After the decorations come down, it's reevaluation time....

When you have not seen your "regular" rooms for a month it's time to reevaluate your design. It's always such a shock after all the Christmas decorations are put away and you have not put your room back to the way it was pre-holiday. It looks so barren, cold and forlorn. You're getting a chance to see your room with a new eye, and at this point the problem areas, or areas that look tired or dated really stand out, also this is a time where you can address furniture placement that just isn't working for you. We plan on expanding our kitchen sometime this coming year when we can get the time to do so (I really dread demo-ing the tile counter tops). Anyway, the space between my kitchen island and my window seat is where the breakfast nook is suppose to be. I have not always used it as such because I use the family room which is in the same room with the kitchen as a dinning room because I use the livingroom and dinning room in the front part of the house as one big livingroom. It's just kind of become a musical chairs kind of situation, except for rooms, all because my children grew up and got their own homes, darn them :).  It just works better for us at this point to have large room instead of smaller ones repeating the same function. We get a lot of company, sometimes over the course of several days and this re-arrangement has been the best idea I've ever had (if I do say so myself). Ok, I digress....so the most annoying part of my house has been that unnecessary breakfast nook. So last week I got "THE VISION". I decided a big long table was just a bit awkward when just the Hubby and I were by ourselves, so I created a small eating area for just the two of us, great for candlelight dinners, and when company comes I can just add the chairs back into the dinning room table when our guests come back to stay with us.

The pillow below was something I found while visiting Yosemite this past summer. I had always coveted the fun look of the pillows of all the national parks that Horchows carried (http://www.horchow.com) though I do not think they do so any longer as I have not seen them. However when I was having lunch at the Ahwahnee Hotel I went into the gift shop and saw the pillows, they were $150 which I find to be too much for pillows, I mean there are soooo very many pillows in the world and so little time to get them all, you must have some criteria to pair down the selection, price is a very good divider. I still loved the pillows and they were fabulous (however all hopes were dashed that I would own a full set of all the National Parks) when I happened to notice dish towels for a fraction of the price with the same basic design (minus the hand stitching) and promptly grabbed one. When I got home I stitched all sides together and stuffed it and viola...a pillow very close to the one I have coveted at Horchows.

check out http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/ for other cost cutting projects!

and this is the $150 pillow (it's all hand stitched), I think mine will work out just fine. I am thinking any of the dishtowels sold at giftstores on our travels could be transformed into funky pillows!

Yosemite

Linked to http://modvintagelife.blogspot.com/ For Mod Mix Monday

 and romantichome.blogspot.com