Mood Rings.....I mean, Boards

Greetings! All you Coloradans will know that it has been a dreary, rainy few days off and on here, and what better use of time than house-planning? I have a husband next door playing banjo (not my favorite instrument, but I am thankful he hasn't taken up the kazoo or the bagpipes...), a giant dog at my feet devouring a stuffed buffalo (I think she'll be very sad when she realizes she has killed him), and internet browsers galore open on my computer. I've done a lot of browsing, and am starting to formulate some ideas for color schemes and feels for the different rooms of our house. I've started wondering what the best way is to collect all our ideas in one spot--with all the details of working, gigging, traveling, buying a house and moving, I am afraid that if I don't write this stuff down, it might come leaking out my ears pretty soon.

I've been reading a lot about mood boards and am thinking about tackling one, probably starting with our bedroom since that is the room I feel I have the most well-formulated ideas for. We have a cute mint/seaweed green bedspread right now that I would like to keep that has a circle pattern on it of greys and dark browns (perfect palette to incorporate with the grey carpets but still have a good variety of color in the room.) I am thinking about incorporating some white accents into the room (curtains, maybe a mirror and shelves) as well as eventually restaining our furniture a nice dark chocolate color and building/buying a chocolate color headboard for our bed. Since there is a half bath connected to our bedroom, I am planning on continuing the light green/dark brown theme in there as well.

Our bathroom poses an interesting challenge, decorating wise, as the two half bathrooms are connected by the shower room. Here is an idea of the floor plan (NOT to scale) so you can see what I am talking about:

As you can see, you can walk into bathroom 1 from the hallway, go towards the back of the house into the shower room, turn left and enter bathroom 2, which is connected to the master bedroom. I am having a hard time figuring out how to make these rooms flow. I am kind of thinking of using a stencil for at least one wall in all three "bathrooms" for unity, and using the same color base paint in each and then doing a different color for the stencil to help it feel connected but also to not end up having a long, continuous, one color bathroom. Thoughts? I really like this one: Endless Circle Lattice from Royal Design Studio.

Well, that is it for today. Look for a mood board soon (and please leave some tips if you have any!)

With love (and the smell of wet dog),

The VanderdelaCuadraHamms

Diving into DIY?

So, as we are anxiously waiting for the house to close, I am immersing myself in home decorating and DIY blogs and loving it! I feel so empowered and am looking forward to getting my "craft" on. As I look through pictures of other people's houses and projects, I am coming up with my own "to-do" list. At the top of mine--you guessed it! Getting rid of those grey carpets and walls in the front room (see the previous post if you missed it) and hopefully even widening that door way into the kitchen to get some more natural light in from that great picture window--which we hear you can get a mason to help you do for around $100!

Thoughts? Feedback? We were pricing hardwood floors at Lowe's and think we can get the materials fairly cheap, and were mulling over the idea of trying to install them ourselves. Has anyone ever done that? We have no clue what is under those grey carpets--for all we know, we could just be looking at re-finishing wood floors that are already there! Have you widened a doorway in your house? Did you like the effect?

Let's hear it, peanut gallery! Any words of wisdom? Am I being too ambitious or can we tackle this ourselves?

Lots of love,

The soon-to-be-breaking-a-sweat-VanderdelaCuadraHamms