With a little help from my friends

When youre hanging pictures you have to arrange, measure, mark, hammer, fit in, is not an easy task. Of course you can do it yourself but is always good to get a little help from someone else. In this case I got help from my sister. 

Is good to have someone there so you can step away from the wall and see if the pictures are perfectly aligned.

Thanks sis.

Clustering art

How do you make a grand statement on a wall using your photos and artwork? Well... mural always comes to my mind when we talk about big statement. But another thing to try is to place a bunch of photographs or artwork using similar frames to keep it cohesive. This is another way to give impact to the room.



Photo by Laura Angelina



TIP: Always sketch before hanging your artwork and lay them on the floor the way you want to hang it on the wall, try different options until you come up with the right one.

The mushroom of course!

This is a mini artwork I made for Ella. The mushroom. To make it is very simple. I just needed:

-A teeny tiny canvas

-Some fabric leftovers

-Black paint

-And tacky glue

Cut the fabric in any shape you like and stick it on the canvas, combine it with paint and done. This is just a small proprtion experiment, and not so finished but I believe this project has potential.

The other homeowner

OK, so we have talked a lot about design, home improvement, and other things, but there is something we haven't told you, something that we have kept a secret. Is about the frog that lives inside the old empty flowerpot in the entryway. 

A couple of days after we moved, I started hearing strange sounds when we were entering our home, until one day we saw her, she was waiting for us at the door. A really HUGE frog. 

I know her so well that I was able to draw her picture.

To be honest, I'm not so comfortable around them, I really like them cause they eat the bugs and they're good amphibians but I'm afraid they could jump on me or get inside the house and hide. 

Anyway, our friend made her home in that old flowerpot that I have neglected since the day we moved. Big frog and her entire family live there, in fact, we recently tried to clean that spot a bunch of them jumped out and were all over the place! Her entire family lives there. 

TIP: If you would like to get rid of bugs then make a spot in your garden comfortable enough for a frog. A flowerpot for instance, in damp and moist place. If not, do the opposite.

Now the next thing to do is remove those pots from the entryway!

The kitchen's not so big makeover

In the kitchen we didn't have to make big changes. Just by adding some plants and accents after a deep cleaning we were done. We really liked the dark orange color on the walls so we kept it.



The kitchen (before).



For us, some things are essential in the kitchen; towels, a rug in front of the sink and our teapot (especially for cinnamon tea). By the way, the words on the stove spell EAT not FAT.

Home office/Guest room

For this room we needed to save space, so by combining the office and guest room into one we made this working space that doubles as a guestroom for all our dear visitors.

When we came to see the house, the previous owner had these shelves (on the left wall) which we found very useful, specially for Ramon's collection of movie characters.

Before. Office

This is what we have done so far. We really hope that eventually we could accomplish a cozy and comfortable room for our guests.

Like father like daughter

We're very impressed with how our daughter holds the big heavy Nikon and takes a picture almost perfectly framed. Ramon and I love photography and it seems that our little one is loving it too. Looks like when you like something there's a big chance your kids will like it too. 

 

Children learn a lot of things through imitating their parents, we really love if she could have skills like these, embrace them and appreciate art as we do. Of course, she will always have the freedom to choose whatever she wants the most.

The importance of artwork

For showing you about the importance of artwork we chose these pictures of our bedroom, before and after hanging art. Is probably not the best example but we went for it anyway, since is the first significant art we hang in our new house we are very excited to show you the difference.

It's missing something.

We have always loved our bedroom. These three pieces were in the living room of the apartment. In this bedroom the wall behind the bed is much bigger so we had cover a little more of the it.



The frames and the art were very affordable.



Selling your things on the internet

If you need to get something sold there are many options in the internet, and the great thing is that some of them are free.
This is the ottoman that didn't work in our living room so we made an ad and posted it in Craigslist:

TIP: Whatever is the product you're selling, take a nice picture of it, remove clutter from the room so people can see what you're selling. If its torn or stained be honest and show a detail picture of where is damaged, some people tolerate buying things that are a little broken.

