living room – Page 2 – Casa de Berry

2011, boys, candle, decor, flowers, glam, home, husband, ikea, living room, red, wreath

Lush table decor

December 5, 2011December 13, 2011by casadeberry10 Comments

There is a little table in a corner of our house that got some glam treatment recently:

D’oh! A little elf got in the picture!
My son saw me taking photos and decided I should take some of him, too 😀

It is layer upon layer of holiday items surrounding a huge hurricane vase we used at our wedding.

The table itself is from IKEA; then comes a folded table runner my mom made a few years ago. Then you can see the wreath we last used in a Thanksgiving centerpiece. A beaded garland sits on top of the wreath, then I stuck in some large silk flowers with their foliage. I placed the vase in the center and had no idea what to put inside, and my husband added a candle, which I now love because the glow from this little table is just gorgeous.

2011, boys, bright, colors, decor, family, holiday, home, house, husband, kids, living room

Christmas inside and out

December 1, 2011December 1, 2011by casadeberry7 Comments

My two oldest men took on the task of putting up Christmas lights a couple of nights ago. My youngest decided it was too cold and went back inside with his mama.

Our house is all prettied up now – good job, boys!

We set up the tree a few nights ago, with my oldest son being the main decorator. I should have gotten some video. “I can’t find the perfect place for this one, mama. It just doesn’t make sense here.” Mm-hmm. I helpfully said, “just put it down and leave it for later.” He glared at me.

I think he did a wonderful job:

The little village underneath has been collected over the years and adds a sweet touch. My boy took these pics:

We like to turn the tree on and enjoy the sparklies. I light my candles and sip a bit of cocoa — my boys do not like hot chocolate for now — and we snuggle in the cold California evenings. Laugh if you will, but it is 45 degrees out there as I am typing and we do not turn the heater on in the evenings.

I am waiting for a couple of things before I show you the mantel – but for now I hope you enjoyed seeing our outside lights and our tree. It’s fake, because the cats can’t help themselves.

2011, california, colors, decor, entertaining, family, home, husband, living room, november, parties, Uncategorized

Swedish baby shower

November 28, 2011December 2, 2011by casadeberry5 Comments

Over the weekend, I had the honor of hosting a baby shower for my sister-in-law, K. Her husband is from Sweden, where they live, and she’s visiting for a couple of weeks, so it was out only chance to get together and celebrate. I keep referring to her baby as baby Thor or baby Freya, but no, those are NOT the names they’re considering 😀 In fact, some of the names K likes for a girl (they don’t know the gender yet) are the ones I would have given to my child if I’d had a girl. I would LOVE it, if K’s baby is a girl, for my new niece to have those names I love, so yes, I am a little biased in what I hope she has.

Since we don’t know the baby’s gender yet, I decided to do the shower in the colors of the Swedish flag – blue and yellow:

I even learned to make pompoms!

Some of the wine was renamed with the names of Swedish places and the mommy- and daddy-to-be’s last name.

My husband did an amazing job decorating the house for Christmas, it looked beautiful!

I came up with a few games, including a crossword puzzle:

I had a blast planning and hosting the shower and even got gifts from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for hosting! My husband was a fabulous assistant, he took many photos, helped set up, kept people fed and with drinks, he made my job so easy. K said she had a good time and was very thankful, which means the world to me. I am so excited for baby Thor or baby Freya to arrive next spring!!!

decor, halloween, holiday, living room, orange

Spooky mantel!

October 17, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry2 Comments

Granted, the black and white effect is what kills it here, but still, we love our Halloween-ed mantel. The pumpkins are all from our backyard, I left some of the branches on them for a more rustic feel.

My boys helped with the decorating, the center display is made up of my oldest’s first Halloween toy given to him by his grandparents, some favorite Halloween books, and a souvenir from Disneyland. They also liked my web ribbon so it was added on the sides.

Hope you liked our spooooooooky mantel, I think all the candy up there makes it a little less scary ;D

living room, mantel, wood

Our new mantel

August 18, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry3 Comments

The living room mantel is the focal point of our main living area. You see it as soon as you come in the front door – here it is decked out for spring back in March:

The problem is, the “wall” above the mantel was just a sheet of foam over the brick, which goes from floor to ceiling. We discovered this when we tried to hang a picture and made a huge hole instead.

We decided to tear down the foam and put up some sheetrock instead – at the same time, I really hated the current mantel, so my husband graciously built me a new one 😀

Below is the 2×4 that is nailed to the brick wall – the mantel is attached to this and it serves as support.

Checking to make sure the fit is perfect.

Applying wood putty to the rough edges and nail holes:

Our oldest was a very big help!

