Curtain of the Week

I'm a sucker for a good curtain. Maybe it's because I like fabrics in general so much. Maybe its because, HELLO, they are awesome!

So I'm going to start doing a curtain of the week. Behold the first installment...

You have also seen this fabulous Schumacer fabric in these fine rooms;

Michelle Adams bedroom from Lonny.

And her lonny office. She really loves this fabric and so do I!

DIY Agate Art

I made this little piece of art last weekend using agate rocks I picked up on our recent trip to Yellowstone National Park.

My husband said it "looked pro". It's a small piece but I love it.

The art wall is really filling out.

All the do-it-yourselfing made Akira really sleepy.

Then I started looking around the house and noticed, apparently, I really like rocks! They're everywhere!

Scott started putting up the tile in the spare bathroom. After he was finished I said it "looked pro". I guess we really are do-it-yourself kind of people!

 Happy Tuesday!

What I've Been Up To

I've mentioned before on this blog how I have been a dancer my whole life. It's something I hope will always be a part of my life.

Earlier this year I made a goal. I get really determined when I set out to do something. That goal was to get into pole dancing and enter a competition. I didn't know if I would make it to the final round, if I could even do it, if I even had the strength.

Last weekend I realized that goal and competed in Miss Texas Pole Star.

I had to work hard, like really hard to get there.

First I had to practice. I practiced 3 or 4 times a week since January. Before then I hadn't done pole in about three years. And even when I did do it before it was very casually.

Then I had to choreograph and perform my first ever routine, film it, and submit it for consideration. I entered in the Fitness category, which was for level 4 and up girls.

                             

It was really hard to gain the strength and stamina, not to mention choreograph, a whole routine.

28 girls submitted videos, 12 were chosen as finalists to ultimately compete and I was one of them!

Since August 1st I have been training almost 6 days a week almost 2 hours a day on my routine. I've suffered multiple injuries, so many doubts in myself and my ability to do this. I had a lot of support from friends and family, without which I would not have made it. But ultimately, I was in the studio alone all those hours. Other competitors had comrades competing alongside them where I did not. I think that was one of the hardest things.

But I did it. I got on stage in front of a ballroom filled with people and did my first ever performance.

I DID IT!

I didn't win and thats ok. I am very happy with my performance but watching the other girls, including the professionals, showed me how far I still have to go.

I also had to completely teach myself how to use a spinner pole in the last month. Fighting against centrifugal force while holding your knees to your face is no easy feat, but I did that too.


So here it is. Almost 10 months, two bruised ribs, a torn lat, a pulled pec, a strained hamstring and countless amounts of bruises later. This is what I worked for!

I hope you like it...

In Case You Were Wondering

About my spare bath. I know you've been frantically checking my blog while screaming "What about the other bathroom Brandi?! You said there was two but I only saw one. Tell meeeeee!"

Well here it is.

I mentioned before that we are renovating it. We have been since January. We are doing all the work ourselves and that means progress is slow. Luckily we have a perfectly beautiful master bath to share and its just the two of us.

So here is what it looked like when we moved in. Texas themed wallpaper and everything. There was no texture on the walls or ceiling. We added that, scraped off the paper, and painted every surface. Oh and we also nixed the texas star toilet paper holder of course.

This is how it looked until January of this year. Except we did find a leak in the wall, AGAIN, and had to tear some tile out. Not as much this time but we couldn't put the tub faucet back in afterwards, so we just had a lovely pipe sticking out of the wall, awesome.

Shortly after starting demo. We ripped out all the tile, the tub, the little half wall between the toilet and sink, and of course the fur downs above the sink and shower areas.

And this is its current state!

Don't worry, that red stuff is a water resistant coating that goes under the shower tile. Doesn't it already look bigger without that half wall and the fur downs? Why did builders ever add those? They suck.

Soon we will tile a simple white subway tile. New countertops, new doors, new marble on the floor. 

I already painted some paint swatches in there. I just couldn't wait. I figure since this room is small with no natural light I'll just go dark. My favorite is the middle one. I like the one on the right, just not for this room.

I'm thinking about doing a stencil in here too. What do you think? Which one of these two do you like better?

This mirror over the sink. It's bone inlay, it will look so pretty on that dark greenish teal wall.

                                                                          Source: designsponge.com via Brandi on Pinterest

I really want to do the shower curtain like the wonderful Naomi from Design Manifest did in a recent project.

I picture an ivory linen edged with this trim.

And the valance above edged with this blue trim.

The vintage rug from the kitchen will come in here too. I've already found a replacement for the kitchen also, just gotta get the funds together.

So what do you think? Anything you love or hate? I'm all ears!

PS Apologies for the long absence. I'm afraid I won't be around much this week as well. I'm working on something VERY important. And before you go guessing it has nothing to do with work or interior design. I'll share next week after its over though!

Come Fabric Shopping with Me! Virtually of course...

I went back to my hometown of Houston last weekend for some fun, a little shopping, a bunch of eating, and some tooth drilling (stepmom is a dental hygienist and I got the hookup, could be worse!)

