New Bedding!! (I Know It's Silly, But I'm Excited!)

tl;dr - I got a new duvet and cover, and I'm pretty excited.  Scroll for pictures.

So anyone who knows my sleeping habits well (roommates, family, etc.) knows that I HATE top sheets.  I'm the kind of person who untucks the sheets at hotels (because sleeping without them, just under the unwashed hotel comforter, is icky), and I haven't used a top sheet on my bed in at least half a decade.  But what that means is that the I end up with a comforter covered all the things normally absorbed by the top sheet.  And that's just gross.  But washing comforters makes them all kinds of sad...

What's a girl to do?

Oh, right.  She takes a page out of the rest of the world's bedding solutions.  Enter duvets.

I liked them a ton in England, because I could wash the cover like a sheet, but the selection in the US wasn't great when I got home and the duvets (the main comforters) were really expensive.  However... Ikea isn't a US company.  And Ikea sells duvets and duvet covers for really reasonable prices.  Which means that, not only is it nearly as economical to buy a duvet and cover as it is to buy a regular American-style comforter, but now I can switch up the cover for cheap when I start to get that "need a change of bedroom style" itch.

So on my trip to Utah last week, we stopped at the Ikea in Draper and I played around with the bedding until I found both a duvet and cover that I liked.  When I got home, I washed the cover (new sheet smell is gross), made my bed, and slept in it.  I'm in love.  The duvet is the perfect warmth, making the bed is simple, and everything looks super cute.  And in the winter it'll be easy to add a heated blanket in the mix.  I'm SUPER pleased with how this all turned out.

And now for some pictures.

Just the bed.  Cover is reversible to match the white pillows.

Room view.  Hoping the white/black color scheme means the
floral and zebra prints won't clash too badly.  I like it anyway.

The red pillows (both the ones at the back and the accent
pillows) are some I had from the last set of bedding.  I also
had king sized pillows, so I bought some cheap black cases
to match the rest of the pillows.  The koala is my heating pad.

I'm pretty stoked.

DIY - Doing It Yourself

I've been doing a bunch of decorating lately.  It started off as hanging up a couple of pictures after my roommate left.  She'd been the only one of us with things hanging on the walls, and so things looked pretty bare after she'd moved.  Once that had happened, I got brave and asked our landlord if I could paint a couple of walls and spruce things up a bit.  She brought me some paint and some brushes, and off I went.

Hurrah for red paint!!!

I wish I would have taken better "before" pictures, because without them there is no context for how much better the wall looks now that it's painted.  I have one more wall to go, and I'll remember to do pictures of it.

I drew the white line in MSPaint after I took the picture.
The line and everything to the left of it used to look like
the picture below.  The wall was really awkward and ugly...

This is the best picture I can get of the paint.  Basically it
was white with gray sponged on over top.  The sponging
job was really poorly done, and it just made the walls look
like they were always dirty.  The red paint looks much nicer.

Once the wall looked pretty, I couldn't help but hang some more pictures in the apartment.  The wall at the back of the living/dining room has been affectionately dubbed my "Jesus Wall" because the pictures and other framed pieces are all religious in nature.  (The art is in more detail below.  The CTR is something I made with vinyl letters and scrapbook paper; the two blank-looking frames hold copies of The Living Christ (pretty version) and The Family Proclamation (pretty version); the Faith image says "Faith is the essence of all things" and I've added white cardstock behind it so the red would show up.)

The "Jesus Wall"

"Rebekah an the Well" - Michael Deas

Pres. Uchtdorf quote (click to expand)

"To Be With God" - Simon Dewey

"Beside Still Waters" - Simon Dewey

This little apartment I'm living in is starting to feel like home.  :)