More lamps in my future ...!? Not such a good thing when I have two perfectly good matched sets in our office with no good place to go. One set is actually tall, antique alabaster (can you see them in the "before" pics?), probably worth a pretty penny, but they just aren't "us". I would love to see them in Magnaverde's home. Maybe I should sell them on e-Bay, but then I'd have to scam the buyer, right? That's what I hear people do these days. :-) (Stupid scammers. I hate meanies.) These are them (they?): The other set is nickel-tone, non-expensive lamps from LNT or BB&B or somewhere like that. Back before we found ourselves gravitating to iron, we thought we'd decorate a little more mod, with brushed nickel lamps and stuff. Didn't take but about a month to figure out that we'd made a mistake, but too late. So I have THOSE lamps to contend with. They're probably in an old picture of the living room. If I were made of money, I'd go straight to Hubbardton Forge for our bedside lamps. I can't get enough of their stuff. Must be because I went to college in Vermont. I was lucky enough to find a H.F. floor lamp on Craigslist a couple of years ago and snapped it up in the blink of an eye. I paid about 25% list price, such a deal. What's the right height for bedside lamps anyway?

I designed my first space (master bathroom) about a year and a half ago. It was the first space I ever got to design/create from scratch... I did NOT have a designer, I just had GW, Pinterest, and magazines.. LOL A couple pieces of recycled glass from Pottery Barn inspired my entire bathroom remodel. I always say, design a space with things you love, and you can't go wrong... (Okay, you probably can go wrong lol) but hopefully you get what I'm saying. I love recycled green glass, so my entire design started with that in mind. From there, I choose a pretty backsplash that had the same colors as my recycled glass pieces.. I knew I wanted a white countertop so that was an easy choice since it went well with my glass tile. Slowly but surely everything came together. But in the early stages of my design, when I had a blank slate... I had millions of ideas running, and I didn't really know where to start. I almost went with some safe tan choices... But after the recycled glass inspired me, tans no longer worked with my vision. Just keep in mind, the more bold of choice(s) (or some may say "gaudy") the quicker it may go out of style. I'm not saying go safe/boring.. Just something to think about overall. Sometimes you can decorate and changes things up in a space with small accent pieces.. But there are some design pieces that you're more "stuck with" usually the big ticket items - vanity, tile, etc... so choose them wisely.

The brown leather pieces have a very dated look. Choose furniture with straight, classical lines, nothing bulky, overstuffed or clumsy looking. If you can, stay away from brown leather furniture altogether because it's become a cliche since it's so overdone and nothing else looks good with it. You want furniture in more medium colors that will all work together, and not have a piece stick out like a sore thumb. Look at lots of rooms on Houzz or online by googling living rooms and narrowing it down by traditional, transitional and modern, and decide what style really speaks to you.

Try a narrow basket or other sort of container. Look for one that sits nice and flat. Looks like you need some thing about the size of a shoebox or smaller. There’s a product called Quake Hold that does not damage surfaces, kind a like Play-Doh, which you could put on the bottom of the container if it tends to fall off.