extreme makeover greenhouse edition

My roommate Jill has been back since Monday. When we moved into the Greenhouse a year ago, we were blessed to also receive furniture, appliances, and linens. Over the past year, however, we have both come to the conclusion that we need to take more ownership of our home. There's just something about arranging and decorating your living space that makes it more meaningful and personal. So rather than continue just working with what we got, we set out on a mission to find new bed linens and rugs to make our bedrooms our own.

You may or may not remember seeing pictures from last fall, but my room is two-tone: chocolate brown wood paneling on two walls and a minty-olive green on two walls. Loving the color combination, I decided to use earth tones like green, brown, and cream in my decorating. Also, I have three beautiful curly bamboo plants and a cactus so I wanted my bed linens to have an organic, plant-y feel to them. This week, I finally managed to find a beautiful duvet cover and matching pillow cases! Also, Pennymarkt just happened to have new duvets on sale for a great price, so I took advantage of the opportunity to replace my duvet. Not knowing how old it is or how many people have used it before me made me cringe just a little, so I'm sleeping a little better now knowing that only MY micro germs are inside my duvet. What's even better is that next week Lidl will have pillows on sale so I can replace those too. Pillows hold so many microscopic germs and whatnot that I just really cringe when I think of how long my pillows could have been used before I moved in. Maybe I'm just a germaphobe, but EW.

I've also gotten rid of my schrank (wardrobe) and replaced it with another dresser. On top of that dresser I set up two large mirrors and a rack to hang all of my necklaces. My nicer ones (pearls, etc.) will stay safely tucked away in my jewelry box, but all my other colorful, funky baubles are now out in plain sight to remind me to wear them more often! Kind of girly, I know.

Last week I got a great deal on a new bookshelf as well as a schuhschrank (shoe closet). Up until this point I'd just been stacking books under my desk, and since I got rid of my schrank I needed a place to keep my shoes. I was pretty proud of myself for putting the schuhschrank together; it was kind of really complicated.

The only thing that's missing now is a few rugs for my floor. I like the look of the laminate wood floor, but I hate that it gets so dusty every day. Also, it's nice to have something soft to step on in the winter time. Right now I have some ugly black and white woven rag rugs, and they really just make me sick to look at.

Coming soon: extreme makeover living room and bathroom edition!