Another Basement

Our basement in this house we're renting would make a great BEFORE.

I hope you like orange and brown!

Or That 70s Show!

Yup. Orange carpet and trim, brown paneling. Straight out of the 70s.

I had fun using old things for this mantel.

We moved our old couch downstairs, I rolled out a rug to try to break up all the orange carpet, and we're using a trunk as a coffee table.

There is a crate of kid books beside the couch--forgot to take a picture of it--and I think this will be a cozy spot to curl up during the winter.

Our guest room is in the basement and grandmas are taking turns helping us out when the baby's born. Next door to this room is the boys' playroom, and Gary's office is in a section of this large living room.

There's also a gym! Gary uses this area a lot and I might use the treadmill to gently get back into walking after having a baby.

One thing missing in this basement? A bathroom! That's definitely something we'd add if this was our house. Before even changing the carpet! Painting the paneling though? That would be high on the list!

Hey, we're just thankful for the extra space! Even if it is stuck in the 70s!

Architechtural Art {DIY Art}

I'm a big fan of architectural art. I especially love found objects, and if they have some sort of meaning behind them, even better!

What I'm referring to specifically here is this old window. It's from our barn on our property in Iowa. (Here's a post from a couple years ago where I showed off this faux mantel!) When we lived there, I proudly displayed it on top of a bookcase in the kitchen where I stored extra dishes and cookbooks.

During our brief stay in Ohio, the mantel became home to our old barn window.

Here in Nebraska, the window is on a wall in the entry that you can see from the living room. Each time it is grouped with other similar found objects, such as the watering can (also from our barn), or things that look old and rustic (like the G monogram sign painted on barnboard, or the star made from sticks).

If you love how something looks or have something that is meaningful to you because of the place you found/bought it, why not display it? It adds so much character to your space. Take a look in your basement or garage, your shed in the backyard, or in a catch-all closet in the house. You might be surprised what you find and how cool it looks on display!

Today is day 24! If you've missed any, browse through my October post titles on the sidebar. You might just be inspired!

Our Living Room {Tour}

Welcome to our living room! Please sit down and make yourself comfortable!

If you know me in real life and have been to my house in the last, oh, 10 years, this is just another variation on the theme. Same couch, same art, same furniture, same lamps.

But other than wishing for a new couch, there isn't much I would do to change our living room. I guess some ruts make us feel comfortable!

Now if we owned this house, I would want to paint the fireplace and extend the hardwood floors and get a nice area rug and sectional. But we don't, and it makes no sense to buy a couch right now, so this relic, this first piece of furniture that I bought after college will do just fine.

It is very comfortable, and is like a friend after being around for so long! If this couch could talk, oh the stories it could tell! Well, maybe I'm glad it can't!

You saw this corner of our living room already when I showed you how I used hot glue and staples to re-upholster this chair.

And you've seen the mantle and fireplace a time or two.

We only keep the blocks basket and the one, new dumptruck in the living room. That and some kid books are all the toys in here. The boys sometimes bring other toys to play in the living room, but they must always clean them up when they're finished.

We put shelves in this TV cabinet and use it for more books and for printers/extra paper and laptop accessories. I like that we can shut the door and not see the stacks of things that aren't very pretty!

Pretty books up high, kid's books down low. Puzzles and games are in the bin.

One side table was exchanged for this trunk Gary found at an auction. It stores extra quilts, while a basket of magazines (and usually my laptop) rest on top.

Another bin of kid's books hides under this side table with an ice cream bucket to hold Gary's magazines as it's right by his chair. His laptop is usually on this table too.

So there you go, our living room in our little rental house in Ohio. Hope you enjoyed the tour! Does your living room change over time? Have you gotten new furniture in the last 10 years? Upgrade the couch?

The Rest of the Mantel

So someone shared with me after my last mantel post that I had spelled "mantel" wrong. I questioned, I checked, and found out it's true! A "mantle" is something you wear, similar to a cloak, among other definitions, like it being part of the Earth's crust. So now you know and I know, and I'm sure the rest of the blog world will quickly get on board because of my sharing it with you here. Right? Sure.

But anyway, I told you I never really change things once I like them, and I still like my mantel, but a couple things changed. Not major. Going back and changing the spelling in my original post would be major compared to this. 

 

See, my flowers died. And then I found new ones. And it's been a week and they're still mostly pretty. Except I went and bought one of those new-pretending-to-be-old blue ball jars and have the same flowers in that now, but all I had was a cell phone picture.

And I added the rest of the fireplace so you can see it.

I still cropped out most of the awkward angles though it's easier to see why I was thinking about white washing the brick a bit. 

I love our birthday card display! I used twine, thumb tacks and mini clothes pins.

So yeah, there's my tiny tweak. Mostly in the spelling of "mantel" and in showing you the rest of the fireplace. I updated you on the change in flowers but didn't share the change in vases. Wow, this is an info-packed post! 

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

My First Mantel: Spring Edition

When we first saw the house we are now living in, it was empty and dirty. It's an older house with lots of redeeming qualities like lots of windows, tall baseboards and plenty of character. Like the mantel. It's crooked. Lopsided. Wider on one end than the other. The fireplace it frames is not useable right now (chimney issues), but it's still fun to decorate a real mantel!

I used what I had, what hadn't found a home on the bookshelves or other places in the house.

*A window from our barn in Iowa.

*A star my husband made for our first married Christmas tree.

*Our family initial I painted on a piece of wood found in our old barn.

*Two original blue Ball jars filled with colored glass found in the garden at our old house.

*Two blue glass thing-a-ma-bobs I found here in the basement.

*A topiary I bought for my first house after college (1999!).

*A pretty vase filled with the reddest, biggest tulips I've ever seen! Picked on the property!

Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a how-to-decorate-your-mantel blog. And I might not remember to update you the look evolves. It might not evolve much, truth be told. But it's still fun to decorate!

And Christmas? Can't wait!!!

 

PS: Who votes for whitewashing the brink? Still brick, not white, but lighter.