Living Room Makeover

About a month ago we bought new couches {Harley thought the pillows on our old couches were his personal chew toy. Interesting to note that he doesn't even look twice at his old chew toy that is not located in the sitting room}. The new couches made for the perfect opportunity to redecorated the outdated, old ladyish looking room.

I knew I wanted a more stylish, cohesive room. After much thought {two seconds} I chose to decorate in navy blue, white and silver {stole this exact color combo from my sister}. Navy blue in anything is extremely hard to find! P-Dizzy and I started our search at Ikea. We found a great rug, pictures, blanket and standing lamp. Because our new couches have kick-outs we ditched the coffee table. We found the perfect end table at American Furniture Warehouse.

For about two weeks straight I did a lot of shopping at antique stores, Goodwill, Salvation Army, Ross, TJ Max, Wal-Mart, Target, World Market and garage sales.

I probably should have taken a before picture so you can really be impressed.

Pictures: Ikea

 

Lamp, blanket, pictures: Ikea; Pillow: Target; Couch: Lazey Boy

Rug: Ikea

Mantel

Close Up

Vase I had lying around: spray painted

Candle Holder spray painted: Goodwill; Candle spray painted

Head: Ross {I should probably know what "God" this is}

Owl: Antique Store

Candle Holder: World Market

New Plant

Vase: Ross

Crate to hold blankets and pillow: Ross

Candle holder I already had spray painted

Pot spray painted: Goodwill

Light house spray painted: Target; Random books: Salvation Ary

End Table: AFW; Plant Pot: Ross; Owl spray painted: World Market; spray painted candle

Spray painted owl

Spray painted bowl and balls I had lying around

Box and shoe box converted to movie/game holder: spray painted navy blue

{My New Love}

I started the "Live-It' way of eating yesterday. Day 1 proved to be a success. P-Dawg and I took a trip to the big city of Denver and experienced Ikea for the first time ever. Wow! Soo much to take in. A little overwhelming at times. At one point I thought I was going to break down in tears because I couldn't find Preston and my cell phone didn't work. 

I wanted to go to Ikea to look for an end table for our living room. We came home with a new rug, floor lamp and pictures instead. I am putting together the final touches on our living room. I decided to steel my sister's idea and decorate in navy blue, white and silver. It goes really well with our mocha couches. We ended up finding an end table at American Furniture Warehouse. I have been searching this town like crazy looking for navy blue throw pillows. No luck. It looks like I might order some from Esty. I can't wait for everything to come together. I'll post pictures soon! 

Anyways, I ate lunch at the mall Saturday. I found a little bakery/cafe that happened to be serving dairy free black bean chipotle soup. It was actually very tasty! I also had a small below average salad. For dinner I had a salad with black beans. I am going to have to start branching out and trying new vegetables (like spaghetti squash) or I am going to get tired of salad and black bean soup very soon.

What I really wanted to share with you is this...

  

This is the best kept secret! If I had known about this 40 calorie Vanilla Almond Breeze wonderfulness, I would have given up cows milk a long time ago. It's really, really amazing.

Especially if you mix it with this...

Since I am temporally not eating bananas, I decided to mix my chocolate Shakeology with vanilla almond milk, ice and a little water. 

This is what I got...

This is by far the best tasting Shakeology shake I have ever had! 

Starting Weight: 136.2

Current Weight: 135.0

Goal Weight: 127.0

Thoughts: full from Shakeology

5 Things

ONE
Sunday the husband and I made the journey out to Calhan to visit the folks. I love it out there. It is so quiet and peaceful and most of all homey. I always come back thinking I could live out there. The husband thinks this from time to time as well. But deep inside we both know we have become too accustom to the conveniences of the city to honestly make the move to the country.

Taylor, Lindsey

Me, P

Mom, Dad

TWO
Saturday night I made the cupcakes that Curtis Stone made on The Biggest Loser. The cake part wasn't too bad, but the cream cheese/banana frosting was awful! I already threw the recipe away.

