Where has the time gone

It's finally starting to feel very chilly in southern California, and I realize I do not have a single pair of warm fluffy socks.  Thinking how good fluffy socks and a good book in my hand can make me feel right now.  But it's okay because my fury moccasins makes me happy too.  Rapidly loosing my summer tan... does not make me happy.  With all the holidays and dress-up events coming up, it's looking ghastly pale.

This week, I have the entire house to myself for the whole weekend, starting today.  Speaking of holiday, this month has been extremely busy.  In a post, earlier this year, I talked about feeling like I'm sleepwalking through life and how I vicariously want to live life in the fast lane and be in the mist of all its busyness... well it's been very busy around here.

The shop continues to do well, new ideas for the shop are set in my head and down on sketch, baby showers and weddings are over for the rest of the year.  My sister, my brother, and I have taken on a house project.  We've decided to redo the entire living area because I decided I was going to host the baby shower this coming January at my mums house.  I wanted a nice and inviting area to work with.  With the holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas well on its way, we'd be sure to enjoy a new space by then.  Oh, my sibling and I are finally going to be able to get our very first real Christmas tree this holiday because of the make-over in the living area.  We've opened up the fireplace, that we so longingly hid behind an enormous television set because we were too young to appreciate a good log-burning fire.  This winter I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of sipping hot cocoa and hanging out by the fire and watching movies.  With my brother's new baby fast approaching due date, I wouldn't mind baby-sitting at all.  I know I'll enjoy being at my mums house more often now that we've created a space where it's more family oriented.

Where have I been?  So far the house project has taken us 14 days.  We've patched the holes and damages in the walls, fresh coat of paint to the walls and fireplace, replace screen door, new area rug, new curtains, new lighting, new picture frames, more photos, new decor and accessories, more plants, and lots of diy decorative pillows.  Oh, and we've taken apart my brothers room and redid his room to ready the space for the baby.  It's been so much hard work trying to find every little thing to fix up these two spaces, but it's proving to be worth all the trouble.

A couple of the diy decorative pillows I made for the sofa.  I do not favor the black sofas, but because my uncle have given us his old set that were still fairly new, there was no sense in getting new couches just yet.  It's very difficult trying to find colors that would soften the rich black tone.  So far I've incorporated a medium gray, white and a little bit of lavender to pick up the wall color.  The wall paint color I chose is 'smoked oyster' by Behr.  It's a bit of mauvy purple in the evening when the sunsets, but as soon as the sunrises in the morning, there's a hint of pink.  The color was very worry some when we first applied the first coat to set dry, it was looking very pink.  Once we applied the second coat, the mauvy purple seems very dark and we we're afraid the living area was not going to have that light fresh feeling we we're hoping for with the sofas being the dark element.  However, after an hour as the paint set and dried, it lighten up to a rather cozy and inviting space.  Final photos of the entire project coming soon I hope.

It's such a surprise to me that a baby can jump start so many new beginnings.  My family is not really into decorative and comfy space like I am.  They're all about function and efficiency.  So I get a lot of questions like what are you putting on the shelves?  Why are you putting a sofa table behind the couch?  Why do we need a lamp, why not just get a light fixture?  Until I show them the final results, it just doesn't make sense.  But I must say, remodeling and decorating is really hard and frustrating.  No matter how much HGTV or internet surfing I do to draw inspiration, sometime I just sit it out until I find what I want.  It's no wonder it's taking a little longer to feel like it's finished, at least for the moment.  

This has got to be my record post.  What chilly weather, fury slippers and pj's can do to a person.

How do you decide what goes into your home design?  What goes and what stays?