From mission to Kristen

I love my laptop desk, but I've never been a fan of the drawer pull.  Even when I was looking at it in the store before the purchase, I was thinking about what look I would choose to update the piece a bit.  The pull that came with it makes it mission style, and I always associate mission with southwest designs.  Not a fan.  Here's how the desk looked earlier tonight:

I wanted to go one of two ways.  The first option was fun and funky, playing off the new green color on the walls.  The other was a classic Victorian style glass pull.  Here are my 3 options:

I got the 2 bigger pulls from Anthropologie - they have the hugest selection of knobs and pulls I've ever seen outside Lowe's and Home Depot.  Every style and color you could imagine.  Love that place!  I picked up the smaller glass one at Through the Garden Gate, along with 2 purchases for my yet-to-be-fully-thought-out beachy chic master bath.  More on those later in the post.

The green one lost the contest immediately.  While it does meet the fun and funky requirement, it's the wrong green and fun and funky is not how I would describe our living room.   It's going back.  Next I tried the smaller glass one - because it fits the scale of the piece better.  Too bad the screw that came with it was too short to make it all the way through the hole and actually attach to the knob.  Wop-wop.

So that leaves the large glass knob, which fit perfectly and is growing on me.  It is a little large for the scale of the drawer it is attached to, but it's really cute and I feel the whole thing fits in more with the other furniture pieces in the living room.

 this picture really makes me want to take a vacation :)

It's a subtle change, but I feel like it gives the desk a whole new look.

See those paint chips in the background?  That's the color palette I'm thinking about for our bathroom.  I'm leaving towards Homestead Resort Spa Aqua from Valspar's Historical Preservation line - funny since we picked this out before visiting the Homestead Resort on our recent trip to the mountains.

It's a very soothing color - I need to tape it to the wall in the bathroom and look at it at all times of the day and levels of sunlight to see if it is in fact my color.

I'm working on an inspiration board for the bathroom, using the existing double-sink vanity and brushed nickel shelving we already have in there.  We need to keep this as cheap as possible so we're going to work with the big pieces we have, and allow paint, crisp white linens, and beachy accessories to make the impact in the room.  I'll share it once it is complete - I'm still looking for mirror and lighting options.

Two items that are on the inspiration board have already been purchased.  I visited my favorite crafty store in Richmond - technically it's the only crafty store, because I haven't located any more of them.  It is msotly garden and beachy accessories and decorating items, and most of the merchandise is shabby chic - very casual and homey.  Love it.

This huge starfish was only $3 so I knew I needed to buy it!  And the Mason jar full of shells was $6 - most antique places wouldn't even sell the jar for that cheap, much less full of shells.  I might actually get rid of the shells and collect my own...or I can add my own and mix them in.  Jury's still out on that....

One last purchase I want to share for tonight is this awesome dish towel I bought - you guessed it, at Anthropologie.  It was on clearance for cheaper than a Walmart price, so I didn't even feel a little guilty breaking my no-more-dish-towel rule.  Cool facts about this dish towel:

1. It's not just a dish towel.  It's a geography lesson.  I didn't realize it at the time, but instead of being a real or even fictional place with labels to indicate the specific name of the country, mountain range, ocean, etc., it is labeled by the names of the geographical features it represents.  It.  Is.  Awesome.  Click it to enlarge and see the awesomeness.
2. I'm not going to use it as a dish towel.  I'm going to find some fun and funky fabric, sew it to the back of the towel, stuff it, and put it on the guest bed in my craft room.  :)