Painting the sheetrock to match the rest of the walls – we chose to paint the new mantel and frame in a dark chocolate brown:

The rich brown is a very close match to our TV console, coordinates with the large IKEA picture above, and is a good addition to our warm-toned living room.

Here is our new mantel area dressed up with some vintage Paris pictures and pretty flowers:

I LOVE this area, it looks brighter, cleaner and so much nicer – hope you enjoyed our little project!

bath, bedroom, colors, decor, dining room, house, kitchen, living room, paint

My house colors

August 15, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberryLeave a Comment

We’re in the middle of a little living room project:

and I had to look up my living room wall color. I did a post about my house paint colors in my last blog so I thought it better to list them here for future reference.

Our master bedroom has a sponge-finish treatment on the wall combining the 2 shades of tan. The wall where the lovely mirrored closet doors got the dark burgundy but lord knows I regret that decision. My plan is to do away with the closet doors completely and paint the wall to match the rest of the bedroom.

Our living room has a similar warm palette but instead of the burgundy we’ve added a dark chocolate brown accent color in the form of our new IKEA TV console and the project we are currently working on, which will be painted to match the console.

My little man’s room has two shades of light blue, and we seriously need to upgrade his bedroom soon. Aside from a few Mickey-themed items, there’s nothing else there and he outgrew Mickey a couple of years ago.

My kitchen/dining room colors are super warm and cozy, I talked about the changes we made 8 years ago in this post.

My bathroom got a cheerful coat of bright, warm yellow paint, which I continue to love, and it’s going to get remodeled in the next couple of months (fingers crossed) – I’m debating tile choices.

The paint color is Ralph Lauren’s Chamois. The cabinets were painted dark brown, echoing the living room console.

I will be updating the progress on our living room project in a few days!

boys, family, link parties, living room, photo, veggies

May 2011 in review

June 1, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry2 Comments

I am stealing this idea from the lovely Rebecca at Simple as That, and participating in her May 2011 photo collage party. I love the idea of highlighting some pics from the month – thanks for the idea, Rebecca!

boys, colors, decor, family, living room, photo

Gallery wall

May 24, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry7 Comments

First, a happy birthday to my mommy today!

Recently my husband had the idea of framing some of the many (believe me when I say many) pictures we have taken. He wanted a large-scale gallery wall, with 18×18 photos surrounding our TV.

We had recently purchased a new console for all the TV components and really liked the look, but wanted some more color = photos!
We had the photos enlarged and printed at FedEx Office and then we trimmed them down to size and matted them on laminated backerboard.

We used large velcro dots to mount them on the wall so we can easily switch them out when needed. I chose some of my favorites –
On the right side there are two pics of our youngest, with me in all his bald-headed glory, and below in what we call his “Blue Steel” pose.

On the left is my oldest – the top photo is his first time at the beach with daddy, and below is a fairly recent shot that I just adore.

It was really tough to choose just a few shots of my boys, there are so many that I love!

The top center shots were taken during our first (and so far, only) cruise last year.The left is the shore in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the right is one of the islands we visited. Lovely memories.

Our plan is to print out new pics for fall/winter and swap them out as we like. I love seeing my favorite faces every day – not just in real life, but also up on my wall 😀

bedroom, decor, living room, photo

Upcoming projects

April 20, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberryLeave a Comment

My husband and I are on a major kick to get some things done around the house.

Here are the plans:
Heh heh.

We are currently halfway through getting our living room gallery done. Then comes our little one’s room. He loves his night light, which makes stars glow softly all over his bedroom ceiling, so we figured we’d take a cue from that.

I’ll share more as plans progress.

books, living room

Bookcases revamped

April 11, 2011November 15, 2011by casadeberry4 Comments

I went through the masses of books my husband and I have about a year ago, our bookcases looked pretty good. For a while.

Then . . . you know how it goes. More books get shoved in, kids put their toys on the shelves, tall shelves get used as spots to put stuff the kids can’t get to, and this is what you get:

Pretty disgraceful, huh?

I’d been meaning to get to the bookshelves for a while, and then this post from the lovely Michaela Noelle was the final impetus I needed to get going. After a long process of weeding out some books and packing them up for storage in the garage, this was the result:

Still a lot of books but my husband and I are avid readers.

Here is one of the Fantasy shelves, with appropriately fantastic gargoyle in the middle:

Our Gardening books look lovely with pretty yellow ranunculus!

Two handcrafted home accents my husband got at a craft fair accent our – what else – Home shelf:
I’m pretty happy with the results – which meant four grocery bags full of books got put away in the garage. And some random items that somehow (ahem) got thrown on the bookshelves, like bouncing balls, marbles, the case for a handheld game, etc. found new homes.

Now I only have the kids’ bookshelves to deal with. Oy.