Living room decor...My Style

Hello Crafty Friends!

As most of you know we built a manufactured home up in the country on my husbands family property almost 2 years ago.  It has been a wonderful time for me because I finally (after 30+ years) got to do all the decorating the way I wanted.  

When you walk in the front door you automatically are drawn to the wall of windows that show the beautiful view of Blue Mountain that is our backyard.  I wanted to decorate with this in mind and bring the outdoors in.  I love nature and nature's colors so I had a few ways to go in regards to color choices.  I chose to go with tans, browns, teals, blue gray, amber and creams.  I also added and I love dark bronze metals, cherry wood (not the burgundy red cherry color), and java stained wood.  

Made these picture shelves
to fit this particular size and space.

I chose my couch specifically in a off white tone so that I could change the color accent pieces when ever I chose.  This couch is my very favorite piece!  It is extra wide and deep and filled with foam and down feathers.  So Comfy!!  Great to curl up on and read, look out the window, watch TV and sit in from of the fake fire place.  It does heat the whole room plus some, which was great on the snowy and rainy cold weather we finally got this year.  

Hubby got to pick out one chair and I have to live with ginormous speakers and ugly subwoofer!!  (I absolutely HATE these things!!)  He also took the covers off of them because that makes them look cooler!? UGH!  Oh well, pick my battle right?!  LOL!  Of course his friends think that is soooo cooool...whatever!  ;)  I do like the chair though.  

Hubby did a great job picking out this
chair.  

Can totally do without these speakers (the 80's called and want them back!)
But I love my second hand store lamp finds
with the new shade I got for them.  

UGH!!!
Really cute crochet blanket in the basket I am working
on for the couch though.  Maybe I should use it to
cover this ugly sub woofer...hmmmm???

The fabric on the accent chair gave me an earthy feel.  It reminds me of raindrops and fall leaves.  My sister in law was shopping with us and fell in love with the rug which was a spontaneous purchase after we had picked everything else out and it looks wonderful.  

I found the pillow at a retail store and I have always loved this saying,
LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE and it was the right teal color.

 (That's my wine bar behind the chair, LOVE IT!!!) 

We live in middle of the Mother Lode Wine country!  So this will be filled up in no time.  Literally I can go 30 minutes in any direction and hit a winery.  I custom made the shelves and added the wine glass rack.  Still need some idea on what to put to the right on the floor????

Since the dining area is part of the GREAT room I refurbished this garage sale find table and transformed it into a farmhouse table.  Complete with out initials and a heart engraved into the corner. My favorite piece and biggest accomplishment here so far. You can read more about it HERE. Labor of love!!  I love metal art and these were a great find.  

I am not a fan of captain's chairs, so I purchased 2 fabric covered chairs
that went well with the living room furniture and re-upholstered and chalk painted
the other four.  

I have done a lot of refurbishing of some of our old furniture for this house but still need items like coffee table (if I can fit one in there).  When the kids all come home everyone plops on the floor so not sure if I want one.  I really like the cut log look natural style.  

Definitely need end tables with storage and would like a long bench for under the window.  Some bigger paintings for the walls.  This house has lot's of big walls.  Someday I would like a really nice built in looking entertainment center (then I can move the fireplace to our master bedroom).  I have loads of movie memorabilia and Disney snow globe collection I would love to display.  

Love these rustic style pieces I found at Arhaus.com.  Especially the brown wood entertainment center...WOW!!  <3

Check out these pieces at Arhaus.com!

We've had our eye on these end tables I found at Wayfair.com

Well I hope you enjoyed the little tour of our great room decor and style.  

Until next time...

Hugs,

     Terri

Adventures in Chalk Painting with Waverly...

Hello Crafty Friends...

Well I finally got around to trying out Waverly's Chalk paint that Walmart is carrying.  I didn't get Waverly's brand of waxes though.  I have Annie Sloan Wax clear and dark, so I just used those.  No sense spending more money right?!  :)

Today I thought I would try it on a wood chair.  I've had this chair forever and when we moved I didn't get rid of it.  It was in definite need of renovating, so it was the perfect candidate.

First I sanded down all the paint splatters so I had a smooth surface.  I didn't go all crazy sandy, just enough to knock off the high spots and a little of the varnish.  Then wiped it down really well with a damp cloth.  Then applied one coat of Waverly's Chalk Paint in Truffle.  It only took a little less than half the bottle to cover the whole chair (even underneath the seat).  It has the consistency of chocolate putting and went on nicely.  I wanted a brown color for this chair to be an extra chair for the Farmhouse Table I made.  (You can find that post here.) The paint had more of a grayish brown color when dried.

It was a little more grayish/brown than
the pic shows.

I applied a coat of Annie Sloan clear wax using a t-shirt instead of my wax brush.  It was easier to get in between the spindles.  Let dry for about an hour and then applied dark wax.  Rubbed it down really well with a t-shirt then used my drill motor with buffing brush (best tool ever!!) and then went over it with a shoe shine brush.  The wax after being buffed was still a little streaky so I wadded up some paper towels and rubbed down one more time and it rubbed right out.

On a side note:  My intention wasn't to have a distressed look on this chair.  I wanted it to be a solid brown.  Wellllll....thanks to my drill motor bumping some of the sides and scraping off some of the paint, it became an accidental victim of distressing.  Oops!  LOL!!  So it had a few more accidents (intentional bumps) and made it look symmetrical (sort of).  I think it still looks great.  :)

Here is the finished product...

The Annie Sloan Dark wax really browned
it up to the color I wanted.

I also got Waverly's Chalk Paint in Rhubarb and Peacock.  Going to paint some Ball jars and see how it holds up.  Making vases for centerpieces for a wedding.  I'll let you know how that goes when I get them done.  :)

Until next time...

Up-cycling dining room table and chairs from a garage sale....

Hello Crafty Friends!

We recently moved upcountry and I am hooked on farmhouse decor for our beautiful new home.

Months ago before we moved I showed my hubby a picture of a farmhouse table on Pinterest and how I could take my new found hobby of chalk painting and create the same look for a lot less than the $1,500 - $3,000 ones I was finding online.  He really liked it and the very next day, on a local FB garage sale site in our area, a heavy pine table with leaf and 6 chairs with built in cushions were posted and I immediately snapped it up for $240.  It was meant to be!!  ;)  (I am never this lucky when it comes to these kind of things.)  hehe!

After months of holding it in storage I am now able to start working on it.  First off, I wanted to redo the chairs with the arms.  One for a guest room and one for my new desk chair.  So far I have got one done.  I will continue to show as I progress with all the different things I plan to do with the remaining pieces. Not all are going around the farmhouse table I will create soon.

So to start, here is the first chair I up-cycled for one of the guest rooms...

1.  First I clean them really well (they were pretty loved on by
previous owners children ;)  LOL!

2.  Applied 2 coats of Arles chalk paint from Annie Sloan.

3.  Waxed with one coat of clear wax, sand paper distressed and then applied a 50/50 mix of light
and dark wax.  Buffed with a circle brush mounted to my drill motor.

4.  Re-upholstered the seat cushion.

VIOLA!!!  Looks perfect in the guest room.  All the furniture is dark, so this just brightens it all up.  I am very happy with how it turned out.

Next I will tackle the table.  Until then...