ikea collections

Every once and awhile I like to pause and show you the “real” around here. Sometimes I show you in pictures, but today I also want to tell you how very much I don’t have it all together. :)

I’ve mentioned a few times that our house rarely looks perfect. OK, let’s make that never. Well, OK, maybe about five minutes before a party, but that’s it. So that would amount to about 15 minutes a year.

Fifteen minutes a year, it looks pretty darn fantastic. ;)

But the other 525,585 thousand minutes it’s just…normal. I’ve shown you our normal:

Uhhh…you don’t have a toilet seat sitting in your bedroom?

I was sitting in the office working on bills today, and this was my view:

Not awful, cause there’s a cute Bub smiling at me. ;) Just normal. This is actually pretty clean, really. The floor is cleared enough for us to walk through the family room.

What you can’t really see are the cluttered countertops, the island covered in shopping bags I haven’t emptied, two in-between projects on the windowsill (where else would I keep them?), the coffee table covered with toys and a pizza box. You can’t see the damaged spot on the floor, the messed up drywall on the ceiling from a leak in an upstairs bathroom.

I wanted to write this today because I neverevereverNEVER want anyone who visits this blog to leave feeling inadequate – that breaks my heart. But I certainly understand it -- even I read blogs and feel that green monster raising it’s ugly head. I wonder if the house is always that clean, the toys are always put away. How she does it all, with more kids, a bigger house, a full time job. And I’m lucky to keep one room completely clean for a day.

I’m here to inspire. I want to show you how you can transform your home and make it your haven. But I want to be real about it at the same time. Of course, I chuck the stuff out of pictures – and that’s just because I figure most of the time, you want to see pretty, not cluttery.

But beyond the not-always-perfect-house, I wanted to let you all know that there are so, so, SO many days where I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water – trying to do it all. Keeping the house picked up, let alone clean. Dealing with five animals – a fish, three cats and a puppy. Being a good Mom, an attentive wife, a supportive friend. And trying to post as much as possible here on my beloved blog, which has become my business. (Best. job. ever.)

At least once a week, I feel like an bad friend because I haven’t returned an email or a text or a phone call fast enough. There are days I walk into our house and just feel completely overwhelmed with all that needs to be done. Some days I wonder how it’s possible, as a stay-at-home Mom, I can’t keep our home and lives perfectly perfect all the time.

And then I’ll realize, yet again…dear LORD, it’s normal. As much as I want to do more projects and post more than I do, I choose not to. I don’t do it all – I don’t want to do it all. I crave a better balance in my life, but I’m guessing, hoping, praying this is normal? All mom’s feel that way at times, right?

But when I say I wouldn’t have it any other way, I truly mean it. Our ~~sometimes~~ messy home means I have a sweet four-year-old running around. It means I take time away from cleaning to work on a DIY project – my passion. It means I get to blog and share and write and (hopefully) inspire…as I am doing right now, with my feet propped up next to the pizza box on the coffee table. ;)

So I guess I just wanted to take a minute to say, I don’t do it all, and sometimes I feel like I really stink at what I do do. :) But I love my life, all of it’s imperfections and messes. I’m just so completely happy to be doing what I’m doing. With the people I’m doing it with – including you all.

I wanted to let you know that. I never want you to think I’m capable of doing any more than you can do. I just show you the pretty more often than not, because for the most part, I like to see pretty on blogs and magazines and TV. I’ve got enough of the real at home. ;)

But I will keep showing you the messes here and there, cause it’s the truth. We’ve got the pretty and not-so-pretty around here, just like every home. :)

And I luuuurve it!!

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Hello there! Hope you’re feeling the heat wave we are here – it’s positively balmy in our house tonight! Crazy! SPRING is on it’s way, and that makes me so happy. I’m excited to start getting my hands in the dirt again!

I’ve been one lucky chick lately – I’ve taken TWO trips to IKEA within the past two weeks. I’ve only been four times, and the first two times were within weeks of each other, just like this time.

They pump addictive-ness into the air in there, really.

