Changing It Up Is Free

I've been meaning to show you some changes I made to my house right after Christmas,
but I'm just now getting around to doing this post. 

 I moved my Great Grandmother's buffet into our living room/office.

Some of my favorite changes to our house are FREE ones. 

Moving furniture gives me a fresh look and a great workout all at the same time!

It also is a great way to motivate me to do some deep cleaning and boy did my house need it after Christmas.

Here is the buffet's new resting spot under my gallery wall.

Here is the buffet decorated for Christmas this year. 

It used to be in our great room.  I've blogged before about how this buffet is the wrong scale, the wrong color, and the wrong style for the space, but I still managed to live with it like this for eleven years!  Ugh. 

Pictures are great for showing flaws but the camera won't fix them. 

 I just was in a rut as to what to do with it?  I'm not ready to part with it and painting it didn't solve the scale or style problem?  I couldn't find another spot to put it until now.  We moved the couch out of the living room/office and into the great room.  The extra seating was much needed, but I still need to slip cover it.  That will have to wait.

Christmas Buffet 2011

Here is the couch's old spot.

Thanksgiving 2011

I think the buffet's scale is better in this room and the warm orange wood tones are balanced out against the cool blue wall color.   
It's working for me...for now.

In keeping with the free theme, I added stuff to the top that I already had.  I love the brass and enamel design of my Great Grandmother's lamp, but it could use an updated shade.  The large piece of faux coral was a find at Anthropology that I got on clearance for $19 many years ago.  I also picked up the Cabinet of Natural Curiosities book on clearance at Anthro. for steal at $25 around the same time.  I've seen this book in stores for $250.  I love this book and occasionally thumb through it and read it.  It's not just for looks.  I added some old crystal decanters, a cloche with one of my embellished shells, an old mirror, and my Great Aunt's school bell.  She was a teacher and this is how she called in her students from recess.  I love having my family history mixed into our decor.

I love/hate you Picnik

Free is good.

Not parting with family heirlooms is good too.

 Have you done any furniture change ups lately?

After many weeks of planning in my head I've started working on replacing the buffet with a new piece. 
If you follow me on Pinterest you might be able to guess the direction I'm going? 

Hopefully I'll be able to share it soon.

Thanks for checking it out.

My Buffet

Here's how I decorated my buffet.
I started by adding a faux greenery garland across the top of the mirror and added a feather boa, silver/gold twigs, a string of glass beads, my embellished starfish, and some mercury balls. I had everything except the silver/gold twigs. I found them for .99 cents a piece at a floral supply and they were an additional 40 percent off.

 

At night.

Here is my buffet from last Christmas.  Since then I have painted over the stencil, flipped the mirror, and added the architectural detail .  I'm still wrestling with what to do with the buffet itself?  Buy a "new" piece on CL or re purpose?  It belonged to my great grandmother but it's to small, I don't like the craftsman style, or the color.  Even if I refinish it the style will remain the same.  So it stays until I figure what to do. 

I purchased this living Norfolk Pine last year at Home Depot for $16.99 and it's still thriving.  I moved it inside for the season.  I added Christmas balls to the base of the urn.  The urn is old. it's from Target when they still had a garden center.

Here is the tree from last year wrapped in burlap.

I flanked the buffet with my two faux columns from Target.  They were a great purchase years ago from the garden center at 70 percent off.  They are light weight and portable.  I move them inside and out depending on the season.  I added urns and faux poinsettias and greenery.  I had all this stuff already and I wonder why we can only fit one car in the garage?

I used a piece of burlap to cover the top of the buffet and added some more silver, gold, and green.

Candles in hurricanes.

I hot glue crystals and buttons on my starfish. 

I'm done with the inside, but I still keep tweaking things. 

I still have a lot of Christmas shopping to do.

Hope you and your family are enjoying the Holiday season.

Thanks for checking it out.

Fall Buffet

It was about 95 degrees here in sunny San Diego and it still feels weird getting out the pumpkins?  I know many of you welcome the cooler weather that fall brings, but I thrive in the heat.  Yesterday I played volleyball at the beach and it felt like summer.  Playing volleyball with my girl friends is my one selfish "me time" I'm holding on to right now.  I'm down to just once a week at the moment.  I'm kind of over scheduled, totally my own doing and it's only temporary.  I won't bore you with "I'm sooo busy,"  because I know all of you are just as busy too.  Do you know anyone that isn't over scheduled and busy? 

I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to visit my little blog.

Thank you! 

Here is my fall buffet.  I'm using more of my studded pumpkins. 

 I made these many years ago. 

I still like them.

Here I am trying to be artsy with Picnik.

I added old Fleur Di Ly's fence finials to the top of my pumpkins.  My mom picked these up for me at an architectural salvage store.  She's my personal shopper.  I didn't know what to do with them at the time, but I knew they would come in handy someday?  I took the pumpkin stem off and stuck in a few shish kabob skewers to hold the finial in place.  I used more of my feather boas around the bottoms. 

