Sunday, August 16, 2015

Navy Blue and Natural Wood

Our bedroom has always been the most neglected room in our house. We have never taken the time to decorate or put up photos. But since we have moved (incase you didn't know, we moved back in May into a beautiful townhouse. We are loving it!) the rest of our house didn't really need a lot of attention. So I'm making it a priority to have a bedroom that I enjoy being in. Maybe that will help me keep up with the laundry?

We have been looking for a new dresser for awhile. Every time we visit ikea we consider buying one, but I am never able to bring myself to spend $350 on a dresser. Perhaps it is a completely reasonable price, but I am cheap. Insert this beauty:


A month or so ago Alex and I were on our way home when we spotted one of our neighbors having a garage sale. Long story short, we walked away with a dresser, painting, milk glass fruit bowl, and a golf club for 50 bucks. Such a steal!

We let it sit in our garage for awhile, trying to decide what we wanted to do. We were about to head to the store to buy white paint when I decided to Pinterest navy blue dressers. I came across this gorgeous piece of furniture art at SouthernRevivals.com. Please go look at her page, the transformation she did on this dresser is just phenomenal. Obviously ours is a completely different style, but I loved the color scheme.

via
 I'm not very good at distressing, nor do I think it would look well in our house. Not really our style. But I did want the natural wood look. So this is what we came up with.


I'm in love! We stripped the paint off the top two drawers and stained them with a dark dark walnut. It turned out just as good as I had hoped. We don't usually go with dark colors but this added such a great dynamic to the scheme of our room.

Here is one more before and after picture for good measure.


Have a wonderful week!

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Automatic Focus


It's funny how much life changes. How a year ago I was one person and today I am someone new. The other day I spent a some time reading back through my old posts. It was fun to see what my thoughts were like at different times in my life. How passionate I was about some subject. The things I thought were funny. The things I felt inclined to share and those I didn't.

It really brought to light how much I have changed over time, and especially made me feel like I'm becoming a grown up. My thoughts and feelings have matured. I am less emotional about things and more logical (for the most part).

A few months ago I got a job, a grown up job. A career beginning job. I have a regular schedule. I am usually in bed by 9 or 9:30, and if I'm not I really pay for it the next day. I've started to make grown up choices, like paying my bills instead of buying new clothes. Every morning I get up, get ready, and head to work. After a solid 8 hours of working, I come home, head to the gym, eat dinner, and go to bed just to have it all begin again the next morning.

Twenty year old me hates who I have become. She hates the lack of adventure. The same thing day in and day out. She hates that I sold out for a career, in a field I never saw myself in. And the only thing I have to say to twenty year old me is that she was wrong. That along the way life changes, and having a life you never thought you wanted can be better than the one you imagined. It may look boring, but its actually peaceful. And peace is something I have definitely been missing in my life.

For the first time I think I know what contentment looks like. It doesn't mean my life is perfect, it means that I can rest for a little while. I can stop striving for something more than I have been given. There are certainly things I would change if I could. Relationships I would mend. Circumstances I would erase. But in this moment I don't have control over those things and I'm letting them go.