If your like me then you've been seeing Fiddle Leaf Fig Trees pop up all over blog land. I loved that this pretty tree wasn't the typical palm houseplant, in the pictures it looked leafy and sculptural and freaking cool. There I said it the Ficus Lyrta aka Fiddle Leaf Fig tree, is freaking cool! Several months ago (Feb 2013)  I was looking though Sunset magazine and came across this article  about chic houseplants (I know so fitting, lol) I was really intrigued about adding three houseplants to our home, one being the Fiddle Leaf Fig tree. In addition to the Fiddle Leaf Fig tree, I love the Black Aralia, and the Vriesia hieroglyphica hybrid.  

(image via Sunset Magazine)

Over the past few months, I've spotted a Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree at Ikea, but it looked dead. In my opinion Ikea has a great selection of plants, but its it or miss in terms it actually being alive and kicking. I wasn't actively hunting for a fiddle leaf tree, but had it in my mind one would be perfect in our house. On Sunday morning, I stop in our local Home Depot  looking for a new paint stripper for our Campaign Dresser, yup I just started working on refinishing it (it will be done this week and I'll share after pictures next week) Anyways, Hasani and I stopped in the house plant section when I spotted a forest of Fiddle Leaf fig trees!! 

I was ecstatic  because they had several to choose from and at good prices (check out my Instagram picture here) From what I've seen around the Internet they can range from affordable to crazy expensive in upwards of hundreds of dollars. Our Home Depot, had two large size ones, smaller than the one in magazines for $99 bucks. Lucky for me that had medium sizes for only $15.99, during checkout I asked if these plants had a one year warranty (they do)  because everything I've read they are hard to keep alive. 

Here are two of the tree medium size Fiddle Leaf Fig trees, I spotted while at Home Depot. All three looked pretty healthy with only a few spots on the lower leafs. 

Here's our new not the typical house plant in our home. For the time being I'm using this simple white planter, I picked up on clearance at Lowes. I love the idea of using a large woven basket instead of a basic planter, adds another later of warmth and texture. We have a large woven basket we use for Avery's toys that we picked up from Target months ago, I'm considering buying another one. But my plan is to pop into Marshall's and Home Goods this weekend because they have an amazing selection of baskets (for cheap). 

Right now, I'm in the process of finding out what area of my home our new plant will thrive & we're also dealing with a curious two year old who loves to touch. I'm trying to teach Avery to 'look with his eyes and not with his hands' parenthood, we are deep in the trenches of toddler-dom. Here's our tree in our mudroom / laundry room, I place it in here for morning filtered light.  

I found this post from the Gardenista very helpful for learning to care of our new houseplant. I'm so looking forward to getting our living room & dining room areas more filled out in terms of style and decor and can't wait to see pretty images of our Fiddle Leaf Fig tree (like the one below) when I walk though our front door.

(via Pinterest)

I'm hoping to add one more Fiddle Leaf Fig tree to our home, in our master bedroom, but only a small table top one. 

What do you think of the Fiddle Leaf Fig tree? Have you been on the hunt for a affordable one? What's your favorite houseplant? 

** PS: DON'T FORGET TO ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY FOR $100 GIFT CARD**

Giveaway: National Builder Supply $100 Gift Card

** This Giveaway is Now Closed **

Congrats to Entry # 5 Autumn Grace 

Hi Everyone, I'm super excited about our giveaway with National Builder Supply!! 

National Builder Supply is gifting one lucky reader of CLH a $ 100 gift card, which is huge! Think of all the DIY projects your can get started on: New Light Fixture, a pretty mirror, finally upgrade your old faucet and the list goes on and on, this giveaway is the perfect project starter!! I've found that National Building Supply has an amazing selection of lighting, pretty mirrors, faucets, sinks and more, check them out here. 

National Builder Supply was also sweet enough to send us out a vanity light fixture for our master bathroom, you may already remember the one we originally purchased from another source arrived smashed to pieces (not cool) and I couldn't find a replacement I loved. It didn't take me long to find a pretty vanity light from National Builder Supply, I fell head over heels in love with the Forte Vanity Light. 

