Archive for the ‘living’ Category

Decorating!

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

l have a disease called decorator-itis. I’ve been futzing with my interior decor and can NEVER STOP or be happy. But I have made a few significant thrifty contributions.

Below are the dining and living rooms Before…this is what we call slow decorating…

And After…

Yes, it is the ubiquitous Ikea Stockholm Rand rug. Scored for $75 bucks in the as-is section. There are some small spots and I had to beat and vacumn the dirt out of it, but for its size (9 x 12′ !) and awesome graphic punch – it seemed like a great deal. It does kind of make your eyes go all wonky.

SHAZZAMMM! My new baby is this lovely vintage Danish expandable teak table. Found it at a thrift store and had to argue and LIE to get it. I may have used Christmas and dinner and FAMILY and the LORD to finagle this beautiful gem for $150.

Totally worth it for the surfboard shape and great condition. Oh yeah, and the tulip chairs are from the Long Beach Flea Market. I can have a real grown-up dinner party with matching chairs and actual room on the table for eating.

Get ready for some more of the After tour:

The Bertoia diamond chairs were a steal off of Craigslist. $40 a pop. A friend from Los Angeles picked them up and delivered these beautiful bad boys.

I’ve been installing new Ikea ENJE roller shades in the dining room and living room…and I’m still working on it. Eventually those horrible mini blinds will be GONE.

Here are the new roller shades in the dining room instead of the curtains.

Curtains:

Ikea ENJE roller shades:

These little windows are getting the Ikea ENJE roller shades as well. They had to be cut down to size to fit the 22″ width (which I will outline the fabulous: How to cut Enje shades!)

FILED UNDER: after, before, decorating, dining, fireplace, furniture, living, thrifting

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The Longest Wall – well, if you think 108" is long

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

To the left as you enter the front door of the Brick House there is this long wall leading to the hallway and den. The wall is punctuated by a now defunct floor heater on the right side and needs about 30 inches of clearance on the left for the front door to swing open. So between were the door opens and the heater is there is 108 in. of blank nothingness…

*Sorry this is about the best I could get picture wise…its a small house…and I’m kind of lazy.

This above wall is in the living room and directly opposite the fireplace:

The crude diagram is what I imagine my floating shelves flanking the fireplace will eventually look like – well except less wobbly and turquoise. I want 3 shelves on either side that are 57 in. long by 11 in. deep. There is currently no space designated for books anywhere in the house (and one day I’d like to pull my book collection out of boxes).

I had thought of building a set of floor to ceiling Hungarian Bookshelves on the blank 108 in. wall, but I’m nervous it would be overwhelming and tight right when you entered the front door.

Here are my thoughts and inspiration for that area:
(images via: Apartment Therapy)

I like this open low wall unit shelf thing (here is a detail). I could probably build that pretty easily and cheaply and then be able to hang art above the shelf and use it as a landing strip…

I like these shelves, maybe I could build a shorter version…

I also like this idea of taking Ikea kitchen cabinets and making a low storage unit…

Hmmmmmmm, I just don’t know. I think it will come down to cost and ease of construction…

FILED UNDER: before, decorating, fireplace, living

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Living Room

Monday, July 7th, 2008

The new couch has arrived and allowed us to start decorating the long neglected living room. We’ve been using the 9 foot gray beast of a sofa in the den and now she is free to take her rightful place in the living room…

This is sort of the first trial run for the furniture placement. It will most likely be moved around, and we need to do window treatments, and get a rug, and accessorize, ect…