A little artsy, a little fartsy.

I'm sprucing up the master bedroom. Or re-doing it. Or just doing it for the first time really. Whatevs.

I bought two of these bamboo frames from goodwill for 6 bucks a pop. As um, lovely as the prints are I decided to swap them out. I painted the frame gold with some Martha Stewart craft paint, painted the mat black to cover up the faded green bits, pulled out a bit of map from an old atlas and called it good. Except that since this is going in our room I decided to pick a map with personal meaning for Gary.

 

A sweet little heart over Scotland, where he spent two years teaching and serving for our church.

What about you? Anyone else working on a neglected space in their home? Have you whipped up any art lately?

The best compromise is the one where I win.

Guys, today was epic. Like, better than the day I got married epic (kidding...probably.) Today I found THE rug. The one that has been haunting my dreams. It's perfect, I want to marry it, and maybe I will. I think that you can do that in Alabama or something.

On a run to my favorite home decorator fabric outlet place to pick up curtain ring clips (locals let me know if you want my source...only $2.99 for 7 rings!!) Gary was lecturing me about how he doesn't want to spend much more of our tax refund on rugs. I already bought an ENORMOUS 9'6" x 13' wool rug for our living room, and a smaller version of it for C's room, plus we need some runners for the hall, a rug for our bedroom, then some day the office will get a dhurrie and when we end up having another bambino the nursery will need one...the point is that I'm on a rug buying kick.

C's rug came today! The same thing in a larger size is going in the living room.

I would never go back to carpet though. Let me go on record; I would rather walk on bare laminate flooring for the rest of my life than have wall to wall carpet again. But we were super ready for a few area rugs. I'd given up on finding the perfect wool ikat in a predominantly rusty red print in just the right size and within my budget. At the store Gary was trying to convince me that we need to cut our spending and just compromise with a synthetic rug from the store we were in (great fabrics at this place, but very questionable floor coverings). I almost threw up on him. However, I'm also a reasonable person and a good wife so I told him I would find something synthetic (gross, that word gives me the hives!) IF he would let me run into Home Goods across the street and "just take a look at what they have...just in case."

Then the heavens opened and the choirs of angels started belting out all kinds of hosannas. They were all super excited for me when I saw this looker:

It's exactly what I want. In wool. In a very generous 7'x9' size. In the exact rusty red tones WITH a bonus grey accent worked throughout. I think maybe the rug gods designed it just for me.

But it was a little over our budget (by like, a hundred bucks which is a pretty significant amount when you're already on a budget.) Good thing I have the best husband and that he was gifted with an eye for good design when I point it out to him. And also maybe he was placated because I encouraged him to buy a bunch of new clothes. Distraction is the greatest weapon in my arsenal. Well, that and my knockers.