Now, you don't have to make a proffessional ad or take a great photograph. Simply by taking a good picture of the product you're selling you will be able to highlight a little more its quality.

Moving to a new neighborhood

So, you move into a new neighborhood. Now you need to set into the new area for a look around. Walking around the neighborhood is always a good way to get to know better your surroundings.

Visiting your neighbors to  introduce yourself is not a bad idea, you don't have to wait for them to give you the welcome, you can visit them, introduce yourself and let them know you're there in case they need you.
TIP: When introducing yourself is always a nice gesture to bring a gift, could be a dish or a bottle of wine, or even something made by yuorself, they will apreciate it.


This is our new neighborhood.

We moved to Valrico which is an area that in general we know pretty well and is not too far from our previous location in Brandon.

And now we present... the curtains

Curtains were necessary on this sliding door, not only for privacy purposes, but also to give some zest to this bare wall.

There's Ella!

Then I found a pair of curtains at Ikea, with illustrations of birds and trees, and immediately fell in love with them. I like that they're fun and graphic. But then we realized we were going to need more color, we wanted something that could make more contrast but we didn't want a very strong color, so we went back and bought a pair of plain green curtains and they went very well with one of the toss pillow on the sofa.

Oh! By the way, those green curtains wrinkle just by looking at them!

Of course, we kept in mind the living room colors when we bought the curtains, we didn't want to have a color carnival.

And there they are, we combined both curtains thanks to my mom's idea supported by Ramon.

Creating the reading habit

I really love the fact that Ella loves books. Since she doesn't know how to read yet, she asks us to read the stories for her. She has learned the different letters sounds and is able to read many words already. We're very proud of her, she just turned four and is already reading words! 

Some books that have helped her are Dr. Seuss books, which are her favorites.

Dr.Seuss is Ella's favorite author.

We go to the library and book stores with her very frequently, we love the environment. And there, surrounded by books we read and read untill we're tired. Is incredible how many words she knows already.

Nature in our home

Last winter we had in our apartment this bowl with rocks and pinecones that Ella and I picked up ourselves, combined with potpourri. I loved the colors!



The best thing is that I only had to buy the potpourri (which wasn't expensive).

Today I wanted to put something in the center of the dining table. I resolved to cut a branch of the bushes of our pathway, they needed triming anyway.

Then I combined the branch with my only fake folwer to give it a little touch of green.

You can use seashells, leaves, sand, branches with no leaves, cut flowers, whatever you can find, and arrange them in any vase or bowl you find at home. Is an unexpensive way to decorate using natural elements.

The dininng room

The dining room is important (like the kitchen) because is related with food, so it was one of the first rooms to be finished. Here's a picture of the dining room before:

Maybe you noticed that the previous owner had the same dining set we have.

We didn't know what to do with that wall nook on the right, but then Ramon's light bulb went on. He had the idea of sticking there the tree wall decal he gave me as a present a long time ago.

The dining room nook.

Here's what we have done so far. But the problem with this huge wall remains. We will have to make an extremely large art or gather a bunch of small ones we have around the house, we'll see what happens. For now it will stay like this.

Things to do when you move to a new house

The first thing we did while the house was still empty (except for a couple of boxes in the living room) was to thoroughly clean up. We cleaned every detail; appliances, walls, closets, those corners everyone forgets about...everything.

I know Ramon looks like he's operating but he's not, he's just cleaning the kitchen cabinets with a surgical mask. He's very allergic to dust.

Then came the arranging furniture part. We had to purchase some things that worked better in this house, not many, just some details like this cute rug for the dining table.

Oh! We also had to get rid of our sectional because it didn't fit in the living room so we purchased a new sofa. Do you remember the sofa battle? Well here is the result.

Tada!!! We both decided to buy this sofa because it work better for the room. We didn't find recliners with nice colors or shapes. This sofa was comfortable enough for Ramon, plus, he bought an ottoman to put his feet up.  

We also have to help Ella adapt to this house, although  for her, settling into the new house has been fast. The first days she was missing the apartment, but she is also excited with her new room and happy that now she has an outdoor space to play.