Are you only going to do posts on design stuff now? A Thanksgiving Blog...sort of...

(the sunsets have been stunning lately! Well...they always are in AZ, but lately they are just extra great)


Someone asked me if I was trying to turn my blog into a 'design blog' - and my husband asked me "are you sure you want to become a counselor? or do you want to be a designer?".

No, I'm not trying to turn it into a design blog and no I do not want to be a designer. It's more of a hobby. It's just for fun. And I really don't have any other deep thoughts to share right now.

I'm out of anything else to say!

Well...not really.

But Kind of.

My life right now & things I am grateful for (making this a Thanksgiving blog of sorts):

I miss Holden. I miss him at weird times and for weird reasons. I miss our joking around with each other. I miss his impressions of people and inside jokes. But most days it's fine and I am happy he is doing what he is doing.

The other day though I saw this little blonde boy - probably maybe a 6 year old and that REALLY made me miss him - like tear up a little. I surprised myself at that reaction. I think more than anything I miss the idea of having little kids. All of my kids are getting to be grown up. I feel suddenly older than moms with kids who are little. Don't misunderstand - I don't actually miss having little kids. But I miss certain moments of having little kids. And sometimes I look at those moms and I think - "wow...I don't miss that". But sometimes I wonder if they realize how quickly the time will go and they won't be moms with little kids anymore either. I might not have fully appreciated that while it was happening. I've been so blessed with such great kids.

I'm loving my anthropology class. Not that it is super exciting or anything - but it's easy!

I have a surprise vacation possibly in store for the holidays which I am actually pretty excited about but must not reveal at this time!

Every day I just sort of feel like "life is good". You know? Sometimes I have just the tiniest bit of superstition that I should not put that thought out into the universe unchecked. But just honestly, most people I know are pretty darn lucky/blessed.

We still have a lot of projects around this house that I would like to do/plan on accomplishing. Will it ever end? I doubt it.

My kids are at a stage in life where they are pretty darn helpful. I'm so grateful for that.

My husband is a pretty great guy. We are nearing our 21st anniversary! That makes me very happy.

We are surrounded by a lot of great people who make our life rich.

There is so much beauty in the world, isn't there?

It has been a good year, and I'm looking forward to an exciting holiday season!

(there! How's that for a non-design post?)

Orange you glad it's Friday?

range has been a new favorite color of mine this year. When I think of Orange the first thing I think of is an Hermes watch. I would like an orange Hermes watch before I die. But I digress... we are talking about house decor, not Lezlee decor.

Here are some inspiring Orange images - I don't have any orange in my house right now, but I do love it. Especially bright bold orange with white. In my fantasy life I would have a beach house near Carmel California and it would have massive windows and be all orange and white. How's that for a rich and specific fantasy life?

It's Thursday...Time for Trendy Purple

verywhere in design magazines and online design blogs this year you can find an article that says "Purple is the latest decorating trend". Really? I honestly couldn't name one person I know who has a purple room. I mean, maybe a babies room or a little girl or something - but a purple front room? Family room? Master bedroom? Kitchen? I don't know anyone who has that.

To be honest, I think it's probably one of the hardest colors to pull off properly. I think purple easily veers off into Grandma land. Where one might envision a room filled with lilac satin pillows with lace or something.

So I was actually surprised to find that I have saved quite a lot of purple images over the past few months. Oh yeah, and I did this:
So apparently I did have purple on my mind a little. But it seemed easier to pull off outdoors with all the bright light, than it did inside.

Maybe someday I'll try it inside - if it turned out like these images, it might be doable:























(one thing I really love of these is the one with the painted ceiling in the kitchen...that takes courage but it is "to die for" I think)

White Wednesday

oday is sort of like a palette cleanser. We still have a couple more intense colors to go but today we'll focus on White.

In my house growing up we had ALL white walls. I had a pink bedroom and my mom allowed me to get a pink paint but it was so barely pink that I couldn't even tell it wasn't white. I'm not sure why my mom likes white walls so much. Her favorite colors are purple and red. I grew very weary of white walls and vowed never to have any in my own house. So that's my disclaimer - I don't know that I would ever be able to have a white room. But here are some white rooms where I do like what they've got going on. The key to white rooms I think is that you've got to commit to it. You've got to go white all the way with maybe just a touch of color somewhere.