Now I'm going to show you all that awesome stuff with shitty iphone pics! Yay! My car was broken into last time I went to htown so I wasn't about to bring my nice camera.

The first night BFF and I went for tapas at Andalucia's. There was a band and dancers performing.

The food was soooo good. I still can't stop thinking about it.

The entertainment was great. Everyone in the restaurant was clapping and getting into it. I love that!

I packed all these great dresses and shoes to wear out on the town and left them hanging on my closet door because I'm so awesome. Luckily BFF is my size. I just hate not being able to wear some of my awesome dresses! I have a confession to make: I have more dresses than I have tops. Is that weird? If I could never wear pants again I would be very happy.

On sunday we went to Wortham Theater to see the famous Houston Ballet perform Madame Butterfly. It was so amazing and inspiring.

Of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get fancy!

This is my favorite statue in Houston. Its been up for years.

And no trip would be complete without a visit to the motherland.

I've seen this fabric before and I'm still in love with it. Such beautiful green goodness. Would be great on a Mid Century chair.

Drooled over this great tassel trim for a project I have in mind.

Another possible component of said project.

This cut velvet on linen took my breath away when I turned the corner.

That is until I saw its sister on the next row. Such a perfect shade of coral-red. I die. Must find a home for this immediately. I think drapes for sure.

This desk in the clearance section begged to come home with me. But even at half off the price tag was still 1k. Sorry sweet desk, sweet sweet beautiful desk.

The accessories were a great price too. Some of the larger vases were only around $30. They were so sculptural too. Would love to see a pair flanking a mantle.

This shiny business really caught my eye. It didn't photograph well but looked great in person. Just a little shimmer on a drape would be amazing.

Same with this. It looked really organic in person. Like trees or something. So pretty.

If you see something you liked here you should definitely call them and email a pic. I have done so before and they are awesome to work with and will ship to you. Not all their fabrics are online, with four enormous floors how could it be.

Love love love this store. If I ever open a business (please dear decor gods I want to) it will be like this. Tons of unique fabrics, home goods and accessories. How does Dallas have nothing like this?!

The Master Bathroom

So I guess this is the big finish.

The room that started the worst, changed the most, cost the most money, took the longest, and was all worth it in the end.

It was baby diarrhea brown and given that texture treatment with the saran wrap scrunch or whatever heinous technique you use to do it. We sanded it down before we took this photo. Those giant mirrors had the towel racks glued to them. They were brass but had been painted poo colored to match the walls. And yes, those are saloon style doors leading to the toilet area.

This is after re-texturing and painting the walls, removal of the mirrors, we also replaced the mirrors over the vanity with prettier framed mirrors and I painted the cabinets glossy white.

When we first moved in the only thing that worked in this bathroom were the sinks. Thats right!

Turned out the shower was leaking into the walls so the tile had to be torn out to fix it.

The tub didn't work because as you can see the hot water knob had broken off. Not that I would bathe in that tub anyways. It was covered in a layer of grime that couldn't be removed. I think the former owners must have been smokers or just never cleaned or something because the majority of the house was FILTHY. We even had to sand the insides of the cabinet drawers because they were so gross.

I used the second bathroom instead. And so our bathroom stayed this way for a year and a half!

Finally my dad came up one weekend and the three of us took out the fur downs above each sink, raised the ceiling over the shower, and took out the shower walls and re-framed and wired the whole thing back together.

It took three solid days of work but it saved us over $3k and made a huge difference!

Then it stayed like an empty shell for ANOTHER SIX MONTHS!

Finally we hired a contractor to come in and tile and install seamless glass around the shower.

Then it looked like this. 

Our contractor ran off after he finished the shower. He sucked anyways. At least we had a usable shower at this point. So another few months went by.

Finally we got a contractor to finish the job...

A jetted tub with inline heater, carrara marble floors and penny tile back splash. 

Heaven...

After almost two years, complete satisfaction.

                                                                                     Photo by Sarah Greenman

We replaced the cabinet doors and added mirror insets. There's only a skylight in here which gives great light but isn't quite enough so mirrors help.

The counter tops are cultured marble. The real stuff was just out of our budget.

The cabinet holds all our towels and my jewelry. It was purchased at Canton for $80. The back was falling apart so we had to replace it. This gave me the perfect opportunity to paper the back with paper from Paper Source.

                                                                                      Photo by Sarah Greenman

I collected the gold frames from fleas, goodwill and garage sales. My mom even convinced a lady at a thrift store who had one in her cart to give it to us! The towels are from Target. The towel bars are vintage glass. I have two other small ones by our sinks to hold hand towels.

This concludes the tour! And can I just say getting comments from you readers (new and old!) has been amazing and I have loved every one. I hope I've answered all your questions and if you have anything you're wondering about please ask or email me! I love getting emails from you!

If you're wondering about the second bathroom I mentioned I will be posting about that next week! It's coming along and I have some fun plans for it!

Have a wonderful weekend!