There’s just something about IKEA. Before I had been, it was that place that I wanted to visit SO BAD. I’d see posts like this one and wanted to see all the Swedish goodness. And now that I’ve been, it just makes me giddy to go back.

I don’t know what the deal is. Maybe that’s it’s two hours away and I go rarely so it’s a treat. Maybe because it’s HUGE and you never see everything on one trip.

Maybe it’s just that they have some really fun stuff for CHEAP. Hmmm…I’m going with all of the above.

I would venture to say that the Danish Modern IKEA style is a far stretch from the more traditional style in our house. But there’s pieces throughout that would fit into most any home. And did I mention…cheap?

Anyhoo, on the first trip back a couple of weeks ago, I took the Bub with me. Today, my friend Traci from Beneath My Heart and I met up to spend the day together. We were just two crayzay Moms, shopping, eating and drinking sodas. (I gave myself a “soda pass” for the day.) ;)

I LOVE TRACI. I seriously have a major girl crush on her. We dined on Swedish meatballs (I think it’s an IKEA law you must eat them upon entering the store) and chatted our way through the place.

I took some pictures of a few of my favorite finds from both trips to share with you!

This pillow is so Pottery Barn-esque – the floral design is embroidered on the front, the striped fabric is on the back:

So pretty! I think it was $15? Can’t remember for sure. But it’s not a small pillow either – and super soft.

I love the blankets they have throughout the store:

We thought this one would make a pretty scarf:

OK. A very large pretty scarf. Very warm though! ;)

Their fabric selection is SO FUN:

Such great colors for a kid’s space or any fun and bright spot! I picked up a little somethin’ somethin’ for the Bub’s room – the perfect finishing touch I’ve been looking for for some time now. Can’t wait to bust out my new sewing machine and get ‘er done. :)

Many of you ask about the sofa table in our kitchen/family room, and this is it:

It’s the Hemnes sofa table and it comes in a brown/black and a beautiful grey color as well.

I love this grey piece as well:

Wouldn’t that be lovely in a kitchen, filled with white serving dishes? Just beautiful!

They have a HUGE selection of affordable chairs:

I spy one that would work great in my office, but I’m going to try to recover the chair I have first. If it’s a colossal fail, IKEA will be calling my name. :)

One of my next big projects is our master closet. It’s atrocious. Incredibly atrocious. I’m determined to get it organized for good, and when I saw these units, I knew they would be perfect:

Ohhh…I can just see all the organized goodness in my head, and it. will. be. mine.

Their lighting department is one of my favorite parts of the store. This glass lamp is so traditional and pretty:

But they have a selection of the coolest, most magical lighting as well:

I wish I had a funky space to use one in. Maybe the basement someday? That dandelion fixture is calling my name. So cool.

Because both Traci and I luuurve Ballard Designs, we took a quick trip out to their outlet store while we were in town (West Chester, Ohio):

It’s so fun to look through, but that’s what is was mostly – looking. :) The prices were higher than I remember, and still way out of our range.

There were a few decent buys:

That light is looks like a miniature version of my dining room light! So pretty!

We were digging ALL of these fixtures, especially that green glass:

We saw plenty of projects we could attempt on our own though. Traci found a real cutie she’s going to recreate. (It’s adorable!)

We thought this pillow could be an easy knock off, especially if you have a Silhouette machine!:

I’ve been looking for clip on drum shades for our kitchen light fixture forEVER, and when I saw these across the room, I may have knocked a few women out of the way to get to them:

OH MY, they would have been perfect. But even at the even at the outlet, they were $25 smackaroos each. That would be a smooth $125 for what I needed. SO not going to happen.

Anyone seen any clip on drum shades that cost around $25 for all FIVE? :)

There’s a few oddities here and there too – like this monogrammed pillow:

I have a feeling a new bride just realized what her monogram spelled out. Ha! ;)

And this little lady was…uhhh…interesting:

We had a such a fun day! And both of us were so good too – we only found a few little items to take home.

I’ll show you some more of mine soon, but both Traci and I had to pick up this cutie from IKEA:

Only five bucks, and it’s going to look great in our guest room -- when it’s done. Someday. In about ten years. Or so. Around there.

