Because Everything is a Work in Progress

...which means, nothing is ever done! Thank goodness for the long weekend! We had an aggressive plan to "finish up" some pending items in the casa. Did you have a great 4th of July?! It would have been great to kick back, but we were just too backed up with our overflowing "to-do" list to have that luxury. Here is some of what we did.

Remember our post about the bedroom being done? I confessed it was done, but not final. If felt much better than it did before we painted the stencil wall, and built the bed, but by no means was it done - and it's still not, but we have made some progress this weekend!

We added some moment to the room and did a little styling. If feels good to have a "short" to-do list in this room now!

You may notice an old friend in this photo! Remember waaaaay back when, when I got this moose I was obsessed with from Z Galleries? He was meant for the mudroom, but his antlers were too large. See he just wouldn't fit. So this is what we settled on. His name is Humphrey, and a year later, he has a home over the fireplace in our bedroom. It took us a year, yes, but we have officially hung something on the wall.

Isn't he handsome?

He totally makes the fireplace cooler. I love him. Besides the special moment above the fireplace, I added a few more moments that make us very happy. It's been a while, but we found ourself in the bedroom, with the TV off, just looking around happy with what we have accomplished so far.

Like our Timothy Oulton console table. This isn't final-final, I would like to put a great chair there one day, but for now, we are happy with it.

This table kind of acts like a side table for me. The place where I put my hair bands and sleep masks all tucked away. The items are a random collection of finds from Target, Home Goods, Urban Outfitters, and vintage shops. Also Joey's favorite rock from when he was a child holds down some feedsack fabric under my alarm clock.

Joey's side of the bed looks a little something like this now:

 Our to-do list is shorter as mentioned. It looks something like this:

1.  Buy and install fan
2.  Find a rug for under the bed
3.  Buy curtains
4.  Put pillars back up
5.  Fix the TV situation
6.  Hang art on the walls

Not too bad! If you are curious about the TV "situation", it looks like this right now:

Not very inspiring. And it's alllllll the way on the other side of the room. Sometimes the remote doesn't want to do it's thing because it's so far away.Here are more angels of our almost-done room.

 So there you have it! I really think the rug and curtains will really cozy up the space. The plants have already done so much for it. Even these odd little air plants make me so happy.

Let us know what you think of the progress! We would love to know your thoughts. Living inside the bubble sometimes skews our perspective, that's why we always welcome what you guys think! You are a smart bunch!

Flash Master Jam

Happy Monday Lovlies! How is your holiday weekend treating you? We have some family in from out of town and are very excited to see everyone. The weather has finally decided to be beautiful, no complaining over here at Casa Katsaros. As we mentioned in a previous post, we have been working on the master bedroom, and are ready to share with you! Brace yourself, this is going to be a long post.

If you aren't up to date with how we got to the current state of our bedroom, check this and this out to get you in the know. Now that everyone is up to date, we had to make a bit of a mess to get things in order.

After moving things out of the room, and coving up the heavy stuff, the room looked like a wreck. Almost so bad, I couldn't image it actually finished. A messy room is a messy mind, and this room was pure chaos.

We had only painted one wall with the stencil we bought over at Cutting Edge Stencil, the rest of the room was in the original putty color that came with the house. It was driving me bananas.

=

We decided to take the lighter color from the stencil, Cumulus Cloud by Martha Stewart, and have it color matched with Behr Premium Plus Ultra so we wouldn't have to prime + paint + paint again. It's a really large room, and as much as we love the result of paint, the process is kinda grueling. We also invested in some new tools because of this.

Let me introduce you to your new best friend. This is the Ryobi Duet Power House Paint System. She's not perfect, but she's darn good. Here is the deal in a nutshell. For $99 bucks, this investment is totally worth it. We picked it up at our Home Depot along with two gallons of the paint to finish off our room. Being this paint system is so efficient, we wasted nearly no paint, and only needed one gallon of paint. The process of painting the room took about 1/4 of the time we thought. It has a duel option, but Joey pounded it out with out my help. I did corners and used 3M tape, while he did the bulk. So why isn't she perfect? Truth is, she is a pain in the booty to clean. The cleaning instructions are vague, and he made a mess in the laundry room. Even with this flaw, we totally recommend the investment, it will save you time, paint, and in the end a lot of money. We have a lot more painting ahead of us, and the quote we got from professionals (we were curious) was outrageous.  

Notice the dramatic color difference on the two walls? Looks a bit more blue than we anticipated. Odd thing is, the room seems to change colors depending on where you are looking. The number one rule of design lives in lighting, and this is the first time we really experienced how dramatic the difference can be depending on said light. 

So the bones of the room are finally finished. The furniture is purchased and placed, the patterns and textiles have been selected and some are even living in the room. The "sparkle" and fun stuff is missing. One major item we haven't bought yet is this amazing mirror via Restoration Hardware:

She's pretty and would fit perfectly over this:

Best news is, she's $1,200 and that's not including shipping. If you paid attention to previous bedroom posts, we have only spent just a speck over $3,000 for the whole bedroom. Seems a bit silly to spend that much on a mirror, but then again, she is very pretty....

In the meantime, the room is pretty unsparkely. The fun part is picking all the accessories and homey/cozy things. Check her out so far. We would love to know what you think!

We have some of those sparkle items in hand. If you remember, we have some amazing pillars from India circa 1880. I love them I drool over them. Right now they are hanging out in the upstairs hall until we decide on a few things.

We also have the amazing white moose head from Z Galleries, which sadly did not fit in the mudroom chilling in a basket, soon to be hung over the fireplace.

We also got some curtains from West Elm we placed behind the bed....for now. We love them, but aren't quite sure how we feel about them dressing every window in the room.

After we put the pillars back up, we will have a better idea of what works. Also, notice we are still fan-less? Another massive Restoration Hardware love fest going on there.

So there you have it! Our "finished" bedroom! As we add the elements that make it a home, we will happily share. Some financial contemplations and moral dilemmas going on as far as the things we love, and is the cash worth it. Have you ever faced this? Let us know, we are curious about how to solve a problem like a $500 fan you can't DIY your way through.

Happy Memorial Day!

Master Bedroom Moodboard: Doppelganger Edition

***This Give Away Is Now Closed! A Winner Has Been Selected! Thanks for checking out Mirrormate.com!***

Good mornin'! Have you checked out our $200 give away going on right now? The lovely people over at Mirror Mate are sponsoring this give away and it's only running a week, so get it while the gettin's good!

When we stared piecing together our bedroom, aka the main event these days, we had a color scheme in mind, but no really a direction. We pieced together a bunch of moodboard, so we thought we would share what "could have been".

The obvious difference is the pops of pink and the more modern vibe kicking in. We loved how crisp and chic it felt, but it would just be a little weird in our 1930 home, plus the rest of our home is decorated a little more...well...older. I couldn't help but squeeze in a little ethnic flair into our in-progress bedroom. So here is doppelganger #1.

sources: 1.) chair 2.) sheets 3.) pouf 4.) side table 5.) curtains 6.) mirror 7.) side table 8.) bed 9.) rug