A New Painting for Our Kitchen Nook

I'm crazy about this oil painting painting I recently found for our kitchen nook.  It's by a German artist named Decker and was done in 1886.  You know when something just calls to you?  ("Buy me!!" ;)  I didn't know where I'd put it (I rarely do with art...  If I love it, I know I'll find a spot) but for $60, I was thrilled. It's full of my colors and I just love its moodiness. 

I've been meaning to  get something up on the left side of my kitchen nook for a while now...   Here's a photo of the right side with the chalkboard:

The green in my cabinets (Behr's Witch Hazel in Semigloss) works perfectly with the Decker painting:

I'm leaving it unframed and I love seeing the tattered sides of the canvas.  The painting is so beautifully aged.  

And here it is up in "the nook." 

I'm never one for permanence in my home, but it'll be staying in the nook for a good long time!  While I do appreciate museum-quality art (who doesn't?)  I'm always on the lookout for beautiful inexpensive original paintings.  (And by inexpensive I mean under a $100 and preferably in the $30 - $50 range...  I know that's cheap, but I feel no guilt at checkout! ;)   

xoxo,

lauren

ps- The white floor vent register seen in the pics has finally been replaced!!  wahooo 

Before & After: Our Entryway

Ours was one of the worst entryways I'd ever seen. (below) The sickly light from the too-small 70s fixture cast an off-yellow glow on everything. I tried to keep it off so as not to scare guests away but I'm not sure a really dark entry helped either. The walls went up & up and anything I already owned that I attempted to put up there felt dinky. And the dirty linoleum was just the icing on the cake!

So we replaced the light fixture, the floors, painted & added some art & finally, here is is now:

I wanted something really special when you first walk in... Something unexpected & a little crazy. The 30 Leonardo DaVinci sketches were originally intended for the living room but once the beautiful stencilling went up I realized I couldn't cover it. Our sweet friends Amy & Greg came over & helped us hang the sketches. I had a really crazy week last week & was supposed to take it easy, so I literally just sat on a chair at the top of the stairs and watched & guided & tried not to be too bossy ;) as the three of them -Dave , Amy & Greg- "randomly" hung up the prints.

All together this was about an 8-10 hour project- split between both Dave & I, it didn't actually take this long but that's about how long it took man-hours-wise. We bought the book Da Vinci's Notebook and I cut & tore out the sketches along the original worn & jagged edges. We used a variety of different subject matter & for some reason I can't help being drawn to the "grotesque" studies he did of people. Da Vinci believed that to be able to recreate beauty you had to have an understanding of ugliness & what made someone "grotesque." Dave just kept shaking his head as I cut out more "old men" sketches from the book for the wall.

But with 30 frames to fill, we definitely got our fair share of pretty drawings:

And everything in between:

The custom 20" x 14" antique gold frames (approx $20 each from here) came in pieces & Dave put them together. (With 30 frames, this took HOURS but the price made it all worth it to us.) I ordered uncut white matting for the frames and just mounted the sketches right onto the matting. My big dilemma was: would I hang them in a perfect grid or fo for a more Alice in Wonderland feel? Clearly the grid would be safer but I've always loved Alice in Wonderland and try to take risks when I can. (And the installation was so much quicker!!! No laster levels, just friends & some hammers & nails!)

The floors are now seagrass & here is an older pic I have of them (below.) We have a little Ikea storage bench for putting on shoes & it's where Christian waits when we're all leaving the house in a rush. The cushion is really easy to recover and I plan on switching out the fabrics whenever I feel like it:

And below is a view of the entryway looking up:

And here it is now (below). I couldn't be happier with how the 4-feet high Minka- Lavery caged lantern from Bellacor works with the frames. (I got it for around $200 on sale!) ...I don't know if this makes sense to you (and this may be the synesthete in me speaking) but when I look up at the entry it reminds me of tinkling chimes. I can't explain it but something about the frames & the lantern & the light is musical to me... It's weird to say but I can almost hear it. (hahah okay I hope you don't think I'm on crack, but do you see at all what I mean?)

And finally, one last photo of the whole thing from the living room. The frames aren't spaced evenly and we just eyed the prints creating a crazy entryway of "randomness." I know this might not be pleasing to everyone, butI'm so glad I decided to go this way instead of with a grid... the risk was worth it.

Needless to say after last week & all of our holiday decorating frenzy, my face & ankles & hands swelled up & I got cankles!!! eeeeeek :) They're gone right now but try to come back whenever I'm on my feet fro more than a little bit. I'm almost ready for this baby!!!
xoxox.
lauren

-Exact frame purchased: Radius Colorcast- Antique Gold  (RC23)

Our Dining Room: All "Done!"