I used the left over tacks from a chair project.

 You can just see my Thanksgiving tree in the background of this picture.

Here's my Thanksgiving tree from last year.  Sorry the picture is bad it's from my old camera.

One of our family traditions is to put up a Thanksgiving Tree right after Halloween and this is one of the gratitude cards we put on the tree.  Our family, and everyone else that comes to our house writes something they are grateful for on the card and we hang them on the tree.  During the Thanksgiving meal we read them. 

The table runner is one I made from left over pillow fabric.

To see how I came up with the architectural piece above the mirror go here.

Under the cloche I have an urn filled with coral, feathers, and pumpkins.

Slowly but surely I'm getting my fall out and about the house.  The good news is that busy people like us get more done. 
I  would love to hear from you and see your fall decor.  Please leave me a comment and a link back so I can see what your up to.

Thanks for checking it out.

Other post you might enjoy

Fall Mantle

My Owl

Blue Pumpkins

Summer Mantle and Buffet Change Up

I am fairly new to mantle decorating.

I've only had one on my fireplace for about three months.

It's been decorated like this since I completed the fireplace makeover. I found the urns at Pottery Barn. They were on clearance and I had a gift card so they were almost free.

Here's how I changed up the decor.
 I get bored with my decor quickly and like to change it. 

The best part of this little makeover is it was free!  I already had everything I just rearranged it and collected it from different rooms and cupboards in the house.

For ten years I lived with a fireplace with no mantle.  I completed the fireplace makeover a few months ago.  To see how I did it go here.

This is the before.

I had a dinner party for my husband's work and I spruced up these glass candle center pieces for all the tables ( I already had these they just needed a little freshening up).  

Sand, rocks, driftwood, white candles, shells, and embellished starfish.

Basic and simple.

   They look great in groups.  It takes the simpleness to a new level when used in multiple numbers. We had a sit down dinner for 35 people in our outdoor room last weekend and I didn't take ANY pictures.  I'm a bad blogger!

  I picked up the glass bowls at places like Big Lots and Walmart for very little money.
Oh well, I'll have to take pictures next party.

Here's how the mantle looks now. 

With some of the party vases.

I've been doing the seashell,urn, faux coral thing forever, but not on a mantle.

For the mantle I added some faux coral, a small urn with shells, a David bust, and some candle sticks with embellished starfish in them instead of candles.  The hydrangea painting I did years ago kind of limits my color palette.   

I stuck with white, cream, red and green to coordinate with the painting.

 I picked up two of these columns for $10 at Big Lots.  They were unfinished white plaster that I faux finished to give it an aged look.  The small pedestals came from a floral supply and I think they were $7 a piece?  I use them to elevate anything from terrariums, to candles, to food platters for parties.  They were a great purchase I use over and over again.

This crystal decanter and two others on the buffet came with my husband when we got married 16 years ago.
  

This tall glass vase was a present from my Mother-In-Law.  The David bust was from my parents when they lived in Italy. 

After living with it for a day I took out the starfish candle sticks. 

The rule is odd numbers right? 
Now I have odd numbers on each side.

Or is it still even because I have three on each side?

I swear I don't have too much time on my hands! 
Maybe one side should have one starfish candlestick?  Are you one those people that just whips up a vignette and it's done in five minutes?  I'm not, it's always a process of starting with too much, stealing stuff from another room, adding, subtract, changing the heights, and editing.

I'll live with it this away and probably change it AGAIN.  I need mantle decorating lessons #101.  Oh well, on to the buffet on the opposite wall of the fireplace.  Here is how the buffet looked like before.  I decorated it this way right before Easter.

Here it is for summer, or until I get tired of it.

More party decor re-purposed.  I ran out of sand and used dried black eye peas for this one. 

 It's sitting on the mate to the other column on the fireplace.

More urns with shells.

The mantle and the fireplace are in my great room so they I think they need to relate to each other.

I started with a table runner I made with left over pillow fabric and added more shells, candles, an urn, and one of my cloches.

More crystal decanters with hanging starfish. 

 The starfish have rhinestones and crystal buttons glued on to them.

I made these many many years ago and they still are one of my favorite DIY easy projects.  I use them year round in all of my holiday decor.

Here's what I did to the buffet in the middle of the great room.  I moved one of my large clam shells on to it and elevated it with another pedestal.  I bought two of these faux clam shells years ago at Marshal's and fill this one with seasonal decor.  The other one has succulents in it.

I would love to hear how you switch up your decor for summer?

Also, what is the a good guide for mantle decor?  both side odd, one side odd? 

Thanks for checking it out.

I'm linking this the The CSI Project

Beachy Vignettes Challenge



 Remodelaholic.