"Apartment Therapy?!?!?"......

......."uhhhh...MY house??"....."when?" ....."a FEW weeks???" ....

"uhhhh.....Yeah. Sure. Come on over. We'd love to have you!!" 

That's what I said. 

All cool. Like, "Yeah. I'm TOTALLY ready. I was BORN ready....pff...I got this."

Pause.

Turn.

Glance into the family room.....

......eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! 

"Niiiiick..... we have a little work to do."

Gulp.

Muster.

Start design.

Build.

Paint.

Tile.

Cry.

Get the flu.

Cry some more.

Nick: "Hunnnn, I don't know if...."

Me: "HUSH!! don't say it. DON'T YOU DARE SAY IT!!!!"

Muster.

Paint.

Build.

Sand.

Prime.

Sand.

Paint.

Stencil.

Cry.

Stencil some more.

Cry.

Muster.

Finish.

Sweep sawdust under the rug and apply heavy concealer to circles under the eyes.

Done.

DING DONG!!

"Come on in! It's so nice to meet you Carolyn!
"Oh, we've just been relaxin....ya know....having some coffee....enjoying our Saturday.... There's no stress at our place. Nope. None at all."

Wipe sweat.

And Vogue...

Enter House Tour!!

The family room I envisioned for over three years has finally arrived!!

our family room (via Carolyn Purnell of Apartment Therapy)

Sometimes, an awesome opportunity provides the necessary kick to your rear.

(our family room and the dapper Mr. Benny via Carolyn Purnell of Apartment Therapy)

I didn't even have a design plan for this room a month ago. I was still tossing around the idea of a gray and pink palette, and searching for the "right" pink. 

Then, I was looking around on Pinterest and saw these floral pillows....

......(from Whitlock and Co. on etsy.com...they still have some!)...and BANG!

Chinoiserie chic (pronounced  "Sheen-waz-er-ee") happened in my brain and it all came together! 

I LOVE it when that happens!! Much harder to make happen for myself than for a client. It's just how that works.

Anyway, this epiphany of mine led to a last minute purchase of some Windsor Smith fabric, Xu Garden in Veridian to be exact (via Lynn Chalk) and a desperate cry for help to my Mother. 

Awesome Mother + Fabric sent by 2day air = Pillows in a jiffy!

Now for the bookcases....

White milk glass accessories, another little obsession of mine!  

I found this Chinoiserie bowl at the Gurnee Antique Mall during one of my weekly wanderings and the white urns are from Embellished Heart.

I refuse to decorate with a bunch of meaningless stuff......it's a design rule of mine. I don't care if owls or birds are the latest thing, it sounds really snobby, I know, but this rule always leads to rooms with real depth and real character and will most likely last a real lifetime, so I'm stickin' with it! All my books, either I, or the hubs have read. All the magazines, poured over. All of the little accessories, inherited or bought with a specific memory or story attached. Even the moss balls. Seriously. My friend Jess and I stayed up until 1 am making our own moss balls for my daughter's birthday party last year. WHO does that?? WE do. 

As for the trellis design in the backs of the bookcases, I had the trellis stencil (Cutting Edge Stencils from etsy.com) from both my living room project and  my office project, (can you tell I love me some trellis??), I just changed the background color to Courtyard SW 6440 by Sherwin Williams. Then, after some digging around in the basement for books and other accessories, I realized that my Great Grandmother's clock and Depression Glass pieces were eerily perfect! 

And then, I realized that these sketches that I had been meaning to frame for some time, were also perfect. Crazy?!? AND the perfect frame came to mind immediately......bamboo!! Don't ask me how long I contemplated different  frames for these things a few weeks prior.

AND you know I was going to try to balance out the design of the bookshelves with something similar in visual weight, soooooo this basket weave stencil somehow ended up in my storenvy shopping cart with express shipping....don't know how that happened....but I'm SO GLAD it did!

The artist of these fabulous contour drawings is unknown, but much appreciated! They are actually drawn on the backs of various Korean snack boxes....who would've guessed?? Makes them even more awesome in my book. I'm guessing this artist would be surprised to find out that their work has been framed, blogged about, and featured on Apartment Therapy.

Bamboo frames and beautiful 8ply mats provided by ArtWorks.

I say that some things came together rather eerily because it was a little like I was planning this room for a long time subconsciously. I had several images saved in my "family room" folder from a couple years ago that I had totally forgotten about.....those floral pillows, the basket weave stencil, and various images of Depression glass .....creeeepy! 

And then I randomly ventured out to an estate sale a month or so ago and fell in love with these lamp shades.....

......and they had to come home with me, even though I had no idea where I was going to use them.

Shopping Nay-Sayer's, please note: Some random purchases DO end up playing a very important role!

The floor lamps are from Target. They were high-gloss white and I painted them black with chalk board paint. That stuff has come in handy on so many occasions!

I can't forget the Chinoiserie faux bamboo tray table by Baker...another completely random purchase from Leggy Bird Designs in Libertyville, IL, which almost got me into a LOAD of trouble with the hubs.....until it was COMPLETELY PERFECT!! Take that!

That about wraps up the new family room, but you can see more pics from our house tour HERE!

I will share more updates that have happened around the house next week! Stay tuned cuz you wouldn't want to miss a doily/gold leafing/pendant light project now would you?? 

Thanks for stopping by!!