Harley with flour on his nose.

Curtis Stone Cup Cakes

THREE
I finally won at BUNCO! This is the first time I have won since us group of women started playing. I wish I had a picture to capture my excitement!! In case you have never heard of BUNCO it is a dice game.  There are many different ways to play, but basically you have three dice and try to roll as many sixes as possible. You keep rolling as long as you roll a six or three of a kind. If you don't roll a six the dice goes to the next person. You are paired with the person across the table from you. Once the head table reaches 21 points you total your points and the winning team moves up to the next table. The goal is to reach the head table and stay there for as long as possible.

FOUR
Ashley and I are eating clean starting tomorrow. Ashley and Josh are doing the Beachbody workout Insanity by Shaun T. They just finished week 2 and are seeing great results! Ashley, though, will admit that she hasn't been focusing on her diet. She recently decided that if she is going to put in the effort to do Insanity than she might as well give it everything she has starting in the kitchen. I decided to support her and eat clean with her for the next 10 days. Have you seen Ashley's post P90X pictures? If you are wondering she still looks like this!

Ashley post P90X

FIVE
I ordered the fabric for my dinning room curtains on Sunday. I am so excited to get it all put together! Luckily, my Grammie agreed to help me sew them. Here is the before and after picture of the wall that I painted and the picture that I am basing room around and the curtain fabric (the white is actually more cream). Do you think it will all come together?

Before

After

Inspiration

Curtain Fabric

WHERE IS THE HAPPY MEDIUM?!?!?!

Not eating clean is so not cool. I have put junk and more junk into my body since last Wednesday, after I won my share of the Work Weight Loss Challenge. YUCK!

I am going to start eating clean on Wednesday (I know why, not tomorrow? Tomorrow we are putting on an event at work which will involve catered in Salsa Brava. So yes I am waiting until Wednesday, wouldn't you?), the same day as day one of our 3rd round of the our Work Weight Loss Challenge. I am ready to start eating healthy again! Plus I have eaten everything under the sun so I shouldn't be craving anything crazy because I have already eaten it!!

This brings me to the second topic: WHERE IS THE HAPPY MEDIUM?!?!?!?! There has to be a happy medium... right?? It is ridiculous to eat crazy healthy and clean for 10 days and then completely throw it out the window on day 11. I vow to myself to find the answer...

Tomorrow I am going to paint the dinning room. I bought the paint and supplies, took down the drapery and taped it off. Stay tuned for before and after pictures!!

Around the House

This weekend I spent a lot of time changing and decorating the house. Emily at Trailerhood Aristocrats has inspired me to make my house more homey by decorating it exactly how I want.

When Emily and her John Wayne bought their house in Springs she painted and decorated every room just the way she wanted it. They just sold their house and moved to Wildhorse and you guessed it she already has every room decorated and just so.

I am so jealous. Preston and I have lived in our house for two years now and we still have an empty room, white walls and minimal house decorations. This weekend I decided enough is enough. There is no reason why I shouldn't decorate my house exactly how I want it. 

My mom is very, very creative. I on the other hand am not. Instead I turn into a perfectionist with no patience. What usually happens is I take on a big project and then get frustrated half way through and then either give up or hate every second of it because it is not turning out just like I imagined. This time around I am trying to remember that there is no right or wrong answer. So far it seems to be working.

I bought some fall decorations to make the house festive. It actually turned out well! The goal is to add to the fall decorations each year until I have a good collection.

The second thing I did is change out some old pictures and fill empty frames. I found a great deal at Michele's. Buy 1 get another for a penny. I hung the frames in the hall.

My next project is to makeover the dinning room. I am going to paint the wall that the window is on purple to match the color in the picture and sew some new curtains (if I can figure out how). I found the fabric on sale at Joann's today. I am also going to hang some black shelves on the opposite wall that I found at T.J. Max. Actually I have to bribe Preston to hang the shelves.