Snippets

I haven't posted as many pictures of projects as I'd like so  far so I thought I'd throw a few at you.  In my mind the areas in even the most recent of these photos are only about 75% of what I want them to be but I'll just have to perfect them later and show them to you again when they're better. 

This is the before picture of the front corner of the living room. 

And this is photo of a working stage of "after".

We painted the panelling a color called "wheat" which we thought was very appropriate for a house in a town planted smack dap in the middle of miles and miles of wheat fields!

I spent a total of $5 for 4 matching ivory curtain panels. I bought a "pair" at the thrift store for $3 that turned out to be three panels. It didn't take long to find the fourth matching panel. It was $2. I found one long wooden curtain rod in a dumpster. The other "rod" is the pole from a beach umbrella that I painted brown.

The large round table in the corner is a wooden table top that I found in two pieces in a dumpster.  I strapped the two pieces back together and set it on top of an ugly wooden stool.  Mark says it totally made the room.  So often we end up with "dead" corners in a room when two seating pieces meet up and block off the corner space.  This large table reclaimed the space and made it perfect for drama and display.

There are two tablecloths.  The one underneath, a tan silk rectangle (cost $2 at the thrift store).  The lace one on top cost a quarter at a flea market close-out.  I was too excited about it to take time to get the stain out before trying it on the table but I'll go back and tackle that soon.  Or I'll put something on top of it and no one will every know (except I just told you about it, darn it!).

Everything on the table top was free.  The lamp will be sold in the next garage sale and replaced by something better!  Branches are my favorite easy sourch of good drama and height and they are plentiful and free for the cutting.  The wooden bowl on the magazines had pecans from the tree down the street in it until the kids got hungry and ate them!  Most of the magazines came from dumpsters too.  A few of them were 25 cents at the thrift store.  I pour over magazines for inspiration on a regular basis and absolutely could not live without them!

The sofas were both free.  I'm not happy with either one of them right now and expect that the room will really come together when I find the right sofa.  I am anxiously awaiting it's arrival which I know will happen soon!  I do, however, LOVE the mushroom velvet slipcover on the left sofa.  Cost $8.

This is the opposite corner of the living room.  Everything here came from dumpsters except the letter "J" which I paid a quarter for.  I LOVE using old metal freezer baskets on walls (and they come along pretty regularly).  They are just so sculptural and unexpected and they can be hung as shelves or as baskets.  If I could snatch those DVD cases out of the photo right now I would!  I just put them there to remind Mark to return them to his mother!  They totally ruin the scene for me!  The basketballs keep the kids entertained when they're around but I also like the color and texture of them as wall art.  Maybe that's weird.  Mark found the vintage doctor's bag in a dumpster.  This just blows my mind because it's so totally cool and just makes you ponder its history!

Here's a before shot of the bookcase in the living room before it was painted and when I'd just thrown things into the house in a jumble!

And below is a later photo after some work has been done on the scene.  The bookcase holds lots of fun things but the picture is too dark to see them!  Drat!  There's a rusty tool box.  A vintage leather train case (that ladies used to carry their lotions and potions and cosmetics in).  A quaint homemade wooden tool or garden tool caddy filled with garden tools.  A vintage wooden ice bucket.  All things with age, texture, and even (gasp!) RUST!

This bookcase is a wonderful thing in a world of cheap, laminate bookcases!  It is heavy, solid wood but it came with only one shelf.  So I've been waiting for more to come along. They did. To the right you can see the shelves I finally found that will be cut down to the right size so they'll fit.The original shelf will be painted white to match the new ones so the end effect will be much lighter and brighter. The back of the bookcase is lined with free wallpaper that has harlequin diamond shapes on it in gold/mustard/butternut tones.

On top of the book case are a rusty vintage crock pot filled with free pine cones, an ivory McCoy pottery dish (McCoy is very collectible and my favorite but rare to find in a dumpster though that is where this one came from!), a vintage dog-shaped greeting card awaiting a frame because it's just loaded with quirky character, a vintage lamp (27 cents), a free lampshade, and a free frame, free shelf edged with a scrap of crochet lace, and free candle.

I'm aware that I've just shown you "snippets" of the living room (thus the titile of the post).  So I thought I'd bat down my self-conscious pride and back the camera up a little to show you more of the whole room if you promise to remember that these are "in progress" shots.  Everything has evolved since these photos were taken (you can see the walls aren't painted in some of them) and still has a way to go before I'm happy (I know I'm happy when I quit fiddling with things!).  But you CAN see the wallpaper at the back of the bookcase in this shot.

Here's a rather horrific early shot of the living room so you can see the scary territory where it's been!  You can see here that early on it took on it's color scheme of cream, butternut/gold, and olive green.  When I find the right sofa, I'll sew custom-fit slipcovers and it won't look so much like Halloween!

 

So now I'm all tempted to run away to Enid to work on the living room because I can't stand the sight of these photos when I have the finished look in my mind's eye!    Funny how I just showed you the one room in the whole house that I am the least happy with!  Can you tell I've been stewing on it in the back of my mind?  But that's good, that tends to happen just before something really comes together for a room!  I have a sixth sense for impending progress!