Form vs. Function

Welcome to another Metamorphosis Monday hosted by Between Naps on the Porch. It has been so fun to participate and see so many before and afters. Thank you Susan!

When it came to decor, it used to be form over function for me. Who cared if something had no function as long as it served my aesthetic need? :) I didn't even use baby gates as I thought they were ugly. I taught our children to crawl backwards down the stairs as soon as they could crawl so that I didn't have to deal with those ugly gates.

However, with the chaos of family life, I am realizing I need function a little more than form. As our family grows up, I am constantly thinking of how to make our house function for us. A couple of years ago, we switched our living and dining rooms. It worked better for us to have a large dining room to host family and other social functions. At the same time, it was better for us to have a smaller living room where we could tuck the (ugly) piano on one side of the wall where it was not very visible to people as they walk into our home. I also had an office armoire in the living room that housed my computer. That armoire moved last year into the study. It was bringing too much clutter from all my paperwork, and I was also not doing a good job at closing up the armoire after I was finished for the day.

While the living room was functional with the piano in there, I realized it could be even more functional. We do a lot of reading in that room. The sofa is so comfortable, we can nap in there too. Here is the before of the living room:

I decided while it was nice to have a clean, uncluttered living room, it might be better served with bringing up the bookcase from the basement "library". No one was using the bookshelves down there. All the books were coming upstairs and being left everywhere. My dilemma was that bookcases, when used for the sole purpose of housing books, can look quite cluttered. I am trying to declutter, and also trying to lighten up the house. The bookcase we have is dark, and not necessarily the style I would have chosen. But, it had been given to us years ago, is a very high quality piece, and I have always been a believer of using what I have. Also, I had to think of function. Here is what it looks like now:

To accessorize the top of the bookcases, I added my prints to the top of the bookcases to visually lengthen them.

I want to lighten the look of this room for the summer. My plans for this room include slip covering the side chairs, replacing the drapes, and replacing the 3 prints on top of the bookcases. I am planning on also covering some of the paperback books with white paper. I know. What a time consuming task, but I do like that clean look.

I know that having all these books in this room will take more work to keep clean, but seeing this (below) makes it worthwhile when I know this room is being used for its intended purpose.

Hopefully, after I do some of my projects as planned, I may end up liking the look of the living room "library". Who knows, maybe I'll even go and paint the bookcases black to emulate this look:

Traditional Home via Porchlight Interiors

Daydreaming

This is me sometimes. My kids' sports activities are starting up again, and so the chauffeuring is heightened. Between picking kids up from school 2 times a day (I have a child in morning kindergarten, and 2 kids in all day), piano lessons, school activities, sports practices and games, I spend a lot of time in the car. As I wait for them, I daydream. I carry a notebook, and my car is filled with magazines and books.

Sometimes I feel like I dream my life away. Don't get me wrong, I love my children and am so happy for them that they have the opportunity to do all these activities. It is so exciting to see them doing all these things, most of which I never did growing up. I know that this is just the "season" of my life. I know when they are older, I will look back and wish it all back.

For now, though, while I wait for for the hour or so for each of their activities to end, I dream.

The Yellow House

There are a few neighborhoods nearby that I would love to live in when the time is right, so I am always doing my research to see what's out there. One house I found a year and a half ago was stunning, and all done in yellow! All images via Kentwood Homes.

We all know now that the Pantone color for 2009 is Mimosa.

Now, this particular house wasn't this shade of yellow, but it was a cheery, warm, yellow. I normally wouldn't love an all yellow home, although the great room in my last home was yellow. This house, however, had just the right amount of crisp white mixed in with it to balance out the yellow. Let's take a look:

As you enter the home, you are greeted by a gorgeous staircase.

Here's another view from the living room. The Brazilian Cherry floors are gorgeous with the yellow! Just beyond the staircase is the living room:

On the right of the stairs is the study:

On the left of the staircase is the dining room:Just beyond the dining room is the kitchen:

Look at all the space for barstools!

The hearth room sits right off the kitchen.

Upstairs is the beautiful master bedroom:

And adjoning bath:

I think this realtor did a great job showcasing this home. Who would've thought a yellow home could be so beautiful?

Junk to Fabulous

Welcome to my first Fabulous Friday post hosted by the Fabulous Simply Seleta!

This week, what I think is fabulous is spray paint! I was about to throw this old, tired, wicker accessory away. Look at all the dust it had gathered in the basement!

But, I loved its' shape. Not the color. So, with a couple of sprays with black spray paint....

Quite sculptural now, don't you think? It is now showing off dead center on a console in my family room.

To see some more Fabulous Friday posts, click here.

Happy Friday Everyone! I'm off to go skiing in the mountains!

What's in a Name?

What's in a name? For thousands of years, people have chosen names based on meaning. In the Bible, people had their names changed after spiritual transformations. When my brother was a baby, my mom changed his name when she found out his old name had a negative meaning. It's a good thing in this day and age that most people don't believe the meaning of a person's name will predict who or what they will become. My married last name is Graber, meaning "grave digger"!

For me, many people ask where the name LaurenFaythe comes from. It is not my real name. My real name is Susan, but everyone calls me Sue. LaurenFaythe is actually a cumulation of my children's names. When thinking of my retail site name and my blog name, I wanted something other than my own name. I wanted it to be for something other than just myself. My family is very important to me. I wanted my children to be a part of what I do as an artist, and as a person. They give me inspiration and motivation. I want to show them that they can achieve anything they want to. I want to inspire them to reach for their dreams. They only have to try. If it fails, then they keep going.

The painting above is of my kids standing next to a fountain in Beaver Creek about 2 years ago. I love this painting because it really depicts their personalities and how each of these kids approach life.

