Fresh Start

Things have settled down here now that the trim is all finished and my parents are back home safe and sound, so I thought I'd go ahead and share some thing I had been doing around the house before I started the huge trim project .

Knowing that I'd be painting the trim while my parents were on vacation I started packing away the Christmas stuff somewhat early this year so that it wouldn't be in the way for the project. After I removed everything I felt really excited to have a fresh pallet. There was nothing set up anywhere, and the house felt really open and clean. Almost that feeling you get in a new house. No clutter, no mess, just an empty room to explore creatively in, and that's just what I did.

I decided not to put all the stuff back where it was before and, instead, took all my decorations and literally put them in a pile on the couch so I could see all that I had. I set up this, took down that, set up something else, replaced it with this and kept on in that way until I came up with something I liked. It's still not perfect, of course. I'm almost never 100% satisfied with my work, but I thought I would share what I came up with with all of you (don't you hate using double word's like that? "with with." Sounds so stupid.)

Please forgive my excessive picture taking, sometimes I can't restrain myself. :P

A few things have changed (for the better, I think) since I took the above picture, but you get the general idea. You can actually see the part-way-painted door in the background. Oops!

This is my favorite frame in the house!

I love these old books to death! Just look at that faded gold lining!

I decided to go with a sort of travel/beach theme in this room, hence the shells in front of a framed map.

You can see here that I've flipped all the books on my bookshelf so that the pages are showing rather than the spines. I saw this on some home decor site, but I don't recall which one.

I think it gives the books more uniformity. Don't get me wrong, I love book spins, I just didn't think they went with this particular room's feel.

This is the travel themed buffet. A suitcase, two pieces of driftwood, some shells, a glob and a couple of books.

So that's about all from me for now, but I'll definitely have some stuff coming your way in the next few days! If the sun will come out and give me enough natural light to shoot the living room than I'll be sharing that, and I have some lamp redo's that I should be able to share soon too. So definitely check back, if you want, subscribe.

Thanks SO SO much for reading, and don't forget to check out these awesome link parties!