I don’t decorate… luckily, Mom swooped in for the weekend to help.

My mom and I have a very special relationship. I’ve always had a huge amount of respect and adoration for my mother. She’s a nurse, she knows her shit, and she’s been through it all and raised 3 kids all while climbing up the corporate ladder. She’s a superhero.

We sort of got along as I was growing up. I lied to her a lot…. like all the time. But we finally came to an understanding of each other when I broke my leg at the tender age of 14 and we crossed the first mother-daughter trip off our bucket list. Oklahoma City for the Women’s College World Series. We learned a lot about how we could get along better on that trip. If neither of us has anything to say, we just don’t fill the silence with nonsense conversation. We’re perfectly content riding in a car together with just music on, not speaking for hours on end. Because of that trip, we have taken many others; New York – sometimes just for shopping, and Louisville – for the Kentucky Derby (a 9 hour drive where the only question was “what car are we taking”), just to name a couple.

I say I don’t decorate. And I don’t. For the past 3 months, my apartment has been very bare-bones. Mainly because I haven’t been home long enough to do anything… or so I thought. Mom came down for 3 full days and wait till you see what we did.

It started like this:

I added a couple things on my own with no clear direction really of what I wanted to do, I just knew I needed table space. So along came the bar cart, and the coffee table. What I really needed was mom’s touch.

We created a list, both of stuff I needed/wanted and stores we wanted to hit. HomeGoods, Michaels, World Market, Pier1Imports, Marshalls….. the usual.

Marshalls was our first stop since HomeGoods didn’t open till 12pm on a Sunday. We didn’t make it past the clothes before we had our arms full of dresses, typical. But we eventually made our way back to the chairs – that was the first thing on the list, I had one in mind that I’d seen at World Market a couple times, but we wanted to make absolutely sure.

It’s my princess chair. My plan was to use it as a desk chair as well. Anyway, we find some simliar chairs at Marshalls and take a seat to test them out. As we’re sitting there, Mom notices an espresso storage ottoman hiding under some shelves. We pull it out, its perfect. Exactly what I’ve been searching for, and it’s $179.99?! DONE. MINE. “Excuse me miss, do you have a cart or something we can put this on, I’m bying it, but we need to try on these dresses first….”

Luckily it fit in the trunk of my car. Hooray again for Hyundai’s! Over to HomeGoods for whatever else we could find, I ended up with a hanging metal wine rack that I’m using as a towel holder in the bathroom… it’s not up yet, I need sturdier nails for it.

We finally went over to World Market so I could show Mom my chair. Seriously, I’ve been looking at it for 3 months, but never pulled the trigger to buy it. Maybe there was something in the back of my mind saying it may not be the right choice. Or maybe I’m giving myself too much credit. So we’re wandering around… and find this pillow…. THE pillow that started it all…

I was ready to buy it without anything else… and then everything started falling into place. Blue is where my head had been because my artwork for the walls all has hints of blue in it. So we find this fabulous pillow… and then a papasan chair in white…. hmmmmmmmm.

That just feels right. I’d always loved my Uncle’s in Pennsylvania, I could always be found fighting to sit in it when we visited. And it’s price was juuuuuuust right. It would allow me to also buy something that would fit in that corner my bike is taking up. Something like….. A bistro table maybe?! That way I don’t have to eat my dinner in my lap? YES.

Lowe’s might just have what we’re looking for…. Mom’s thinking something thin and iron. To match the bookshelf I already have over there. Perhaps a patio table type something…. something like…. THIS:

And oh look… its BLUE too! What an ass that was to put together. Screw curved piece B into rounded piece C, make sure its flush against the bracket. ARAAGHHHH. We need more pillows.

Here, hold this plant, we can’t fit anything else into my car…. We’ll come back for the chairs.

So we get back to the apartment to unload and set out what we’ve found so far…

Yes, the rug is AWESOME. Bed Bath and Beyond Biatches! OK, back for the bistro table chairs and then back to World Market to actually buy the Papasan…. we should probably pick up some rope too, to strap it to the top of the car. I imagine my car with a turtle shell at this point…

Minor Setback, all the papasan chair frames are broken. Good news, one is coming in on Tuesday! And its not for anyone, lets get you a rain-check so you can come back and pick it up when it gets in… WHOOP WHOOP! So I bought the padding and footstool for it to start. We came back to the apartment to start putting everything together… its finally starting to look like a cozy home!

We also added some multipurpose seating on my little patio

I was exhausted by the time we got home… too many decisions made in one day…. but I guess thats all it really takes is one day to put a room together. My Monday morning conference call was fun, I got to point out my new plant and watch my mother crawl across the floor to not be seen so she could get the curtains she wanted to iron.

I have paid attention all these years to the decorating and redecorating that happened in my parent’s house… I learned I inherited my mother’s gift for carrying a color, and I can halfway decently put together some items, I just have to be shown how to do it first.

We didn’t get to Cafe Du Monde on Saturday, it was a zoo. So I just walked mom 7 miles around the French Quarter, and of course, Bourbon Street, where she got a hand grenade. Monday, we decided, we’d have a better chance at Beignets. We were correct.

I also may have coherced her into the H&M for the Home Goods section. What has happened to my life. 2 pillows and 2 new green pillowcases later…. my bistro table is complete. and matching my rug.

The last piece of the room was to hang the artwork that started this whole escapade.

It’s all New York themed, yes, I’m missing 2 pictures that still need to be printed, and yes, that is a personalized signed Doc Gooden photo in Yankee Blue 🙂

All I need is my papasan chair to come in, and we’ll be complete!

I may not have always been the most helpful when it came to decorating, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention the whole time. Sometimes, you just need a little push from someone who knows what she’s doing, to make your house, a home. I don’t say it enough. Thank you Mom, I love you and I couldn’t have done it without you.