New. And Improved?

I pulled the trigger on the RASTs I've been wanting.  Yesterday I made the endless one-and-a-half-hour trip to the IKEA in Portland all by myself (sigh-- when you live 3000 miles from most of your friends and all of your family, you have to go to IKEA by yourself sometimes), and I almost came home with three things: two RASTs and the perfect ceiling fixture for my guest room.  Flush-mounted so tall people can walk under it without whacking their heads, not boob-shaped, no weird glass, nice textured shade, etc.  And also, it costs $30.  I didn't leave with it, though, because they wouldn't sell it to me.  Apparently it's been recalled?  Which isn't mentioned on the website.  And it was on the shelf, available for sale, in the store.  Anyway.

RASTs!  Behold them in their pre-makeover state:

They look pretty sad, no?  But they will be beautiful when I finish with them.  And I think they make the room look bigger since they're so shallow-- there's much more floor space than there was with my previous mismatched nightstands.  Here's the view from the doorway:

 

So what will I do with them?  Here's my inspiration photo (from here):

 Mine are already the proper height for the bed, so they won't be getting legs like the one in the inspiration photo, and I'm probably not going to bother adding the false drawer front to the bottom-- though I may decide to put a faux-legs-looking panel across the front at the bottom.  I haven't yet decided how to apply the fretwork; that'll take a trip to the Home Depot to see what they've got and how much it will cost me to do the work myself versus ordering pre-cut fretwork from myoverlays.com.  As for the color, check out this detail shot of my rug:

 

Hey box fan!  Anyway, if you count the bands of color on the rug from the outside in, when you get to the fifth band, you'll see the bright chartreuse-y green I'm thinking I'll use.  I'm also attracted to the slightly-less-chartruese version in the second band.  Here's another view that might help you see both options more clearly:

Of course, this will mean finding a new home for my orange flame-stitched pillows.  Right now I'm totally feeling this fabric for their replacements:

Or similar.  Or not similar at all.  I love fabric-hunting and I can't wait to see what I can find.

After I left the IKEA yesterday I couldn't help wandering into the Home Goods that's conveniently located right next door to it.  I left with two things.  First, a dining room rug:

Please pardon the fact that it's currently sitting on top of the old dining room rug.  Right now we're in a trial-run type of situation.  I like the navy, and I think it makes the dining room feel a lot younger and brighter, but it's the same size as the old rug and I really think it's just too small.  I really need a 7' square.  What do you think?  Too small?

And then I couldn't resist a navy-and-white ikat flatweave for $14.99.  It's chilling in my bathroom, where it covers a significant chunk of the pink Marmoleum floor:

Yeah, just noticed that blue painter's tape stuck to the wall above the window.  I'm a mess.  

While we're in the bathroom, see that light-blue stripe painted under the window?  I was going to paint the bathroom this weekend.  Here's another shot that shows a few more patches of what will be the color:

But this morning I decided I'm going to do something just a little more drastic than paint.  I've been fighting with the orange-peel texture ever since we moved in.  I just don't like it.  And every time I have to do anything in there, it means buying a can of orange-peel spray and trying to blend the patch.  Which never works.  So why am I going out of my way to maintain it when I could just do this instead?

Yes, that's right.  I'm going to skim-coat the walls and ceiling using the squeegee method.  And then I'm going to paint them blue.  And then I'm going to order some flooring samples.  And then and then andthenandthenandthen!  [Name that movie?  Anyone?]