Beachy Decor Inspiration House

My favorite interior designs have a beachy, relaxed vibe to them.  I love the casual feeling mixed with bright tropical colors such as lime green, orange, yellow and turquoise.  If I could design a house around these inspirational images, I would:

Entry:

Coco Kelly

Kitchen:

Via

Sitting area off of kitchen:

House of Turquoise

I like how the bamboo blinds add texture without taking away from the beauty of these windows.  This looks like the perfect room to read or visit with guests while cooking.

Dining Room:

House of Turquoise

This pass through with a counter would be great to set up a buffet for guests.  I love the simple beachy decor mixed with turquoise glassware in the white shelves.

Laundry Room:

Centsational Girl

Hues of blues and greens with plenty of white cabinetry for storage

Master Bedroom:

Houzz.com

Calming color on the walls and ceiling, white furniture, board and batten, french doors with a view

Master Bathroom:

House of Turquoise

Guest Bedroom:

House of Many Hues

Blue painted furniture with white wood walls for a cottage chic look.

Guest Bathroom:

Pinterest

A vintage cottage-inspired bathroom filled with treasures of the sea would perfectly compliment the adjoined guest room.

And since this is my dream house, this would be my backyard:

House of Turquoise

If you could design any type of house, what style would you go with?

My Weekend

We enjoyed a great (hot!) weekend boating on the lake, eating, swimming, browsing shops, more eating, and just relaxing with family and good friends.  Hope you all had a wonderful one as well.  Do anything exciting?

Small Update

Happy Tuesday!

The Iron Lattice stencil I ordered came in yesterday.  I still like the pattern but have decided that it is too small and will look too busy on my entry way wall.  I think it will be better suited to the recessed nook our tv sits in.  My decision is to use the traceable stencil and try my hand at free painting the lines.  I sure hope I can keep it even.  If not, it is only paint.  I haven't been able to get started on my project yet due to some major back pain this week.  I can barely walk around much less climb on top of a ladder to stencil.  Hopefully I can get started on it soon and be back with progress pics.

Stencil Mock-up

 I had an extra canvas sitting around so I decided to "practice" the stencil from this tutorial.  I used an acrylic craft paint in a similar color to my wall color.  It is a little darker than the walls but I think the crisp white will have the same affect.  I resized the template by 50%, cut it out, and began tracing onto my canvas.  This was a quick project and it is not perfect.  Next I free-handed the white lines along the tracing.  The tutorial suggested using a flat brush but I just used a normal craft brush.  My lines did not come out as clean as Emily's.  I may try another quick practice run with a flat brush I have to see if I can get neater lines.  Here is a close-up pic of the design (ignore the darker appearance of the base color):

And here is a pic of the canvas sitting on the table along the wall I would like to stencil:

What do you think?  Is it worth all the effort to trace and hand paint?  Or should I just wait until Monday when my other stencil is supposed to arrive?  In any case, I will probably think about it another few days.

A New Entry

We've lived in our house for a little over 9 years.  It was a brand new house without a lot of character.  At the time, that didn't matter...it was A house!  Our first house.  We've painted, landscaped, and slowly acquired furniture.  I feel there is still a lot of work to be done.  First up, I am planning to redecorate our front entry/foyer.  No better place to start right?

We have a glass front door with a side light that looks directly onto a wall.  I have a console table there with a mirror from The Bombay Co (remember them?)  The decor on the table is nondescript.  There is a embroidered picture of an orchid we brought back from a trip to Vietnam on the adjoining wall.  My vision for the area is to replace the recessed light with a pendant light, change out the accessories, maybe purchase a new mirror or make some artwork to go over the console table, a new rug, and stencil the walls.  I love the look of bold, graphic wallpaper but I don't want to deal with installing it.  I love to paint so the conclusion is to stencil a design to resemble wallpaper.  I looked around online and liked the Iron Lattice Wall stencil from Stencil Ease.  My mind was set and I ordered the stencil.  Later I was browsing Pinterest and came across a tutorial for a design I love.

http://jonesdesigncompany.com/

Emily from Jones Design Company created this stencil for her lovely home office.  I adore it and I will be using a similar color scheme.  I will be following Emily's tutorial and using her template.  I hope to be back soon with before and after pictures.

Hello!  Welcome to Creative Gator!!  I have been an avid blog reader for 10 years but until now have never started my own blog.  I am hoping this will become a place for me to share my ideas, crafts, home DIY, and little snippets of my daily life with my husband, daughter, 2 dogs, and a cat at our home near the beach.  A few additional bits of info about me:

• SAHM to my 4 year old daughter
• Addicted to Coke, Dr Pepper, and Facebook
• Huge college football fan  Go Gators!
• I think the DVR is one of the best inventions  (the iPhone too!)
• Loves: browsing the internet, Pinterest, finding new recipes, online shopping, and traveling
• Current color obsession is turquoise
• I like to paint, make jewelry, paper crafts, make holiday decorations, plan parties
• Favorite objects/inspiration:  coral, shells, starfish, mermaids, the beach
• Favorite vacation spot: Maui, Hawaii