I’ve got a motley collection of things that don’t get their own posts today.
1. New blanket! If you’ve ever read the comments section on Apartment Therapy (or, umm, anywhere on the internet), you’ve probably noticed that being incredibly kind and giving is not everyone’s top priority when making comments. I’ve usually gotten off fairly easy over there, though, and I try to be good at distinguishing between comments from people who simply have different taste than I do, people who want to be jerks because they think that’s fun, and people who have a genuine, well-intentioned critique to give.
I’ve had stuff on Apartment Therapy a handful of times, and my bedroom makeover has elicited the most mixed reviews by far (also the most page views by far), especially on facebook. Oddly, people take it really personally when you replace your ceiling fan with a regular old light fixture. They could never sleep without a ceiling fan, and they assume you’ve taken down yours because you only care about things looking pretty and not about function at all. Truth is I can’t stand to sleep with a fan blowing on me. The old one was just a fan with no light, and we wanted an overhead light, so it needed to be replaced. And it didn’t make a lot of sense to replace it with a ceiling fan we’d never turn on.
At any rate, one of the comments I got was mostly complimentary, but suggested that the West Elm duvet cover didn’t really fit in with the rest of the room. I took this critique to heart, partially because it was couched in the helpful constructive criticism format I learned to use when grading papers in grad school: “it’s great, but it sucks, but it’s great” (i.e. lead and close with something positive and sandwich all the negative stuff in between)….and because I’d actually been thinking the same thing myself.
Back when I first started planning out the master bedroom, I was thinking it would be a lot more gray….lots of cool grays and blues. So I picked out the scrollwork duvet cover from West Elm (looks like it’s no longer available on the website), stalked it until it went on sale, bought it, and doggedly stuck with it even as the rest of the room evolved to have a lot more warm colors and a less modern vibe than the duvet cover. Because it was not cheap, and I liked it, dammit!
But. I gave in. I think. I took off the cover and left the plain white duvet, and picked up this Threshold blanket from Target to go over it. Nothing fancy–just a warm brownish-gray cotton blanket. But I’m thinking it works better.
What do you think? I will take your opinion very seriously as long as you surround it by praise and make me feel special ;).
New blanket:
Old duvet cover:
Okay, motley thing number one took a lot longer to talk about than I expected. It’s just a blanket! Onward!
2. New Dishwasher:
Our old dishwasher broke. I can’t say I was too sad about this, because our kitchen came with an almost comically mismatched collection of appliances (white refrigerator, black dishwasher, black and cream stove, stainless steel built in microwave. Talk about motley!) and I’ve been itching to replace them all since we moved in. The dishwasher was the first to go. We went with a Kenmore because there was a good sale on Kenmore stuff at Sears (or, it seemed to be a good sale at least) and it had good reviews. And then my mom offered to buy it for me for my birthday! Yay! Sears made up for having the best sale by also having the slower and more expensive installation than Lowe’s or Home Depot, and our dishwasherless period fell during our visit from Dave’s extended family. But we persevered (by which I mean we ate out a lot) and so far so good with the dishwasher. Except the fingerprints. They’re sort of driving me crazy, just like my mother said they would.
3. This bowl:
I’m not sure why I feel compelled to write about this bowl. I almost didn’t even buy it at the thrift store, but then I got it home and it was so much prettier than it had been at the store. Like something out of a Renaissance painting! Especially with mangoes in it. Anyway. I like my new bowl.
oh i like the new blanket! gives the room a very sophisticated touch! and the bowl has powers over you if you were compelled to write about it! 🙂
uh oh. now I’m kind of worried that it’s HAUNTED! 😉
I love the new blanket but it looks awesome and it’s totally meant to live in your bedroom. (positive, followed positive, ending with positive). (Not a cohesive sentence, however.)
AT commentors can stuff it.
lol–I will ALSO accept comments that follow the positive-positive-positive structure 🙂
I think the new blanket fits the room better then the old one.. but I do like both.
We bought a special cleaner for our stainless steel appliances and clean it with a microfiber cloth… seems to help deter cat and dog nose smudges so maybe it’d help fingerprints too 🙂
I’ll probably break down and get something like that….I’ve tried a couple of different homemade cleaners, but nothing that works great 🙁
I love the new blanket and it really works well with the room.
I don’t get it either why people have such strong feelings about ceiling fans. I would never consider putting one up since we have central air and I much rather sleep with that on.
yeah….I guess I’m supposed to love opening the windows and having the fan on instead of running the air….but as soon as it’s hot enough to run the air here it’s also crazy muggy; I wouldn’t be able to stand having the windows open!
I like your light, I think it has flare and panache! Just one question – who has to get out of bed to turn it off at night? SWMBO and I race to bed since the last one in has to turn off the lights.
ha! we’re just so happy when Abe’s not in our bed and we can have the light on at all that we don’t mind turning it off ;). Also, there’s a second switch for it in the bathroom, so whoever brushes teeth last usually turns it off on the way to bed.
I like all 3 updates… I may bug you about how you like your kenmore in 6 months or so when we are ready to start updating some of our kitchen appliances. 🙂
I probably should have done an actual review of it and talked about features and all….but it was already so late after I went on for 500 words about my new blanket 😉
Love the new blanket. Since there are patterns in lamp shades and pillows, a more simple blanket works well.
Love the bowl love the dishwasher and love the new blanket! The color of the blanket really accentuates your pillows on your bed and works well with all of your cool art pieces in the room! And HA! I HATE ceiling fans! Every time the hubs would throw it on I would literally wake up with a sinus headache…so people need to back off! Your room is gorgeous! Happy Mother’s Day!!! Nicole xo
Yay–another ceiling fan hater! They’re terrible if you have allergies–they stir everything up so much!
I love the new blanket. And good for you for being open to ideas from the blog. While most of the time I scoff at ideas from Internet strangers (What? Like I can do anything wrong?) Sometimes, it’s nice to have a fresh sets of eyeballs. When I posted our new coffee table, someone suggested turning it around and BAM-O … it looks a million times better.
Ah yes, the critique sandwich. We always try to use those around here. Very effective 🙂
I LOVE your new bed spread. It’s so pretty and it works extremely well in your bedroom. The size is fantastic.
Congrats on the new dishwasher and that bowl is pretty awesome 🙂
ahh we have the same dishwasher from sears, and the fingerprints annoy me too. mostly because i dont understand…we have the same kenmore fridge and oven…and the prints are not as bad!
Hmm…weird! maybe you touch the dishwasher more? but why would that be?
Love the new blanket! It’s simple and really works so well with your bedroom. Good for you to be able to step back and really think through the critique.
Thanks, Amber–I’m so grown up like that 😉
I’ll be breaking in to steal that throw. See ya soon. Good thing I know the whole layout of your house. #creeper
ha! I bet buying your own at Target would be cheaper than the airfare to come down and steal it 😉
Your bedroom is gorgeous! I love birds. I love the bowl too. I have a similar one that my husband’s relative made – i think they are so pretty and timeless.
Thanks so much! I think I’m going to have to pretend that my wooden bowl is a precious family heirloom instead of something from the thrift store 😉
“Lead and close with something positive and sandwich all the negative stuff in between”. My man calls this the “BAD NEWS SANDWICH”. I love the blanket way more than the duvet cover; it looks more sophisticated and works with everything else more cohesively. I’m also digging the pops of green from your chair & bedside lamps.
“Bad news sandwich” ha-love it! Thanks so much for the comment; I agree–blanket beats duvet cover 🙂