time to get busy.

For the last three months I have been talking about how I need to finish decorating/coordinating our apartment. Lots and lots of talking. Not so much on the "doing" part. Well, today we spent the afternoon going to open houses with Kyle's parents just for the fun of it, and it made me oh so exited for the day to come when we will have a home of our own where I can paint the walls, and buy things to fill it. I guess apartment life has somehow made me not put myself into the decorating because I know we won't always  live in an apartment. But then, I was strolling through the blog world today, and came across this amazing blog. I literally fell in love with their BEAUTIFUL house transformation. And it made me, once again, lust a little bit for a beautifully put together home. So I decided. It's time to jump on the "doing" end of my talking.

The main thing that really needs attention is our living room. I have an ottoman I bought for an apartment while I was in college, pillows from my last apartment, curtains I bought for this apartment (a blue-gray color I'm pretty in love with), and a couch and chair that are just a very neutral beige. Oh, and a console table I scored for $40 off Craigslist. I need to pull it all together, so let the attempt begin. What I would really love is to be able to rearrange the furniture, but unfortunately we have a rather large TV, which takes up the best-case wall for the sofa, and no other cable outlet to move the TV to. Dilemma, yes.

I love the blue color of our curtains, and our bedroom and kitchen have that color too (see Martha Stewart @ Macys. Love.), so I love it being the focal color, with some light colors thrown in with it. While I like the comfort of our ottoman, I am starting to lean towards thinking it needs to be replaced by a less large coffee table.

My problem when browsing the internet for pillows and accessories is picking something and sticking with it. It's kind of like when I go to a buffet. It all looks so good, so I just load up, and end up having a plate of completely mismatched food. I have to reel it in somehow, and decide if I am going with soft, light accent pillows, or bold, eye-catching ones.

In the end, this is our home now, and as the lady of the house, I feel like I need to really make it feel like home. I want to love our home, and I need to make that happen. So here is the quest to some fabulous finds.

And here is my board of pillows I found today I liked-decided to buy pillows first to help set the mood. See my issue with picking a decor route? Yeah, I need major help.

And here is the really good news. After all that, I have NARROWED IT DOWN! Wait, what. I actually started a process of elimination? We are really getting somewhere here, folks. Here are my favs:

As you can see, I have numbered them. Know what that means? I need your help. (pretty please!) Which ones do you like? And I know the blue on #3 doesn't really match, but I can get the cute little bird in ANY color! I want to buy 3-4 pillows for the living room. 2-3 for the couch, and one for the chair.

I'm making pillow purchases THIS week. Talk about making things happen. Oh so excited! 1-9...which ones will they be?