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Refreshed living room

Refreshed living room

posted on June 11, 2012 in Decor with 1 Comment

One of the things I like most about finding treasures at yard sales, thrift stores or antique malls, is the ability it gives me to change things up on the fly. I would rather have a bunch of things for less rather than invest money on a few things (which, unless you are rich, means you are stuck with them.) So once Memorial day came around I decided to switch up the mantle and bookshelf and give our living room a new look.

I previously had the flag folded on top of the bookshelf. I am always lost about what to do on the mantle, so this seemed like a fun summery way to change it up. I had previously had a bunch of antlers and all of our nambe collection up as a halfway transition from Christmas.

I used our Nambe champagne glasses for height on one end in a grouping with a broken twin lens camera (that a co-worker gave me, score!) and a bunch of old locks, the ones that didn’t make the cut here.

In the middle “low point” I used a fish shaped nambe dish to hold two flowers that nick and I made in a glass blowing/sculpting class we took. Don’t you love Living social & groupon deals?! And in the center of each flower, I placed a bullet that Nick’s aunt gifted us with last fall. they are civil war bullets! Isn’t that unreal? I had been lost as to how to display them, this seemed fitting.

On the other side of the mantle I added height with the largest antler and also grouped our industrial “R”, a picture taken down from the gallery wall and two brass bookends we got from nick’s Dad (both which used to be on or around the bookcase.) I hung one candleholder from another and hung a bunch of keys from that. It gave some more industrial charm and also some chaos. (a component I like!)

I like the new mantle look, It feels fresh, new and a little odd. It’s not perfect and definitely not Martha Stewart but I dig it. For the bookshelf I added 3 more milk crates and rearranged for height. It used to look like this.

I scaled back the gallery surround the books and only kept the two yellow art pieces on one side and one blue & white picture grouped with a blue and white vase on the other. The previous gallery wall seemed too unintentional without pieces “going together.” I also fixed up the books, and spread them out among the new crates so they would be less crowded. I also took our ever expanding Nambe collection and put it on top of the crates using a simple 2×4 for stability.

I was happy to bring in more yellow to go with the art pieces with our new rug, that I mentioned before here.

It was a steal, $15 dollars at a yard sale! The gal I got it from said she found it at an Antique store in Chicago, I didn’t ask how much she paid for it but it must have been $$! It’s a huge impact in this room and I am really loving it. The only down side about the rug, is that it is too big. The width is ok, but the length goes all the way across the walkway behind the couch and up the wall! I didn’t know what to do at first, but since it is a thinner rug, it folds very flat. So I decided to do a simple z-fold. Keeping the thick part of the fold (where it is 3 layers thick) underneath the couch.

{image via here}

I’m sure it’s not how a professional would do it but it works! And you can barely tell, I didn’t want to make it permanently smaller in case we ever needed the full size of the rug in another room.

One end of the fold is under the couch and at the other end I have a strategically placed basket of blankets, but as you can see where the fold is, is pretty flat indeed.

Overall I’m happy with this room (at least for now) It has a good base of neutrals but the pops of color with the rug, artwork, books groupings, and the blankets on the couch. It made a good and colorful transition from fall/winter to spring/summer. It also helped tie in the black/white/yellow office which connects to this room!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We had a nice and relaxing one.