time for some small changes in my home

In my last post (I know, it's been awhile), I was explaining how we lived in a ranch-style house and that we basically lived on the main level. That we have a family room in the basement, but we're never down there. I also explained how we're at the age where retirement is looming, and that we need to decide if we're staying or moving. We started looking at other housing options by looking at homes in a nearby over-55 community. For various reasons, we have decided this particular housing development is not the right place for us.

In the meantime, I decided why not take advantage of the basement family room while we still didn't have any problem with the stairs? Besides, our living room is small and the wall by the fireplace is the only space we have for our TV. Not that this is a bad thing, but we don't have a foyer. So when you walk into the front door of our house, you're immediately in the living room. You're staring right at the TV. This was the only current (ish) photo I could find of the living room that shows the TV - from last fall. 

Another negative thing about having the TV in this space: the glare from the windows.

We purchased a big rug from HomeGoods to anchor the living space (the floors are painted cement; long ago we had carpet but had a basement flood...the contractor said at the time that even if we put down laminate, if we ever had a basement flood again, that the water would go under the laminate and ruin it...so he suggested just having the floors painted). Then we moved the TV and media stand downstairs.

Ta-da! A usuable space once again. We're not big TV watchers, but sometimes on the evenings where Brian has the next day off, we've been enjoying our time watching TV downstairs. We're currently watching Season 3 of The Bear.

Tucked in back of the living area is a little alcove where Tim used to have his drum set. It now holds the treadmill and some other exercise equipment. To the right of this alcove is a small hallway with a door that leads into the unfinished part of the basement. Same with that bi-fold white door that you see. 

You can see in this wider angle of the room, that behind the couch are bookcases and a L-shaped bar. That bar area came in handy when our boys were little and we'd have birthday parties in the basement. It was a great area to spread out all the food. Same for when the boys were teens and they'd have their friends over: a great space for kids to hang out and use the bar top for pizzas, pop, and snacks. The bar has cabinets built in behind it, so that's where I store all my large kitchen appliances and big serving pieces and platters.

A view of the bar...not a very attractive area, but at this point in our lives, we don't have any desire to change it. It's "good enough" for our use right now. The wall with the staircase behind it used to have an assortment of metal faux-vintage signs on it, but I recently took them all down. Was tired of looking at it. 

Back upstairs, I moved the console table from Brian's office to the space where the TV and media console were. It's a weird place to put anything, with this wall being right next to the angled fireplace and needing enough room to walk into the kitchen or hallway. I don't think builders think about furniture placement or design challenges. ;-)

 

Thanks for still being here and leaving such nice comments, even though I've been posting sporadically. 
💓

front door and decisions, decisions

Oh, hello.

I recently ordered this decal for my front door from an etsy shop called Lighthouse Decals. Something fun; a bit of whimsy. Something we all need these days. 

I've been spending a lot of time online looking for certain needed things for our home: patio cushions and pillows, a rug and chair for Brian's office, a welcome mat for the front porch, an odd-sized frame for a print, a bench or banquette for the kitchen table. It's not pleasant ~ at least not for me. There's too many choices and I end up falling down that internet rabbit hole. Other times, I've bookmarked things I've liked but I'm not completely sure on, or I want to show Brian first. And when I go back to them, they're out-of-stock.

One thing I will not order online is a sofa. Or couch. (Whatever you want to call it.) Too risky. I have to see it in person and sit on it and even lie down on it. When you're spending that much money and it's something non-returnable, no way. We'd looked in person for a sofa at several furniture stores in the past year. We never found anything we were 100% sure about, so we didn't buy. But now that I'm stuck in the house and I stare at our old sofa more than I used to, it's really bothering me.  Side note: excuse the small plate of berries and almonds; I was eating breakfast and thinking about a blog post and got up to take a photo. No staging, just real life.

This sofa is 14 years old. It is worn out. The cushions sink all the way down when you sit on them. There is no support. I can't sit on this sofa for more than 10 minutes without my back killing me. Not to mention, it's permanently discolored despite being professionally cleaned. 

And, my cats used to use the arms of the couch as a scratching post. I have a post by this arm of the sofa now and that's really helped. But the damage is done. We obviously can't go to stores now and sofa shop, so here's what I'm wavering on...

We have an IKEA sofa in the basement family room. It's about eight years old, but hardly used. As empty nesters, Brian and I never use this space in the basement. We have a ranch-style house so everything we need is on the first floor ~ kitchen, living room, bedrooms and bathrooms.

Going down the stairs into the basement, you can see how we have the sofa facing the TV. Which we never watch. Unless we're under a tornado warning and are camped out in the basement, or I'm on the treadmill. Both not frequent events. 😉

One reason we chose this IKEA sofa for the basement was because it came in pieces in a box. There was no way a regular sofa would fit around a corner and through a doorway going down into our basement. So we were able to assemble the sofa from the box right there in the basement.

Can you see where I'm going with this? I was thinking...

We could disassemble this sofa and bring upstairs to put in the living room to temporarily replace the ugly, old tan sofa. After all, even though this sofa is a cheap one, it certainly looks a lot better than what we have in the living room right now. 

But here's the cons: 

• I'd have to have Brian and our next door neighbor move the living room sofa to....where? Out by the curb and hope that someone picks it up with a day or two? What if they don't? We'd have to put the sofa in the garage and leave my car out on the driveway. For a long time.

• The disassembling and reassembling of the IKEA sofa is going to be a real pain-in-the-tush.

• That leaves us without a sofa in the basement and it's going to look weird down there without one. (I know, I know...we don't use this space. It's just an aesthetics thing to me.) And then once we are finally able to furniture shop again and do find a sofa for the living room, the IKEA sofa would once again have to be disassembled, carried back down to the family room, and reassembled.
  
