Decorating 101: "LIVING ROOM"

Thursday, March 4, 2010


I know, I know.........I never finished the Home Tour.......I was reminded of this the other day by a friend at lunch.  So hopefully I won't bore you too much today as we step into the Living Room....

You know, when we first moved to the lake house, the one thing we really wanted to change was the fact that it looked more like a City House than a Lake House.  The folks we purchased it from lived here full time (as opposed to most "City-Lakers" who lived at the lake only on weekends), so they had it fixed up to fit their "full time" needs.

The first thing we changed was the fireplace.  As you can see in the picture, it was a plain fireplace that was begging to be stoned (I think I just made a funny there....)  So I hired some rock dudes we had used in Dallas to come stay at the house for a few days, rock the fireplace and do a little fishing on the side.  This was single handedly the best investment we could have made with regards to the Living Room.  It changed the whole tone of the room as you can see.  A very easy and inexpensive makeover that more than paid for itself investment-wise.  We later removed the carpet  and replaced with distressed hardwood flooring throughout.

I tend to error on the side of "too much" stuff and this is so apparent to me when I look at these pictures. I have found that anytime you really want to "see" your room as others might see it, take pictures of it.  You will see it from a completely different set of eyes.  My new set of eyes is saying, "You got too much stuff, Girlfriend!"......

I then wanted to "frame" the windows but not lose any of the lake view, so I located some fabric I liked, hemmed it and attached some clips to the top of the panels.  I wanted something a little more interesting than a rod to hang them from, so I purchased some rustic looking coat hooks from Hobby Lobby (I think I paid about $1.50 each for them), and hooked the clips on them.  A super inexpensive and unique way to frame a window and I love the way it turned out...

I saw in a magazine once where someone had taken pages out of an old hymnal from a church and framed them.  I'm a sucker for all hymns and have been known to cry just hearing them sung at church, so I found an old hymnal (no....I didn't "steal" it from church....shame on you for thinking that!); soaked the pages in coffee; layed them out to dry and then taped them to some cardboard and framed them.  This is one of my favorite framed pictures in the house and was the easiest and cheapest one in the house.  It makes me smile each time I walk past it.

I also enjoy taking pictures of kids, whether its our grandchildren or our friends' kids, using some photoshop techniques, cropping the pictures at odd angles and framing them.  The bottom picture is of our granddaughter Bella.  I wanted to show off her HUGE blue eyes, so I simply cropped most everything out of the picture except her eyes.  I love this picture and anyone can do this on their computer.

So, that's about it.....I've got to go have a garage sale for all that "stuff" I'm going to be minimalizing from the Living Room......