(Above, some nuts in a vintage jello mold.) Well, since Jonie showed the evolution of our dining room in her recent post, I thought I would share our finally "done" dining room with you! As you might remember, here's what it looked like when we first moved in:

And here it is now:

I finally made & hung my last set of frayed linen curtains & ordered Sears' roman shades in 'natural' for all of the windows:

I went with a totally white scheme with a few hits of green. I wanted it to be insanely neutral so that I can do whatever I like on the table & have fun with colors:

Right now I have my painted white thrift store bust sitting on a stack of magazines. We use the dining table a lot as a place to just hang out: read, use the computer, etc..

The chairs are from Ballard Designs & of course they're machine washable slipcpvers. (No other type of whit would last in this house!) The thing I love most about them is that I got the ones on casters & they are So convenient!!! They're great for pulling out one-handed when you've got something in the other hand and for pulling into the living room for extra seating. I didn't even know how much we'd love them.

And notice the little gray goat skin on the left chair... (above & below) Dave tried to surprise me for our anniversary with this "rug." He ordered it off of ebay & was thinking it would fit under our lucite coffee table before we had anything under there. Not knowing, this I came home with the cowhide one day and he told me that he'd ordered me a rug for an amazing deal (like $40 I think?) & could I return mine. (I couldn't.) He said his was a goat. I asked if it was a really big goat?? He said he guessed so. Anyway, I felt really terrible until the "goat" arrived & it was about the size of our dog. So now it just gets moved around the house like the rest of our stuff. And below, I'm finally 100% satisfied & loving my cocoa bead chandelier. It really nheeded the heft of the skirted parsons chairs underneath I think:

Thank you all so much for the wonderful emails & comments & "gifts!" Have an awesome weekend!!!

xoxo,

lauren

Our 70s Split Redo Part IV: Our Toddler's Bedroom

It was really important to us for our little guy- Christian (2 yrs old)- to have a fun, happy & organized room when he transitioned out of the crib/ nursery to his "big boy bed" & new room this past summer. (And of course it had to be budget-friendly!) It's a TINY space and we decorated it with jungle animals & made a really big deal out of the move and he handled it perfectly. (Straight to bed and slept through the night from the start- wahoo!) Unfortunately I don't have any 'befores' of this room. Basically just picture it empty. With a combination of thrift-store finds, Ikea pieces, some DIY items and a splurge or 2, we got just what we wanted:

The inspiration for Christian's room came from these Ikea curtain panels. They reminded me so much of some of my favorite children's books: My Father's Dragon and The Saggy Baggy Elephant.

I decided to rip out the Saggy Baggy Elephant's pages & make a big story wall for him out of all of the different animals. (We used Michael's frames on sale for $10 each)

It's a super-easy & inexpensive way to treat a wall in a kid's room. Christian loves pointing out all the different animals:

Even his lamp is a macaw (below, by Arteriors Home- inspired by an Eddie Ross creation in a House Beautiful Weekend Shopper article.) I wanted this lamp from the moment I saw it (way before I knew we were going with a jungle room) and when it came time for a lamp I was so excited to get to include it!! (I'm often tempted to take it to other rooms ;)

The trundle bed with drawers & bedding is Ikea & I have to say how impressed I am by the green velvet blanket. I wanted to go with a crazy mix of green patterns & layers throughout the room to make it feel energetic & happy:

Our dog's bed is in here for now but she never uses it (she prefers ours- argg) & it's ended up as a nice hangout spot for Christian. The rug is from Dash & Albert & it's practically wall-to-wall because I'm just not that into our plain jane white carpet.

Christian has so much fun playing with his trucks & trains on it because its stripes are roads & train tracks for him.

And a fun addition to the room is the vintage wallpaper lion from Romp. -below- (They have so many great silhouettes- adorable!!) Dave hung him across the closet door & we slit him so the doors would open properly. He surprised me with the project being finished one day without asking where the lion was supposed to go on the door. (I'd originally planned for him to be walking along the floor at the bottom.) And I came in and he was floating!!! :) (and you really can't complain at all when your man is that sweet- so the only option was to make it work.)

SO, we decided to make a hill out of (what-else - we seemed to be crazed by it lately!) chalkboard paint!! Sometimes the "mistakes" end up being the best things in a space. Now there's a whole new activity area in the room:

I pulled out the red from the berries in the curtains by using this vintage bookshelf/ cabinet piece I found for $26 at a thrift store a few years back. (below) It's great because the bottom hides toys (it's a "garage" as Christian calls it for his trucks to sleep in) and the top houses tons of books. The alligator head used to live on top of it but it started SMELLING. (I am SO not kidding.) The room started to stink because of it!!!! It was awful, so he's bagged up & on his way out.

