Top of the morning to you!
I had a fabulous 8 hours of sleep last night! Wheeeeee. No nicky nicky nine door antics. This is progress.
My Vegan Overnight Oat Parfait was killer this morning. I feel like I haven’t had one in forever!!! Her Mix-A-Lot has been getting all of my love and adoration lately.
Carob, Cacao, & PB Vegan Overnight Oat Parfait
Ingredients:
- Carob Vegan Overnight Oats (1/2 cup oats, 1.5 tbsp chia seeds, 1.25 cups almond milk, 1.5 tbsp carob powder)
- Peanut Butter Banana Soft Serve (1 frozen banana processed with 1 tbsp peanut butter)
- 1/4 cup Rice Crisp cereal (for layering)
- Cacao nibs (for layering)
- Carob powder, for garnish
- Homemade raw chocolate, for garnish
- Unsweet. coconut, for garnish
Directions: Make the carob Vegan overnight oats by whisking the ingredients together in a small bowl and leaving in fridge overnight or for 1-2 hours. In the morning, Make the PB Banana Soft Serve. Layer the soft serve with the VOO, cacao nibs, and rice crisp. Sprinkle with carob powder and coconut. Add two chunks of homemade chocolate and enjoy!
This was incredible! I love, love, love the rice crisp added as a layer in the middle. Same with the cacao nibs. So crunchy!
My Simple Decorating Trick: Pick a colour scheme!
Ok, so last night I promised you some decorating footage!
On Sunday, I realized that Eric and I still had gift cards that were given to us for wedding gifts almost 2 years ago! We had gift cards to William Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Winners, and Crate & Barrel. I asked Eric to come with me and he said he ‘trusted me’ to do it alone. aka…he hates shopping! So I tackled it myself like a champ. One of my favourite things to do is decorate, so I didn’t mind.
We finished renovating and painting the family room in Fall 2009. And then we left it. No decor, no colour, nothing on the walls. We were scared.
It occurred to me that the reason why we never ‘finish’ decorating rooms is because we never develop a colour scheme to guide us.
I thought the colour scheme of chocolate, lime, and lemon would look awesome together (with yellow and green being the accent pieces). I picked those colours because there is a lot of chocolate already in the room (couch, wood, bricks) and I picked yellow and green because there are some engagement pictures I want to blow up that have yellow and green in them. The room naturally has lots of green in it with the large windows and the trees in he backyard too.
Now that I had three colours in mind, it automatically narrowed down a ton of options. I didn’t feel overwhelmed as I usually do when looking for home decor. I just scanned the stores for those three colours and it was so much easier!
One great way to add accent colours is with fun and bright pillows…
The two pillows on the right are from Crate and Barrel and the one on the left is from Wal-mart.
I got 6 so far and might pick up another 2 or 3 as I see fit.
I love how something as simple as pillows can transform a room!
Then I bought some accent pieces to add to the room…
This lime green pot is from Winners and the faux fruit are from Pottery barn.
Love this sculpted piece from Winners.
Also both from Winners!
The lemon tree is from Pottery Barn (sorry the pic is blurry!)
Right now all of that stuff above is on the fireplace because we don’t have any family room furniture aside from the couch and the Ikea coffee table.
My plan for the fireplace is to remove the large picture on top and add a print with the accent colours to give it more of a pop of colour. Maybe one of our wedding or travel pictures would work there?
I would love to purchase a nice coffee table, corner chest, and small table, but that won’t be for a while. I drooled at all of Crate and Barrel’s furniture…they have some gorgeous things in there.
What I am focusing on right now:
1) Prints for walls (see below)
2) Coffee table
3) Decorative Curtains
Something is definitely still missing to pull this room together!
We will also eventually be putting hardwood on the floors and removing the carpet.
I want to do prints of a few of our engagement pictures. I am going to pick some with the most vibrant green backgrounds. Luckily we have a lot of engagement pictures with bright green in the background so it works perfectly! I am going to do one huge one and 2 smaller ones.
I also want to hang curtains, but I find it so difficult to figure out what would look good!
Ideas?
I really dislike the hunter green blinds that are up right now. I would like to keep them up though because they were custom made and they are good when you need to block out the light. I would just like something to cover them up.
I also haven’t showed you the other side of the room with a fireplace. I will do that in another post.
Today’s question: Do you have a favourite room right now in your living space? Do you have a favourite colour scheme or colours that you are drawn to for home decor?
I am also looking for a colour scheme for the entry way and eventually dining room. Right now we have Biscuit by Sherwin Williams on the walls of the entry way, but that is it.
I’ve got a busy day of work and I am going to squeeze in a run at some point. See you later and enjoy your day!
