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......

DECORATING 101: "GUEST BEDROOM"

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

It was Unanimous.....well, almost unanimous.......there was the one comment yesterday asking to hear about the trip to the nudist camp.....I guess the stick people picture threw him off (see picture)......but aside from that comment, everyone picked multiple choice #2 - A Tour of the Lakehouse.   So, here we go.....we'll start with Guest Bedroom #1.

I must first tell you that Liz does not pay full price for anything.  If I can make it myself, I will.  I negotiate on price for everything; I borrow ideas from magazines; been known to take pictures from my cell phone of pictures inside magazines so I won't have to purchase the magazine and lastly, draw out my idea and beg Chuck to make it in his woodworking shop.

GUEST BEDROOM:
Now, a little history on this room.  When we first purchased our Lakehouse in 2001, it only had two bedrooms and this wasn't one of them.  After owning the house for about 3-4 years, we decided to add a large Guest Bedroom and a large Screen Porch.  This added about 500 square feet making the house about 3000 square feet total.  We were about 2/3 of the way complete with the add-on when we had to "fire" the contractor.   Errrrrrrrrrrr...........I was the only one in the neighborhood who trusted this dude and I had such high hopes for him.  It's very difficult in East Texas to find good competent, INSURED contractors that show up each day, don't blow you off to go fishing, and have all their teeth.  So we finished the job ourselves.....

I looked high and low for a king sized black 4-poster bed.....Now days, you can find them everywhere, but six years ago, they were no where to be found.  I believe I single handedly brought black 4-poster beds into the decorating world.  Found this beautiful bed in a small town in Arkansas, with a beacon of light from Heaven shining down on it.......meant to be mine!  I've always wanted a black/white toile theme and this was the perfect room to do it in.  I found the linens at Target (on SALE, of course!) and decided to make the curtains, canopy and bedskirt myself.  My favorite fabric store is in Dallas called The Fabric Yard and purchased this beautiful lacy fabric for about $2.00 a yard there.  A STEAL!  I've never been known for my sewing abilities (I had to take Home Ec twice cause I "paid" a girl to make my Home Ec dress....got caught), so I tend to use my best friend, hot glue, to hem most everything in our house.

We purchased stock cabinets from Lowe's and made the long window seat on the wall of windows.  Attached some molding to it, covered the backside of it with toile wallpaper, upholstered a cushion out of Target sheets, threw several coats of paint on it and whalla........It is a perfect place to put the granddaughters' books and toys in baskets as well as sit and relax looking at the lake.

The black dressing table was found at an antique auction in Sulphur Springs.  It originally was brown and, for some reason, much lower; too low.  We won the bid at $125, sanded it down, painted it black and Chuck made perfectly matching leg extensions to bring the height up to where it should be.  One of the end tables to the bed also was purchased at this auction for $40 and painted to match.  It's an old piano cabinet.  Found the stool at a furniture store closeout, then painted and reupholstered with sheets to match.  The three wicker baskets at the foot of the bed were purchased to hold the granddaughters' barbies and toys.

Now, the hardest thing in the room was picking the wall color.  I will never forget my brother-in-law, Brady's comment when he first saw the color.  I believe his exact words were "Baby Poop Green".  He has since worked his way back into my favor......lucky for him......but  I totally disregarded his comment because, well......afterall, he is a man, what does he know about paint color??   I actually took a pillow case to a store in Dallas some of you will remember, Gabberts, and asked one of their decorators what color I should use on the wall and he picked this color for me.  This is a perfect solution if you just can't decide, and it's FREE.

I hand painted the wording on the wall with the help of my overhead projetor, reupholstered an old screen porch wicker sofa (again with sheets) and that about did it for this room.  Added some merchandising around the room from garage and estate sales to complete the look.  Two of my favorite finds was the dog bed made out of a chair with red gingham fabric that I picked up at the chuch bizarre this past December and a picture frame with a plate and spoon from the Queen Elizabeth at an estate sale for $4.00.
I hope I haven't bored you too much with this little walk through of our Large Guest Bedroom......I truly enjoy decorating and love sharing my thoughts with you as well as receiving your ideas!

Tomorrow......we'll see our Granddaughters Play Area........