A white room with white furnishings can be very serene. And if it's done right, it's also a pretty good bet you'll look very sophisticated.

The things to remember when choosing white as the main color are:

1. Be Committed!

2. Be a Careful Editor!

3. Don't be afraid to mix creams and stark whites and grey whites - it will give the space more layers and texture.

4. Add in some Black and a hint of color somewhere.

Red Hot Tuesday

ed is a big commitment. The first time I considered doing a red wall was the first time I visited a friends house (Kristi Riding) who had a red wall. You can see her red wall from the street and I just thought it looked so cool and so BOLD. It was years from that point until I finally tried a red wall myself, but it really is a great way to make a statement if you dare.

And finding the right red isn't always so easy either - red can veer off into a Coral or a Tomato or a Burgundy pretty quickly. And I really just wanted RED. I finally think I have found the perfect Red (Dunn Edwards Red Hot Jazz) - I have it on my front door and outside by the fire pit. But some people like tomato, or coral or burgundy - do whatever you like!

There is a fine line between Oranges and Reds - so much so that I there is a specific orangey red that to me is almost exactly equally both red AND orange at the same time.

An ALL red room might be really hard to live with. It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where you would want more than one or two walls of red in any room. It's just such a strong color. I have one wall in my kitchen red and one in the front room, and that's kind of enough red to make the whole house feel like there is a lot of red.

Red is an awesome accent color too - and lately I really like it with bright blue.

Red is very energizing!

Blue Monday

an I confess my blue obsession? The amount of blue room images I had saved over the past while is crazy. There is this really specific almost Tiffany Blue that I am always on the look-out for - I need to find the perfect shade of that blue! And there is a tealy blue that is so yummy and I really can't ever actually find the one I am looking for. I saw it for the first time on a wall in the room of a movie for pete's sake. And why am I looking for them? Am I planning on painting a room blue sometime soon? No, I am not! I just have a weird thing about it - like in the back of my mind, someday, I might want a room that color and when that day comes I will be glad I found and save the pefect shades of blue. I know, its' crazy.

The variety of blues is almost over-whelming! Beautiful blues exist in everything from Deep Navy to Almost Green to Tiffany Blue. But I'll let all the great blue images do their own talking:

Sunny Weekend - Yellow

Yellow can be hard sometimes. It can easily be too bold if not balanced properly. But yellow can be such a cheery color. It's hard to be depressed in a yellow room. Yellow runs the gamut from mellow and barely there to BOLD and beautiful. It is easy to over-do or under-do it on yellow because the tonal values can be hard to judge.

My old front room was yellow and my old kitchen was yellow too - even now some of my walls are a yellow color by Dunn Edwards called "Madera" - it veers into the more spicy yellow area, but not extremely so. You have to be patient when picking a yellow. A friend of mine tried Madera in her house and she hated the way it looked - even though she liked it in my house. Another friend of mine had a butter yellow I loved, but when I tried it in my house it didn't look creamy and buttery like it did in her house, in mine it looked barely off beige.

My usual way for picking colors is to get a TON of paint swatches and tape them to the wall in the room I am painting. I look at them every hour or so during the day as the light changes, then at night with all the lights on and then with most of the lights off - it's amazing how different the color is depending on the light - but I've decided of all the colors, this is most true of yellow - perhaps because light itself often has a yellow or warm tone to it.

As you look at your paint chips you will quickly start eliminating - I pull the ones off the wall that are no longer in the running at all until I am left with the last 4 or 5 - at that point I'll start asking other people's opinions.

I get the final say though!

The other thing about yellow is that it's such a great color to add as accent color in almost any other color scheme - red, orange, green, blue, pink, white, black, grey - even beige (though I sort of loathe beige on principle) look awesome with pops of yellow!

It can also be a great color to add to a ceiling - the ceilings in the majority of my house are yellow. In fact, I would almost never paint a ceiling white - it's not doing your room any favors. Unless you want a white on white on white room - consider a color for your ceiling - even if you have a neutral color palette otherwise. Maybe I'll do a post on colored ceilings later - they really can make a room so much better.

Bold yellow will make your eyes tired so if you go bold you need white or beige or black (or all three) accents to give it some rest. But if done right, it looks amazing.

Anyway here are some great yellows: