Tiny Oranges – Fresh, fun blog for OC moms

For anyone doing any sort of home improvement project, home design project, or if you are just someone who loves looking at photos of homes to get ideas, you will go CRAZY over this website, www.houzz.com.

The Houzz site is home to thousands of articles and interior and exterior photos that design professionals are able upload to showcase their portfolios. It is the largest database of design and decorating ideas.

You can create your own “Ideabook” by category, so whenever you see a photo that catches your eye, you can make a comment and save to  reference later. What I love the most is that you can sort and filter to find exactly what you are looking for.

For example, my husband and I are thinking about putting in new patio flooring, so I can search on Houzz by “Patio” and then also filter by style, “Contemporary.”

Then I add patios I like to my “Patio Ideas” Ideabook and he is able to do the same.  It is helpful to then be able to go back to look at all the ones you saved to notice what you like about them and see patterns emerge. Sometimes home projects can be overwhelming, and this makes it easier (and FUN!)

There is even more you can do with it…sharing, discussions, finding professionals in your area, etc…that I haven’t even explored yet!

I also recommend downloading the Houzz App if you are on an iPad or iPhone.  They even have a Houzz Kids’ Rooms App.

One of my favorite weekend activities is to steal away while hubby is with the kids to sit in bed with a cup of coffee to drool over gorgeous home photos.

Enjoy!

www.Houzz.com 

I fell in love with Jessica Bennett Interiors when she did my living room makeover last year so anytime she finishes a project, I can’t wait to see the photos as I am a sucker for design ideas.

This recent project was for Darlynn Morgan of Morgan Law Group, a long time Tiny Oranges friend and sponsor, so I was excited to share photos of their beautiful new office in Newport Beach.

Darlynn is an Orange County Estate Planning Attorney.

When she moved into her new space, she wanted to create an office where clients would feel like they were coming into her home and sitting at her living room coffee table.  At times estate planning can be difficult, so she wanted a calm and soothing environment that would put clients at ease.

When I saw what Jessica did with her vision, I don’t think they could have designed a more perfect space!  Here are the photos and the descriptions and details as written by Jessica.

A California Coastal Office
by Jessica Bennett Interiors  

We actually picked this blue based on the color of Morgan Law Group’s logo….we thought it would be a perfect tie in, plus we  just loved the color.

To offset the light gray-blue, we had all of the wood trim in the office stained to this dark espresso color (you should have seen how it looked before!!) and stuck with a warm, but neutral, carpet.

We wanted to maintain a traditional design with a fresh new appeal.

It was important to Darlynn that the space feel inviting, homey, and comfortable. The chairs are traditional staple pieces, but the pillows, oversized mirror, and lamp provide a modern twist.

Accessories are an essential in any space…and they are actually our favorite part of the whole design process.

In the Morgan Office, it was imperative to select accessories that made the space feel like a home yet were simple and understated. Here, a few pieces of blue coral, our favorite white scented candle, a fun silver “OK” sign and of course framed photos of Darlynn’s son did the trick.

Have you ever seen a conference room like this?? Bet you haven’t!

Again, playing on our subtle beach theme and our love of mixing traditional and modern elements, we created a conference room that felt more like a fun dining room.

We LOVE the slipcovered chairs, the bold accent pillows, and our soft and breezy window treatments.

This little space is another conference room, used when clients need to meet with Darlynn or one of her associates to review and sign documents.

We loved this table and chair combination…they had such unique silhouettes, yet worked seamlessly with the serene coastal artwork and accessories. We also loved how the black and blue play off one another perfectly.

 www.JessicaBennettInteriors.com * Click here to follow her on Facebook
Click here to see her blog and ideas * Tweet with @JBInteriorsInc on Twitter

www.MorganLawGroup.com  * Click here to follow her on Facebook 
Tweet with @DarlynnMorgan on Twitter

[Disclosure: Both are Tiny Oranges Sponsors]

The hubby and I recently finished a little makeover on our small guest bathroom so I thought it might be fun to share some before and after pictures.

I was in a bit of a quandary on what direction to go with it because it doubles as not only our girls’  bathroom but also our guest bathroom. So I called upon my good friend Jessica Bennett from Jessica Bennett Interiors to give me some ideas. Lucky for me she offered to give me some design opinions in the midst of all of her big projects. Thank you JESS!

It is really nice having a friend that is an interior designer, because I was going to make it a more cutesy-cutesy kids’ bathroom-ish but Jessica’s opinion was to make it a lovely guest bathroom which kids also happen to use. 

I am glad she set me straight because I love how it turned out. I think it is tasteful and stylish for guests, yet I was also able to throw in a FEW cutesy details for my girls.

Here are my befores and afters (please excuse the weird angles and shadows, the bathroom is so tiny it is really hard to photograph!):

Bathroom Before:

As you can see, it was a tad dark and lacking any personality or cohesive style.  It was sort of a mishmash including a 6-year-old faded pink and khaki shower curtain, rusted shower curtain rod and outdated pastel shell wall art. Ugh.

