Brand New Hallway!!

So, since I'm waiting to sell some of these pics in frames, I decided to use our house as more of the display.  I spent some time looking at different ways people grouped photographs in their homes and decided today to start- literally 1 frame at a time!  Here are some of the stages...

I literally started with the frame on the left slightly above the light switch.  Then, according to color in the photographs, I tried various ones around to create balance.  This is 7 frames in...and granted, looks a little crooked, but wait until we get a little farther ahead...

Here (on the left) we've added 3 more frames, going up the stairs, keeping them at a similar distance apart.

This is a closer look UP the stairs!

Now I took a break and stepped away and came back about a half hour later when I had a chance to think.  What I am NOT showing you is ALL the photographs I have spread all over the sitting room to choose from! =)  Messy for a purpose! O.k. after that rest, I jumped in and put the rest of them- once again ONE AT A TIME...moving them around and eyeing it the whole way...

Here's where I'm at now...

And here's a view from the top down...

And here are a couple straight on...

I'm so happy with the way it turned out!  But I am always looking for comments and feedback!

(Please forgive my occasional bump on a frame as I took these photos- there are a couple crooked!)  Not completely done, yet, but we're getting there!

And as always THANK YOU for liking my blog!!

                                     =D

One more example of using Photography!

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Three pieces of 11X14 photography of a Flamingo Imitating a Swan I took and developed into 3 different colors that pick up the colors in our front room- the blue, the black and white, and the orange/red.  Here is a close up of the pictures themselves:

Decorating doesn't have to be difficult or fussy.  And this is a cost effective way of changing the look of your room frequently- I am not a huge fan of expensive art, because I enjoy moving things around and don't want to toss out an $800 painting because I'm a little bored with it :)  But that's just me...comments are always welcome!

Easy Photography and Art Displays

Another simple example of displaying similar photographs on
a small wall- actually makes the wall appear larger!  Similar matting helps tie them together!

Widening a Collection of Art

So I showed the beginning of a collage of photographs in an earlier decorating post.  The new room- turning the rarely used dining room into my own little place :)  This is a demonstration of how it has shifted and I've added different pictures that I loved.  You can do this too!

Just to remind you- here is a before:

And here's a more current picture:

Using same size frames on each side to maintain balance, I've slowly made a larger impact statement above the couch.  I love being surrounded by beautiful and inspiring things!  And even more satisfactory- AFORDABLE!!  By the way, the amazing quilt on the couch was a self-made gift from one of my moms! 
Never be afraid to play around with your pictures- it helps to have someone hold them up to the wall so you can stand back and eye it :)  And always place them on the floor and move them around first!!
Your feedback is ALWAYS welcome...

Classy Black Doors!

I saw this simple idea on Pinterest and loved it!  When I tried one, I was out of my mind, so I did all of the rest.  Here is an easy way to classy up your doors- from white to black. 

This is the only picture of before.
And these are the afters!

Absolutely love the outcome! And all it took was a few cans of spray paint! (Of course we took the doors off the hinges and outside first =)  Never be afraid to try...

"Our Dining Room Table Re-do" (actually it's just the chairs)!

Last year, we put our 4 person dining table on the sunporch and got quite a bit of use out of it...HOWEVER- the oldest dog did, too..! She scratched her face on the seats and wore them out and made them smell...Here's what the chairs looked like a week ago...

I wanted to recover them inexpensively and also keep the exposure of the seats to a minimum... so of course I looked for material and found a great mix packaged altogether (mostly for quilters) at Wal-mart!!  I also found clear plastic material there for 97 cents a yard that is made especially for covering tables, picnics, and this type of furniture... Here's how I went about it...

Removed the screws and the seat...

I used the can of spray adhesive to initially attach the material...(and no, I did not do this on the carpet- this is an after shot) 

Cut the clear cover and stapled it over the material onto the back of the seat!  Notice I chose a DIFFERENT but compatible fabric for each seat, instead of making them all the same!! :)
Here is a picture of a couple of the completed chairs! I'm very pleased with the way they turned out...

 screwing the seats back on was the hardest part ironically!

And here is a couple pics of the finished product!  Hope this helps somebody with their decorating issues!   The dog is going to hate these- they are way too slick for her to scratch her face- she'll have to move onto the fence ;)

Happy, happy, happy for now!

                                                      

"The Break-Down of a Good Room"

O.k. so here's the thing.  I took a look at a couple of my posts picturing our rooms put together and thought the decorating MIGHT be overwhelming to some of my followers...I remember when I was starting out, (and when we didn't have much), sometimes I would feel that way looking at the pages of a magazine.  And I would think, "It's pretty, but it's way over my budget!"  I strive NOT to decorate that way.  I always want someone to be able to take away some ideas or several over a period of time to put together their own spaces. 
So I wanted to go piece-by-piece and breakdown the most recent room- "my own space" to show you how thrifty we all can be!!  For instance....this chandelier (which my husband now lifted up higher so I wouldn't hit my head! :)  We got this chandelier at the Habitat for Humanity Thrift Shop for $25!!   It came with everything, including the globes!  When we moved in, there was a really UGLY thing hanging that we took down immediately! lol...I did hang these pendants on at Christmas that amount to maybe $10- they are from the trip we took last summer- they're a personal touch that is a reminder of good memories :)

And.... this piece- a wicker bench seat- a well-made one at that.  I've used it all over the house...in our bedroom for awhile, on the sun porch last year... This came from the Humane Society Thrift Shop for $50- and it ALSO came with the well-made white fitted cushion!! (Yes, I washed it :)  The 2 pillows you see in the picture are Wal-Mart specials that I got on a good sale (maybe $4 a piece at the most) a couple of summers ago- I had them outside in my shed for awhile...they have a better home here- this is a much better use for them!  

The windows you see in my space have 4 simple panels.  While I am NOT a sewer, yet, these curtains were made by my mother Marilyn not long after we moved down here for probably $20 for both windows...you can often find window coverings for this price at places like Tuesday Morning, and of course Wally World.  Or there are a lot of tutorials out there to help you sew simple panels on your own...I love the pattern and colors and the fact that one of my moms made them, so I've kept them all this time!  So far, we've spent under $100 on this room!!







 
This "coffee table/work space" in front of the couch that I brought in, I've also kept around for about 6 yrs...it came with an inexpensive 5 piece set I was GIVEN as a birthday present one year...originally white, the dog destroyed the loveseat, so I broke up the set, and had this one upstairs no longer being used.  I had already spray painted it this sage green a couple of years ago, and even though some of it's coming off, I like that it looks "shabby chic"!  So THIS one was a FREE be!! Gotta love re-purposing!!

Now for the couch/chaise...okay, so this was the big ticket item for this room.  At the same time, it was quite reasonable and within our budget- Wal-Mart $399.00  We looked at a lot of different places, both online and in re-sale stores and this was the best fit.  I COULD have purchased a couple of decent loveseats for $200 for the pair, but what I really wanted was something I could lay down across and the loveseats were too small. What I'm saying is, there are lots of options out there!  For the money, I don't expect it to last for decades :)  But it really is a great sofa for the price- and easy to put together! So far, this room is only at about $500.00 total...and we have a lot of great things left!

Every good seat needs an end table- this one is also another re-purposed piece...but with great memories!
Mark's grandpa made this for us on one of our first Christmases together! I need to do a little cleaning up, and maybe another coat of polyurethane, but it's a terrific compliment: :)

My beautiful desk!! Also, a gift from the grandmother of the very first boy I kissed!! LOL- she was our neighbor for quite some time and offered it to me before she moved.  It's a solid wood, very well made desk probably at least 50 yrs old and I will never part with it!  Even though there have been times it's just been in storage, I am happy to have kept it and have another FREE addition to the space...still at $500, and we're almost done!