For our bathroom we picked the Forte Vanity Light with a chrome finish, I know people think 'gold is back,' but for me, chrome is back! Here's our new light fixture in our bathroom, were still in the process of finding the perfect mirror for the space. However, we do have our roman shade hung. I know there's a lot of 'white going on' in the space, but all that's going to change. The seeded frosted glass shades on the vanity light are so pretty. Overall, Hasani thought the light fixture was fairly easy to install, and we liked how the glass shades are held in place, we're thinking about flipping the light fixture facing up depending on the size & style of mirror with end up with. Oh and our light fixture also arrived super fast ** Heads Up** All orders over $100 have free shipping, doesn't get much better than that.

Giveaway Details & How To Enter 

Prize:

$100 Gift Card to National Builder Supply

How to Enter:

1.Visit National Builder Supply & leave a comment on my blog sharing what you would love use your gift card on! [please include your email address with your comment]

2.Extra Entry One: Like National Builder Supply on Facebook

3.Extra Entry Two: Follow CLH on Instagram @mrsclh

4.Extra Entry Three: Follow CLH on Pinterest @mrschic

[For each additional entry, please leave a NEW comment stating you liked NBS on FB, follow on IG or Pinterest]

Entry Dates:

Giveaway Starts: July 29, 2013

Giveaway Ends: August 2, 2013 at Midnight PST

Number of Winners:

One Winner, Open to USA Residents

Good Luck Everyone! If you have any questions about the Giveaway, please email me! 

Kitchen Finishing Touches

My kitchen is almost ready for its close up, but don't worry I wont make you all wait too much longer to share all its lovely. I'm super happy over the moon ecstatic with how our kitchen design & turned out...but I'll get into all the details and lots pretty pictures in an upcoming post. I promise. For now lets focus on a few things, on my list that needed to be completed before I can truly share everything. 

1. Our glass cabinet doors, well they need glass! I'm finally placing my order for glass this weekend. I also need to order glass for my linen cabinet door. 

2. We need to finally decide on our cabinet hardware! For me its the little details, l tend to obsess on little details. It takes me forever to decide. The past month has been no fun opening up cabinets & drawers without hardware, its a pain in the but.. On Tuesday, I placed an order for three different styles pulls for our kitchen cabinets. Let's hope I like at least one of the options. When they arrive I'll share our selections and the one we end up going with, then its all about determining placement on our cabinets drawers for the pulls: top of drawer, middle of drawer etc.

3. Organize my floating shelves. I love love our floating shelves, but I'm still in the process of deciding what will go where from a 'it makes sense' view and it 'looks amazing' view. 

Hopefully we'll get those three things wrapped up in the next couple of weeks! In meantime, wanna see a few pictures of my kitchen I took? You do! I though you might, lol. This is the view from my kitchen when you walk into it from the living room / or sitting in the living room. I'm still in the process of deciding where counter-top appliances (Mixer, Espresso Maker & Toaster) will reside, so things in the below pictures may be moved around. As you can see, we need glass in our doors! Looking forward to sharing our more finished kitchen with glass in our cabinet doors, lol!! Along with our dinnerware and coffee mugs & glasses more organized. 

As I mentioned above, I just placed out order for cabinet pulls and still debating if will go all pulls in our kitchen like this & this or the classic combination of knobs and pulls like this. 

What do you think so far? Any thoughts on all pulls vs a combination of knobs and pulls?

Giveaway: Aquasana Water Fliter

** This Giveaway is Now Closed, Thank you for Entering **

Congrats to Entry # 4 Julia Konya!! ~ Please Check Your Email 

The sweet folks at Aquasana, where kind enough to send me a Aqausana Shower Head Water Filter to review & share my thoughts with my readers. I've been using the water filter for the almost a week! The Aqusana Shower Head Water Filter, was super easy to install in our bathroom. Hasani followed the directions and removed our excising shower head and installed the new shower head, it seriously only took five minutes.  

