Monday, July 30, 2012

Project Runway New Season

Another season of Project Runway has begun.  I can't believe there has been 10 seasons.  I have watched each and every episode of all 10 seasons.  I must say that this season has a lot of designers that I think have potential to win.  It is a very unique bunch.  Usually, there is only 1 designer that I really like and it is to early for me to say who my ultimate favorite is.  But here are the designers whose style I am liking so far.

Buffi Jashanmal
Buffi Jashanmal

I like that she is very punky and unique.

Melissa Fleis
Melissa Fleis

She uses a lot of black and has a gothic element to her style which I like.

Ven Budhu
Ven Budhu

During the casting, he said that he liked to use red which is my favorite color.  His clothes are very well made.  He obviously knows how to sew.

Christopher Palu
Christopher Palu

So far, I am liking Christopher's style.  His stuff is a little more traditional, but still made very well.


Because it is the 10th season, I thought it would be cool to go back through the seasons and remember all of my favorites.

Austin Scarlett
Austin Scarlett Season 1

Nick Verreos
Nick Verreos Season 2
Kayne Gillaspie
Kayne Gillaspie Season 3

Christian Siriano

Christian Siriano Season 4 (Winner)

Stephen "Suede" Baum
Suede Baum Season 5

Nicolas Putvinski Season 6

Seth Aaron Henderson Season 7 (Winner)

Mondo Guerra Season 8

ViktorLuna
Viktor Luna Season 9

Are you watching the new season of Project Runway?  If so, who are your favorites so far?  I am really excited for this season, it is shaping up to be one of the best season's to date.

All images via mylifetime.com, and bravotv.com.


Monday, July 16, 2012

Design Star...The Best Season

  Is it just me or does this season of Design Star seem better than the past seasons (minus the David Bromstad season of course)?  I don't know if it is because they never seem to have a budget.  The rooms just look better to me.  I can't remember watching an episode before and loving a lot of the rooms.

Here are some of my favorites to this point.

This is from episode 1.  The episode where they have to decorate the house they will be living in.  This room is by Mikel and Britany.  The things I love about this room are the blue and yellow combo, the stripes, the fretwork on the wall, and all the pillows.


This is episode 2 the White Room Challenge.  This room is by Rachel.  I really love the black and white graphic feature wall.  I am also liking the green with the pink and yellow.  I think any color looks good with black and white. 







All of these images are from episode 3 where they design for Kris Jenner. I liked every room. That has never happened before. Kris Jenner and I obviously have similar taste. I love the black and white everywhere.

I wasn't impressed with any rooms from episode 4.  They designed indoor and outdoor spaces for 2 homeowners.



Episode 5 had my ultimate favorite room.  In this episode, the designers were given a specific design style and had to do a lounge for a Hollywood party.  Of course, Britany's room was my favorite.  She picked Hollywood Regency.  If you have been following my blog, you know that my design style is very Hollywood Regency.  I love the checkerboard floor and the black tufted leather couch and chairs.  I just love this whole room.


Episode 6 was the kitchen challenge.  Stanley and Hilari did this kitchen and I don't care what Vern,  Genevieve and the Kitchen Cousins said about it, but I liked it.  I don't care for the wood cabinetry.  I would have put in white maybe.  But I really do like the red with this blue.  I also don't mind the hand handles.  Stanley was thinking outside of the box.  HGTV needs more designer that do that.





In episode 7, the final 4 designers makeover condos.  It was a color challenge.  Each designer picked a color that they had to incorporate into their room.  I thought that this episode was disappointing.  I liked this room by Britany, but I think the final 4 should be doing something a little more wowing.

They are down to the final 3 now. 
 
                          
 


Danielle, Britany and Hilari.


I think it is going to go down to Britany and Hilari.  Hilari has a great personality for TV.  Britany is a better designer in my opinion.  It is going to be a tough decision.  I am going to say Britany will win.  I just think it is a design contest and she is the better designer.  Personality can only go so far.  You have to be able to design as well.

Are you guys watching Design Star?  Who do you think will win?  I can't wait to see the next two episodes.

HGTV Design Star



All images via HGTV



Friday, July 13, 2012

Finally, A Patio of My Own

I am such a dumb butt.  For weeks I have been day dreaming about having an outdoor patio area to sit and relax outside this summer.  Every method I came up was going to be to expensive to do this year.  So I was kind of sad about it. 

