Tag: Ikea

Bring Life and Personalization to a Neutral Family Room

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I recently posted a photo of our family room on Instagram and got lots of notes asking me about the space. I had friends tell me it looked like something out of a magazine. What a compliment!

Neutral Family Room with Bold Pops of Color | Five Marigolds

I was really surprised by the reaction I got, though. The truth is, anyone can make a space look amazing in just one photograph. Our home is a work in progress. Most of our home is not decorated. I finish little areas of a room and wait to finish the rest of the space as inspiration strikes me. That means there are uglier areas of the room that don’t get shown in photos – like the comfortable, oversized, slightly worn leather chair the corner where it doesn’t quite fit. The lamps that don’t quite match but that continue to live on in the room until I find the perfect lights that fit my budget.

I’m not very confident as a decorator, so I just go by my gut feeling. If I put a rug in the space and I find that I don’t feel comfortable, it’s not the right fit for me. If I put a wild throw pillow on the couch and it makes me want to sit down and enjoy the space – it was the right design choice for me.

Here are the design tips I follow in my home:

  1. Start with high quality, neutral furniture This means a great neutral couch with clean lines, a high quality rug and furniture in the space. Keep the colors neutral so they can last – both in structure and in design taste –  for many years. Like all things in life, when you get the foundation right everything works much better!
  2. Bring in texture In our home, we add lots of texture with mixed leathers, deep rich woods and distressed reclaimed woods, too. It means sleek cool mirrors and hard metal vases and decor juxtaposed with wild flowers and dried wild grasses. We use fabrics with varying textures, too – but they must always, always be comfortable and soft! Make sure your throw pillows are filled with down, too. They will look 100% better and will be more comfortable, too.
  3. Add pops of color For me, this means bold colors and patterns, as you can see with our throw pillows. I love all of these colors and patterns, and somehow when I mix them all they come together perfectly to me.
  4. Personalize This is my most important design rule. Nothing makes an environment more sterile than lack of personalization. I like to decorate with lots of pictures. Some I keep in their frames forever for nostalgia. For our main wall, I use updated family photos every year.
  5. Keep it versatile One of my favorite tips when buying mats and frames is to buy square or symmetrical frames, and have the mat cut to the size of photos you plan to use. Here’s why this is genius: if your favorite photo this year was portrait – oriented, inevitably you’ll one day have a favorite that is landscape – oriented. Instead of buying a new frame and re-hanging the photos on your wall to fit, you just turn the frame on its side, and you’re in business. See how I have examples of both portrait and landscape photos on my wall?

Sources:

  • Sectional: Carson’s Furniture
  • Ottoman: Restoration Hardware (old) similar here
  • End Tables: HomeGoods (old) similar here
  • Lamp
  • Pillows, similar: animal print, black/white geo, floral pillow made with Robert Allen fabric
  • Throw: HomeGoods (old) similar here
  • Wall Monogram: HomeGoods (old) similar here
  • Wall frames and mats
  • Rug

Free Art Prints for Boy’s Room

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I’m slowly going room by room and decorating where inspiration strikes. That only happens to be working in the kids’ areas, but I’m embracing it!

Next up is Dub’s bathroom. I love the idea of making it an all-boy kind of space – I absolutely love decorating really boyish spaces – but I want it to be somewhat neutral since it will be shared with overnight guests.

I railroaded Dub into the blue color for his room – I’d rejected the crazy bright aqua color he really wanted (I just couldn’t…) so I let him choose the paint for this space himself.

I tried to convince him that a steel blue color would be great. I go for neutrals everywhere else, so I was hoping this would be a room with some color. However, he really liked the idea of a silvery gray for the space. Out of 5 grays, he chose Sherwin Williams Gray Screen because of the slightly blue tint and light tone. Nice choice!

Here is the working Mood Board I’m using to inspire the makeover.

