Around the House

I'm moving right along in my clean out the house project.

Of course, I'm doing all of the easy rooms first:-)

On the left when you enter our home is our living room.

I confess that we don't use this room much.  If I were building a house, I would eliminate this room, although in this house, this room has many of my favorite things in it.  

This house has a living room and a combo kitchen/family room.  In my dream house I would combine these spaces for a big great room.

In fact, when we were house hunting we did see some houses like that, but unfortunately there were always other reasons it didn't work out.

Luckily I had all of these furnishings from our previous home.  Nothing in this room is new, even the pillows are about 8 years old.

But you know, I still love everything in this room.  I hear on blog land that red, yellow, and green rooms are outdated ~

but I'm not tired of it yet. 

I left this little picture up after Christmas.

My aunt made it, probably in the 60's, out of her "teacher" jewelry.  She stopped teaching at that time, and took many of her costume pieces and crafted this tree.  It is made of mostly earrings and pins and I just love it.

It's one of those things my girls will fight over when I'm gone:-)

More of my real plant project.

Since I took the above picture, I have added 2 crosses to my collection of family and antique prayer books.  The one on the left is actually a rosary from a little shop in Vatican square.  The other cross is made from the stained glass window of the tiny little church in which I was baptized.

The painting above the fireplace was the "cookie" that started my redecorating about 8 years ago.  Do you know the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?  I bought the painting at Nell Hill's because I loved everything about it.  The colors and the subject.  It's hard to see but it is just a corner of a living room with a comfy red chair and a table piled with books.

I brought it home to a house with burgundy and hunter green.  My house had been decorated in those colors in some form for a long time.

So, just as in the book, the painting "required" new living room furniture, which of course meant that the dining room needed change, and on to the kitchen, and you get the idea.

Of course, this was all in our previous home, but I wasn't tired of the look when I moved so I tried to make it work in this house too.

We had the woodwork painted white and the walls yellow, and changed the tile around the fireplace to absolute black granite. 

A better picture of the painting.

That box on the table is my treasure chest.  Full of little trinkets and JUNK.  The grands, especially Cooper and Ben just love it.  It was put away for Christmas and Cooper just noticed it was out.  He kind of hinted, because he knows that you can't ASK for a gift from the box, but he was sure hinting:-)

I also have a pile of books from place we've traveled.  We don't buy one everywhere, but we frequently purchase a book with fabulous pictures of the place we are visiting.  It's fun to read and learn more about the area.  And, the pictures are 10 times better than the ones I take.

On the books is a little dish I picked up on a trip to Door County.  When we travel, I don't do a lot of shopping, but I pick up souvenir pins of different places we've been and I keep the ones from overseas here.  The USA pins live in a little basket in the guest room.

These are some from our cruise to the Baltic this summer.  It's a little thing, but fun to look at.  They fit easily in your suitcase, and are pretty easy on the pocketbook too.

Little glass candy that I bought from street vendors in Venice.  Love it.

This is probably my favorite candle of all time.  I love that it is from Kansas City too.  I used to shop at the Trapp flower shop in KC.

Favorite photos greet you when you come into our home.

Laura bought me this little pillow in Arizona when she was expecting Elizabeth.  Little did she know that Elizabeth and Grandma would love to have tea together,  those are little tea cups and teapots on the pillow.

Just a glimpse of the before, with the previous owner's stuff ~ gives an idea of the paint colors when we moved in.

Whew, that was a lot of pictures and if you have been reading my blog for awhile, there aren't a lot of changes either:-)

Thanks for visiting.

Joining Richella for her Grace at Home party.