Here's how our new shower head looks in our bathroom. The bottom portion is where the water is filtered before entering the shower. My skin can dry out really easy, so I was super excited to try out this new shower head, that helps remove the chlorine from the water creating a better showering experience, for your skin and hair. Read more about the benefits here. This shower head is great for both homeowner and renters [ super easy to install and remove when you move if your renting ] so far in the few days we've been using the Aquasana Shower Head, i've noticed that my skin appears to be less dry, which is a amazing! 

Win one for your home! Please read the information below about entering. 

Prize: Aqausana Shower Head Water Filter  

How to Enter: Please post a comment below & leave your email contact information the comments, so I can contact you if you win! Winners selected via Random.org 

Giveaway Starts: Monday July 22, 2013

Giveaway Ends: Friday July 26, 2013

Number of Winners: One Winner, USA Residents 

If you have any questions about the Giveaway please email me at [email protected] Thanks & good luck!

Flor Rug Options

For Avery's toddler room, I've been on the hunt to find the perfect grey and white stripe rug. I've checked out a slew of places [ Crate & Barrel, Rugs USA & Land of Nod & more ] none of the rugs were exactly what I was looking for. Since we have hardwood floors in our house, for his room I wanted a rug with a little extra cushion so he could roll around on the floor playing and having fun. So for those reasons I decided against a dhurrie style rug, even thugh we have one in our living room [ which we love and its just the right amount of softness ] I decided one of the best options for his bedroom, would be Flor rug tiles [ we used them before during Halloween for our entry & I planned on getting a Flor rug for his nursery but never got around to buying ] 

I was super happy when I came home and saw that my Flor Tile Samples arrived yesterday!! Getting packages in the mail always make my days happier.

Flor Rug Style, Option One: Heaven Sent 

Flor Rug Style, Option Two: Made You Look 

The top two samples are in the Flor style: Heaven Sent, colors: Titanium & Bone.  Bottom samples are in Flor style Made You Look, colors: Bright White & Grey 

I really liked both Flor rug options for Avery's room, but I'm mostly drawn to option number one. I love that its cushy underfoot, it has a nice texture and love hot well the grey titanium shade looks with the creamy bone white. I'm also in love with how option one looks with our hardwood floors. Below is a lilac & purple shade strip rug, call me in love!! I love that each floor rug tile is so large.

( via Flor )

For now, we've decided to go with a 5x7 rug options which means buying 12 tile, but I'm stilling considering buying 16 tiles, just need to map out the size in his bedroom one more time. I'm planning on having the stripes lay horizontal when you walk in his bedroom. Each tile is $14, and of course the style I plan on ordering isn't on sale right now, but the Made You Look style is [ 20% off!! ] 

One thing, I really like about using Flor tiles is the ease of cleaning up spills, just rinse off in the sink, perfect for kiddos. I'm also excited that I can add in new tiles anytime, if I feel the rug isn't big enough, talk about a plus! I'm super excited about ordering Avery's Flor rug!! I also just spied a pretty pattern, that I'm considering using in our laundry room which does double duty as our soon to be mudroom. 

Are you considering using Flor Rug Tiles in your home? 

Mailboxes Etc.

We originally planned to keep the old mailbox after the fire, but somewhere during the construction and rebuilding process they mailbox went missing. I thought adding a mailbox slot [ similar to this ] to our front door would be a cute alternative to the traditional mailbox, Hasani wasn't feeling the idea, lol. No worries, I'm the girl that always has a million backup plans in the works if my original plan doesn't work out. I checked out mail box ideas at Lowes & Home Depot, nothing really jumped out at me. Then I checked out Pottery Barn. You see there's a mailbox I've had a crush on for like forever, and yes its completely normal to have crushes on mailboxes. My crush was on the Envelope Mailbox, its just so cute and I knew it would look amazing on our house. Only catch was it was more than we wanted to spend on a mailbox $49 bucks, but as a luck would have it a few weeks before we moved into our house, it went on clearance sale!! 

