Navy Blue Walls, The Sequel?

I think it’s been 5 years since we painted our living room

Pittsburgh Paint Flagstone gray:

In my little world,

having any room be the same color for 5 years

is just NOT acceptable!!

Yes, it’s time for a change!

(Plus, I never really wanted gray.)

My heart was set on my favorite color — navy blue!

Sadly, as so often happens,

I was too timid to choose something so bold

+ instead, settled on the neutral gray.

(Don’t get me wrong — I do love Flagstone!)

So much for going big or going home, though.

Anyway, speaking of gray, our living room’s focal point,

this vintage sorter, is also gray:

And what a sad, sad coincidence . . .

. . . we also have a gray couch + not 1 but 2 gray chairs!

I think we can all safely say:

TOO MUCH GRAY!

So it’s not only time (5 years!?), already,

to change that gray wall color,

but I need to get rid of a gray chair or 2.

First, the walls.

Yes, my heart still belongs to navy blue,

+ who knows?

Maybe I’ll actually love this one!

Navy blue paint is really hard to get right!

Sometimes it’s COBALT!  Or PURPLE!

 

But, if it was a true dark navy,

wouldn’t it look fantastic with my beloved ikat rug, though?

Here it is in our most recent past house, the brick bungalow,

where it also looks great with that dark blue furniture:

This now brings us to the gray chair portion of our living room change.

I’m pretty sure we’re switching out that arm chair

+ getting this pretty mid-century arm chair + ottoman, instead:

Here it is, sans ottoman but in a tad larger photo op:

It doesn’t really look that dark blue,

but I think it will work.

Fingers crossed it won’t blend into the navy blue walls behind it, God forbid.

Uh oh.  Do you see what’s happening?

There’s that pesky color doubt of mine rearing its head again.

So, just in case, I’ve got “PLAN B”, + here ’tis:

It reminds me of a color, Beeswax,

that we used in our riverfront farmhouse

that we built at the turn of the century.

It’s just so darn cheerful,

+ wouldn’t it complement the pretty butter yellow in my rug???

Oh, here we go again.

Stay tuned!

Less Is More Fall Decor

Earlier this week, I shared both my current

+ my most-recent-past fall porch steps:

HA!  I must’ve had a lot more time on my hands back then.

Or maybe I’ve embraced the highly regarded

 LESS IS MORE school of seasonal décor.

Let’s have a look at some fall LESS IS MORE happiness inside our house.

Our huge sorter in the living room has had a wee bit of a makeover:

I emptied all the cubbies + refilled them with small pumpkins + gourds.

L O V E !

I’m really fond of these next 2 photos; perhaps I will have one or both framed.

But back to the sorter.

The black books + the red books switched places.

I love black in the fall + wanted the black books to be more prominent.

Speaking of good colors,

I’ve always displayed my yellow ware bowls in the fall.

This year, some of them are marching across the top of our sorter:

I made that silhouette of my grandson

+ wanted its black + white + antique gold for my fall vignette.

Don’t you love the crackled glaze on this vintage yellow ware crock?

We also hung my vintage St. Louis map on the front of the sorter:

Well, this concludes the fall décor portion of my blog,

unless I can whip up a little more enthusiasm.

Stay tuned!

Colorful Magazine Inspired Re-Do

This special issue of Country Home magazine is available right now,

+ you must go get a copy!  It’s that good.

Away with less is more decorating + just say no to neutrals-only!

So, as one does after reading a really good home magazine,

I immediately engaged in a really fun re-do, starting with this:

Please.  How much do we love that sorter of mine!!??!!

The color’s perfect, + the patina is so wonderful!

I bought it in the early 90’s from a friend + happily used it in my old retail store:

Sadly, there are no photos of said sorter in said store.

Please.  I take dozens of pictures every week!?

WHY DIDN’T WE TAKE ANY PHOTOS WAY BACK WHEN??!!

I guess we’ll never know, but back to the sorter.

  After I closed the store + moved across the state to be with G.O.,

it’s been languishing inside our garage for years.

Then we moved into our Dutch colonial about a year + a half ago.

I mean, come on.

Was that blank living room calling for it, or what!?

Yes, it was.

So.  Speaking of being inspired,

a few weeks ago I spied a photo of this room in Diane Keaton’s house:

Next thing you know, I’m rearranging all my books by color!

I really love how the cubbies display some of my ‘smalls’,

including these cute milk glass chickens from Grandma:

And in honor of Grandpa, who always carried a buckeye in his pocket for good luck:

A commemorative beer glass of the Cardinals ’64 World Championship,

(+ check out that adorable rock baseball made by my grandson!)

