Life Lately - Decorating for Fun and Creative Inspiration

As I mentioned in yesterday's Daily Drawing post (that have really turned into a diary of sorts), we've gotten most everything out of boxes and now we're on to decorating!  I've been referencing the Style Your Space e-course, that's offered over on A Beautiful Mess, and really taking my time with the process.  I want to make a space that's equal parts: homey, welcoming and creatively inspiring.

 Homey 
To me, this means photos.  All those great candids that give you a warm feeling as you remember where you were and who you were with.  Travel photos or just funny shots of the cats around the house.  A lot of homes in the house tours I see on design blogs are really missing out photographs and I think they seem a little sterile because of it. It's just so fun to share photos and moments with visitors! "Oh yeah, that's the time we climbed over the railing on White Rock Mesa and stood out on the edge!" or "That's when Andy was painting the custom domo I got him for Christmas!"  I love sharing those things and being able to relive them every day!

So there are lots of frames to buy and film to develop!  One of my goals for the summer is to take more photos so we can really record our first year here together.

 Welcoming 
I love Texas.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm kind of ridiculously in love with this place.  So I want everyone I know to come stay with us so they can experience the people, the food, the fun community and everything else this great state has to offer!  In making our home welcoming, I want to have comfy places for people to crash, lost of seating so folks can sit around and watch movies and visit, and a fully stocked kitchen so I can feed everyone!  I want this to be a fun place and for everyone to know they're welcome anytime!

We sold / got ride of a lot of furniture for the move, but we've got some chairs that just need to be picked up and a lot of space that needs to be organized in the living room...but that's current longish-term goal.  There's some reupholstery in our future and the thought is kind of daunting haha!

 Creatively Inspiring 
Both of us are artists and are not shy to display all our geeky stuff.  I'm so excited to cover our walls with all the art we've been collecting together!  I've been working on our desk space and try to make it fun and bright with different textures and lots of color.  The two embroidered pieces are Andy's drawings and I made them just for that spot.  He actually drew Link right on the fabric!  In bringing different mediums to the space, I'm hoping to remind us that there are so many different ways to make awesome stuff ^_^  I think I'll do a couple of small paintings, too!  My goal is to have fun artwork everywhere you look in our space.

My next steps, which are on my to-do list today, is to measure all our un-framed pieces and pick up some frames!  I'm super excited to work on the gallery that will go above the couch, but we need so many frames!

So there's still a lot to do, but we've already come so far!  I'll post more photos as everything really starts to come together.  And maybe a few DIYs for some of the projects that are starting to pop up ^_^

Thrifty Thursday...erm Friday: Denova

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Denova
facebook
address : 1021 West 36th Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
hours :  Wednesday – Sunday: 11am - 5pm

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Today we're heading back to the Hampden area of Baltimore to Denova.  It's right up the street from David's on the Avenue and carries mostly mid-modern furniture and I mostly want to own everything they have.  The prices are a bit more than David's, but the quality of the pieces is much higher and more consistant throughout the shop.  There's also A LOT more inventory.

When you walk in, it's just stuffed with so much, it's almost sensory overload.  I swear I get anxiety whenever I walk into a place like this because I get so overly excited about everything!  There's lost of little staged areas to wander through and definitely take a peek upstairs.  I'll let the photos do the talking now...

This is what greets you first step in.  It's hard not to pass out in the entry way.  I'll take one of each please.

Upstairs is just as packed.  You can see the steps going down on the left bottom of the photo. 

I love that the inventory is specific to furniture and home decor.  The staged areas they have are so cute, I just want to take home a whole display!

Denova is a must see if you're in Hampden and love mid-century decor.  The prices are better than what you'd find in DC, the pieces are all extremely high quality and there's just so much to choose from!  I've been on a perpetual hunt for a china cabinet for my Grandmom's china, and I think I'll save my pennies and come back here.

If you've got any shops you love, or own, that you'd like me to feature, just shoot a note over to becky@thepinksamurai with the name, website/facebook, address, hours a few things that make it awesome, I'd love to take a look!!!