Remember Marie-Hélène?  (Look! I figured out how to do the accent marks above her name.  That actually came about compliments of my broken E key.  I had to hold it down to coax it and realized that other E options would pop up!)  Anyway, I featured her family room in a Decorating Dilemma post just before Christmas.   I received an e-mail from her the next day sharing that she was up to her eyeballs in furniture rearranging, mood boards, and creative energy!  I hope she’ll send some updated pictures, so I can share her progress. Today, though, we’re going to take a look at the other half of the room – the kitchen.  Here’s a little tour… The first thing I noticed right away, as well as the thing Marie-Hélène shared puzzled her most, was the window/mirror thing.  She calls it a “mirror mantle”.  Don’t you just love weird little things

Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a Decorating Dilemma post!  I know my readers enjoy them, but they take quite a bit of time to put together and I just haven’t had an abundance of that lately. But, I received an e-mail from a reader asking for some help with her great room and kitchen and I was inspired!  While the spaces are adjoined, I decided to break them into two posts, so this one doesn’t scroll on forever. Let’s get to it! This is Marie-Helene’s great room…  (Marie-Helene actually has all sorts of accent marks over her name, but I am ignorant when it comes to typing with accent marks, so just imagine that they are there and her name looks delightfully French.) Right away, I think there are way more positives than negatives.  I’m sure you would agree.  She has some beautiful pieces, nothing at

I got a text a few nights ago. “Hey there! OK, decorating question…we have a big two-story family room with plenty of natural light. Everything is brown now and I want to lighten it up with some greige paint. But I have oak trim that my husband won’t let me paint. Do you have a favorite greige color that would go with oak? Trying to think who in my life knows paint… Oh, right….I know a professional paint enthusiast!!!” This led to a lengthy virtual makeover through texts, pins and links.  I mean, how can I just pick a wall color and leave it at that?! This ended up being a perfect space for me to share as a decorating dilemma post. Here is the color palette and some ideas I put together for Joy’s space… Here is the family room as it is now… I love that there are

Do you remember Sarah’s fireplace room?  We talked about it originally back in August and then I gave you an update on her progress in December.  Last week, she checked in with me again to share their progress. Like most real, non-TV makeovers, Sarah is working on the makeover project-by-project, slowly over time, as life and budget allows.  In her e-mail to me, she shared this, “…sometimes I feel like everyone else is flying past us. We do everything ourselves and usually get our materials second hand. I read a couple of weeks ago that it took you seven years to get your kitchen the way it is and I got teary eyed. I understand that endurance.” It does sometime get tiring when a makeover is a marathon and you wish you could just beam yourself to the finished room…sit in it and have your tea and enjoy the glorious done-ness of