Omigosh, how sweet is my girlhood bank?:

A sweet red (Cardinal?) pie bird from my friend:

And this fun pair of Dachshunds:

Our framed map of Illinois is from the 1880’s;

we bought it at a pop-up vintage market in Grand Central Station in NYC:

But wait.  There’s more.

My beloved new Country Home magazine

has inspired me to ‘busy up’ the top of my sorter!

My son’s name is Jonathan,

so naturally, I got a bag from Jon’s grocery store in LA + had it framed:

A wonderful handmade basket from a fellow artisan at a show in the 1990’s

+ my heavy glass Pottery Barn vessel filled with old baseballs:

Now then.

Never fear — there have been other revamps in + around the Dutch colonial:

And in our canned ham:

Stay tuned for updates!

 

A+ For Color Coordination!

What’s more fun than a day spent rearranging?

Nothing.

Here’s my inspiration, in Diane Keaton’s house:

And for my rearrange, see this BEFORE, with my books displayed backward:

AFTER, in color, with bowls on top:

Yes, that’s right.  My books are now color-coordinated, + I love it!

AFTER, in color, w/o yellow ware bowls on top:

The yellow ware bowls, while lovely, were kind of visually too much.

Meanwhile, back to my books + stuff.

During the re-do, I thought it would be fun to fill the cubbies

with all sorts of color coordinating bibelots:

Oh, dear.  I might need to edit a bit.  We’ll see.

Now it’s time for a closer look at some of my books,

+ while doing so, please notice the wonderful, old paint on my cupboard:

Had I mentioned where I got this wonderful piece?

Back in the 90’s, when I had my own retail store, Heart-in-Hand,

my friend, Bob told me that his grandpa had a huge sorter in his boat garage.

I think I paid $50 or something scandalous.  Yay.

Even after closing my store, I could never bear to part with the cupboard.

For about a decade or so, I held out hope that I might open yet another store.

Dreams!

My shop keeping dreams finally ended (more like a nightmare at this point),

but I still couldn’t sell my beloved cupboard.

It was a nice place for storing all my gardening supplies in our old garage,

but when we moved here to the Dutch colonial,

I told G.O. that I wanted to have it in our new living room.

HA!  I slay myself sometimes, with those dueling cats.

I honestly can’t recall whether or not an argument ensued, but please.

After a while, he did say — without prompting, even —

that it looked better than he thought that it would.

Well, thanks so much for viewing my latest project.

Next time, I hope to blog about something new I’ve been planning for months:

A TARTAN PLAID BED SKIRT!

Stay tuned!

 

Post-Christmas Paring Down

Funny thing.

This November found me a little down in the dumps.

To try + boost my morale a bit, I opted to decorate for Christmas earlier than usual.

Exhibit A:

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

I totally know that Dachshund Santa is tacky, but how could I resist?

He’s almost as cute as Chloe the Dachshund!

Everything else is vintage + simple + natural, so I tell myself that things get balanced.

Exhibit B:

I’m keeping those darling vintage pitchers + tiny bottle brush trees out for a while.

Look!  There’s Chloe’s predecessor, Susie the Dachshund,

with our very young, very adorable grandlad (who’s now 11.5!)

But I digress.  Back to my holiday decor.

Away it all went, almost the minute Christmas was over.

How unlike me, Queen of Procrastinators!

 But isn’t it always great to see how spare the house looks after the holidays?

Take our sorter + art ledges.  Please.

You might recall that I was inspired by this photo to turn my books around:

I really like the way it keeps things looking a little less busy,

so my books are staying turned around, at least for now.

I also purged about half the stuff that had been on my art ledges:

They look great!

I hung our vintage map of Illinois on the front of the sorter:

We bought it at a pop-up antiques market in Grand Central Station

during our first visit to NYC.

Among all this paring down, perhaps you noticed one new item in our living room.

It’s an ottoman!

I’ve had it about 20 years or so.

It came with a matching chair + 1/2 (a.k.a. “Grandmother’s chair”),

which I sold about 10 years ago.

Its new upholstery will be a heavy horse blanket I’ve had forever, too.

I think it adds yet more texture + a little pattern to our room.

My plans are to attach it with some off-white twill tape + dozens of upholstery tacks.

(Sooner than later, I hope.)  I told you I was the Queen of Procrastinators!

Stay tuned!

Our Bungalow Is For Sale!

Hi again, sports fans!

Yesterday I blogged about our new art ledges:

While photographing said art ledges,

I took a few more snapshots of our living room.

Let’s have a quick look-see, shall we?