We're hanging the red chinoiserie mirror (below) in here too because it matches perfectly & has those crazy vines all over it (and got booted from the entry ;)

And one last pic (because you know I always go overboard with pics! ;) of the room, below:

Hope you enjoyed & can't wait to show you the nursery!! (I'm waiting on the finishing touches until the baby comes so I can do the boy/ girl thing -- Only a couple more weeks!!! :)

xoxo,

lauren

Our 70s Split Redo Part IV: The Master Bedroom

So I finally took pics of our bedroom! (a million!!- sorry!) Here's what it looked like when we first moved in. Scary, I know. The curtains were leftover from our old house & we had to hang them for privacy until I could get longer ones. (They were one of the last things we added to the room so anytime someone walked in I was so embarrassed! :) The limewashed paneling was pretty bad but appealed to me in a weird way... We stuck to our budget and spent just under $1000 in this room. We didn't replace the (new, clean-but-boring) carpet but have plans to do so. (Probably with a natural woven wall-to-wall carpet like seagrass or sisal.)

Here it is now:

I knew I wanted all-white because there's just nothing more relaxing to me & we really wanted to focus on the wooded views outside the windows. And I love getting into a clean white bed with fresh linens. Just love it!! (The duvet cover is from West Elm & I like the fact that it's pretty even when it's not made :) We keep our current books on the old step ladder (above) under the window that we found outside our house in the bushes. It keeps things neat.

What inspired the rest of the room was the antique brass headboard. (below) We found it on the side of the road set out trash when we first moved in. (One of my best trash-picks ever.) It's a double bed but works fine for our queen bed.



For our bedside tables we went with the Malm dressers from Ikea. (I think around $65 each?) We needed the storage space and I love having a big nightstand. I wanted modern & simple & I've always loved the lines of these. I chose an antique brass reading lamp by Robert Abbey suggested to me by Reichel of Copy Cat Chic (thank you!!! :) because it was such a better price than the Restoration Hardware one I was lusting after & had the same look. I love having the dimmer at night.

On the other nightstand we used the Chinoiserie ginger jar lamp I found on our first flea market with Eddie & Jaithan for only $20! I'd been searching for one of these for years as my grandmother had them when I was growing up at their house & I always loved them. (And she's not ready to part with them! ;)

I found the vintage crystal chandelier (below) at On a Whim (in Lucketts, VA ) last December and kept my fingers crossed that it would still be there when I realized how perfect it would be for our bedroom. I was lucky!!! I ripped the two fern prints above the bed out of a book we had & put them into $1 frames I found at a thrift shop. I love them against the paneling...

We have a semi-awkward wall on one side of the bedroom: not enough space for a piece of furniture but still a pretty substantial wall. I decided it would be a fun spot to hang some of my jewelry so I could enjoy it even when I'm not wearing it. (below)

I simply hammered in some large nails & had fun hanging the necklaces by color & size. It's one of those little things that just makes me really happy. I end up wearing it more instead of forgetting about it in my jewelry box. The chair was $13 at a thrift store & I painted it white.

The huge pillow on the bed is a cheap body pillow from Target that I had covered in a rich greeny-goldy ikat that I found at Calico Corners for 60% off.

I really wanted the room to have a simple & modern feeling with a touch of feminine & ornate detailing... This picture below kind of embodies the whole idea: ornate gilded sconces from my grandmother topped with a simple white vase from ikea. (We have one on either side of the window.)

And this seriously scrolly hand-carved bevelled mirror found at Lucketts was our splurge at $250. Its lines remind me a little of fern... I stare at it in bed & find lots of shapes & faces (there's an owl guy hidden in there) and I never tire of it.

And whenever I take pics of our house, I pretty much move these chemistry beakers into the room. (haha oh well.) Here I used fern from outside (where the Boston fern now lives :) and love them paired with the fern prints. Such a simple easy arrangement...

The white roman shades are off-the-rack from Sears & I swear by them. They're thermal-lined & if you can find the right size, they're awesome. The curtains are from Ikea. One last little look:

Thanks so much for reading & hope you enjoyed the tour! Have a great day!!!

xoxo,

lauren

ps- Just in case you missed the others:

Part 1: The Living Room/ Dining Room

Part II: The Family Room/ Office

Part III: The Kitchen