The bronze mailboxes were marked down to $34.99 and thanks to additional 15% off coupon code for clearance items, I was able to buy the mailbox for $29.74!! So happy, I still had to pay taxes and shipping but in the end can't complain. Here's our new mail box, I love how well it goes with our chartreuse craftsman style front door and outdoor light fixtures and black front door hardware.  

The mailbox is actually a really good size, nice and deep. It has a magnetic closure on the inside.

At first I was tempted to spray it black, but I like how the bronze / black finish makes it appear aged, like its always been apart of our house. I plan on taking updated pictures of our house to share how its currently looking. 

That's how our mail is arriving to our house these days. Any recent updates to the outside of your home?

Fabulous Rug & Quick Makeover

It seems like every weekend since moving back home we've been busy, not necessarily busy working on projects around the house and getting settled. We've been busy having friends and family come over to visit, which is so much fun to show them around and share our ideas and thought process about floor-plan changes etc. In between spending time with family & friends this week, we squeezed in two updates to our living room..

Do you remember my fabulous coffee table I scored on Craigslist months ago? It finally made its way into our living room and I love it [the height, size & style looks amazing in our living room] but it had a few flaws. Mainly several nicks in the finish and I wasn't a huge fan of its deep bronze finish. So what does a DIYer do? Spray paint it of course! After much thought, I decided it would look best in a flat finish. I figured a flat finish on the metal would resemble cast iron a look I love. Here's a close up of the nicks, I was hoping to camouflage with a some black spray paint! 

I left the spray painting to my resident pro, Hasani. I love spray paint, but I don't love doing the spray painting. Anyways, the flat finish on the coffee table was just what it needed. 

Months ago during a huge sale at Rugs USA we purchased a large grey Dhurrie rug for our living room. The rug just set in our rental apartment for months and months, I couldn't wait to see how it would look in our living room. Before placing in the rug in our living room, I purchased a Mohawk rug pad from Target to give our rug a little more cushion and help keep it in place on our hardwood floors [ we also made sure to wait 30 days before placing a rug on our refinished hardwood floors ] As a reminder these pillows are 'temporary', and will most likely be our 'fall / winter' pillows. 

We're in love with how the rug and newly painted coffee table look in our living room. I'm so happy we went with a large size rug for our living room, last time we went with a smaller 5x7 rug. Thanks to the great deal we got on our new rug, we were able to go with a larger size. 

When we first rolled out the rug, I was a little concerned there's too much grey. Since we have light grey walls, and two grey sofas. My backup plan was to use this rug in our bedroom, if there's too much grey in our living room. But after thinking about the living room plans: new pillows for our sofas [ see fabric selections here ] hanging drapes [ still deciding on fabric ] bring in some artwork & those amazing aqua teal lamps, paint our campaign dresser & find fabulous side tables and styling the coffee table, its going to feel layered in colors and not all grey. 

We'll see how everything evolves over time. What do you think of our new rug?

Side Note: This post is my 501th blog post for CLH!! Fun milestone :)

Oh Crape Myrtle Tree

We're in the planning on stages of re-imagining both our front and backyard, more to come on this topic next week [big plans to share] Virtually everything has died the past year our home was under construction and during the waiting stages. In our backyard there are a few trees we plan on having removed. Two of the three tress are dead and the third one is diseased. I've been smitten with Crepe Myrtles trees for quite awhile. I love their flowering colorful long lasting blooms. They pretty poplar in where we live in Northern California. 

(via Pinterest)

The other day I was texting Shavonda about my love of Crepe Myrtles and plan to add one in our backyard. When she mentioned our local energy provider SMUD might offer Crape Myrtles for FREE as part of their Shade Tree Program. As luck would have it they do!! SMUD works along side of Sacramento Tree Foundation offering free tress to promote shade, improve air quality and add beauty. 

I'm already dreaming of the perfect spot, pending SMUD approval, a Community Forester comes out to our property and helps us find the best spot in our yard for your tree to thrive and provide shade. We plan on planting our tree in early fall. I'm so excited! 

