Updated Video Tour of the Living and Dining Room

I had a comment this week asking for an updated video tour, but I feel like narrated tours are kind of well, umm, awkward, so I decided to just do another video of the living/dining room like the tour we did last year (you can see it here). I find these hilarious to make (laughing at all my 'artistic' shots while editing can bring tears I tell ya!) but they do give a lot more perspective to how things are laid out and where different things you see in photos actually land in our house.

Thanks for the request Karen, and I hope you enjoyed it as well!

Living Room Ceiling is Getting Planked People!!

Things are getting wild over here! The kitchen/family room is a sea of white furniture...



Anything able to be moved out of the living and dining rooms has been shuffled in here while we try to FINALLY plank our living/dining room (I know you've been hearing me talk about that for about 2 years now, so it's only right we do it in t-minus 5 days to shoot time)


We brought home the wood yesterday and got about 30% of it up. Only 70% to go...

Come take a little tour of the living room!

Sooooo, I've been trying to master my new camera. The movie function in particular is really fun, although I will admit that I have a ton to learn! Andddd the extent of my movie editing is limited to your basic windows programs. But even with all it's imperfections, I thought it would be fun to share a really really quick little movie I made of our living room! In fact, I am embarrassed to admit that I think this is my first ever video 'tour' of anything.

But I can already tell that I'm going to be having a blast getting better with this whole video thing.

Dip Dyed Table

 

Is your inner mermaid dying to make a break for it too after yesterday's post? Mine made a little leap for freedom on Monday when Wren and I made a day out of painting our recent finds.

My score was this $10 table and hers was a school desk my mom passed down to us (which I'll try to remember and show here soon)

 

She went with a soft purple, I went with Tropical Dream by Behr.

Since we only wanted to add a slight hue to our otherwise white items I bought the sample pot sizes. 

 

A coat of high gloss spray paint on everything, although not too thick where I planned on doing the dip dye was all the prep this project needed. Mainly just because I'm cheap and didn't feel like wasting paint.

 

My assistant was in full purple mode as we tackled this project together. She definitely commits when she decides to.

 

A little painters tape and some light brush strokes was all it took to get the dip-dyed effect. Could I actually have dipped it? I guess, but that seems like a freaking massive amount of work and paint for such a small project. Plus I imagine that to sound like a great idea until you lift the furniture out of the paint and have to deal with runs and drips everywhere. So a good brush and $5 in paint sounded more on my level. 

 

I love the subtle, not too bright color of this minty-sea foam hue.

 

 

I don't want to get too crazy, because not much would hold it's own against this rug, but a little color is creeping into here at a slow and not-too-frightening pace. Of course I still require all my basic elements to feel light and bright. But some unoffending hits of color don't seem to be throwing me off yet.

 

Have you 'dip dyed' anything yet? I have another small table I'm going to give it a go on in Wren's room I liked this one so much!

Finders, Keepers

My little living room shake up continues! I have been talking about our summer long effort to get more organized for a little while now and while working at it in the garage this past week I found a forgotten find.

This old desk.

 

Once upon a time we lived in another house, our first house and we were pretty broke. And we had ZERO experience with decorating and renovating (oh how young and blissfully unaware of the fun to come!). I picked up this desk, originally yellow, for $10 at a garage sale, painted it white and set it beside the bed. Back then I called it a day and left things alone for months, years at a time.

Oh how times and cameras change.

 let's take in the cute dog-wrestling taking place in this time warp post before we continue...

 

Well that old desk has sat in our garage. It wasn't forgotten so much as put to use. It was my paint mixing zone for years as I revamped Whiteberry furniture, but I no longer really need a dedicated paint stirring spot. In fact, I haven't for a while and it was a dusty, dirty mess. 

So I cleaned it up... just a little. Leaving some drips and drops because I think they add to the story of this desk. Once it was used in a school, but I also learned a lot about business, painting, and juggling work and a baby behind this desk. 

 

I think it looks right at home under my ghost lamps (check out the full DIY right here) and will probably stay put. Mainly because I have nowhere else to put it now!

Sharpie/Wrapping Paper Art

My leaning wall of art is coming along nicely (and by nicely I mean super affordably). I am trying to mix a few types of  'art' here so I want to do different mediums. As of yet I don't have a photograph, which I would like to do on a large scale in this Ikea Odby frame. I LOVE how big this frame is, and the funky curved corners are a good way to differentiate it from the other styles of frames leaning here.

 

Until I find just the right shot and get it printed I didn't want to leave the frame sadly vacant!

 

So I literally grabbed a sharpie and some leftover wrapping paper I love (this one is from Rifle Paper Co.)

to do my own custom print. The fact that it cost virtually nothing makes it the perfect temporary (or maybe permanent???) addition to a gallery wall. 

 

I love all the cute typography prints in Etsy shops nowadays, but most do not come in this large of a size. Plus, this way you can really give some personal meaning to whatever words or phrase you do. 

Mine is a good representation of how my sassy side and Sean's romantic and caring side are perfectly suited. To some people it may just be words, but we know the deal LOL.

Can we talk about how much bigger the room feels without a piece of furniture here? LOVE IT!

I am thinking this little stretch of wall is complete.

by Holly standards.

for now.

 I will be back later with our ring giveaway winners, so check back to see if you're one!

Leaning Art

 

I made an awesome etsy purchase last month from one of my favorite internet peoples. My efriend Sarah over at Flourish design&style does these awesome and simple custom watercolors for $10 via her etsy shop. When it comes to decorating there is not much quality stuff out there for $10, but I am feeling like it may be one of the best ten dollar bills I've spent because it has spurred on an unexpected twist in our living room.