The first thing we did was to paint it a lighter color a (Behr’s Natural Almond.)  Click here for a must read post on an easy way to pick your paint colors – such a great Jessica idea. My husband then added crown moulding. Lucky for me I have a handy husband that likes to take on projects like this…

I was inspired by these cute monogrammed towels on My Favorite Everything and I think these turned out sooo cute!  I replaced the standard bath towel rack with two hooks and added hanging towels. She also gave me the tip to get the bath towels with hooks at Ikea. Cheap and functional!

Jessica found these cute Hot and Cold Hooks on Pottery Barn on which to hang them…

Another one of my favorite new things we added to our new bathroom was my husband’s DIY homemade “double wide” kids’ stool in plain white.  It is great because it is wide enough for both girls to stand on and not push each other out of the way to get to the faucet, which they inevitably did, even with two separate stools.

Another useful addition was the little black hanging hand towel for the girls adjacent to their stool at their level.  Before they would use the regular hanging guest towel, but because they had to reach for it, they would end up pulling it off a lot and it would end up on the counter or the floor.

I found a matching robe hook and then actually used a hanging washcloth in black (great for kids) also at IKEA which had a built in hanging hook.

Playing off the black and neutrals from the shower curtain, I found these cute monogrammed containers at Pottery Barn for each girl’s toothbrush and toothpaste! Easy for them to reach and they like having their own “letter” cup to put their stuff back in when they are done!

For the bathroom wall art, I was looking for something a little fun (and I admit a TAD cutesy) so I was so excited to find these darling bathroom art prints on Etsy. I emailed the link to make sure they were “Jessica approved!”  I love that I could use the “Hang Your Towel” one above the girls’ towels.

And I just LOVE the Pottery Barn Shower Curtain Jessica recommended.  The ruffles make it feminine and fun for a girls’ bathroom. This piece sort of set the decorating tone for the entire bathroom.

Overall, I love the new look. We made a bunch of changes, all cosmetic, but these things can make a big difference. Here are a list of links if anyone is looking for these items!

Medicine cabinet: Classic Recessed Medicine Cabinet from Pottery Barn

Light fixture: Bennett Triple Sconce from Pottery Barn

Faucet: Heritage Double-handle Centerset Bathroom Faucet in Chrome Porcelain Cross from Overstock.com 

Vanity Fixtures: Chatham Knob in Polished Chrome from Restoration Hardware

Mongrammed toothbrush cups: Ceramic Monogrammable Bath Accessories from Pottery Barn

Guest Towel Ring: Bennett Towel Ring from Pottery Barn

Kids’ Towel Hook & White Bath Mat: Bed Bath N Beyond

Bathroom Art Prints: DeliveredByDanielle on Etsy

Frames: Matted 11 x 14 black frames from Michael’s (check your weekend paper for coupons)

Shower Curtain: Ticking Stripe Ruffled Shower Curtain on Pottery Barn 

White Bath Towels, hand towel and black washcloth: Ikea (in store – make sure to look for the ones that have the HOOKS if you want to hang like we did)

Towel Monogramming: The Monogram Store, Newport Beach

Wicker Vanity Tray & Waste Basket & Kleenex Holder: Crate & Barrel

Candle & Oil Diffuser: Pomegranate from Pottery Barn

 Thanks for reading and special thanks to Jessica for giving me her professional opinion and great ideas! 

www.jessicabennettinteriors.com

This year one of my goals is to slowly go through each room in our house and do some updating. We moved in almost seven years ago and haven’t done much decorating since we moved in, so I guess you can say I am getting the seven year itch for some fresh decor!

This updating bug started last year with my living room makeover, which inspired me to slowly take on the other rooms.

First room on the 2012 list is our  guest / girls’  bathroom. 

Jessica of Jessica Bennett Interiors, a local design firm specializing in young adults and families who did my fabulous new living room, is helping me with our project. Because it is such a small space, I am doing one of her DIY design packages, where she provided the (oh-so-cute) concept and ideas, and we are doing the legwork.

Now that my husband installed the crown moulding and the new medicine cabinet has been ordered, the next task is to pick a new paint color.

In my DIY Jessica-provided package, she gave me four paint color swatches.  And God bless her for this, because picking out a paint color to me is torturous. I have total paint picking phobia. It was so nice to be relieved from the misery of swatch comparison. 

On her blog, I remembered seeing a blog post called “How to Date Your Paint Color Before You Marry It” which is such a great idea I had to share it with you.

Read More >>

This past March I did a post on the extreme accessories makeover that Jessica Bennett Interiors did on my living room.  Every single time I walk through my new living room it makes me feel happy.

From this first post, Jessica got lots of inquiries from Tiny Oranges readers also wanting some design assistance. One of these inquiries resulted in a super cute “big boy” room for a soon-to-be big brother of an OC mom in Irvine!

I love that my post turned into a beautiful new room for another family, so this is a full circle project between Jessica Bennett Interiors and Tiny Oranges! I love design posts so I am thrilled to show you this family’s before and after pictures of their two-year-old’s new room.

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