Magnolian Inspiration {or....how i'd like to diy my home into a fabulous boutique hotel}

{photo source}

By no means do I consider myself a well-traveled individual. But, I am a bit of a hotel-nut. My husband both speaks at and attends education conferences from time to time. Often times, I travel along...with a loaded Kindle, a blank agenda and my camera {and sometimes these two boys that keep calling me mom}. This has been a great opportunity to stay in some beautiful hotels that we normally wouldn't {helloooo, we're more of a Hampton-budget family...so being upgraded to an Omni or Hilton is pretty swanky for us}. 

But a couple of weeks ago, we got away on a non-business trip {and sans kids, too}. My husband planned 90% of the three-nighter. It was to celebrate our 10th anniversary, so he did it up in style! He's a keeper, y'all. When I asked which Hampton we would stay in, I got one heck of an eye-roll. He had some bigger and better plans. And I was a lucky girl.

He happened upon a FABULOUS boutique hotel, The Magnolia, through some search engine or another. He found a great package deal and we were off for a wonderful time in downtown Houston. BTW, if you're in the market for a nice getaway, I highly recommend staying in a downtown urban area where you can walk to both entertainment and restaurants...it's so fun. We only got our car out once the entire time. 

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One thing I didn't expect {but was pleasantly surprised by} was the decor of the hotel...it was beautiful and completely INSPIRING to a DIYer like myself. 

The lobby's fireplace had me at hello.
Those padded walls would be FUN to replicate. And probably not too difficult either.
I've always said I should be locked up in a padded room somewhere...
this is the kind of padded room I meant, of course.

While the hotel was in all-out holiday decor mode, I'm pretty sure these beautiful pendants are up year round {at least, I think they are/should be}. I love how they mixed it all up. And I love how the light and colors bounce off that urban-feeling metal backdrop

This was a little side area in the lobby.
So many things to swoon over in such a small, but well-done space:

• That textured/patterned wall treatment could easily be DIYed in a stencil. Loving the silver over teal.
• LOVE the back-lit Texas wall-object {I sound like a moron...what do you call that?}. I'm about to have to place a call to my dad to come wire up a wall so I can do something like this. How fun and unexpected would this be in a home? 
• Love the long, skinny bar-height table.
• Metal baseboards...yes, please.
• And that light fixture....

I adore the fixture so much. Love the length over the long bar. Love the mini-drum fixtures. Love their circle details. Gah. Gotta have one.

This was in the elevator area.

• Loving the postion of the three large canvases over the couch.
• The end tables are beautiful.
• Don't get me started on those mirrored/acrylic lamps. My brain is already halfway to formulating how I will DIY my own.
• Annnnd....the coffee table:

Where is that jigsaw of mine?
I can totally see a knock-off of this one ASAP.
I think some MDF, a nice glaze finish and a couple of days...and I'm there!

This little drum table is presh.
I could see doing this with cut up pieces of PVC pipe painted with the plastic-safe spray paint in a dark brown. Then attached together to form something similar.

Nothing like a good hotel-lobby Christmas tree...gorgeous.
Love the lime green.
I also love how every wall in this place is back-lit, up-lit and everything in-between.
I'm all over that.

Another pretty little tree.
Minimal ornaments. Maximum foliage and ribbon. Yes.

My husband was in LOVE with the textured elevator walls.
I took some super high res photos of this in hopes of blowing it up, printing and mod podging it to something for him. Tabletop? Tray? Something...

Just love the simple reclaimed wood on this console table.

The painted ceiling...swooning over the teal/blue.
And the symmetry of the drum shades kills me. In a good way.

Our room was just as beautiful as the common areas.

I've been trying to figure out a good DIY on this one, too.
Love the idea of "framing" a padded headboard.

I loved the height of the bedside tables. And the twisty iron legs were so cool!

I also love the wooden piece in the bathroom that the sink and countertop sat on. I can see how this one could be put together...just wondering if I could keep open shelving in the bathroom neat and tidy? And love the iron piece on the bottom that the piece is sitting on.

{photo source}

Overall, it was a wonderful trip in a fabulous place. I'm a boutique-hotel convert.
Everything about this place made me not want to go back home.
The place had so much design inspiration, too, as pictured above.
Hoping one day to implement some of these fantastic ideas into my own home...
in the DIY way!

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