First up, my awesome red + white target artwork:

My friend, Alan, made it.

He has a new biz called Boxcar Home,

so look for him at pop-up markets in + around Chicago.

He + I may do one together, later this fall — stay tuned!

https://www.facebook.com/BoxcarHome/

Exciting, no?  But back to our living room!

The top of our sorter is currently sporting my old RedBird sign.

I stenciled it on an old plank from a cupboard,

which we found in the basement of our brick bungalow.

And look at that wonderful butter churn that G.O. bought last Sunday!

A couple of close ups of our sorter’s original gray paint:

Here are a few photos of the sorter’s cubbies.

Our dad caught this foul ball at a Cardinals game in the late 50’s.

The display stand is from Land of Nod.

I super love this miniature yellow ware bowl,

+ the small ‘pineapple’ patchwork ornament that my sister, Kathy, made:

Just a few of my dozens of books,

with the cutest blue + white floral bowl, ever!

I snapped some of our other living room happiness,

including this framed photo of my parents:

I bought that sponged frame at a folk art show, years ago.

My parents are seated on my old twiggy bench,

on the patio of the house we built on a riverfront lot.

Yikes.  That was 2 houses ago!

We just listed our most recent past house!

Disclaimer: we accepted an offer earlier this afternoon.

It’s been sold!

At Last, Art Ledges!

Jeopardy! was just on, + I didn’t get Final.  The humanity!

But let’s not dwell on today’s heartbreak;

 let’s discuss my new art ledges from IKEA, instead:

We have 4 of them on each side of that huge sorter.

I’m such a fan of art ledges — we had them at our old brick bungalow, too:

Art ledges are right up my decorating alley,

as they make it super easy for me to endlessly arrange + rearrange all my stuff!

They’re perfect for G.O., too,

as we don’t end up with Swiss cheese nail holes in our plaster walls.

But why, you ask, did it take us 10+ months

to hang art ledges here at the Dutch colonial?

  Well, here’s why  — I suffer from CDI.

Chronic Decorating Indecision

Let’s go back in time, when all this indecision was taking place.

I sit here, on our new-ish couch, while simultaneously watching Jeopardy

+ pondering where to display all my groovies.

Here’s my view while doing all that watching + pondering:

Disclaimer: I plopped that tall black ladder there just this morning,

so imagine this as an empty, blank space.

I just knew that it would be perfect for an epic gallery wall!

Here’s proof, all from Pottery Barn:

Yumm-O, am I right?

Yes I am right, but for some reason I just couldn’t commit.

Then, 0ne day, out of the blue,

I was struck with the idea of flanking our sorter with art ledges.

Perfect!  I love symmetry!

View from the front door. Our poor Eames-style recliner needs some TLC!

Let’s have a closer look-see at just a few of my groovies, shall we?

On the lower left side, I’ve incorporated some ‘leaners’.

Beatles Revolver LP . vintage map of St. Louis . folk art measuring stick, made from an old window sash (by me)

Now let’s view the lower right side, with its own leaner + a vintage child’s chair.

I’m sewing a cushion for it, for my biz — but I kinda like it here.

Perhaps I’ll keep it.

Cubist painting of Susie, our late great Dachshud by David Holsted of Harrison, AR . photo of our grandson with Susie . President Kennedy window cling

A framed map . Blackhawk statue in Oregon IL . Hogue Hall (now demolished) at my alma mater, Greenville College . vintage metal weather vane arrow.

Vintage letter cards . corresponding dictionary pages for ‘Oh’ (for G.O.) + ‘Kay’ (for me) . another vintage metal weather vane arrow

Close up of a print of my beloved Busch Stadium, from an etsy seller

Oh, how fun!

So many groovies, so little room left in this blog post, though!

Perhaps I will share more on another day — stay tuned!

Oh, + happy Labor Day weekend!

My Old Sorter Is Filled + Fabulous!

Last Friday I spent nearly an entire day,

very leisurely + very happily filling this:

That’s my old sorter ($50!) that I bought in the early 90’s

for my retail store, Heart-in-Hand.

Believe it or not, this is the very first time I’ve used it inside my home.

Here ’tis now:

My goal was to use it to display my books.

Since many of them have been in boxes for a while

(prepping for the big move, don’tcha know),

I honestly didn’t remember if I had enough to fill those shelves!

(G.O. + I collaborated on making that sign for my current biz.)

Anyway, back to my books — turns out I was pleasantly surprised.

I think my sorter looks just great + nicely full!

I left room for some of my classic décor magazines —

some neatly stacked on shelves + others inside this old box of mine.