On every lady date I ever go on, we always forget to take a picture together. But at the very last second we remembered to get one:

Uhhh…I think she was trying to kiss me in this one? Maybe.

We tried again and while trying to make our necks look good, we may have stretched a little too much:

This is the best we got, after five tries:

I think Traci’s looking at someone else, but at least we’re both smiling and our necks look good. ;)

This two hour trip to IKEA to hang with one of my best bloggy friends made my whole week! If you haven’t seen dear Traci’s blog, head on over. You’ll love it.

Here’s one of their latest projects, a mudroom redo:

SWOON.

So, have you been to IKEA? Dreaming but never been? What’s your favorite purchase? Anyone have the closet units I’m drooling over?

I say IKEA is “cheap” and that’s may be the wrong term – every single item I’ve purchased (furniture and otherwise) has held up GREAT. What’s your experience been with their products?

May the IKEA force be with you.

P.S. Speaking of Ballard, I’m going to attempt a Ballard knock off this weekend. Seems like it’s going to be an easy one, but we all know what happens when I let those words escape my mouth. We’ll just see. :)

Howdy all! First of all, the two lucky winners of The Rusted Chain giveaway are…

Kaitlindsay from Brighter than Sunshine and Kristine from Random Robb Stuff.

Yahoo! Ladies, please email me at thriftydecorchick (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll get you in touch with Beki. :)

Well, all of my projects are not peaches and pink flamingos and fluffy clouds. Some fail miserably, and I try to show you the good and the bad along the way. (Coral and aqua cake anyone?)

Anyhoo, I was SO bummed the other day, because one of my most recent (and favorite!! Pout.) transformations had turned into a total FAIL. And I knew I had to show you so you could avoid a similar fate. (Sniff.)

Remember my beautiful Goodwill pitcher?:

Well, I went to empty out the tulips and water the other day, and when I grabbed the handle, something crackled.

Crackle? What the heck? I looked down and saw a bubble. I touched the bubble and this happened:

DUDE! I was so bummed out! My initial thought was that I could sand it down and respray it.

Then I looked some more and found these:

Little bitty crackley bubbles ALL OVER it. It looked like it had the mumps. :(

Like that wasn’t bad enough, I happened to put my hand under it, and noticed it was a bit damp.

Looked at my beautiful butcher block and it looked like there had been water sitting in a couple spots.

Curses! Shakes fists in air!!

I thought there had to be another explanation for it it, so to test it out, I placed the pitcher (filled with water) on a paper towel for a day. When I lifted it up to check later, I found this:

The darn thing was LEAKING. On my wood island countertop – for a week. Oh, you gotta be kidding me.

Thankfully, a little sanding and drying time and the spot on the butcher block is gone.

But now I know why the pitcher was at Goodwill in the first place. (SAD FACE.)

I primed that thing within an inch of it’s life, so I guess ceramic just doesn’t take it well in general. Any experience with this?

And of course, by then I was completely loving the idea of a pretty white pitcher on our island, so I was on the lookout for a new one. I found a HUGE selection at HomeGoods:

So many beautiful options! Aren’t they pretty? All were $9.99 but were about half the height that I wanted.

And then I remembered that a reader had mentioned one she found at Target. I don’t need to be told twice to take a trip to Tarjay, so off I went. And I scored this beaut:

She’s not as wide as the other one, but she is taller. And still has a graceful handle that I love – all for $13. :)

I have now checked underneath it about 95 times, but all is well:

So…sometimes – once in a while -- thrifting bites you in the butt. But I’m willing to keep taking my chances. :)

Speaking of a trip to HomeGoods, last week I met two readers while shopping – Valerie and Carolyn. They were just the coolest, and it was so fun to chat with them:

Well, that’s me and Valerie. Carolyn was taking the picture. ;)

We ended up talking for a while, and it was absolutely insane what a small world it is…I graduated from the same high school as Carolyn, and turns out her brother was in my class.

SO CRAZY.

Carolyn wrote about our meeting over at her blog here. (They crack me up.) And I’m warning you – you’ll be swooning over her bathroom redo. Here’s a peek: