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.

Living Room/Office Gallery Wall

I've been thinking about doing a gallery wall somewhere in my house for awhile now.
 I just didn't have any extra wall space to put one?
I saw this picture on Lauren Liess's blog Pure Style Home.
It's a picture of Karen Robertson's showroom at High Point.
Sorry the quality didn't turn out when I copied the picture. 
If you go to her blog you can see it in better quality. 
It's hard to tell it's framed sea life.
I also love the white slip covered couch and the blue accents.

About a month ago I painted this pair of mirrors that hung in my living room/office.  
It was part of my attack on the Tuscan brown pieces that still occupy my house.   

I call this the "Before, Before."

I liked how the mirrors turned out. 
I'll refer to this as the latest "Before."

For the new gallery wall I started with a scale drawing and figured out how I wanted to arrange the new items I wanted to use.  I'm glad I did this step because it's completely different than I originally imagined and it saved me from patching a lot of unnecessary nail holes.

Here is the first "After."

You can see my Thanksgiving Tree in the left hand side of the picture.
I still haven't made time to slip cover the couch.  It's on the to do list.

The sea shell frame is just glued shells on an old oak mirror. 

I made it years ago before I blogged.  The gold framed mirrors were borrowed from my master bedroom.   

Total cost of this project with spray paint $16. 
I don't think the new look is necessarily better than the old mirrors. 
I just get bored with my surroundings and like to mix it up.

I liked the changes I made, but I always need to live with the newness for a few days before conceding it will stay for the time being.

Mounted sea fan art like this is everywhere, it's far from an original idea, but I had the old frame, the burlap, and the plastic sea fan.  Using stuff I already have saves me money.  The frame was white and I painted it and the sea fan with the extra blue pumpkin paint.

No sea fans were killed for this project, they're plastic.   I use them in my Christmas trees, Thanksgiving trees and in other urn arrangements.
Here they are unpainted in one of my shell urns. 



Here's how I used another sea fan last year for my front door during Christmas time. 
This one was spray painted aqua.

The mirror on the bottom left hand side of the wall was picked up at a garage sale for $7 and started like this.  The previous owner screwed the hanging bracket through the front of the frame?

I filled the holes with wood putty, painted it white, added the blue pumpkin paint to the damaged fabric border, added some gold accents, and glazed the whole thing with a gray wash. 

So I lived with it like this for a day. 
My plan was to replace the bottom right hand side gold mirror with a painted  piece of art.
I might still? 

While taking apart this arrangement from my husband's Birthday Party I got another idea.

Here is the "After, After" and final change for this post.  I picked up this frame at H4H for $5 several months ago and it sat in the "garage filled with too much crapolla" for months.   I mounted the branch on the wall with a nail and some twine.  The Tilandsias are thriving and should do great in this room.

It creates three dimensional living art.

I just need to give the Tillandsias a little spray of water every once in awhile to keep them healthy.

So what do you think? 
Should I go back to the old mirrors, stick with the new gallery, or ditch the stick art and paint a picture for the frame, I would love to hear your opinion.

Framed any sticks lately?

Thanks for checking it out.