Drapes

Before and After Party!

If you’ve read this blog for one hot second, you know how much I lurve before and after pictures. I mean, I could just spend hours pouring over magazines full of just those pictures. I love to pick out both the big and teeny tiny changes that were made. Kind of like a Where’s Waldo of decorating.

I have a whole tab of before and afters, but I thought I would share a before I’ve never shown you (the after you’ve seen).

As I’ve mentioned before, our living room used to be one of my biggest decorating pain-in-the-rears. The ceilings are high, there aren’t many walls in the space, and it was just overwhelming to deal with.

I was decorating UP:

I got up on my tippy toes on an eight foot ladder to hang that stinkin’ art up there. Yeah. Risked my life people!

The little itty bitty shelves up the wall with the itty bitty accessories weren’t helping anything. (In my defense, I had just put them up when I decided I was taking them down, so I never finished decorating them.)

The light drapes were doing nothing for the space — even though they were lined, you could only appreciate their pretty stripes at night:

Soon I understood the power of bringing it all down…I know I’ve said it a million times, but it makes such a huge difference! It instantly made the huge, tall room a cozy, warm space:

A new, taller table, with taller accessories, chunky shelves (see previous post) and deep red drapes added the warmth I was looking for. And oh yeah, you don’t have to tilt your head back to see the art.

Speaking of that art — I wanted to show you another before and after I worked on last week. Did anyone recognize the art on my new shelves? (If not, just look at the before pic above.) I loved the poppy print, but the frame was a mess. I bought it on clearance and had to fill in all the scratches and dents with a Sharpie. It was just feeling dated to me.

Sooooo…I decided to cut her up! I used my L ruler thingy (no clue what it’s called) to make squares around the poppies:

And my big bad self used the jigsaw to cut them out! And when my arms and hands stopped jiggling, I touched up the sides with some black paint and they turned out like this:

Lurve!! They are so super cool, I just love them. And they were FREE!

This weekend, I worked on taking this before: Before and After Party!

Into a super cool, sexy, warm after. I can’t wait to show you!! I’m so stinkin’ excited about this room. Yippeeee!!

So now, share your befores and afters!! It can be anything you repurposed. Or a room redo. Or a messy closet decrapified. Anything! The ONLY rule is you must have a before picture! Because seriously, that’s half the fun.

Remember to insert the link to your POST, not your blog. I will have to delete links to blogs, and I hate being the meany. Have a great Labor Day and enjoy!

(I’m trying out a new Linky. Please, dear God, let it work!!)

A dining room reveal!

A dining room reveal! Well, its not completely done, but I thought I would stop the torture and just show you already!!

I have long said there are three rooms I think you can do totally dramatic and fun. Your laundry room, powder room and your dining room. The first two because they are usually small and can take pretty much whatever color you want. The last, because I think dining rooms should have a little bling and drama, just because they can.

Drama it is:
The bench I will show you more of soon. It’s drivin’ me batty! Argh!! It’s going to be gorgeous when I get it just right. (Dad is to the rescue this week — I’ll explain more later.)
The hutch redo I showed you here, and now I love that I can see what’s inside:
A dining room reveal! The window redo I showed you here. I added molding, bamboo roman shades and made my new drapes:

Joann Etc. is STILL out of my trim to finish off the two head chairs. (Pout.) I was thisclose to driving 45 minutes today to get it from another store, but I held back. Have I mentioned I’m insanely impatient?

BUT I did have a couple lumbar pillows made for them, and those make me feel soooo much better about the unfinished chairs:

Aren’t they adorable?!

I used scrap fabrics from the chairs and I adore them.

The table setting I showed here. I pieced together dishes from HomeGoods, Target and Pier 1:

The centerpiece is one of my favorite parts of the room, and it all started with a $4 mirror. You can see the how-to here.

Everything works so great with my cedar chest I redid months ago:

I showed you how ~~incredibly annoying~~ easy it was to reupholster dining chairs here. I used a brown faux silk on the backs, a creamy linen on the seats, and a pattern with all of the colors on the fronts:

Reason #7,839 I love my husband — when I put the fabric on the chairs to show him what it would look like, I asked, do you think it’s too much? His response — “Maybe for some people, but not for us.” LURVE that man.

I love to paint our ceilings, and I showed you how I did this one here.

It makes the molding POP!
A dining room reveal! The light. THE LIGHT I LOVE!! It was a knock of a Pottery Barn light I showed you here.
My version is from Home Depot and cost about $100 less (plus free shipping!).

I need to lower it just a couple inches, but for now, it’s just fine.

My favorite time to enjoy this room is at night:

I’m not lyin’ when I tell you I’ve had the chandy turned on every. single. evening, whether or not we’re downstairs. I don’t turn it off till we go to bed. It’s so lovely to look at when we come down the stairs throughout the evening: