Opulent Cottage

Fall In Love With Texas Blog Tour

Welcome to the Fall In Love With Texas blog tour! If you're visiting for the first time, welcome! I'm Andrea, and my husband and I live in a 1926 Tudor-style cottage in a historic neighborhood in Dallas. You can read a little more about us here.

Our home has changed quite a bit the last few years. It's taken me a while, but as my style has evolved I have lightened and brightened our decor. This year's fall decor is lighter and brighter too, and I'm loving the fresh feeling it adds to this wonderful season.

 

A botanical print from The Graphics Fairy was my inspiration for fall decor this year. Its accents of pink and green fit perfectly in our living room that I redid for last year's One Room Challenge. (You can also visit each of my previous reveals with the links on my right sidebar.) The pretty floral painting from Home Goods, with its background of moody colors, feels fallish to me. I spruced up a berry wreath with a few glittery gold leaves to brighten it.

 

Our TV armoire, painted Glidden's Deep Sapphire Blue, sets off the gorgeous orange vase that I scored at Ross. (You can see a closeup of the vase here.) I'm still loving our bright plaid silk pillows, even though I never thought I would leave them out year-round. The vibrant colors just make me so happy. The top of the cabinet looks a little bare, but I finally got tired of having to stand on the coffee table to turn the sound bar on and off, so I took most of the ginger jars down :)

 

The side table got dressed up with a simple basket of pumpkins and some candles I painted stripes onto.

 

I'll tell you though, it was hot the day I painted these, and my candles nearly melted out there! They're all a little warped now hahaha. The color is Rustoleum's John Deere Green. Yep, tractor paint in an opulent cottage lol. It's just about the most perfect shade of green ever! It really brightened up this formerly dark basket, too.

 

Across the room, a few touches of fall orange peek out from behind some pretty florals in this chinoiserie vase. 

 

Some fall florals made it into the hallway, also. This vintage telephone niche is original to our sweet old home!

 

In our sitting room, a lantern painted with Rustoleum's Rustic Orange is filled with a chinoiserie pumpkin. These little pumpkins are so popular now. Of course I went the budget friendly route and made mine, and just mod podged a dollar store pumpkin with a Caspari napkin :)

 

I truly hope that you have enjoyed these little peeks into our home! I'm so thankful for your visit, and especially thankful to Katie for organizing this fun blog tour! It's no small feat to pull 18 bloggers together and get everyone organized Here's the lineup of Texas bloggers you can visit for more fall inspiration --

 

Monday  

Let's Add Sprinkles

My Thrift Store Addiction

French Ethereal

Decor To Adore

 

Tuesday 

First Day of Home

County Road 407

Kitty's Cozy Kitchen 

Ash Tree Cottage

 

 

Wednesday  

The Aspiring Home
Sweet Nothings
Monica Wants It

 

Thursday 

Opulent Cottage
Bluesky At Home
Hyacinths For The Soul
Botanic Blue
My Heart Lives Here
Poofing The Pillows
White Spray Paint

 

If you would like to follow along you can find me on Bloglovin' here, on Facebook here, and on Instagram here. See you soon, and Happy Fall Y'all! xoxo

  

Hello Fall!!

Hi everyone! Long time no see. How are you?!

I'll post a few photos from past fall decor while we chat and get caught up :)

Fall Patio Decor

 

Fall In Love With Texas 2016

 

We have been busy busy bees around here! We have a shiny new business that we started back in May. The blog has taken a back seat to the red tape that goes along with a startup company, along with a few extra work hours :) But it's fall, and the temps are finally dropping in north Texas! There's no better reason to toss a few decorations up to celebrate.

Fall Harvest Basket

 

Our Cozy, Colorful Front Porch

 

I was kindly asked by my friend Katie at Let's Add Sprinkles to take part in her Fall In Love With Texas Blog Tour! I'll be back on Thursday with a few new things to share with y'all. In the meantime, you can click on the photo below to be taken to Katie's blog and see the lineup for the week.

 

See you Thursday! xoxo!

Happy Spring!

Happy first day of spring everyone! Goodness it has seemed like the longest winter ever, hasn't it? We were blessed with a gorgeous, sunny day today and it has me wanting ALL the flowers!

A few weeks ago this floral art came home with me. I didn't know exactly where it would land, but with these beautiful colors, I knew it needed to be in our house!

 

The $20 price tag sealed the deal, also :) 

When I found these pretty towels I knew I was on track for a bathroom refresh. Honestly, I started freshening this room a few years ago when I painted the walls white, and never really got around to finishing it. It's been plain, and sad, and totally neglected. 

 

This $4 thrifted bamboo frame actually came with this fun mat! I just removed the botanical print and replaced it with this happy print from a previous Rifle Paper Co. calendar. 

 

A little bit of color went a long way in this boring bathroom! I still need to make a fresh, white shower curtain and do some paint touch-up on the cabinet. There's also a space-saving bamboo shelf unit below the towels that I'll show you all in a future post. I promise I will photograph the whole, tiny room for you ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by! Wishing you all the most wonderful spring days, filled with sunshine and plenty of flowers :)

xo, Andrea

Joining:

Kim's Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Cozy at Christmas Home Tour 2017

Merry holiday season everyone! Thank you for coming by for the Cozy at Christmas Home Tour, hosted my my friend Katie at Let's Add Sprinkles! It's my second year to be a part of her event, and I'm super thankful to Katie for inviting me :)  If this is your first visit, welcome to our 1926 cottage! You can read a little about me and our home by clicking the About Me tab above.

Today I'm sharing our Christmas Sitting room. We hang out here more than any other place in our house, so I love to make it feel special for the season. We made over this room for One Room Challenge two years ago, which you can see here. 

 

We have gotten an unusually late start on Christmas this year. The three of us spent Thanksgiving at the beach in Galveston, Texas, for a short family getaway! We usually do most of our holiday decorating that weekend, but we haven't even brought the Christmas boxes down yet, and Maurie just got our lights up this past weekend. 

 

These sweet Pioneer Woman dishes were my souvenir from the beach. I know, I'm a big spender, right?! Yep, I hang out at Walmart even on vacation ;) The pretty colors are perfect for our bright sitting area. I love that they have an Anthropologie-ish vibe without the Anthro price tag.

 

Peppermint candle is from Ross. The gorgeous 1950s-era FrancisI candy dish is my best Goodwill score ever, for 99 cents. (I thought it was a reproduction because the stamp was covered with a price tag. Imagine my surprise!) 

I borrowed the gingham pillows from our bedroom and snagged a couple more of these inexpensive faux sheepskin throws at Ross. I love the wintry feel they give our room! 

 

This fun furry runner is from HomeGoods. I originally bought it for our dining table but it's the perfect size for our homemade cabinet. I added some ornaments and these sweet twinkling fairy lights. I posted live video of the twinkles on my Insta Stories this morning if you would like to see them! *Instagram stories only stay up 24 hours

 

As pretty as these settings are, they are about to get cleared away for some more holiday wrapping! In a small cottage every space must do double duty. The dining room table is currently loaded down with dozens of gifts for my husband's clients, and I'm on full-on holiday get it done mode! Once some of the organizing is done, I hope to get our tree up over the weekend to share with you all next week. Wrapping papers are from Marshall's, stripe glitter ribbon from JoAnn Fabrics, curling ribbon bows from Target. 

 

I hope you have enjoyed seeing our little room! Merry Christmas from all of us here at Opulent Cottage!

 

Here is a list of everyone participating in the Cozy at Christmas tour, I hope you'll give them a visit:

 

Cozy At Christmas 

 

Day 1
County Road 407
The B Farm
Decor To Adore
 Let's Add Sprinkles

Day 2
Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson
Ever Evolving Home
DIY Beautify
Opulent Cottage
Joy In Our Home

Day 3
My Heart Lives Here
Patina and Paint
Hyacinths for the Soul 
My Thrift Store Addiction
Ms. Toody Goo Shoes

Day 4
Poofing the Pillows

Botanic Bleu
At Rivercrest Cottage 
White Spray Paint

Day 5

Art and Sand
At Home With Jemma
Monica Wants It 

The Dedicated House

Ash Tree Cottage

 

 

 

Joining:

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

One Room Challenge, Living Room Edition, The Reveal!

If you are stopping by for the first time, welcome! I'm Andrea, and I live in a tiny 1926 Tudor Revival Cottage in a historic neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, along with my husband Maurie and three sweet kitties. Occasionally our daughter comes up from Austin and hangs out with us too :)  You can see my previous One Room Challenge makeovers here, here and here.

This time around, I jumped into the challenge at the last minute with no real design plan. A couple of things were in the works in our living room, but had stalled out due to indecision on my part. #hellokryptonite  At my hubby's urging, I took a deep breath and committed to giving this room a serious refresh, and am I ever happy that I did!

Four years ago I told our daughter that she would come home from college one day to find white walls with bright art and a whole new look. It has taken me several years to embrace this new design aesthetic, but I finally got here (more on this later). Say goodbye to dark and dated, and hello to light, bright and happy! (Click on photos to make them larger.)

 

 

Painting the walls my favorite Behr Ultra Pure White made the world of difference in this room! It didn't come without challenges though. More on this later, also :) 

For the first time ever, I finally bought a rug that is the proper size for our room. The rug is large enough to anchor the furniture and actually helps the small room feel a little larger. You can find it here, and I bought it during one of their 30% off sales. They have sales quite frequently, so it's worth it to hold out if you can wait for a sale.

 

Finding the luscious pink velvety fabric in the red tag clearance at JoAnn Fabrics was easily one of the best scores I have had in a while. It took a bit of cutting and plenty of stitching, but so worth it to have the exact color I wanted. For $33 I was able to cut 8 strips of drapery panel trim, with some leftover to trim out coordinating dining room draperies in the future. I simply sewed strips of the fabric onto these Ritva panels from Ikea, using clear thread.  And again, how lucky am I to have a husband who tolerates, and even likes, pink?!

 

I have been wanting to jump on the blush train, and this pretty fur throw has just enough blushy-pink to play nicely with the vibrant hues of the pillows. I snapped this up at HomeGoods. Fur pillows and white fur throw are from Ross. The plaid silk is vintage, and is bold but strangely seems crazy bright in every photo. 

 

Our Lila girl feels right at home on the pretty fur :)

 

This ginger jar art is my original photo, edited in the Waterlogue app.

 

Here's a copy for you all to save and print :)

 

Fresh, bright white lamp shades have really brightened our room, also! I wish I had done this ages ago. 

 

Once again I have such mixed feelings about the One Room Challenge being over. While it's nice to have our room mostly completed, especially in time for the holidays, the camaraderie that develops while ORC is going on will really be missed. It's certainly one of the greatest experiences I have had as a blogger. Linda, I just can't thank you enough for creating this amazing event!

One of the things I appreciate most about these challenges is the design growth that comes with the process. While this room was just a simple refresh, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, just like with our Master Bedroom last spring. And also, just like last spring, I can't believe this beautiful room is mine! I feel like the luckiest girl ever. 

In the past I would have been fearful of ordering such a bold rug, and would have agonized for weeks before committing to the drapery trim. Being a part of the energy that is ORC has certainly given me confidence in making new, brave design choices! Working alongside hundreds of bloggers taking design chances, learning new techniques, and pushing themselves to physical limits is both exhilarating and exhausting. And so so worthwhile. 

This wouldn't be complete without major kudos to my husband, the tolerant, open-mind guy who supports my crazy design ideas, stands in line at the fabric store to pick up more of what I should have gotten in the first place, strolls the aisles of flea markets and thrift stores, and just generally loves me no matter what. We make an unstoppable team! 

Thank you all so much for coming by to see my room! It means so much to me to have everyone's support. I so appreciate that you take time out of your day to visit. Mwah!!

Week 7 Designer Reveals are here and Guest Participants here.

Rug from RugsUSA.com; pink faux fur throw from HomeGoods; all blue and white pottery, decorative trays and boxes, garden stool, palm candle sticks from Ross; most other items are vintage/thrifted. 

 

 Joining:

Make It Pretty Monday at The Dedicated House

Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

 

One Room Challenge, Living Room Edition, Week Six

Week Six?? I seriously cannot believe I just typed that! It's time to kick into high gear! If you haven't already heard, Linda has extended this round of ORC to seven weeks. Between all of the natural disasters in California, Texas and Florida, she felt that everyone needed a little extra time to pull their rooms together. The new reveal dates are November 15 for the featured designers and November 16 for the linking participants.

You may have noticed that I completely skipped Weeks Four and Five. The last two weeks have been incredibly busy ones, and now I need to take up speed painting and go on a serious sewing binge. #cuethecaffeine

Honestly, there's nothing pretty to show right now! The sheetrock patching has been done and we will wrap up painting this weekend. 

The only other thing I managed to accomplish this past week was find a lamp shade to replace one of the dark ones. Isn't this pretty? I really could use two of these, so I'll be wasting more time running around again to see if I can locate a mate! LOL I'm really glad that this is the last glimpse that you all will get of this dreary yellow paint color :)

 

My honey brought me this beautiful orchid the other day! I'm so thrilled to have this pretty plant for our newly brightened decor. 

Done so far:

Buy gorgeous beyond gorgeous rug - check!

Locate missing can of blue paint for cabinet touch up - tore the house apart, searched our scary garage, and found the paint a week later. In the cabinet. Insert eyeroll.

Choose pillow fabric

One lamp shade

Buy second faux sheepskin - exact match, check!

Find a garden stool

 

Still left to do:

Finish patching and painting walls

Touch up blue cabinet

Sewing: pillows, table drape, sofa cushion cover, drapery trim - yikes!

Decide on art

Coffee table???

Remaining lamp shades???

 

Visiting for the first time? On Week One, I confessed I was only 12 hours into making the decision to join, on Week Two I finally came up with a design plan, and on Week Three the beautiful, life-changing rug arrived! You'll find Week Six of the featured designers here and the linking participants here. 

xoxo, Andrea

One Room Challenge, Living Room Edition, Week Three

Welcome to Week Three! The week where nothing is really finished, there's not much to show, and we are all starting to question our sanity. Linda's comment from yesterday made me laugh out loud: "It's Week Three of the ORC, and I'm hoping to see paint or wallpaper on walls, a lighting fixture or two might be reassuring and an actual rug or chair in place would warrant a virtual high five." Funny stuff, right?!!

Y'all, our rug came in last night and it is soooo beyond beautiful! It won't be in place until we finish painting, but I do have a sneak peek photo for you!

 

It's so soft, and bright but not overly loud. Like the rug for our Master Bedroom (here), it's a little darker than it appeared on my computer screen. I had looked through the customer photos on their site, so I anticipated this. For a room that gets so much traffic, it's the perfect shade that I hope will hide a multitude of feline and family shenanigans. Red wine, I'm talking to you ;)

I'm getting a better feel for the room now that the rug is here! Definitely using that gorgeous silk plaid, that I have hoarded forever, for some statement pillows. #hoardersunite  ;)  I will also bring back our fun orange and turquoise pom pillows from last fall. Some glammy gold will make its way in, along with my staple blue and white. And some faux fur, because FUR. 

Back to work for me!! Thank you so much for coming by! You can find this week's Featured Designers here and the Weekly Linkup here. Enjoy the inspiration!! 

Visiting for the first time? On Week One, I confessed I was only 12 hours into making the decision to join, and on Week Two I finally came up with a design plan!

xoxo, Andrea

One Room Challenge, Living Room Edition!!

As of 6:45 last night, I was firm in my decision to not participate in ORC for this round. We have so much going on right now, and honestly we have countless small projects that need to be finished without me starting something bigger!

Then, I checked my messages on Instagram, where I had posted a photo of the Spring ORC Master Bedroom. And the encouragement to join in had started. It only took Maurie saying "You'll regret it if you don't do it," and I was hooked. Living Room, we're coming for ya ;)

To be honest, we are already working on some projects in this room. Our living room has gone through a major transformation over the last couple of years (see here, here and here for prior photos) and I have become stalled trying to create the vision that's in my head for a lighter, brighter feeling in here. 

