It is now two weeks into the summer of my third year of teaching, and and I'm filling each day with curriculum writing.  The good thing is I get to work from home, in my PJs, and I get paid for it! WooHoo!
But in my down time, when I just need a break, I've been searcing the internet for design elements and making design boards  for each room in our house - Eric's so excited (all he sees when he looks at them are dollar signs).  I promised him I'd pace myself, and that this summer, I really wanted to get the living room and our bedroom done.  After lots of pleading, he gave in, and I began the search for the living room of my dreams - at a quarter of the price.
As I was searching, I decided that I needed two romantic bedside lamps for the bedroom first.

I found this at target for cheap:

I love it.  Eventually I want to get candlesticks that match.

For the living room, I decided I just didn't like the style we had.  These are the pictures we based our design around before:

We had a rug that matched and for a while I thought I'd take the green out of it and use that in the room, but I felt like I was settling.  It's too artsie fartsie for my style.  So I went on a search for curtain fabric at fabric.com, and decided to design the room around them.

This is a case in which the third try's a charm.  I found one I really thought I liked and designed a whole room around it, and when Eric saw it, he told me it looked like a kids room fabric.  I just liked the bright colors, but as I looked at it more, I realized he was right on the Richloom Cornwall Cadmium:

So, back to square one.  I knew I wanted red in the room since it's open to my red kitchen, but 

I LOVE blue rooms!   I went on a search for something that would coordinate with my kitchen, and found this Suzani Autumn/Natural.  I liked the pattern and decided it would work.

Eric really liked it, and I did too, but I felt like I was settling again, I still wanted blue, but wasn't sure if it would look good with red.  So I went on a search for red and blue rooms and found this:

I. LOVED. IT.  I began to search fabric.com for blue fabric, and finally found the one that speaks to me!

Dwell Studio Bella Porte Twilight:

With these fabrics for pillows:

Some Red Frames with fabric artwork:

A round red mirror on the coffee table with light blue woodwick on top:

My antique dresser mirror on the mantle painted red...here's what it looks like now:

I think I'll use a pale blue paint color on the walls to finish it off!!

I love it, and I can't wait to put it all together!!  I'm so glad I didn't settle!