Boys Bathroom Mood Board | Five Marigolds

I designed artwork to add some color to the otherwise neutral, rustic space. I’m not 100% sure on this scheme, but since the artwork is free (I already have the IKEA RIbba frames on hand from a failed attempt to use it elsewhere), I’m going with it for now.

Splish Splash Take a Bath artwork for IKEA Ribba Frame | Five Marigolds

Rise and Shine Free Printable Artwork | Five Marigolds

 

Be Strong and Courageous Free Printable | Five Marigolds

And just because I couldn’t decide…I’m sharing a few variations I worked on:Be Strong and Courageous Free Printable | Five Marigolds

Rise and Shine Free Printable Artwork | Five Marigolds

 

What do you think? I’m hoping this inspires others to add some color to their spaces, so I’m making several of them available to you for free!

These 12×12 printables are designed to work with the Ribba frame, so you’ll want to get them printed at the copy store.

If you download these, please take a moment to tell me about it below. Even better, share photos of them in use. I’d love to see these prints getting used and enjoyed!


Activity/quiet book

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For Dub’s first Christmas years ago, I decided I wanted to start the tradition of making something homemade for my kids for each Christmas. I ambitiously took on an activity book project to kick off the tradition, knowing I could add pages to it each year.

I drew inspiration from the interwebs and used a few patterns  But mostly, I just winged it.  Ididn’t want it to look perfect, I wanted it to look inviting and fun!

  1. I did a lot of web surfing for inspiration.  I used a few patterns from one of my favorite bloggers, Homemade by Jill.
  2. From there, I narrowed down the pages and activities I wanted tobe in the book and madea list of the supplies I needed.  I was patient with this and used 40% off coupons at Michael’sand JoAnn’s for several weeks to avoid paying full price on the more expensive supplies.  Pre-planning is the most important step to any project, because having allthesupplies on hand means fewer half-finished projects laying around that were never picked back up after the inspiration left!
  3. As a working mom, I made it my goal to complete at least two pages every weekend.  This made the project much more manageable for me to take on.  Looking face-on at a full weekend of sewing probably would have killed my motivation to start!
  4. After all of the pages were complete, I paired pages two-by-two and sewed twosheetstogether back-to-back.
  5. I then punched three grommets into each set of pages, like you would if you were going to add them to a binder.
  6. Finally, I used loose leaf rings to secure them together.  I chose to do it this way so I couldrepair pages or continue to add pages as I had kids.

Materials used:

  • White felt pages from the craft store (around 25 cents each)
  • Additional felt pages in various colors
  • Scrap fabric and notions, like a zipper and ricrac,
  • Assorted buttons I had saved over the years
  • Metal snaps (these are easier for little hands to use vs. the plastic snaps)
  • Chalk Cloth fabric
  • Loose leaf rings
  • Grommets
  • Finger puppets from Ikea for the Noah’s Ark page (pictured below).  These are no longer available through Ikea but they pop up on ebay all the time!

Number Counting Duck Pond Quiet Activity book | Five Marigolds Activity Quiet Book Inspiration Rocket Outer Space | Five Marigoldsbird laces

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration Noah's Ark Finger Puppets | Five Marigolds 69998_PE185334_S3

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration | Five MarigoldsActivity Quiet Book Inspiration with Chalk Cloth | Five Marigolds

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration Art Pages | Five Marigolds road

Activity Quiet Book Barn Animals Finger Puppets | Five Marigolds Activity Quiet Book Inspiration | Five Marigolds

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration | Five MarigoldsActivity Quiet Book Barn Animals Finger Puppets | Five MarigoldsI’m happy to say that 4 years later, this book still gets used by Dub and now Eve, too.  It’s held up and only needed 1 small repair.

In retrospect, I wish I had more carefully documented the sewing process and made patterns for each page. It took me a long time pull this book together and it would have been so much easier if all the patterns had been in one place. I often wonder if I should go back and make the patterns to share for the next person. If you would like to see that in the future, please be sure to tell me in the comments below!