(That retail store of mine was in Oregon, Illinois,

only about 20 minutes southwest of Rockford in the NW part of the state.)

I stacked my books in categories,

which is part of the reason the job took most of the day.

Here are some of my beloved décor books:

Here are some of my show biz books:

I had to buy that cute Oscar statuette souvenir on my first visit to L.A.

My beloved grandson was only about 3 or 4 at the time,

so chances were he wouldn’t grasp the meaning of his Oscar.

Now that he’s 10, maybe he’d like to have this for his own room!

(Stay tuned.)

“

Since one of my goals is to go a tad less-is-more in our Dutch colonial,

I fretted about filling all those cubbies:

I have chosen mostly old, or vintage, things,

many of which were gifts from some of my very best friends.

This funny pair of Dachshund salt + pepper shakers

 were a “just because” gift from my friend, Doris Shull:

Oh, gosh — remember ash trays?

My mom was given a set of 3 of these mallards by her mother.

Seems to me that, for good luck, that duck should point in a certain direction.

I’ve forgotten which, so I’ll have to ask my sisters.

Here’s the foul ball that our dad caught at a Cardinals game

when we were just kids — late 50’s?  Early 60’s?

He can’t remember which year, sadly, nor who hit it,

but it’s still very precious to me.

My friend, Alan, gave me the Dachshund planter,

+ that pretty tan pitcher was from my grandmother I mentioned just now.

How I love the wonderful patina of my sorter’s original gray paint,

and how great it looks in our living room!

Dining Room Dilema

Today we will sign the papers for our Dutch colonial foreclosure.  Let’s have another look-see, shall we?

Dutch Colonial “before”.

Of course, it’s homely now . . . that horrid white siding, the ill-conceived enclosed porch, those naughty overgrown shrubs in front.

 What I envision, instead, will be something like this:

Must haves: 2nd story switch of siding color + charming porch like this. Wish we could spring for the contrasting window sashes, but $$$.

My choice of siding colors will be a medium gray with a darker gray 2nd story, with lots of white trim.  YUM!

In fact, I’ve sketched out said-same for your perusal:

Seriously. Gray houses ‘call’ for red window sashes, am I right?

I don’t know about you, but to me, contrasting window sashes ‘make’ a home’s curb appeal.

They pop + they look very vintage, methinks.  We’ve comparison shopped already, + here are the sad facts:

white replacement windows @ $200 each

red replacement windows @ $400 each.

No can do, unless I start sewing pillows 24 hours a day!

www.redbirdvintagehome.etsy.com/shop

^^ Here’s my source of income, if you don’t count G.O. ^^

More of the 2nd story change of siding + color.

What’s prettier than a Dutch colonial done right?

Of course, I’d love it if our first chore would be sprucing up that exterior — so that all the passersby can see.

Sadly, however,  G.O. has already told me the exterior is not a priority + might not be tackled this summer!

What the WHAT?!  People will think we LIKE it this way?!?

Okay, then.  No problem.  I’ve already redone the interior in my head.

Let’s have a look-see at one of my favorites for our dining room.  Since I love catalog shopping, today’s happiness comes from West Elm:

Seriously. Gray felt drum shade light fixture! Beautiful! Unique! No longer available!

Major hubba hubba on the gray felt drumshade for over our dining room table — no?  Well, actually, it IS no.

 West Elm doesn’t carry their products for very long — + this one’s sold out!

Listen + learn from my tragedy:  if you see something that you like, get it NOW.

Anyway, after my gray felt heartbreak, my 2nd choice might be this linen one . . .

Love it but not getting it. Too bland. $149.

. . . or not.

SO.  Here’s the West Elm dining room light fixture that I really wanted, all along:

Mercury glass. $395.

No one loves the mercury glass more than I do.  No one.

That means it’s a must-buy in my little world.  Today.  Immediately after we sign the papers + get those keys!

And one more thing — please view my large, gray sorter, for which I paid a mere $50, circa 1990:

It’s that groovy gray sorter that’s against the wall. I originally bought it for my then-store, Heart-in-Hand in Oregon, Illinois.

It currently is residing inside a cool store here:  www.livinglolastyle.com.

This is the sorter that I could not decide to sell or to put in our new dining room.  Is it too weird?  I asked myself!

Well, NO, it’s NOT — I concluded, just after  I gazed upon Ellen DeGeneres’ sorter in the current issue of Elle Decor magazine.  Check it out:

I love the way this has been staged + hope to do something equally wonderful with my sorter.

I blogged about this just yesterday: https://redbirdv.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/my-new-bff-ellen-degeneres/

Thanks for viewing + stay tuned!