It all started with the pillows...

Over the past month or so (emphasis on the OR SO) I've been slowly working my way through a little makeover in our den. You see, its the heart of this house--its where we spend most of our time--and lately, it had been feeling a little too...dark? There are only windows on one end of this room, and even in the full sun of the daytime I felt the need to turn on lamps and I always found myself gravitating over towards the natural light in the room. And the black-white-and red motif I had going on wasn't helping matters. And honestly, that red tuscan style is more the me of 2006 than the me of 2011. These days I find myself craving the crispness of white, the coolness of blue, and I prefer to find my warmths in a warm chocolate brown than a dark shade of red.

So I set out dreeaming up ways to lighten this room up a bit without lightening up my wallet too much. You know how we roll. :) Since the sewing machine Santa gifted me back in December was still just collecting dust down on my craft table, I decided it was time to finally FINALLY get my sewing feet wet with some simple pillow covers. I spent a rainy afternoon at Hancock fabrics browsing for inspiration when I came across a gorgeous blue print in the upholstery section. It also just so happened to be right next to an even more gorgeous 50% of sign. :)

I carried my yard of inspriation around and chose two coordinating fabrics (also on sale!) and my new throw pillows--and the inspiration for my den's transformation was born:

A fun floral print paired with a coordinating stripe makes the room look fresh without being overly girly, since my husband has to live in this room too.

I fell in love with this creamy quilted fabric and so it became the big pillow for our big chair!

Looking lighter and brigther already! You can tell this was early on in the makeover as there are still touches of red peeking out!

Its been said a million times, but it is SO true: throw pillows, particularly ones you sew yourself, are a great way to get a lot of decor bang for your buck. If you want to make a change without spending a lot of, well, change, this is the way to go! In total, the fabric for the pillows cost around $20 and the pillow forms I already had, but were bought on sale at Ikea for around $3/piece. So in total, for 4 new throw pillows, I only spent around $35. You just can't beat that price!

So this was phase one! And it just snowballed from here...check back in tomorrow for more!