Hello friends. Just a quick update about yesterday’s post. The links are working! Did you think I was going to say the house sold?!? That would be quick, right? You would think I could get the links right by now….9 months into this blogging thing.
Well here are some links to a few good deals on accent chairs. I know we all love a good deal.
Serena and Lily Piccadilly Chair starting at $895 plus $150 shipping surcharge (ouch!)
Overstock Sutton Tufted Beige Armchair $264.99 plus $2.95 shipping!
And here’s another great buy….
Zentique Amelie Slipper Chair $699 and free shipping
Grandin Road Gwen Chair $239
Happy shopping.
Hello friends. I tried to get this post up yesterday but my wordpress wasn’t cooperating. Speaking of wordpress, those of you that have a wordpress blog, do you know how to get the comments emailed to you? When I first started this blog, each comment would go to my email and for whatever reason, a couple of months ago that stopped happening. If you leave me a comment, I always try to respond in the comments section below your comment. I hope to get this figured out so that I can personally email you back. Even my “blog guy” is stumped. Just thought I would throw it out there to see if you have any suggestions. Thanks!
Over the Christmas break…which seems like yesterday ( how can it be April?) I started working on organizing my office studio space which is upstairs in our bonus room. I started off by organizing my filing cabinets and quickly realized I needed more storage space for files, but wasn’t ready to plop down $230 for another Ballard’s filing cabinet. Soon after, I came across this basket from HomeGoods for $29.99.
I knew it was too good of a deal to pass up and figured I would be able to use it somewhere in my office. A couple of days later I was in Office Max and found these hanging file frames that you can customize for $11.00.
and they fit into my new basket!! Here is my $41 “filing cabinet”.
As I mentioned, I have been working on this space since Christmas and hope to share it with you in the next couple of weeks.
Last Monday, I received an email from Tracery that I had won their book giveaway….my book arrived on Friday. Yay!
I started collecting design books a couple of years ago as souvenirs from places that I’ve visited. I write the date and the city where the book was purchased inside the book cover. For me, I am more apt to spend $50 on a design book when I am on vacation rather than just walking into the bookstore and buying one. You know how that vacation mentality gets to you?!?
This past weekend, out neighborhood clubhouse hosted an Easter brunch with none other than the Easter Bunny.
As you can imagine, my older two were thrilled to have to go along with this charade. Everything was going well until the Easter Bunny asked me what time it is right in front of my daughter. What? The Easter Bunny doesn’t talk??? I guess he was counting down the minutes until he could get out of his suit.
They are happy to be off this week for Spring Break.
Hope your week is off to a great start.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a Cottage Living favorite….here is one for your Friday.
Can you believe this kitchen is from 6 years ago?!! It still looks just as current and stylish today. I love that with a few stylish pieces…..lighting, bar stools, island and accessories, they transformed a basic kitchen into something classic and fresh. Isn’t that light great?
Didn’t you love this feature?
Unfortunately, the light has been discontinued from Circa Lighting. But if you would like to add a little bit of this look to your kitchen, check out these adorable bar stools from Bed, Bath and Beyond for $124 (and you know you can get a 20% off coupon!)
Ivory and Black
Ivory and Green
They have cute bistro chairs as well that are indoor/outdoor.
Woohoo it’s Friday!
Have a great weekend.
Here in Jacksonville we are lucky enough to have one of the two Ballard Designs retail stores in the country. Prior to the grand opening, my side kick Maria and I were invited to a preview party at the store. After looking at their products on the pages of their catalogs for so many years, I remember it felt like I was walking through the catalog. Since then, I have shopped there many times and often source their products for local clients, as well as E-Design. I like that I can see a product in person before I use it in a design. I’ve always been happy with their quality and pricing …..this is starting to sound like a paid promotion…I promise it’s not!
While I was there last week, I snapped a couple of pictures of some things that caught my eye and to also give you a glimpse inside one of their retail stores.
I love these chairs! So cute.
This has to be one of the best priced chairs out there. This chair is upholstered in a beige/natural basketweave linen and it’s a glider….super comfortable. $679 (and you could probably catch it on sale!)
This island is adorable….great size too…not too big.
Their sofas are extremely comfortable and well priced.
Here are all of their custom pieces of furniture….I really like that small X bench.
Love this baker’s rack…it reminded me of the one in this house.
Pretty, right?
Love this antique cabinet…..pricey little thing….$5500.
Wouldn’t this be a cozy spot to have in your house? It has coffee and blogs written all over it.
This looks like the square version that I posted about here.
Have you checked out Ballard’s blog, Style Studio? They recently teamed up Traditional Home to help customer’s solve their design dilemmas….it’s fun to see what they came up with. You can even submit pictures of your favorite pieces from Ballard Designs.
Do you have a favorite?
On one of my recent stops into a local antique store, I came across some adorable vintage flash cards…originals, not reproductions. I don’t have a place for them but they were just too cute and too unique to pass up. So I snatched them up with plans to list them on etsy. But before I do that, I thought I would show them to you in case you may be interested in them for your child’s room or playroom. There are a total of 15 of them and each one is 2 sided with different pictures on each side. They are made of heavy cardboard and are big….each one is 24″ x 20″ . They are $20 each (plus shipping).
#1 S O L D
#4 S O L D
#6 S O L D
#15 S O L D
I think these would look adorable with grommets in the upper corners and hung by jute string or ribbon, or even framed in skinny black frames. Need some inspiration ideas? These flashcards would look great in any of these rooms. Here are a few rooms that I found on Pinterest.
If you are interested, please email me with the flashcard number(s) to LL@LaurenLeonardInteriors.com.
