Showing posts with label old mirror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old mirror. Show all posts

January 27, 2014

Living room redo (part 2)

 
It was a go fast weekend. My husband came home, which always makes the rest of my world come to a stop.  I miss him so much when he’s gone. I try to do a little something special for him when he comes home.  This time it was homemade sticky buns. He sacrifices so much to do what he does. He lives in a camper, works in the brutal cold temps in North Dakota, drives 4 hours to come home. When he gets here we spend most of the time getting him stocked up on necessities, doing his laundry, and there’s usually a much needed haircut. But we always make and take time to do something fun. Sometimes it’s just sleeping in, having a few friends over, or just relaxing,which he doesn’t do near enough.  He never knows what he’s going to find when he walks thru door. New furniture arrangement, a new treasure, different colored walls. He’s pretty good about it, but does feel the need to make a snide comment. .  . always. . .
This time was no exception. He was pleased I used his deer horns in the living room, I knew he would be.
 
 
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To keep with the simple, less country look, I switched out the cupboard with one I had in the guest room. The other one had open shelves and took a lot to fill it up. The *full* look is what I wanted to change. As much as I love my old quilt collection, it’s more appropriate in the guest room.
The old school house picture is very special to me. It's the school house my Gramma went to when she was a child, then taught school there after she married my Grampa. Her students were her own kids as well as the neighbors kids. You may remember from this post. here
 
This is reflection I see when I set in my chair across the room.
 
 
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This old heater isn’t original to the house, it was given to me by a friend who saved it from a house that was being demolished. According to my husband and other family members there used to be one just like it that was replaced when Grampa put in hot water heat.
 
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I’ve said it before, but I mean it. . . my mantle is so hard to photograph. It looks like a big white elephant in pictures. It looks a lot better in real life. I do have plans to give it a face lift. I want to add some trim to disguise the round corners, beef up the mantel with some old barn wood,  and replace the cracked tiles in the firebox.  The family seems to have a problem when I make changes to the house. I do understand their desire to keep it the same, but sometimes things just have to change. So. when I do tackle the project I’m not going to demolish the fireplace or change it in any way. I’ll just make it so it slides up to the existing one.
 
 
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This old ironstone pitcher came from my mum. I remember going with my dad to buy this for her for Christmas. It came with a very large basin. They aren’t a set. The basin is a different color of white and has a design on the inside. They are both Homer Laughlin ironstone. I just love the greige color and the simplicity of this pitcher. My mum tried to give it to me a few different times but I wasn’t interested. . . when I went there for Thanksgiving I asked her where it was. . . she had put it in storage !!. . . it came home with me. To this day I don’t know why my dad bought it for her. She never was into antiques. Guess he knew it would be mine someday.
 
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The 5 gallon Redwing crock was also given to me by my mom. It was her Grammas. She remembers her Gramma making pickles and sauerkraut in it. She’s the one that broke the lid, so she says.
 
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Well, that’s a wrap for the living room (for now).
 
There’s a corner on the other side of the doorway beside the fireplace where the TV sets. I have tried and tried to get a good photo of it. It ain’t happenin. I know TV’s are a big part of our lives, I love ALL of mine. But. . . I wait for sunny days to take pictures, when that happens there’s also a big glare on the TV that just ruins the whole picture. I rarely see TV’s. Whether in blogs, in magazines or even on Pinterest. Now I know why. . . they just aren’t very pretty.
 
I try to arrange my rooms so the sofa and TV are at an angle. I do this so I don’t have to struggle with what to put above them. . . this arrangement works. .  . 
Okay. . . I’ll show it anyway. . . but only because it gives the real feel of the room. Pardon the glare. . .
 
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My failed attempt to hide the big black box. 
 
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This ended up being a lot longer than I planned. Thanks for taggin along, if you’re still here.
As always, I truly appreciate each and every one of you. My blog is getting a lot of traffic and I owe it to all of you for your pins, shares and comments. . . I feel the love. . .
 
happy day. . .   d

January 22, 2014

small room big changes. . .

