Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Creating My Terrific Lady Room

We finally did something we've been wanting to do since we moved in.


We hung the hippo! It didn't feel right not to have this big hippo behind the couch. We've been busy working for the past two weeks to get what I've dubbed my "Terrific Lady Room" ready to host our first houseguest this coming weekend. Fans of The League already know about Terrific Lady Day, a quarterly day where one character's wife gets to do whatever she wants for that entire day. Sample dialogue:

Kevin: A terrific lady day? 
Ruxin: You do whatever they want. And you look interested. The whole day. "What's that? Heirloom tomatoes are different from regular tomatoes? Amazing!"

We have a guest room (that is truly in shambles right now), but thought that it might be good to maximize our hospitality capacity by adding a daybed to my office/painting/crafting room. We picked up IKEA's Hemnes daybed, which is truly awesome because it can expand to be the size of a full bed AND still has drawers for storage. Those Swedes are brilliant.


It is, however, the most complicated item we've ever built. Sean did most of the heavy lifting, and I'd say it took us about six hours start to finish.


It comes with very plain little black drawer knobs and I thought that was such a missed opportunity. Hardware is like jewelry for your room! When there are so many options out there, why stick with the most boring option? So, I went to Anthropologie and got these really pretty brass and copper Gramercy knobs. They add a nice level of elegance.


The funny thing is that I've clearly been decorating with fairly muted colors for the last few years since I've lived with Sean, so when given the chance, I've swung very hard in the girly direction for this room! After I layered in some of my old throw pillows, my painting by Kelsey Witt and some other items, it suddenly looked like a teenager's room. I'm owning it, though. If it's my space to be creative, I can do what I want.

The rug was a closeout clearance option I picked up at World Market for $60; the carpet was a little stained when we moved in, so until I feel ready to replace the carpet, it's a great solution. I liked for guests to always have a lighting option for reading in bed without getting up to turn a light off, so I ordered these plug-in eyeball sconces from Urban Outfitters (the quilt is from there, too). The pillows are a mix of old ones from Target and my wonderful Jackie O pillow from Jonathan Adler.

Next up for this room is organizing my painting supplies and possibly setting up a permanent area for sewing projects. Unfortunately the room is not huge (especially now that half of it has a daybed), but I'm lucky to have the space right now!


In other recent news, my husband bought the loveliest Valentine's Day flowers from Studio Posy, a local shop where I took a terrarium class a couple years ago.


AND we had a snow day yesterday! I kind of wish we had another one because we've now learned, the city will NEVER plow our road, but it is what it is. Back to life, back to reality.

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