It seems like there are all kinds of great deals to be had on lighting. Everywhere I look there are knock-off’s bargains galore.
I recently visited my sister in Tampa and while I was there we were working on her foyer. She has a long foyer that previously had 2 outdated semi-flushmounts that came with the house. We envisioned 2 of the Hundi Lanterns from Pottery Barn for her foyer, however, at $299 a piece that was going to add up quickly.
My sister started looking at Overstock.com and came across this light for $151.99. That’s 2 for the price of 1!!
Here are a couple of pictures of her foyer with her new lights!!! Sorry the pictures are kind of blurry….phone pictures, but you can sort of get the idea.
What a difference updated lighting makes!! We are still waiting on the rug and a few more finishing touches. I’ll be sure to show better pictures once we have it all together.
Here’s another deal from Overstock.
$148.99 versus Pottery Barn’s Gothic Lantern for $269 (below).
Over at Home Depot they have made some major improvements in the lighting department. Now if only they would work on their rug department….they should at least carry seagrass rugs! But that’s a post for another day. Here are just a few of the stylish pendant lights that they are now carrying.
Pretty good deals, right?
Just thought I would pass this on to you in case any of you are fans of the bird prints. You may remember I recently posted about bird prints here, and some of them that I referenced in the post were by John Audubon. While I was at Barnes and Noble today, I was browsing the “Bargain Books” section and came across this set of 16 frameable prints by none other than John Audubon on sale for $14.98.
Pretty box.
Here are some of my favorites that are included.
The colors in the picture did not come out as vibrant as they really are.
I tried to find this set on the Barnes and Noble website in case you wanted to pick up a set of your own, but unfortunately could not find them.
And just in case you need a little more inspiration, I came across this image on Pinterest of designer Mark Sikes home which was recently featured in House Beautiful. It is gorgeous. All of it.
Hope your week is off to a great start!
Do you remember a show on HGTV many years ago called “Sensible Chic”? The show host would meet with a couple and they would show her a picture of their “dream” room. The challenge was for the host and her team to recreate that look for less. Much less. The dream rooms they featured were typically filled with expensive antiques, furniture and fabrics and I remember they would range anywhere up to $20,000. At the end of the show, after they recreated the space on a budget, they had a designer come in and tell the team whether the room was a hit or miss. Fun show. I loved it! I thought it might be fun to recreate The Cottage Mix version of “Sensible Chic”. The only difference is that I will not have the total price that went into our inspiration room. My goal will be to recreate the space spending as little as possible. Shall we play?
Every year around this this time, I start thinking about hosting Thanksgiving at our house. One of the rooms that I wish we had is a formal dining room. I know they are only used twice a year, but I’d be ok with that! So for our inspiration room, I chose this beautiful dining room that was designed by Barbara Westbrook for the Traditional Home Showhouse.
I saw this bench the other day in World Market on sale for $379. I would use 2 of them instead of the side chairs. I know I am deviating here but I think it would give the same effect but with a twist, and it brings in the natural linen element that is so important to the design.
I have these Ikea Henriksdal slipcovered chairs in my dining room. The chair is only $109, but we would need to make slipcovers. To solve that problem, I would use drop cloths made out of canvas.
I recently purchased these drop cloths for a project from Home Depot and these would work great for the slipcover fabric. The best part is the price….$10.98 for a 6×9 canvas.
I would also use the same drop cloths for the drapery panels. That’s only $22 for TWO panels!
The table in the inspiration room is a raw, unfinished wood table. I found this one from Restoration Hardware on sale for $695 (originally $1695!)
I love this light fixture from Pottery Barn for $399 and it looks identical to the one in the inspiration room.
The most dramatic element in the room is the wall color, BM Caponata. It is a chocoloate color with plum undertones. The adjoining living room to the inspiration room has two upholstered chairs in the same color as the wall color. This color works so well because of all of the natural light in the room.
So here is the price breakdown of the room:
Table $695
Benches $758
Chairs $218
Slipcovers $100 for 2 (approx.)
Light $400
Drapes $22
Total $2193
So what do you think? That’s an almost-complete room for under $2200. The chairs in the inspiration room are from Lee Industries and I am pretty familiar with their pricing. My guess would be that those chairs retail for roughly $350 each. So just for the chairs in the inspiration room, they are at $2100.
If you come across a room that you think would be up to the ‘Sensible Chic’ challenge, email me and send me a picture! LL@LaurenLeonardInteriors.com
One of my favorite pieces from Jayson Home and Garden is the Palma desk. I have admired it for a while. I’ve even seen her up close and personal. The desk has two pull-outs on each side and runs nearly $1,000.
Here it is in a beautiful office by Designer Georgia Carlee.
In this month’s Traditional Home, the Palma desk was featured in an article on the Cultural Arts Alliance Designer Showhouse in Alys Beach, Florida. Designer Holly Floyd Shipman used the desk as a table in the banquette of the kitchen she designed for the showhouse. Love that idea. The weathered gray finish looks so pretty against the light floors and creamy wall color.
So you can probably imagine how excited I was when I came across the Campaign desk from World Market. You’ve gotta love a good knock-off. It is currently on sale for $199 (originally $229…still a great price).
And here is my latest World Market purchase.
Our living room is long and narrow so I divided up the space by placing the desk behind the sofa. It provides a great place for the kids to work on the computer and to do homework. As you can see the finish is not as weathered and gray or rustic as the Palma desk, but still has a really nice finish. It even has pull-outs like the Palma desk.
And while we are on the topic of weathered and gray, I found my first gray hair this morning! Is this what the impending 4-0 is going to look like? Yikes! Have a great weekend.
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