 

Originally I framed her lovely piece in a threshold frame from target and set it on the dresser in the living room.

Then we moved the dresser out for Tom and Alexis to use at their wedding (it makes a perfect bar cart, being metal and all!). 

 

Being the crazy decorating-obsessed person I am I couldn't even deal with a minor shake up for a matter of days. Immediately I was playing around and shifting furniture in and out of here from other rooms...

The agony of it all is that is was pointless (duh!! Any sane person could've told me that). But not because it was temporary... 

Because I fell in love with how open the room felt! How airy it was. How gallery-like it was (a stretch, I know). Being a minimalist at heart I struggle because I do fall hard when I love things. And I needed this reminder that sometimes you don't need to add things to make it feel finished, I needed to take something away.

 

It feels so right, for right now. In a week or a month I may feel differently. But I think this is a beautiful partnership for me.

\ 

I'm someone who can't commit to things for long and leaning art (ie. no HOLES!!!) may just be my new obsession.

 

Because I wasn't completely sure that while I loved it it just didn't look unfinished to everyone else I had to do a google search. I'm sure all great designers confirm their choices via google search, no?

But it looks like this may be a pretty awesome thing .

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What do you think, unfinished or totally cool?

Living Room

I realize after putting together the photos for this post that I didn't really take a lot of overall room shots. I also realized that I haven't shared many over all photos of how our main floor is laid out. Or at least that's how it feels to me. So if anyone is interested in getting a better feel for where all these spaces are and how they connect just call me out on it! Who knows, maybe you've been picking up everything I've been putting down and you know this place like the back of your hand.

I shared these thrifted side tables and their transformation back in May, but your haven't really gotten to see much of them in their natural habitat. They were part of your average seventies living room suite (which was all there to take in, by the way) and I usually would have walked right past them.

But I noticed the really cool handles on the drawers which caught my fancy, and then I noticed that they had a nifty bottom surface, and then I realized they were the perfect scale and height. The only issue (at that moment) was they were not even close to what I envisioned in here! 

But now I think they are kind of fabulous and made for this very spot. All thanks to this little old brass drawer pull.

In the spirit of keeping it real, take a peek through my looking glass at what is still waiting to be done: 

the stair case. Still. 

Oy.

I need to get off the procrastination train ASAP.

 

Blending the old treasures I love and the mix of modern is my biggest challenge. But I feel so much more at home since we've started creeping away from the all-distressed furniture. I LOVE a piece or two of chippy old furniture, and when you sell shabby furniture for a living it is easy for it to take over, but since I've stopped painting and refurbishing furniture to sell I have really enjoyed shifting the focus back to mixing all the styles I love. Not letting one take over my house entirely. Because that really isn't 'Me', and it definitely wasn't Sean!

I found some great pillows on sale a couple weeks ago at Indigo, like this disco ball pillow for $20, as well as some nice linen pillows I am crafting up a DIY on I will share soon. The light blush pillow (which is actually darker looking to me in real life) is one of those purchases you make when you've looked everywhere. It is the first and only pillow I have found in this color (I had been hunting down a blush colored throw pillow for a month solid!) but the compromise is that this is what the other side looks like:

You can't win them all. 

 

I need more book storage. STAT! The pile of unread books is beside my bed, and the pile of already read books is down here, piling on the floor and on top of the cabinet.

 

So much for my minimalist notions...

Thanks for stopping by my living room on this sunny Thursday!

Hanging Lanterns (inside because I am too lazy to get some electrical going)

Today's post is proudly brought to you by the laziest or most clever DIYer ever. Realistically it's a mix of both. 

You know how my cavernous vaulted (and spackled, eww!) living room ceiling has been on my to-do list for some time? No, you don't? It's probably because I mentioned that I wanted to plank it about a thousand years ago and you forgot. Life and two other renovations have seemingly taken priority. So it is still in all it's stippled glory.  

I had plans to eventually wire in a light over the living room area once we are up there and working on all the planking (similar to our kitchen/family room area) but the reality is that our roof beam orientation would make it hard and probably not a good idea without moving around a lot of insulation sheets and general annoying renovation work. Have I mentioned that my ceiling in the kitchen is like my favorite thing ever? But putting it up was not. Looking upwards while drilling/nailing/whatever equals a lot of things landing in your eyes and ears and hair and.... well you get it. It SUCKS! So if I can save myself one less thing to do while staring up at that ugly stipple I will. 

So I rounded up some non-electrical lighting. 

 Also known as lanterns.

 

These ones came from HomeSense on clearance for $29.99, $23.99 and $11.99.

I liked the chrome finish with the rustic deal of the rope. The chrome matches our entry light perfectly as well which was a nice detail.

So momma rigged up the BIG latter and found those problematic roof beams to screw hooks into ( I will admit this was done through trial and error, as my stud finder also hates stipple as much as I do and refused to cooperate). Which meant a few tiny holes to fill after all was said and done.

Three lengths of lighting chain adjusted to just slightly different lengths and mounted to the handles was all this project required. I think it drops your line of sight down nicely from the overly boring ceiling to the actual seating area.

 

Ta da!!! Look mom, no broken bones!

This photo is kind of off because all the lanterns are directly over the coffee tables which means a particularly tall visitor doesn't have to worry about hitting his head. Although the lowest one is still 6 feet off the ground so even if they weren't exactly on top they are reasonably high enough. 

 

I think I actually prefer how substantial these are over the option of just one fixture in here. Because it really is a sadly boring/high ceiling that used to dominate the room.

I'll show you a bit more of what things look like (and what else needs to be done) tomorrow!

Toodles my noodles.