Decorating Inspiration from Bud's Auto Salvage

Welcome to Bud's Salvage in tiny Aline, Oklahoma (pronounced Alene, not A-line) about 40 minutes west of Enid, Oklahoma.  Seems like anyone who knows about Aline knows about it because of Bud's!  They do a lot of online business so they are surprisingly well-known!

On a recent trip to Bud's to pick up some car parts for my ex-husband (because Aline is close to Enid and shipping car parts can be prohibitively expensive), I met Rocky.

Rocky (who was not overly thrilled to be photographed!) began pasting photos of cars on the wall 26 years ago.  He's tapped into his own, testosterone-driven, man-cave version of something I've always wanted to do -- wallpaper a powder room with something unexpected! 

I'm picturing a tiny little powder room, maybe tucked under the stairs somewhere, that might just be so interesting no one ever wants to come out of it!  When I was a kid, my grandparents' powder room was wallpapered with similes:  "Fit as a fiddle", "happy as a lark", "deaf as a post" (I remember this one best because it was accompanied by an illustration of a fencepost with an ear on it!).  I would get lost in reading the wallpaper and stay in the bathroom WAY too long -- sometimes until people started missing me and wondering if I was sick! 

The idea of using multiples of something as wallpaper first came to me when I had an MRI done of my brain.  Wouldn't it be cool to wallpaper with photos of slices of my brain?  Of course, I'd always be worried about finding some spot that the radiologist missed!

I have a nice big full-body X-ray of my cat that might be fun to use! But maybe just for Halloween!  It's kind of ghoulish the rest of the year -- but that could be the fun of it!


I've also considered using bingo cards, playing cards, sheet music, paper shooting targets (because I found 100s of them in a dumpster -- in fact, I've found multiples of all of these things in dumpsters!).  And I think I've seen Time magazine covers used somewhere too!

Alas, Rocky beat me to it in terms of actual installation!  While he may not have the tidiest, trendiest application of the concept, it is definitely a jumping-off point for inspriation!  Here are a couple more shots of his wall for your inspection!



I've also always wanted to make a boy's bed out of old truck parts --maybe from a really cool old vintage model:  tailgate for the headboard, front grill and headlights for the footboard (maybe even with WORKING headlights!) and license plates and hub caps for accessories.  If you found a cool enough bench seat from an old car or truck (cooler than Rocky's velour version -- sorry, Rocky!) that could provide fun seating too.   It could be really great if done right!  Maybe Rocky can help me!  He'll probably think I'm totally nuts like he did when I took his picture but OH WELL!