I want to give a big shout out to Brenda at cozylittlehouse. She featured me in her Welcome Wagon Friday Party. If you haven’t visited her blog, you should. She has so much inspiration and great ideas. You can get there from here.
 
I feel like such a frump. She sent all those nice ladies to me, then I take 2 weeks off from blogging. . .  sheeesh. . . I do have a good excuse, well a few good ones. My dear friend of 30+ years came for a week long visit. We had such a good time catching up, staying up way too late, watching football and solving all the worlds problems. Gotta love girl time. Then I got busy getting my tax stuff ready. . . no fun at all.
 
So, I have been dying to share another piece of my world with you guys. . . I just didn’t have anything exciting. But. . . fear not.  Blame it on spring fever/cleaning. Our weather has been so unbelievably warm and sunny it felt like spring.
 
I’ve been wanting to make some changes to the living room for quite awhile now. The direction it was going was starting to look more *country* than farmhousey. So. . . every single, little thing got moved out, taken down, toted to another room. It took me all day because we have plaster walls which require drilling holes. Once I took the stuff off the walls I had to fill the holes then touch up the paint. . . then I washed everything before I brought it back in.
 
I had a plan in my head how I wanted to arrange the furniture, problem is there are 3 doorways and a fireplace to work around. I think my sofa was on every single wall before I finally decided on one I liked.
 
This area is where the sofa used to be.
 
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There was a heavy gray wall cupboard on the wall. I have new plans for the cupboard. The beautiful mirror was in our room. My love for mirrors resulted in 3 mirrors in there. . . this one NEEDED to be in here. Did you know if you hold a flame to an old mirror and look thru the flame it will tell you how old a mirror is? Seriously. If you see 5 flames for instance you multiply it by 10, which means it’s 50 years old.  If the theory is right this mirror is 110 years old (there were 11 flames).
The deer mount is one my hubby shot this year. He was surprised to see me use it in the house. He has a wall of fame in the garage, which is where they usually end up. When I was looking for something for that area I fell in love with the colors. . . white and dark brown. . . duh. . . and I see *faux* ones all over Pinterest and blogland. . . .
 
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I hated to do it, but I had to put the linen sheet on the sofa. With all the warm temps the snow has turned to mud. Another thing I did yesterday, cleaned muddy paw prints off of it.  I do like the look, I really love the linen sheet, but it reminds me of my days of covering an unsightly sofa with painters drop cloths.
 
I had to add the pretty pink tulips, after all, I did have a bad case of spring fever.
 
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And lastly,for today, here’s my sweet paper whites. I have several pails, boxes, baskets and bowls
filled with them scattered through out the house. They are all in different stages so I will be able to enjoy the sweeties for quite awhile.

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I will share the rest of the room in the next post. I’m still fluffing a few things. 
 
Do you mind if I pick your brain?
 
2014 is a year to celebrate for my hubby and I.. we are finally debt free ! ! ! Thanks to the oil boom, we were able to beef up on are payments, which is such a good feeling. Anyway, my hubby told me I could spend $500.00 a month on just me. What would you buy if this were you? (speaking only vintage/antiques/) Is there a certain pretty somethin you’ve been dying to have? Would you save for a big ticket item? Start a new collection? Or add to an existing one? I do know one thing for sure, I’ll be saving for a trip to a Country Living fair for sure.
 
(please don’t take this the wrong way. It isn’t my intention to offend anyone. Believe me, it was a long hard battle and commitment to get us this far. It wasn’t easy and at times we were too broke to buy bread. The only reason I asked the question is I’m stumped on what to buy. Sometimes hearing what others dream of sparks some interest. Truth be known, I don’t think I could spend that much money, I’ve been too thrifty for too long.)
 
Thanks for stopping by, and a BIG welcome to all the new comers. I really appreciate your comments, they are so encouraging.
 
I hope all you easterners are safe and staying warm.
 
d