Slacker Alert

Ok, so I know I've been a HUGE slacker so far this year regarding blogging.  No real reason why except I haven't been motivated to cook anything fabulous or do anything to the house until this week.  I thought I would be blog crazy since we bought a new Mac desktop!!  Oh my gosh I LOVE it.  Our poor little macbook is feeling neglected and rightfully so.  That dang thing has been put through the ringer... it's so full of pictures that I refuse to shrink down to reasonable files and so full of whatever has fallen on it in the kitchen and puppy dog licks it's a miracle I can still pull up facebook on the thing.  Oh yes, facebook still works on it.  That's all we use it for now.  We as in me.  John hates technology.  I have all of these fabulous pictures from Christmas that I planned on posting... pictures of my house, my parents' house, the river house... Tara in all her cuteness... well it's way past an acceptable time to post those.  Plus they are on the laptop not the desktop and are now considered inferior pictures.  I have new photo editing software that I can't WAIT to learn inside and out and share with you.  Give me a year please.

The point of this is I have two projects I'll share over the weekend.  One is a semi big one.  DINING ROOM.  I hate the paint color, I hate the light fixture and I hate that I'm just now doing something about it.  I'll post a before picture this weekend and then an after pic after I paint it.  It's going to be a work in progress so be patient.  First step is painting it and second step is stenciling something wonderful on an accent wall.  I can't decide which wall I want to stencil so feedback after you see a picture is much appreciated and actually required from my friends.  Oh, are you still reading stencil and wondering if this is 1987 and if I'm actually going to stencil ivy with mauve accents?  No... get with 2011 people.  I'm ordering a stencil today that is wonderful, modern and will make you think I spent $300 on a roll of wallpaper.  I hope.  I'll post an after picture even if it's hideous and makes John move out... but hopefully it will be wonderful and everyone will go out and try it themselves!  I did something similar in our downstairs bathroom with a smaller scale stencil and my eyeballs.  It is ok... could be much better but I'm pretty pleased and do not hate that room anymore.  That's good since it's also our laundry room, guest bath, powder room and dogpen. 

Second project is just some tidying up of our master bedroom.  We have two bedrooms.  Both small.  One small and one ridiculously small so we picked the small one.  I haven't given this room much attention and I should have since we sleep in there every night.  It was white when we moved in; I painted it a deep kelly green and put a fabulous bed in there.  We have a great dresser that was John's grandmother's and that's it!  Some stuff on the walls that are hunting related... no thank you... and some cute sketches that John's parents gave us and I've used in two different rooms.  Oh and the curtains.  My Mom made them for me when we found some fabric for $5 a yard.  I love them and definitely want to keep them.  All I'm really looking to do here is put different things on the walls to unify everything.  Possibly get a larger night stand since we are essentially using a plant stand for one... maybe some new lamps but not at the top of my list since my budget is $0 and change out our bedding for once in 1 1/2 years... I bought some cute pillow shams yesterday that bring in some more color and I'll pair them with a white duvet I have stored away and some fun sheets to add pattern.  This will be a work in progress b/c I don't want to throw just anything on the walls.  I can show you the bed before and after this weekend though and give you an idea of what we're working with on the walls.  You'll think I'm a really good wife for letting John hang man-art in our bedroom for 1 1/2 years.

Back to the stencil.  I know you are all scared for me and worried about what I'm doing to our dining room but here are some stencils I'm trying to decide between.  But first here is my plan:

- Paint the room (which connects to both living room and kitchen) a linen bone color.  Not white, not tan and not ivory but somewhere fabulously in between.  I haven't chosen this color yet but it looks great in my head. 
- Stencil a pattern using a metallic paint, something subtle and probably more silver than gold.  I could go either way and it will depend on the final paint color whether it is cool base or warm base but this pattern will not scream at you and will not offend your eyes.  At least I hope it won't!  If it does you will not ever have to come back to my house. 
- Find a more appropriate light fixture because the one there obviously came out of the neighbor's trash can and wasn't meant for a DINING room. 

Ok now here are some stencils I LOVE.  This is for one wall only, not the entire space.  I think I just decided which wall!  That's a relief.  Wait... now I think I may want to do the entire dining room.  Dangit! 

The top one I love and think would be wonderful in a tone on tone metallic look.  The bottom one I also love and almost would want to add some color into the metallic to give it more depth.  Which one do you think is more fabulous and would throw more of a punch?!  I guess you need to see my dining room.  It is very traditional furniture with contemporary lamps and fabric.  The rest of our house is contemporary with my own quirky decorating sense thrown in.  So pretty much something from every period in the 20th century. 

The bottom picture makes me want to do my entire dining room which is essentially a bump out from our living room and kitchen and only has 3 walls.  One wall is mainy french doors and one wall has a window.  The third wall has our buffet on it. 

I'll be honest.  I'm at work and cannot attach a picture of my dining room right now and for good reason.  I should not blog while at work. 

Love ya'll and thanks for wasting 10 minutes of your life on my dining room!  Come back tomorrow?