dressers that are in great condition minus some scratches and sticker residues that were bestowed upon them by my lovely daughter Bee. Buying new dressers are not feasible at the present moment as my toddler and baby surely will destroy them before they get to see the light of day. So how to make something old new again ? how to make something unbearable to lovely again ? I thought hard and came up with "wall decal", but I much prefer having some patterns so a light bulb came on, I thought "why not wallpaper?". Unlike the golden era, nowaday wallpaper come pre pasted, or peel & paste, and all can easily be removed if you changed your mind. Though I came up with the idea on my own, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one honored with such epiphany, I'm sure a host of others out there are already doing it. I googled wallpaper dressers and like I predicted, it's been done and quite popular in fact. 

Here are some beautiful pieces I found. I shall mull over floral or shapes over the next 24 hours and will commence with project "dresser makeover" this weekend !!!  Wish me good luck !

this cute blue piece is great for dresser with handles

I wanted to get this color print for my ikea dressers but not sure how it will look without handle...

love the solid and print swap

this one is beautiful !  love the detailing on it and the color

over-the-top bright and happy !  so fun to look at.  It's a conversation piece for sure.

something about this piece is so serene.  Note the little handle details.

too cute !  Can't find similar wallpaper design anywhere.

this one is painted on with a stencil.  I really like the look of this one.  Imagine a gray color damask print....