Small changes

As I mentioned in my last post, my husband just got back from a week's worth of business that took him out of town. I took the opportunity to change things around before he could say no make a few changes and see if he'd like them when he got home.

Our main bathroom (i.e. not the master bathroom) has had a jungle theme curtain for a couple of years. I didn't take a picture but it matched these hooks.
Now that my oldest is a cool dude who's into dinosaurs and not so much into jungle animals, I asked him if he would miss the jungle curtain. He said no, and I jumped for joy calmly changed it with a neutral hued one my mom got for me.

The animal hooks went, too, replaced by these gorgeous oil-rubbed bronze pretties.
And yes, I'm eyeing that shower rod, too, because there's an oil-rubbed bronze rod to match the hooks, but I'm on a budget, people! The hooks were $8.99.

Our mantel is tricky to work with because it's propped up against a foam wall. Yes, the brainiac who lived here before decided foam, lovely FLAMMABLE foam, was a good thing to install above the fireplace. Anyway, the mantel can't hold much weight, so I can't really go crazy on there.
We got this IKEA print and we love it, but the whole thing was looking a little too emo for me. I'm 38. I can't do emo anymore.

So on another trip to IKEA, I picked up these candle holders and a little tray I spray painted with Caramel Latte, a pretty neutral with a bit of shimmer, and here's the result after I repurposed some of our rock accents and found a trio of bronze balls (hee) at Ross.
I kept things in the general color scheme but added some more texture.

I love the contrast between the rocks and the candle holders.
All in all, happy with the result, and it was all for under $12.

I had whipped up these curtains for our master bedroom but they did not go AT ALL, so I parked them in the playroom, where we had red/green striped curtains that didn't really go with anything in there.
Our kitty Willie-Boo seems to like them!

Then I figured our sofa needed a bit of cheering up, and asked my mom to transform the aforementioned red/green striped curtains.
I love our burgundy sofa and it's served us well over these past 6 years, so it deserved a bit of accessorizing.

Voila! Mom made some pillow covers that brighten up our sofa.

What's amazing is, the cats aren't scratching them and the boys are, more or less, leaving them along. Color me shocked.