Designalovelylife

We are embarking on a living room design project. I should mention we JUST recently got rid of a futon couch and purchased actual living room furniture, a couch and love seat. We pretty much stopped there. Although the walls are painted nice colors, they are bare. The rest of our furniture is a mish-mosh of Will’s bachelor days and make shift scraps like TV trays and crates. you know the saying the “cobler’s children have no shoes” well the “designer’s home has no style.” So part of my designing a lovely life is to make a beautiful space for me and my family to live. It was always our last priority to spend money to making our home a comfortable place!! Not anymore. Although my husband does wince when we spend on these types of things, it doesn’t feel necessary and it can make you feel guilty for the investment. BAAAH! No more, I am 33 years old and I want to decorate my living room (and the rest of our home) and I deserve it.

Ok, that rant of justification is over.

So I will post before and after pictures when the project is completed, my goal is to finish by Zanders first birthday party in July. Right now we are in the planning stages. We don’t have a ton of money to spend, so I am using some less expensive materials and sources. For the longest time I have wanted a painting of cherry blossoms or similar blooms, there are a couple of artists that I admire that I would LOVE to commission a piece, but I am not at that place yet where I can afford to make that sort of investment. A friend from my playgroup and extremely talented artist Danielle Boudet , is someone I discussed this with. Her cherry-scapes are really evocative and not as sweet as they sound. Someday…

So anyway when I woke up from my dream of commissioning great art works, I got creative. There is a site, photogonia.com, that prints images on canvas and you can either have them framed or gallery wrapped (meaning the image wraps around the frame and you can hang it without the frame.) The framing is considerably more expensive, but it is decently priced considering the service. I wanted mine gallery wrapped though, that style appeals to me. The next thing I did was go to my  FAVORITE stock photo site that I use in my design work, istockphoto.com, they have a TON of great images and even a very large high quality file won’t cost you much, I think the most you will pay for an image is $27. Here is one of the contenders right now. 

I also went through some photos I used for my wedding invitations (blossoms and butterflies are kind of my thing) that I got from a great free image site, stock.xchng. I am considering using one of these as well. You might think these pinky images are too girlie and feminine for a living room, but it will be the perfect contrast to brighten up all the browns and tans that I have in my living room now.  I am going to select one image and have it printed large like 36″.

If you are going to do this yourself, depending on how large of a canvas you decide to print on, opt for a large or extra large file so you know the quality will be there. 

So I will be getting my blossoms ON after-all! This is a really cool way to get exactly what you want on your wall. BTW, you can also do family photos, I think this method would be great for a black and white wedding photo, something really iconic –  your first dance, cutting the cake or a kiss.

My husband and I recently moved to a new place out in the country. Previously we had been living in a cramped, old, smelly apartment, but with the birth of Zander we knew something had to give. So with great trepidation, a girl who was raised on the coast of Rhode Island, moved to the country. The REAL country with no Internet connection or anything.

The thing I love about living here is the light, it just floods our place from all around, and there are no buildings around us to block it. The house we moved to is NEW too, no “charming” gaps where food and dust can collect. Everything is flush, crisp, and frankly a bit boring. I will take boring over 100 plus years old any day. Now that Zander is crawling I need to keep his path clean.

For once in the longest time, I want to decorate my space. For all intensive purposes we were living like college students, futon couch and all. And since the house is kind of a blank slate, we really need to infuse it with some style.

A few weeks ago my Mother came from RI to help me start decorating the interior. As we went out for our first day of shopping we were full of optimism, we had a mission. We were going to buy a tablecloth. Not just any tablecloth, this tablecloth was going to transform my bare kitchen into a warm and inviting place. It was going to cover an eyesore of a table and just generally perk up the room. We talked at length all the way to the store (40 minutes, because I do live in the sticks) about the colors we wanted, the types of patterns we liked, the fabrics we preferred. Yes, we were going to give my kitchen a makeover and that effort hinged on this tablecloth. Instant gratification.

When we arrived at the store, a major chain devoted to all things kitchen and bath, you know the one. All we found were solid color polyester tablecloths. There were hundreds of them and aside from the colors, they were all the same. We were deflated, bewildered and a little incensed. It thwarted our whole trip. We bought four plain white towels for the bathroom and returned home. 

The ride home we discussed our “chain store” culture. How bigger wasn’t always better, and how these stores in their attempt to appeal to as many people as possible were appealing to no one, or at least not to us. The choices we had encountered were safe, boring and mass produced.

When I came home I immediately went to etsy.com   a site that specializes in handmade goods. You can purchase directly from thousands of craftspeople, artists, artisans, whatever you call them – the bottom line is everything is hand made or vintage one-of-a-kind type items. After the disappointment I felt at the store this was the cure for my soul. I explored with great delight tons of amazing tablecloths in so many patterns, colors, and styles. I am considering this or this. 

It’s no wonder a site like etsy is wildly popular. I think we all have the mass production blues, we want something authentic, something genuine made by a real person who put real thought into what they were doing. It just makes you feel better, connected to someone somehow. 

I don’t know if I can design chain stores out of my life just yet. I definitely avoid them as much as I can. What I can tell you is I am going to design more handmade goods into my life even if that means I have to save up a little bit more for them or I have to make it myself.