:: playing designer

For years now, I've thought about going back to school for interior design. I love to decorate & over the years I've helped all of my friends buy furniture, fluff and rearrange their homes, I've even helped in their friends homes...but I've never actually gotten paid for my help. 

Well, that's all changed now. I've officially gotten paid for my first real design job. My new friend/client is a client of my husbands, and friend of his sister's who suggested that she give me a call. She's a real sweetheart, a busy working mom who needed some help decorating her house. 

I first thought I would be going over to help do more of a fluff job, but nope...this is full on bottom up decorating job {yee}. Before the holidays we picked out flooring & a wall color, and over the holidays she had her new flooring installed, and she had everything painted. I've helped her pick out a new Sofa, rug, entertainment center, coffee table, side table, and an adorable phone table for her kitchen. We still have the kitchen, dining room, and master bedroom to buy for. It can be hard to stay on track with so much to do, but I'm trying to let her see one room put together at a time.

This is the room I laid out today in photoshop. { please excuse any wonky pictures & bad perspective } 

No...I don't plan for the chairs to be facing this way, crazy huh. In the end they will be facing the sofa for a comfy cozy conversation area. I need her to see what the chairs I'm thinking of for the space will look like with everything else. I also wanted to give her a good visual of what her room will look like once we get some accessories and curtains up.

Here's another version with a different set of chairs and a swing arm lamp instead of the coral based lamp {which I love}. Man Oh Man, the hardest thing is not turning around and buying all this great stuff for myself. Luckily though I get to live vicariously through her. Not to say that some rooms around here aren't on my agenda this year ; ).

Here's the living room before. Her house was under a good bit of construction when I first started, she had popcorn ceilings replaced, and the walls were being repaired and smoothed out, you can see here she still had her carpeting down. {we had already purchased the rug and coffee table before I remembered to take pics }

Here's where we are today. So you can see this is the image that I added my furniture and accessories to. Now, I'm not the best at Photoshop layouts yet , so some of my items in the first image are probably a little out of proportion, and the perspective is off too, but I still think it will give her a good idea of where we are going.

Now you know...best laid plans and all. The room may not end up looking that much like the first pic, it just depends on if we purchase the items I have pictured, and of course whether or not she even likes what I've put together...so we shall see.

Anyhoo, this is what I've been up to lately, and it really feels good to have a somewhat real job again. We'll see if it leads to more. I think I could get used to this. 

Hope you all have had a wonderful week so far.

:: peace, love & hugs ::

Carrie