Lifestyle Blogging And Seven Years Bad Luck

Do you ever read a lifestyle blog and just want to punch a baby because how on earth are their nails so perfect, and I bet they never get zits, and why is their food so pretty?? 

Just me?

At times, I find lifestyle blogs gloriously inspiring, and at other times, utterly discouraging.  In the face of all that Instagrammed perfection, it’s easy to wonder why your stupid meal/hair/baby/life just isn’t as photogenic and picture perfect as theirs.

While I hardly qualify as a lifestyle blogger (a fact you may be ready to kindly and amusedly point out), I want to avoid giving off that “too-perfect” aura.  I try to balance the “ooh pretty” with the “ooh, rhymes-with-pretty-but-starts-with-sh” aspects of life.  I don’t want to be overly saccharine – my life isn’t.

On my blog you will find nary an artistically composed food photo shoot, the usage of “gift” as a verb (in a sentence: I gifted my sisters artisanal organic couture boutique nail files for Christmas), or snapshots of lacquered nails encircling froth-topped cappuccinos (bonus points for hearts or leaf designs swirled in the foam)…

Not that I have anything against those things (except the whole “gift” thing – is “give/gave” too plebian now, or what?), it’s just that well, to be honest, my “lifestyle” is just not that pulled together. 
On this my blog, you know I like to share pictures of lovely things with you, but, I also like to keep it real.  Honest. Nitty gritty.

This is my lifestyle blog.  My lifestyle just happens to be a little more chaotic than not…

There are two days and counting before we have a bunch of people over to our in-progress disaster of a house.  Naturally, I decided this environment of chaos was the perfect time to add an entirely new, non-essential project to the list of valid-and-necessary projects that need to be completed by Friday – painting the half bath downstairs. 

Only, after I painted it, I decided I wasn’t happy with the current mirror.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the mirror.  It was perfectly nice.  Nicer than nice.

But I had it in my head I wanted something gold.  And in the garage I had an empty gilded frame.  That just so happened to have the same size opening as the current mirror.

So all I had to do was take the mirror out of its old frame and put it into the new one.  So simple:

Yeah, I felt pretty dumb.

Why’d you have to go and mess with it Brynne?  Why can’t you leave well enough alone?  You’re going to have seven years of bad luck because you can’t stop messing with things!

A few frustrated tears and one trip to Home Depot later, this $12 mirrored medicine cabinet underwent a little deconstructive surgery:

And became this:

And I can’t for the life of me get a decent picture of my pocket-sized powder room that obviously lacks any source of natural light.  Or make the light gray paint look anything like it does in real life.

And now I realize the mirror looks oddly high in these pictures, or maybe too small?  It really doesn’t in real life.  But this inspiration image might help a little – I love the idea of adding a short tile backsplash. 

[But NOT before Friday.  I solemnly swear I will NOT do any tiling before Friday. So help me God.]

Needless to say this is far from a “reveal”.  I think it will be a long time before I have my stuff together enough to pull off one of those!More of a rambling story, some observations, and a commentary on my poor photography skills…

Eagerly awaiting the phone calls from the Martha-Stewart-empire talent scouts – I mean, check out that toilet paper styling:

So what about you – do you have a rambling story of renovations-gone-wrong, or your own observations on lifestyle blogging and/or my camera handling? Do tell! I’ll sit here sipping on my aesthetically-inferior-non-decorated coffee as I enjoy them – xoxoxo!