somewhere in the not-so-distant future...

i love flea markets and second hand stores. the old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" could not be more true! i also love to decorate, or should i say, daydream and scheme about decorating. i don't have the extra money or time right now, and even if i did, we don't own a house, but someday we will. when that day comes, my husband has generously agreed to let me decorate the entire thing, sans one room which he will call his own (and undoubtedly line the walls with beer steins and minnesota twins memorabilia). more power to him.

my style is more of a shabby chic, big on shabby, small on chic. i like junk, but not just any junk, cool and vintage junk is the best. i like old stuff, i like stuff period. i'm kind of a pack rat, but not in that creepy "the-paramedics-had-trouble-getting-to-the-body" kind. i like to search magazines for ideas and clip them out and save them in a file. i like to search the internet for ideas and save them to my "favorites" in order to access them with ease. i like websites about decorating and crafting stuff. if i had my way, i would spend half my days at flea markets and second hand stores (with kids in tow, of course) and the other half at home decorating, crafting and playing games with the children. my house would be so homey and awesome. (i'm also under the illusion that i will eventually be talented enough to sew all of my kids' clothes. i'm sure they'll love that when they are teenagers.)

till then, i will continue to clip and save my ideas. some of them i'll share with you. this is one of my favorites:

some smarty decided to cover a fridge in magnetic chalkboard paint. how awesome is that? magnetic chalkboard paint! you could jot down phone numbers and grocery lists all while proudly displaying your children's latest van gogh with your favorite vacation themed magnet! i am definitely going to do this if i ever have my own kitchen, though it'll take some wrestling with the mr. he seems to think the entire house would be covered in chalk dust and we would be walking around with our lips sticking to our teeth and blowing dust from our noses ("cough, cough, i think i've got the black lung..." ala zoolander). is it just me or does that seem a little overly dramatic?

on the subject of decorating...here are a couple of my most favorite "idea" books.

i'd love to hear about your decorating styles. what kind of ideas do you have?