Bathing at The Owlery

Hey, folks, today I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner to show you our bathrooms!  (Yes, we have THREE for two people--there's a half bath upstairs for guests.  :)

Aren't bathrooms hard to decorate?  I've always found that to be so...  I feel like the bathroom is typically the forgotten room, but there is so much you can do with it once you get started, and a lot of it is really simple.  I've been working really hard to finish decorating our bathrooms, so let's get started, shall we?

First up, we have our half bath:

 I got the little green birdie panels (on clearance at Target--where else?)  when I was in grad school.  I love the different fabrics and textures on them!  I also got the mini vases at Walmart to decorate my grad school appartment as well.  (I broke a red one.)  I love this green towel!  It was one of my Twelve Days of Christmas presents from my mother-in-law.

I got the owl nightlight when I was in grad school, too.  *lol*  Can you tell I was very excited to decorate my first off-campus apartment?  That picture is of Zach and me--it is the first one ever of us, and I love it.  We had been dating about a month and a half, I think, when it was taken.  The fabric giraffe, which is hard to see, complements the colors in the bathroom; it was a get well gift from our friend Holly; she sent it after my surgery along with some other goodies.

And I promise I straightened that one panel several times today!  Geez...

Remember how I said I have been working hard on finishing our bathrooms?  Here is the BEFORE:

 

And the AFTER!  I hate how this picture turned out, but I'm too lazy to take another.  I designed this custom curtain to hide our clutter.  Now I just need a basket for the paper towels...

Up next is my bathroom.  Since we had so many bathrooms, we decided to have separate ones.  I think this is great for marriage.  :)  Plus, my bathroom is in the hallway and stays warmer because it is below the heater; Zach's bathroom is on the outside wall of the house and is freezing in the winter.  Actually, the whole bottom floor stays freezing in the winter, so we have to use a space heater AND a heated mattress pad.  It's true what your science teacher says:  heat rises.  (That also means our upper floor is toasting us right now.  ;)

 I have three collages I made after my study abroad trip--one each of Ireland, Scotland, and England.  (This is the England one.)  I want to find two more gold frames that are different from this one to hang up the other two collages.  I paid nothing for the collages because I got them over time with Walgreens free collage coupons.  (Look out for them, folks!  I pay next to nothing for photos with Walgreens, Shutterfly, and Snapfish.  ;)  And I got the frame half-off from Hobby Lobby!

 My bathroom is travel-themed (at least when it comes to pictures).  The one on the counter is the first picture I had taken of me in Ireland--isn't it sooo green?  The one on the wall is from Oxford, Mississippi, when we visited our friends when they worked there and went to William Faulkner's house, Rowan Oak.  Can you spot the LEGO jeep?  I built it!  I like to imagine it is for our imaginary trips around the world.

This is another of my decorating projects.  I changed out the shower curtain for something that better matches our decor.  :)  I love how it looks now!  The BELIEVE artwork was from my roommate Emily for Christmas one year--it reminds me that nothing is impossible with God!  For example, I had dreamed of going to Europe since third grade, and I never thought I would make it after many failed trips.  And there is the whole saving-my-life-and-my-soul thing.  ;)

The pictures on the wall are also from my study abroad trip, but I am going to trade them out for other travel pictures once I get my collages framed.

Finally, Zach's bathroom is left.  I won't show much of it (even though it's clean--we just cleaned them yesterday).

 The Paris frame came from my roommate Monica; it would probably be more appropriate for my bathroom, but I felt the pictures of Zach's "groomsmen" looked great in it.  There is a picture of us in the heart-shaped frame; it was taken right before we walked down the aisle after Zach's Momo passed out and scared us to death; it's hard to see, but our foreheads are pressed together and our eyes are closed because we were trying to collect our thoughts.  It was "a momentary stay against confusion."

Of course, there are lots of LEGO pieces in Zach's bathroom.  I tried to class it up with some Chinese cat figures and a ceramic box in blue and white, but they got ousted by the Star Wars.

I hope you enjoyed viewing our toilets (pronounced in the FRAHNS-SAY way) and got a few ideas to decorate your own water closet.  :)

Living at The Owlery

Today I am linking up with Kelly's Corner's Tour of Living Rooms.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photos; they were taken on my iPhone.  ;0)  We are still working on decorating our house, and it is a little cluttered and messy right now, but that is how we live at The Owlery...

a view of our living room from the front door 

one view from the kitchen

My husband always neatly stacks everything up on the coffee table, which drives me crazy because the scrapbook I made him and our wedding photo album can't be seen or be artistically arranged on the table.

