It seems like I’ve been fighting yellow-tan walls for at least a decade, and when we moved into our Arizona house that battle continued: everything was yellowy-brown. It felt like every single room was wall-to-wall cardboard, and turning on lightbulbs only exacerbated the problem. In the last year Mr. Blue Eyes and I have painted almost every single wall in our home in grays or blues and I cannot tell you how much lighter and brighter and COOLER it makes everything seem.

When we moved in, our bedroom consisted of yellow-tan walls and a mattress on the floor. Slowly we’ve upgraded and updated and while it’s not exactly the way I’d like it–I still have dreams of a live-edge headboard–it is SO MUCH BETTER than where we started. A California King bed and new bedding, dressers and book cases, cool gray and navy blue paint, a gallery wall of some of my favorite photographs…it truly is a whole new room. There is a large archway from our bedroom to the master bath, so everything there needed to be updated as well with grays and blues and a little bit of hot pink, because, why not.

This is one of my favorite little spots in the house. I took the photo of the Brooklyn Bridge, the yucca print is from Bison Paper Company, and that gorgeous oil painting is by Cristall Harper, a gift from Blue Eyes that I love more than anything he’s ever given me.

A place for all my dangly earrings, my rings are in the little cups, and Picasso’s Don Quixote. Love, love, love.

Why yes, I did move a half-dozen books off my bedside table just for the photo. Ahem.

I don’t know if gallery walls are still “in” or not, but I can’t find a better solution for getting all the art that speaks to me in a place I can see it every day. I took most of those photos over the last several years, and it makes me happy to have so many memories right on my wall.

The gray walls and leafy plants make this feel almost spa-like, which makes my mornings feel a lot less oppressive (I am NOT a morning person. At all.).

Part of me feels like it has taken 1,000 years to get our house transformed from yellow-tan-cardboard to something that doesn’t make my eye twitch; I keep reminding myself that I’ve lived here for 9 months, and having the vast majority of the house 90% “done” is a huge accomplishment. The other pieces will come together in time, and until then, at least I have a few little sanctuary-like spots where I can breathe.