A couple of days ago, I was in my living room and heard a cat crying.  So I looked out our sliding glass door (which is basically a large window to us - we don't use the door) to see if I could see this cat that sounded like it was being killed.  Then it dawned on me.  Here is my patio that I have been day dreaming about.  It was here all along.  I completely disregarded the fact that we have a patio in the back of the house.  Why did I do that?  Well, because like I said before we don't use the sliding glass door that goes out to the patio.  Everything is completely overgrown back there.

Just because we don't use the door and it is completely overgrown isn't going to stop me from turning this patio into a usable space.  I am so excited.

So without further ado, here is the future home of my usable patio.



This is the actual patio, if you can see it through all the weeds.


This is the future outdoor dining area.  Please don't judge my house that has 2 different colors on the siding.  We will be painting the whole house here soon.

I have already started my design plan.  My inspiration is this picture that you might remember from my outdoor dining area post here.


We will be tackling the overgrown weeds this weekend.  So that I can really get in there to measure the area for furniture.

I will keep you posted on the progress.

You can always become a follower of my blog through Google Friend Connect, Linky Follower, email, Facebook, Google Plus or subscribe through a feed reader.  There are so many ways to follow along with all of my projects.  You won't want to miss anything.


PS I never found the cat that was crying.  So hopefully nothing happened to it.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Ikea Hack Pax Wardrobe... Another Sneak Peek into the Dog's Room

Today, I made some more progress on our Dog's Room/Mud Room.  I am limited with the projects I can do right now due to a lack of money :(

I am making due with some projects that I already have all the materials for.

One of the projects I worked on isn't completely done, but I thought I would show a sneak peek of what it looks like so far.


This is another Ikea hack.  This started out as 1 39" frame with 2 19" frames on each side of it.

PAX Wardrobe frame IKEA 10-year Limited Warranty. Read about the terms in the Limited Warranty brochure. Sized for KOMPLEMENT interior organizers.PAX Wardrobe frame IKEA 10-year Limited Warranty. Read about the terms in the Limited Warranty brochure. Sized for KOMPLEMENT interior organizers.
                                  Ikea                                                                             Ikea

I bought 4 Pax Ballstad doors for the frames that are solid white.

PAX BALLSTAD Door IKEA The door can be hung to open either right or  left.


I had my hubby cut the doors to leave room for the dog crates.  After the doors were cut, I installed leftover zebra wallpaper to a section of the doors.  My hubby also cut and painted screen moulding black for me.  I used Loctite Power Grab to adhere the moulding around the border of the wallpaper.  I let that dry laying flat for about an hour.

After the moulding was secure, I installed the doors with the hinges that came with the doors.  Now it needed some handles.  I used the same flower pendants that I used for my Lekman Box project that you can find here.



I installed them the same way as the other handles.  I used cheap knobs from Lowe's.  I sanded the knob and adhered the pendant to the knob with Loctite Power Grab. 



Next, hanging up the baroque frames with each dog's name.

 
I purchased 4 baroque frames from Hobby Lobby and then made custom name prints in photoshop.  I ordered 5x7s of each dog's name from Mpix.  I tried to just use Velcro to attach the frames to the doors, but that didn't work.  They just fell off after awhile.  So the hubby tapped in nails to hold the frames onto the doors.  I still used Velcro to keep the frames from moving around.


Today, I sewed blankets for each of the crates.  Eventually, each crate will have a foam pillow that is covered with this zebra fleece and I will make covers for the crates using pink zig zag (Chevron) fabric and Green polka dot fabric that coordinates with their name frames.



I added the dog beanie babies that I accumulated over the years from family members.  I thought they would be appropriate in the dog's room.


Oh and don't mind the lack of light fixture in the above picture.  That is also a future project.


That wraps up this hack.  I know it isn't a major hack, just cutting the door and customizing the plain solid white door.  It looks great in the room and I can't wait to show you the whole room when it is finally done.  If only I had an endless supply of money.  Oh well.  It will get done at some point.  Please subscribe to my blog to follow along with all my projects.  You won't want to miss any of it.




Here are some paint chips for a couple of future projects.  Can you guess what they might be for?  I guess you will have to come back to find out.

I am linking up to:

DIY project Parade linky party button

Keeping It Simple



Making Monday Marvelous

Home Stories A2Z