I love using bright colors like lime green, especially as accents! You have great style!
I am definitely not the decorator in our house. But my boyfriend is an artist so that’s why I leave it up to him. We currently have over 20 pieces of original artwork from either him or some of our friends hung on every possible wall in our tiny Toronto apartment.
Good morning! I have to know, where did you get that couch? I’m looking for exactly this kind of sectional, and I love the dark color of yours (I have five kids, a huge dog and 2 cats, dark fabric is a must). Thank you!!
My VOO’s always look so messy! Have you tried using GM banana soft serve? I tried it this morning with kale and blueberries and it’s not pretty but it actually tastes really good with overnight oats.
I love the lime green, yellow and chocolate combo. Your home looks so warm and inviting and I love that just outside the window you have nature!
Get a bright white/off white curtains with green and chocolate/coffee prints.. something like your pillow :) … White always retains brightness and warmth of family room… If too difficult to find you can easily get white and green combo and sew/glue some chocolate/coffee beads/laces… you are much more creative… create something unique of your own to match your theme :) .. It will be lots of fun.
BTW I made your cherry coconut butter banana bread and it turned out simply superb :) Thanks a lot for sharing recipe.
We have our family room in a light sage green from Sherwin Williams while our kitchen and eat in area is an orangish/brown called Brandywine and those colors flow well. We have a dark brown sectional with blues, yellows, greens in the pillows.
That breakfast looks absolutely amazing. Yum!
I am trying overnight oats tomorrow!
Our kitchen is one of my favorite rooms. We painted it a sunny yellow and it has these wonderful built in shelves. The cupboards don’t match and neither do the countertops but it’s homey. I also really like our spare bedroom/my sewing room. It’s bright green (I think the color was called pickle!) and has a window seat. We ripped out the horrid red carpet that was in there put down a cream area rug over the naturally distressed floorboards. Come to think of it, those are the only 2 rooms we have put work into, so maybe that’s why they’re my favorites!
that room looks gorgeous as is!! and oh my i want that breakfast.
Oh my that couch of yours looks so inviting! Beautiful choices! As for window shades, I’d suggest something neutral, similar to the color of your walls.
Right now our living room is in similar colors – dark brown furniture, accented with green, yellow, and even a bit of purple.
Your parfait looks particularly pretty this morning! :) I love your color scheme – I always seem to use browns and greens together in my house.
First off – I want to live on your couch. I think if I had a mini fridge I could actually live there right on the couch.
We had a dark sage green in our house with tan walls and I was always feeling like the room needed something and about a year ago we painted just one wall a super dark purple color and it finally made the room feel finished. I LOVE accent walls!
I think your rooms and color schemes look great, I love browns and greens too! :D
And I tried Vegan Overnight Oats for the first time last night… when I prepared them I used 1/3 cup oats, 1 tbsp chia, some raisins and only 1/2 a cup of soy milk because it already looked like soup! I mixed them with cherry banana softserve in a glass and topped it with a tiny bit of granola and cacao nibs. Oh my goodness, the oats were soooo creamy!! I’m glad I finally gave this a try, I can’t wait to try a pumpkin version!! :D
Now I just need to get a nice parfait glass so everything isn’t in really wide layers… :P
i love the green in your home! it looks gorge.
I always have such a hard time with curtains as well. It’s so hard for me to visualize what would look good, what fits and so on. :-/
Love the decorating- that colour of green is beautiful! My mom used to own a home decor store and I’ve always loved arranging things in our house. Right now I’m working on my room- I just got the most gorgeous chair and chandelier… yes, a chandelier in my bedroom- how luxurious!
That is a great way to decorate. It’s almost fool proof as long as you have the right balance of dominant versus accent colors.
Beautiful! I love the choices you’ve made so far.
I think having art on the walls will bring the room together. For the windows, I’d go with either green silk curtains to match the green accents you already have, or something brighter, like an ivory linen. That will add some depth, I think!
i LOVE the color scheme! beautiful :) my favorite room right now is the only room that’s been painted since we moved in…our guest bathroom! it’s this beautiful Mediterranean blue with lots of white and some deep red accents. i love it!
you just helped me tremendously!!! I love these colors together!! I’m trying to figure out what to do with our living room as we just moved into the house. After our wedding I need to go gung ho on decorating. I think I’m going to use your color scheme! One of the walls is already green, so I’m going to have to get more chocolate/lemon colors. You are a life saver. looove the pillows!
PS: not only did your decorating rock my world this morning, so did that parfait! yum!
Oh, and plants!! Lots of plants. Not only are they beautiful, but many detox the air, removing the “off-gassing” that new textiles emit.