I always pile up current bills and letters and books I'm reading underneath, which drives him crazy because he hates clutter.  *lol*  We are a perfect pair.

This is our TV that we got for Valentine's Day for last year.  Our entertainment center used to be an aquarium stand that we repurposed to hold all of our devices.  I think I would like to paint it red or olive green one day...

One of Zach's former bosses built the speakers on each side of the entertainment stand.  Someday, I will figure out what to hang over the TV.  I just feel like anything large and square/rectangular will compete with the TV as well as the picture over the fireplace.

I love that we have a fireplace!  I feel like it is so romantic.  :)  During off months, I would like to buy a set of candles in different sizes to place inside, but right now the natural log suffices.  Our fireplace tool kit doesn't match our screen exactly, but I like that we aren't too matchy-matchy. 

Zach's parents got us the "guest book" frame to use at our reception, which we held three months after our wedding.  Somehow, his dad broke the glass to it, and we still haven't gotten it replaced over two years later.  *lol*  The red glass candleholders were a Christmas gift from my cousin Erin, the smaller frame reads "One of the most beautiful blessings God gave me was you" and was a gift from my mama while I was in the hospital this last time, the HOPE candle holder was won by my mama at BINGO, the mantel clock was a wedding present (I can't remember who I got us it now--sorry!), and the dancing bride and groom came from my mama's house (It was a piece of decor in our home while I was growing up.).  Zach just recently bought the helicopter to terrify our kitties.  ;)

You will notice there are lots of LEGO in our house as I give you the tour.  My husband has been building since he was four when he received his first set; it was the only time my in-law's had seen him sit still up to that point, so they kept buying him bricks!  He now has a whole LEGO room to himself (one of his dreams growing up).  The Star Wars Death Star on his desk is always a big draw.  It's one of the larger sets that has ever been made.

Also, we got this desk at Office Depot for around $60 because it was on sale and we had a coupon.  WOO!

Finally, we are a Mac family.  :)

This is our balcony.  I use those birds there (purchased at Target on clearance) to measure the snow during the summer.  During the winter, these trees are absolutely bare, but during the summer, it becomes a jungle.  We have a few dead plants out there (the soil was infested with gnats, and our techniques to kill them killed the plants) as well as a cute red tiled table we got at World Market.  We are in the process of finding some chairs to match that will fit.  (The balcony is small.)  Zach's mom got me a hummingbird feeder for my birthday, but we still haven't seen any hummingbirds.  :(

Zach's sister Erin painted us this gorgeous scene for Christmas this past year.  I love it!

This is where our kitties live--the Kitty City!  This is Hobie; his little sister Dinah is somewhere causing trouble...

That flooring and rug you see in the upper left is the kitchen/dining area. 

When we graduated with our Masters degrees, Zach's parents got us a couch as a graduation gift.  I love our cinnamon settee!  However, I am not as found of the pillows, so I made an envelope case out of beige toile to cover one.  We always fight over the pillows in that Zach likes to have them on when we are both hanging on the couch, and I always like to remove the one from my side.  The white throw is actually a prayer shawl that was made by a local church to honor our wedding, and Zach stole the Christmas throw beneath it from his parents.

Our friend Michelle got us the King and Queen Chess hangings, and we bought the shelf lamp from Target.  There's a candy dish, white chess piece, and London phone booth bank on its shelves.  You can see into the kitchen/dining area through the window opening.

Finally, this is our extensive music collection.  One day we will have an nice and HUGE cabinet in which to store our music.  (You may have noticed more CDs stacked on the glass desk.)  This is another shelf lamp with a picture of Hobie in a frame Zach got me for my 25th birthday (its twin is on the desk), a cloisonné box Zach got in China, an Asian tea set from Zach's sister Erin (for our wedding), and some music DVDs.  The shadow box above our musical collection is most important.  Zach made this and used it in his proposal, which you can read about here.  His butt actually broke the glass in it as well!  I had it leaning against the couch across from these CD shelves so he would know where to hang it, and he came to sort CDs and sat down on it.  And, no, he didn't cut his butt!

I hope you enjoyed seeing where we live in The Owlery!  I assume you will see where we eat and cook next. :)