I may be a little obsessed....

....with the guest room. Realize how all the photos are super dark? It's because I am taking pics at like 11pm, 1am, 3am....yep. Silly me. Well, I hope you are well lovelies! I have a bit of a progress report with the guest room. I have been working my booty off to get her finished and now I can actually see some movement, I feel good about it. 

I think my favorite moment in the room has got to be this suitcases, lamp and commissioned piece of Rocket VonScience an amazing friend got Joey and I for our wedding. 

This side of the room needs the most work. The art need to be properly framed and the media center turned ocassional table needs to be styled. See that lamp on the floor? We have plans for that. Last time you saw this side of the room it looked a whole lot different. 

That chandy is going on the ceiling above the chair I pulled from the garden room. I think the chair will live a happier life right where it is now. 

I horde etsy art. And when Renegade Craft Fair comes to town, I get a little shop happy. I was so excited to find a place to put some of the pieces. The mirror was from Target, on sale for $15! I painted with yellow spray paint. Love. 

I kinda messed up the floors with primer, spray paint, glaze, and regular paint. I need to sort this out pronto so I can lay the rug down. So where did I get everything and what's next? Glad you asked...

Where I shopped for the guest room:

Bedding:

• Duvet, Shams, and Large Pillow; Anthropologie on sale in NYC!
• Throw Blanket: Karma Living on Gilt

Fabric:

• Curtains and Closet Cover from Fabric.com

Closets:

• Built by Joey, Stained by Lana

Accessories:

• Lamp: Lamps Plus is LA!, Wish they had one in NY, it was a beast to get back!
• Suitcases: Vintage, I got a long time ago - one at Trailer Park in Brooklyn and the other I forgot. 
• Art: Etsy.com, Renegade Craft Fair, For Like Ever; I got here, gifts
• Media Center: West Elm, like 5 years ago. I painted it lighter with the glaze mixture I made up. 
• Bottles: Found; then painted with spray chalkboard paint
• Mirror: From target on sale for $15 then spray painted with Rust-o-eum Yellow
• Blue Garden Chair: Trailer Park in Park Slope, NY

What's Left:

• Clean the paint off the floor!/Throw down rug
• Hang Lamp
• Sew one more set of curtains
• Find and install fan
• Style media center/frame/hang art

I would also like to report that the cabinets in the kitchen Joey is working on look awesome!! He started hanging them up and the next step is to install the counter tops and put up the backsplash! We may just get everything on our 30 day list checked off!

How to be a renter when you own(ed) a house...

Hi lovelies! How is your week been thus far? We have been thinking a lot about how to be a renter. We are giving up our 6,200 square foot home to move into a more modest model in good 'ol Cali. We aren't quite ready to sell our little love nest, so we will be renting her out while we rent a new pad across the USA. It took us a while to put holes in the walls and in a house we own, so we wonder what it will be like when what we do to our new place won't really be "ours". We wonder what our renters will do to our home. Will they want to paint? Will they put holes in the wall? It got us worried, and excited, and researching. Here are some renter-friendly picks we decided would be that happy medium of making our new house a home.

Let's start with the walls. To me the walls are the most heart breaking part of renting. Make them cool, and you are all set. Get stuck with how they come, it could be a drag. I don't know "who we will be" when we move to LA. Right now we are a little British-Cowboy-Silly, and with the shopping I have done in LA I am not seeing a lot of what we have been doing in our 1930's tutor. I am thinking a little retro when we move. Which is so funny because that was our apartment in Williamsburg. Totally 70's.

I am wondering. Can I get into something like this:

Tempaper has the right idea. Non-committal wallpaper. Seems comforting to know you can wallpaper a rental and then take it down without the drama of wallpaper glue. I honestly wish they had a larger selection because they have sold me on their product, just not their designs. Could I relax and get into something more fun like the ones above?

I don't know if I could get away with this. Not because I don't love it to the moon and back, but because Joey has strong opinions and I have a feeling he wouldn't let this fly. Each panel is 24 inches wide x 120 inches high and only $80. I was surprised to find this super cute shop, Wallpaper Dolls on Etsy to say the least. Maybe I can get away with it in my office, or how cute would this be in a guest bathroom?!

Nate Burkus had the right idea when we showed us how to make "wallpaper" out of fabric, and I even found a great Apartment Therapy article to show me how. 

I am pretty sure a room or two will boast this fabric wallpaper scenario. I have always loved this print from Orla Kiely, and would be smitten to walk into my foyer faced with this every day:

A little less pricey, this option would go in the bedroom:

Look familiar? It's the fabric from our guest room. I kinda crush it big time. 

We know for sure there will be some stencil action again. Right now we have our eyes on these guys:

You can find them at Cutting Edge Stencils, which btw, we have a giveaway going on right now! You can also get 10% off with code JLana! 

It's kinda funny how into wall coverings I am, considering we haven't even found the "perfect" neighborhood to move to. I remember renting in Brooklyn and being too scared to do anything to the walls. I am excited there are now renters wallpaper options. It will make things feel more homey for sure.

Have you every tried temporary wall paper? Have you lived to tell the tale? We want to hear all about the good and the bad! 

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!