To date, we have had 2-1/2 walls painted for over a month now (who does that?!), I have chosen pillow fabric for fall, and I have already been on the hunt for new, lighter lamp shades. So there's a head start ;)

I'll be back next week with a more cohesive design plan. Once I figure out exactly what that is, haha. Here's a little peek at a few items I'm considering --

In love with this beautiful rug!

 

I'm on the hunt for a pair of these -

We could really use a pretty bamboo tray for our coffee table 

 

I have been coveting some monogrammed lamp shades forever!

 

Some bright, pretty pillows are a must!

 

And ginger jars galore!

 

You can find the featured designers here, and the Guest Participants here!

 

Welcome to Opulent Cottage!

Hello friends! If you're visiting the first time from Poofing the Pillows, let me give a big Texas welcome! Stacey and I love so many of the same things, especially homemaking, gardening, and Mom-ing! She's a dear blog friend, and one I am lucky enough to be friends with in real life also. I'm so super excited for them now that they have moved into their forever home, and can't wait to see all the happiness unfold in their gorgeous new home. 

As you may be able to tell from Stacey's post, we are color lovers!

 

Something is always changing in our little 1926 Tudor Revival Cottage. It's usually a combination of updating and damage control ;) We love DIY but enjoy a little down time, too.

 

You can read more about our home and some interesting facts about our historic neighborhood here. 

 

I also have a bit of a love affair with ginger jars...

As well as over the top holiday decor!

 

I hope you enjoy your visit here! You'll find categories to search through above, as well as a search box on the right sidebar. If you would like to follow along you can subscribe above, and I'm often on Instagram sharing new projects, as well as behind-the-scenes craziness on my InstaStories.

Thank you to my sweet friend Stacey for featuring our home!! Please go by and visit her at Poofing the Pillows!!

xoxo, Andrea

One Room Challenge, Master Bedroom Edition, The Reveal!!

Welcome to week 46 of One Room Challenge! Just kidding, although it did seem like it took that long to finish this room ;) How about I skip past the drama that caused this delay and just get straight to some photos?!!

It's lighter, brighter, and more colorful, and we couldn't be happier with it!

 

Rearranging this small 11 x 11 foot room made the biggest change. It feels so much more spacious! As you can see, we ended up keeping our old headboard and just removed the footboard that was crowding this tiny room. What a difference! 

 

These chandeliers may be one of my favorite things I have put in this house, ever!

 

Maurie and I were walking through At Home one day, and this art piece stopped us in our tracks. The colors pulled all the other elements of the room together. And no, my husband doesn't mind my wild colors, or pink, and he actually has an appreciation for floral art :) I know, I am one lucky lady!

 

Another benefit of rearranging the room was creating space for night stands! I joked earlier about it being a luxury and I really was not kidding. When the bed was angled I had no choice but to put my water glass in the window sill, haha, so this is really a treat ;) I had been coveting these bamboo tables forever, and they're perfect for this room.

 

I absolutely love this rug from Rugs USA. It's super soft and I think it will be very durable.

 

This vintage armoire really has been brought back to life with a few coats of chalk paint. I rub-n-buffed the hardware and it looks so fresh and new.

 

The top of the armoire is the perfect place to display some of my ginger jar collection.

 

This Ikea Tarva dresser fit into this small area perfectly, and we really needed the extra storage. I love love love the gorgeous pulls from World Market.

 

It never hurts to have another spot to display some pretties :)

 

I can't thank you all enough for hanging in there with me for as long as it took to finish this room! When I was writing this post, I realized I had completely forgotten to add links with product info, so I'll gather those and come back with a second post. I have a few tips to share with you all, and maybe a story or two about the debacles that happened while working on this nightmare bedroom. Hahaha

And if you haven't seen them before now, 254 other bloggers actually did make it to the finish line during the challenge, and you can find them here!!

Have a happy day, friends, and I'll be back sooner next time!!

xoxoxo, Andrea

Joining Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style