My oldest is the one on the very right. She is an observer. She doesn't jump into things. She looks and analyzes. She doesn't show much emotion to most people. She is very quiet, but she is always thinking. Because of all her analysis, she is great at everything she does.

My middle child, my son, has to touch everything! He is usually in his own little world creating movies and stories in his mind. He learns by doing. He has to experience and touch ( and make sound effects while doing it). He is full of laughter, and my most easygoing child.

My youngest has to do everything everyone else is doing. Even though she was too short for this fountain, she had to stand on her tippy toes to look at the coins in the fountain. She doesn't care if she is small, she will bowl her way through a crowd to get the best seat in the house! She charms everyone she meets.

Below is the photo I used to paint the painting above:

So that, in a nutshell, is where LaurenFaythe comes from.

A Nursery Update

I had no idea that posting my daughter's old nursery would bring such positive response! Well, I received an email from Helen at Creative Baby Nursery Rooms asking to include our nursery on her site. I was honored! This site is a resource for anyone interested in nursery decor ideas. It also includes extras, like links to baby name ideas, a mom-to-mom advice center, links to baby furniture sites, and recall lists to name a few. I would have loved a resource like this 10 years ago! To view my daughter's old nursery on the site, click here. Thanks Helen!

A Nursery

Welcome to Monday Metamorphosis hosted by Between Naps on the Porch. Please visit Susan's site. There are so many wonderful before and afters!

I have been working on redecorating my oldest daughter's room for several months now. I work on bits and pieces of it when I get the chance. She is now 9 years old, and going through a metamorphosis of her own. She is ready to shed some of the little girl room she has and wants more of a "Tween" room, with her style and colors. I have been sad about this, because it means she is growing up.

Working on her room makes me reminisce back to her first room, the nursery. It was in a different house, and me, being the excited first time mom, went all out and worked like a madwoman trying to make the perfect nursery for our firstborn. I did not take before pictures, as always, because it was 10 years ago, and I had no idea I would be blogging then! Her room was the craft room. Imagine something like this:

Yikes! What a messy room! This is my current studio (photo taken after Christmas, in my defense!)

After several weeks of painting and sewing, with pregnancy induced carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, and eventually, preeclampsia:

Since we hadn't found out the gender of our child, I wanted a fairly neutral theme. I thought an outdoor theme fit perfectly. I painted a mural in the entire room. All four walls and the ceiling were painted in the mountain outdoor theme.

Little ladybugs, bees, and butterflies were stapled onto the wall.

If you look closely, you can see some butterflies in the sky. There were clouds in the sky walls and ceiling that you can't see in the pictures. My parents brought the cuckoo clock back from the Netherlands during their European tour. I bought one of the teddy bears on the shelf in Cambridge, England. I was very huge and pregnant at the time of my visit there.

My brother made an airplane that hung from the ceiling. The plane was made from balsa wood and tissue paper. (My brother is an engineer, and this airplane could fly if we wanted it to.) I found some sheer fabric with star details, and I used blue gingham for the cornice and tieback. A blue and white striped fabric was used for the roman shade. I wanted the curtains to blend in with the sky walls, but also have character on its' own.

I wanted the baby to feel like it was in the trees, so I painted a tree on either side of the crib. (Not that the baby would even know it!) There are wooden birds stapled onto the branches.

The bunnies painted on the wall had company from a big stuffed bunny.

I know that all of this was more for myself than for the baby. Really, what baby would know the difference between a room of murals and a plain white box? But, in my mind, I wanted our child to feel special, and it was my way of showing her/him my love through all my labor in that room.

Structures

Like many people, I am intrigued by barns and cabins. Some are old and dilapidated, some are new made to look old. Here are some photos I took:

The structure above is sitting right next to a sidewalk in Edwards, CO.

These old structures are close to Sylvan Lake near Vail/Beaver Creek, where my son caught his first fish.

This barn is at the Starling Lane Winery on Vancouver Island, Canada.

This barn is in the Napa Valley, California, near all the wonderful vineyards. This poor barn gets painted by me every now and then. Here's my latest:

Napa Barn II is now in my Etsy shop.

Tea for Three

Welcome to Tablescape Thursday hosted by Between Naps on the Porch. My tablescape is not my own, but the one presented to us at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver. In my first real blog posting, I posted a story about having tea at the Brown Palace Hotel, the 2nd oldest hotel in Denver. It's a hotel with a rich history. Celebrities, dignitaries, and every President since Teddy Roosevelt, with the exception of Calvin Coolidge, have visited there.

It was a beautiful table-setting. The ambiance was great, all with a harpist playing in the background. The food was delicious as well!

Before and After - my powder room

Welcome to my first Metamorphosis Monday hosted by Between Naps on the Porch. I am going to show you a before and after of my powder room.

I have been enamored lately by all the light, airy rooms I have seen on the web and in design magazines. My home right now is in transition between the earth tones and Old World /Tuscan style I have loved for a long time, and the lighter look I am now leaning towards. I am trying to find a happy medium where I can marry my old darker furniture and this lighter look.

Before, my powder room felt a bit like a cave. It was dark. You'll see what I mean:

I had painted the sconces above several years ago, and also added the painted and aged mirror.

I had this print behind the door.

The floral is tired, tired, tired!

Until I took these pictures, I didn't realize the painting on that wall was way too small.

I finally got my grey/blue fix by painting this room:

I replaced the small painting with the bigger one I posted the other day. I replaced the magnolia and ivy floral arrangement with this branch in a glass vase.

The print behind the doorway was replaced with some candle sconces I had in the basement. You can see the sconces through the mirror.

Aahhh, such a lighter, airier room! Notice the toilet paper holder I showed you from an earlier post! :) What do you think?

Thanks for viewing my before and after. I hope to have more soon!