(via Pinterest)

Right now I'm leaning towards a pale pink or fuchsia Crape Myrtle for our backyard. I'm already getting giddy or the though of snipping a few branches and enjoying the blooms in vase in our homes. 

Do you love Crape Myrtles as much as I do?

On the Hunt

A few months back I was on the hunt for a fabulous dresser that would make the perfect TV Stand in our living room. I had seen one a liked a week prior at a thrift store out of town [about 50 miles away] while we were there visiting my husbands aunt. I'm the type of girl who loves exploring new to me thrift stores while out and about. Fast forward to the next Saturday, my husband agreed to head back to the store even though there was a slim chance the dresser would still be there. I had a good feeling that we would find a major score that day. When we got to the store I was disappointed, the dresser was gone and the other dressers that were there weren't my cup of tea. I jumped on yelp [ via my cell phone, seriously how did I ever get by before amazing Apps?!?] and found a antique store a nearby. 

The antique stove was filled to the brim with furniture from every era. The font of the store was organized but as you got further back, it was a jumbled mess of amazing possibilities. My heart was beating fast, because I knew I just discovered a gem of a store. I snapped the picture below and shared on Instagram. Just in case your wondering I using the App 'Over' to type ad text to my pictures. 

After searching rows and rows of dressers and various pieces of furniture, I spotted a dresser that I loved. It had all my lists of musts for vintage furniture: solid wood, dovetail drawers and drawers that open smooth. Read more about my tips on buying vintage furniture here. I called Hasani over [ he was searching another area of the store ] he loved the dresser immediately and didn't even want to see the other one on my 'maybe list.' We were able to talk the store owner down a little  something that's super hard for me to do when I know the price is already good and I'm buying a quality piece for a steal. They store was asking $140 for the dresser, and we got it for $120 since it came with a mirror that we didn't need. Yay for asking and saving $20 bucks. 

We brought the dresser to our house where it sat in our garage for over a month. I was super excited on moving day when we were finally able to bring it inside. The dresser we bought is a vintage campaign dresser, read more about the history of the furniture here. The campaign dressers, I've typically seen around the internet typically have side brackets around the outside corners of the dresser. So I wasn't so sure what style mine was, after doing a little looking around on Ebay. I came across a few on campaign style dressers without the side brackets selling from $595 - $1095. But the dressers on Ebay were more like distant cousins rather than 1st cousins. I did a little more looking around and saw my dressers sister older more polished [ no scratches and perfect finish ] on 1st Dibs. I was blown away with the campaign dressers prices listed for sell on the site they start at $1695 and go up like way up. The one that matches mine the most in style is $5600. I'm super happy we were able to score a super solid heavy vintage furniture for way way less. 

When I snapped this picture a few days ago, our setup was a little wonky: too small TV with lamps on either side and an old school Nintendo player and lots of crazy cords. Since then, we've up-sized our TV situation and are in the process of downgrading all those cords. I'll share those details in another post. 

I love that the dresser as a side handles!! It just makes this amazing piece of furniture that much more unique. 

Our Plans

Hasani wants to paint it white and leave the hardware as is in all its beat up glory. I'm leaning towards white too, but also think a nice deep stain again with the hardware as is would also be a look good. Then again, I love a pretty white dresser. I came across this lovely redone campaign dresser, on the blog Family of Three, I really love its makeover. She did an amazing job!! 

Eventually, I'd love our TV area to look like the image below. With the TV blended in nicely with its surroundings while remaining in plain sight. For me its the best of both worlds for our living room, since we don't have a family room. 

(via Pinterest)

Our new to us campaign dresser is officially my next big furniture project, I plan to get started on very soon. I'm thinking of trying out oil based paint, this time around instead of water based paint. I really love how my friend Shavonda's table turned out using oil based paint. She was able to truly transform her amazing find into glossy lacquer finish. If you haven't seen the transformation  check it out here.  

What do you think of using a dresser as your TV stand? 