  
  Whaddya think? Would you go for it? Or just leave things be until you could finally go sofa shopping in person again?

basement family room tour

From all the comments in my last post, it seems like we're all on the same wavelength when it comes to decorating trends: What's most important is that we decorate our homes in the style that we like best, and not what designers are saying is currently trendy. Warm, comfortable and welcoming seems to be the key.

I had said that my decorating style was a mixture of styles and showed photos of the upstairs, but I didn't show any of my downstairs family room. The decor down here is a little different from the upstairs in that it's mostly modern. My home is a ranch style with a 3/4 finished basement, which we made into a family room. We used to have carpet down here until the basement flooded. The contractor talked us out of putting down new carpet or even laminate, as "it's not a matter of if your basement floods, it's when." He's right. We've had two major floods, plus a handful of minor ones. So, we chose to have the cement floors painted and then use rugs for some warmth.

We honestly rarely use this space anymore. We don't watch much TV and when we do so, it tends to be in the bedroom. When the boys were growing up, this is where they played with their friends.

It does give me room for my hundreds of books and the dreadmill (as I fondly call it). 

These are books I haven't even read yet!

There's an L-shaped bar in the back corner. When the boys were growing up and we had birthday parties, it was a great space to hold the food buffet and cake. And when they were teens and had friends over, it held a lot of pizza boxes! All that graces the bar top now is a printer. The guy who lived here before us built this bar and there's cabinets in back. That's where I keep a lot of my large kitchen appliances and serving dishes (food processor, Crockpot, air popcorn maker, ice bucket, pitcher, cake stand). I definitely want to get rid of those old, ugly bar stools and replace them with some nicer ones "someday".

Then in another corner, we have Tim's drum set and guitars. This is where the treadmill used to be, but then Tim moved back home from college and we had to shuffle things around to re-accommodate his stuff. The bookcase in back is filled with children's books - all which belonged to Phil and Tim. They had tons more, but these were the ones I kept.

Thanks for visiting ~ and for those of you who live in the US, have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving with loved ones!

summer, unfolding

With the cooler, less humid weather we've been having lately, a lot of our time has been spent outdoors. The patio is the perfect summer spot for morning coffee, sitting and chatting with family and friends, and dinners el fresco. Flowers are lush this time of year, with phlox, lamb's ear and hydrangea now blooming, and purple coneflower, black-eyed susan and joe pye weed all about to burst into bloom. We had a two-day visit with Tim and that was filled with local dining on the river, movies, card games and errands. Hard to believe he'll be moving back home in under four weeks!

Brian painted our front door a cheery yellow and the side panel a crisp white. I did my part by picking out the paint colors, scraping the stray paint off the glass, and doing the touch-up paint work. We're a pretty good team. It's amazing how a little paint can transform a space. The brighter colors go well with the light gray siding and brighten up the entire front of the house. The door and side panel were originally a dark stain. I remember when we first had this door installed and the contractor asked what color I had in mind. I told him I really liked painted doors instead of stained, and that front doors looked best with colors that added a punch of color. He looked at me like I was crazy and said that a dark stain would look best against the light gray siding. I thought that because he was a contractor he knew best, so I let him go ahead and stain the door and side panel. I did like it at first, but eventually I realized it was too dark and formal-looking for our house. Goes to show it's best to trust your gut. Go with what you think is best.

This weekend was also a good time for a relaxing day trip, slow-walking up and down the flower-laden streets, popping into interesting shops, and more outdoor dining. 

Not all was fun and games this weekend though ~ on Sunday, we worked for five hours straight in the basement, cleaning out a huge space and reorganizing the things we kept. We bagged up all the unneeded and unwanted stuff, packed the back seat and trunk of our car to the hilt, drove to the Goodwill donation center, and dropped it all off. Now this cleared-out space is ready for Tim to drag all his stuff home in a few weeks. 

Life is busy ~ and good.

my decorating style

Hi there! Sorry it's been awhile since I last wrote. I've just been busy with everyday life...projects, housework, gardening, out with friends, yoga classes, haircut, learning how to use my new phone (amazing how much technology changes in two years!) and best of all...an overnight visit from my son. 

As I was reading Rue's blog post today about being trendy (or not) and different decorating styles, I was wondering what my own decorating style was...  

Cottage? Vintage?

 (Oops, there's a sneak peek of the hallway gallery wall I'm working on in the background.)

Hmm...I see a couple of mid-century modern creamers in this collection.

Another pairing of old and new...

 There's a modern ladder shelf in the living room ~ and a few modern vases, but then there's milk glass pieces and old books in the mix.

On the opposite side of the living room, a vintage magazine rack graces a corner next to an antique mahogany buffet.

Then it's back to modern with the lamp and end table...but what about the baskets underneath?

The opposite side of the couch has vintage suitcases as an end table, but I used a metal (modern!) basket on top to hold books. (Isn't the cover of that gardening book pretty? Found it recently at Goodwill. Yes, I bought this book for its cover. I also may or may not have bought wine because of the label. Don't judge. I'm a visual person.)

One thing's for certain ~ cats will always be part of my decor. :-)

 And so will books. Lots and lots of books.

This is my main book area...in the basement family room. Those of you who are new to my blog might not recognize this space. It's definitely modern compared to the rest of the house. I don't show it too often simply because I'm rarely down there. We mostly "live" upstairs on the main level.

 Well, I guess I can't put my decorating style in a box and call it anything certain. I've got old stuff, new stuff, and in-between stuff. I like it all! Eclectic, maybe? But like Rue said, "Stop apologizing and love your own style, no matter what it is." I couldn't agree more. I love to decorate and do so for myself and my family. As long as my home is comfortable, welcoming, a safe haven and filled with love, that's all that matters.