The CHAIR for my desk- found this at the Good will about 8 months ago! Paid $19!! It's in great condition (and matches our existing furniture well!  Now we're up to $519!! (Oh, yeah, and there's my tie pillow I made for around $8?)  

The RUG was the 2nd most expensive item and I found it BRAND NEW 6X9 for only $66 ONLINE at, once again, Wal-Mart...it's amazing how many things you can find on-line that they will ship to the store for FREE that is not available in store.  In fact, I couldn't find anything with a beautiful pattern the same size for much less than $100 in the store...AND EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS!  So now the room total is up to $590-ish with tax, probably $600...not bad at all for an entire room that seats up to 6 people comfortably if I need it to! 

The existing artwork were things I had collected on clearance over the months and used...and then of course the pictures I have hanging over the couch- frames all averaging $3 a piece- all artwork of my own or a family member- so that makes it free and unique!  Something anyone can do! It's amazing how the right frame can set off a picture...although in this picture, a couple frames are a little crooked ;) 

Whew! I think we've covered everything- I know this post was a little long, but I hope it gave a little better understanding, or simplified things for somebody...I love to live in a beautiful world- any way we can make it beautiful is good- even if it's just a smile! 

"Decorating Ideas- Halloween"

Most of the decorating I did for our big Halloween Party with our teenagers, came from the Dollar Tree- which gave me a lot for my budget...following here are just several pictures of how I used the articles to decorate the house...
Fingers and eyeballs in the pantry!

Then I used cotton to spread all over pictures that I DOWNLOADED from horror flick searches on the web...I inserted them into the frames to give a spooky feeling...since I wasn't selling them, I didn't have to worry about copyrights!!
Look closely at the pictures! =0

So I wanted to take pictures of all of our party guests and I needed a couple of backdrops- in comes my shower curtain liner (which needed replaced, anyway for about $6 from Wal-Mart).  I laid the tarp out in the yard, and used a bottle of red acrylic paint- 97 cents- and flung it randomly over the liner, and at one point, covered my hands in the red paint and put a couple of stamps on the liner dragging down- needless to say, I was going for a "Psycho" feel!  It turned out pretty great! 
Made for some terrific photos- although this one I could see the bottom of my door :)

See the eyeballs sticking out of the plant in the corner?  For about $3 a piece, I bought styrofoam balls and painted black circles in the center.  By shoving dowel rods in the bottom, we could put them in bushes outside and all sorts of places for trick or treaters- for nighttime, we put cheap kids' light up sticks in from the top and the EYES GLOWED =) 

And here is a pretty decent photo of them glowing in the dark!!

Here's another cheap decoration that got the kids' attention! Once again, Wal-Mart for a couple of bucks, supplied me with these green and black pantyhose.  I stuffed them with socks to look like legs, and used my very own pair of red shoes.  We stuck them under the garage door to look like "The Wicked Witch of the East" out of "The Wizard of Oz"!  Cheap and not too gory!!

For a CHEAP and easy way to scare up our porch lights, I used a page of my existing scrap-booking paper with a red tinge, cut it in half and just taped it to the inside of the glass. (Be sure they're not touching the light bulbs, and take them down as soon as Trick-or-Treating time is over.) Then we used a little more "spider web" to give it a more realistic touch!

Here's a great photo I put in black and white- I bought a zombie figure and taped him behind our dining room door like he was reaching out.  I got to take a lot of pictures with our zombie and our friends that turned out great!!  This is one of my favorites!  

Just one more- can you tell how much I like to decorate for Halloween?? I found these paper birds at the Dollar store and put them all over our windows, and then I found 2 for $1 fake ravens and placed them in the house...Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" scared my mother to death when she was young!!  The ravens, by the way, also tricked our cat! LOL He attacked them more than once!

I'm only posting a couple more photos, I could go on forever...feel free to share any of your ideas here! Thanks for sifting through mine!

 

Happy Halloween!!