around the house

Since I love reading home improvement and design makeover blog posts, I thought maybe, just maybe, you'd be interested to see if we've done any recent updates around here. Well, we have. A couple months ago, we purchased a new rug for the living room. Once we laid it down, though, we didn't like how it looked in the room. We really like mid-century modern design, and the rug looked too blue and too traditional. Not what we were going for. We decided on this ivory-colored rug instead, and we are much happier with the look. We are going to jazz up the room eventually with colorful art pieces. While we appreciate the mid-century aesthetic, we don't want our entire house to be decorated that way. Some mid-century modern stuff can be too modern and out there for my taste. I still very much like cottage chic and certain aspects of traditional style. I like the idea of mixing it up a little.

We are still on the search for a new coffee table and new lamp shades. 

We love the new rug. It's so soft and plush! Stella seems to really enjoy it, too.

We moved the rug we originally had in there into our bedroom, and we love it in its new home! We want to get a new duvet cover and shams for our bed to better complement the colors and style of the rug.

We still have Brett's alarm clock that he had in his high school or college days. It's "vintage", right? Ugh. No, it's so ugly. Brett recently put up this ledge, and I can't wait to decorate it according to my "vision" for it. This marble-top dresser used to be in my parents' house. The bottom drawer needs to be repaired, but we love its unique look. I don't think we would change anything about it.

Okay, this is the embarrassing part of the post. Our mud room/office. This is how it always looks. I didn't change or move anything for the picture. We need a system for organizing our paperwork and mail. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to do that. Well, I have been looking for nice looking white file cabinets and maybe a shelf to put above the desk to store decorative-but-functional boxes to store paperwork and other junk.

This room is kind of like the holding station for junk because I'd rather it be in here than on the kitchen counters. AAAH! I hate clutter. I want to conquer this disorganized mess of a room! I'm not one for asking the advice or thoughts of people on the internet, but I may have to break down and ask what kind of system you employ for organizing office stuff.

And that's it for house updates!

Hopefully in the next update, we will have some art on the walls, new lamp shades and another lamp, and a media console. Also, I don't like the look of the black speakers. Can't they make white or gray ones? Maybe they do. Or I just want them discreetly hidden altogether...

Oh, and Stella's new RIBBA Ikea ledges for books: