Swoon Interiors

interiors that make your heart skip a beat.

Birthday weekend

Whew!  What a weekend! Between a fab charity event, a bad cold, a case of laryngitis and my son’s birthday … I think I will be ready to call it a night by about 8 pm! But it was all worth it for this smile …

So I don’t have much to share on the interior decorating front … but I thought I’d give you a quick glimpse of my sweet seven year old through the years …

He was SO excited about that basketball cake!
(If you’re local … we got it from Jennycakes!)
I could not be more proud of my little buddy.  Even though each birthday of his makes me want to put on the brakes and slow down time, I also love to see the qualities of the person he is becoming reveal themselves each day, week, month and year.  He never ceases to amaze me or make me laugh.
And because he is very interested in “mom’s blog” (not so much the decorating part, but just the fact that I have blog about our house) I will take a moment to again say Happy Birthday Kyle! Here’s to another great year! I love you!
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I’ll be back later this week with more decorating goodies!

A Nook out of Nothing

There’s a little wall in my breakfast room that I wasn’t sure what to do with.  For a long time, one of our 6 kitchen table chairs sat there because we had pulled up my son’s Stokke Trip Trap High Chair to the table.  Now that we have the chair back at the table the space just felt kind of bare.  We have a large black wall clock there which I love, but it just felt like we needed something underneath it to balance it out.

The space is not big at all, and it’s a high traffic area, so I needed something very thin. Yet in order to balance out the huge clock it still had to have some weight and height to it.  Most of the pieces I saw and liked were just too deep. And then one day a couple weeks ago I was walking through Target and saw the perfect little black table. The half moon shape meant no sharp corners and even though it is 11 inches deep in the middle, the sides are just 8 inches deep which is exactly the length of the little wall it tucks in next to.

I filled it with things I already had, only now they seem a little more special because they have their own little table.  And earlier this week I found the little breadboard/chalkboard and added that. 

I also found a cute little “catalog of garden seeds” …

I’m so happy with the results! I feel like it’s a lot of bang for the buck and it really transformed the space from nothing to a nice little visual nook.

What do you think?  Do you have an empty little “nothing” space or wall in your house that you could transform?

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On Sunday, I’ll be changing the message on the chalkboard to read “Happy Birthday Kyle!” as my first “baby” turns 7!  We’ve got a busy and fun weekend ahead! I think I’m (almost) just as excited as he is, although I guarantee I’ll be shedding a tear or two! For some reason seven sounds so much older than six!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Wednesday Wish List – Wallpaper

Katie Ridder’s Leaf Wallpaper makes me swoon.

It’s been at the top of my wish list for some time. I’ve ordered samples from Holland & Sherry and I often walk around my house with them envisioning how different walls would look covered in this yummy print.

To fellow design bloggers, I know this is nothing new.  There has been a lot of discussion about this wallpaper ever since it’s debut. But my blog about all things swoonworthy would not be complete if I didn’t also mention it.

Ideally I’d like to do my whole upstairs hallway.  Since there’s not much there but brown wood floors and beige walls, I always think it could handle some bold wallpaper.  Unfortunately, it would require so many rolls, I think we’d have to win the lottery first.

I keep thinking about my dining room … but the gray colorway I like in this wallpaper has a white background and the drapes in my living room are ivory.

The blue might be pretty on the wall behind our bed …

I’m not sure where this brown would fit in my house, but it would be so dramatic in a small space.
Likewise with this pink colorway …
Could you imagine a little girl’s room done with this?
(Note to my husband … don’t worry … I’m just saying I like it.)

I love this bathroom I spotted on Elements of Style.

And I was so giddy when I saw it on the premiere episode of Secrets from A Stylist where Emily used it in Glee co-creator, Ian Brennan’s bedroom:

via HGTV
When I saw this version done with a SHARPIE (of all things!) on A Penny Saved, it got me thinking … could I tackle this project?

It would have to be a really small space … and I’m afraid I would lose patience after the second or third leaf. And my family would probably be eating fast food for a week. And I might spend some extra time at the chiropractor.

There are just so many wonderful colorways, I think I’ve got to find one that works.  I kind of think a house can only support one room of wallpaper, so it’s a big decision on which room it should be.

Did you know that another Katie Ridder wallpaper lined the walls of Carrie and Big’s NYC apartment in Sex and the City 2?

Make sure you check out all of her patterns on her website.  Many of them come in fabrics too … which gets me thinking. Curtains? Pillows? Mmmm.