Life Via Instagram: June

I've mentioned a few times, how much I love Instragram, here & here. I love that I'm able to share spinets of my day to day life in pictures with a little blurb...the filters are fun, but sharing what's happening in my life 'real time' makes it more fun. Not to mention how much I love my community of Insta-Friends and seeing spinets of your lives [kids, DIY Projects, what's on your mind] Going forward I'll share a quick recap of Life Via Instagram each month. My first roundup is for the June, my favorite month so far this year...its the start of Summer and both my boys birthdays, and it marks the month we moved back into our home!! [ it can't get much better than that]. Follow me on Instragram @mrsclh 

Row One : Organizing Avery's Bedroom // Avery's Birthday tricycle  // Macy's Delivering Goodies to our home

Row Two: Playing ABC's with Avery // Using the Mom 100 Cookbook // Hasani & I on Fathers Day

Row Three: Hasani made Spagetti for 1st Dinner at Home // In Ahh over the Blue lamps // Shopping in Target 

Hope you all had an amazing Month of June too!! 

Twin Sofas

Before I get into today's posts, a huge thank you so much for sweet comments about our house tour! I'm so happy all the thought and details we decided on show though in the snapshots I shared yesterday! Now onto today's post about our new sofas! 

Months ago Hasani and I were sofa shopping for the perfect twin sofas for our living room. Our old living room set up was pretty traditional in the terms of pieces one sofa and two chairs.  The original setup was fine, but honestly the chairs were rarely used any when we had guests over, most people gravitated to the sofa vs. the chairs. Heck, I gravitated to the sofa. Buying a sectional crossed my mind, however since our living room is on the smaller side, I didn't want our space to feel like a giant sofa with no room for anything else. 

We soon realized matching sofas would be much more practical for our living room and for our family. Creating plenty of seating when we have friends and family over and plenty of soft spots for our to land on family movie nights! We love movie nights around here. You may also remember from my earlier post about sofa shopping, I had a semi long list of wants in a sofa, read more here. My main must for our new sofa was no back cushions! The back cushions on our last sofa where the bain of my existence. I honestly spent way to much time, fluffy & pumping them back into shape. We quickly narrowed our sofa search down to Crate and Barrel and Scandinavian Designs. We bought our last sofa at Scandinavian Designs, even though I loathed the back cushions, I loved how comfortable the sofa was and the quality. 

We bought ended up buying our Martin new sofas from Scandinavian Designs and went with a medium grey fabric....not too dark and not too light, just right. The sofas are made by Rowe, just like our last sofa was. One thing I love about buying furniture [aside from amazing customer service, remember the stove manager recognizes me, whenever I pop in [ I'm sure it has nothing to do with my long list of sofa requirements] is the option to choose from a wide variety of fabric options and the quality. With Crate & Barrel, we were limited to two colors in the 'grey family.' We love that our new sofas have a good solid warranty and the cushions alone are under warranty for five years.  

Here our our new twin sofas, we placed one sofa under our living room window and the other one directly across. I'm thinking this layout works best of our living room, helping it feel open to our dining and kitchen areas. I'm in love with the clean lines of the sofa, and all the subtle piping. To top it all off, they are super comfy yet have nice and firm cushions! I plan sewing several pillows covers for our sofas, using these fabrics I mentioned here. I'm excited about our new blank canvas our sofas provide. The currant pillows on our sofas came with our sofa, we had the option of selecting the fabric for the pillows and they made them, we ordered that sofas [and pillows] so long ago, I forgot what the pillows look like. More than likely they'll be our 'winter fall pillows' because they seem on the cozier side. Also the little side table in the picture is our temporary side table, most likely this little table will be outside holding plants in the future. 

Soon, I'll share some more full 'in progress, pictures of our living room. In the meantime here's a better view our how our living room is looking. The lights are turned on in this picture so that's why our wall color looks warmer. From this angle, you'll spot my beloved consignment store lamps, and our new to us coffee table I scored for a really good deal on Craigslist. 

We are super happy with our new sofas, they feel exactly us and our style. 

What do you think so far?