Our House, Our Home: Vintage Chic Eclectic Decor
The decoration style I use in my home I refer to as "Vintage Chic." I use a little bit of this and that to decorate my house with, but vintage articles have the most character, so they are what I gravitate toward. I love to think about the history the items have and the homemakers that selected them with care decades ago. Each piece of furniture, each item of decor tells a story of a mom before me....
When my kids were little they knew I liked "old stuff" so they would come home with pride with a rusty can or a broken bottle they had found on the side of the road. I would thank them profusely and display those on the front porch for a season or two to commemorate their thoughtfulness.
Now onto some of the decorating projects I have done in my home.
Note that all decorations are temporary. I have a little bit of a weakness for changing things up on a regular basis.
Welcome to our home!!
Come on in!
When my kids were little they knew I liked "old stuff" so they would come home with pride with a rusty can or a broken bottle they had found on the side of the road. I would thank them profusely and display those on the front porch for a season or two to commemorate their thoughtfulness.
Now onto some of the decorating projects I have done in my home.
Note that all decorations are temporary. I have a little bit of a weakness for changing things up on a regular basis.
Welcome to our home!!
Come on in!
Happy Corner
You may have noticed by now that I like vintage things and happy colors. Click on through to see some of my favorite items in the corner of my livingroom.
Happy Corner
Living Room
My living room is a bit eclectic: a little bit of this and that. I totally LOVE this library catalog I was able to score on Craigslist. I payed quit a bit of money for it, but I knew it would lake me years to run into another one, so I just went for it. Did you realize that the drawers of a library catalog are super small? Really the only things that fit in there are pencils, cassette tapes, and remotes!! Antique shoe form ~ thift store find. The vintage map was a reject at the local school ~ score!! My husband LOVES Idaho forests and back-roads, so this is fun thing for him to look at. And it helps all of us with our geography.
To read how I hung this large paper map, click here.
The fireplace in the livingroom is capped off at the chimney, because it let in a LOT of cold air. Burr... The brick wall did NOT have a mantle, so I created my own. I do not know how to attach shelves to brick. I suppose some people do. So I just went about creating a shelf that was suspended from a wall covering: shutters. I think it turned out pretty cute. The clock covers up the odd little space of wall where it was still brick, but the hearth had stopped. It took me years to figure out what to do there, and I am pretty happy with this solution.
Click here to learn more about the grandfather clock.
Click here to learn more about my homemade fake mantle.
Laundry Room
Our laundry room is the actual entry of our home: everyone out here in the country enters our home at the "back door" (to be real honest, it is on the side). Since this is our guests first impression of our home, our laundry room better look stinkin' cute and clean all the time. This poses quite a challenge, as the family sees this room as the mud-room and coats, backpacks, muddy shoes and the like are dropped of and forgotten about there...... I make a laundry-room clean-up sweep every day and it always astounds me how many interesting items I come across there. I love my vintage gasstation numbers, I love my silverware chandelier, I love my little bench (for taking of shoes, not for depositing of stuff!)
To learn more about the silverware chandelier, please click here.
Entry
Our entry way is cheerful and colorful in yellow with multicolor drapes. It welcomes guests only in theory, because everyone uses the side door (and therefore not the front door). As you can see, my floral design/botany roots are reflected in my use of plants and flowers in the home. My hubs and kids l.o.v.e. pets so the fish-tank is the focal point here. I was able to paint the stand white (it used to be dark brown) so my style is also represented. Note the brown privacy window.... ya... not my favorite. It came with our 1973 home, and the way they built it into the house frame, it would be a huge undertaking to remove it. So I have learned to live with it. Perhaps some day I will come up with a good solution to "fix" it. (I keep praying my kids will throw a baseball at it.... Do you think that will work out for me?)
Click here to learn more about the restaurant Mill House sign.
On the other side of the entry sits the little dresser I use to store sheet music papers and books in. It is right around the corner from the piano. As you can see the walls in the entryway hall are yellow in these photos which is not the color they are anymore today....
Click here to learn more about the sheet-music storage cabinet.
Music Corner
The piano has a lovely backdrop of vintage music paper that I absolutely l.o.v.e.! The sheet-music sets off the corner with a vintage vibe of melodies and memories. The piano itself is in desperate need of re-finishing, but I am afraid hubs is not on board yet to start such a project. As you can see, I love plants as well as vintage items; anything alive breaths life into the house.
Click here to learn more about music sheet wall paper.
Kitchen
Lucky me! When we bought our house it came with this awesome red vintage double oven. I was holding my breath to see if it worked at all, and YES! It works very well. When we did the remodel in our kitchen, the oven stayed. I love that thing. I always use the lower small oven: everything I bake fits in there. The only exception is turkey, so only on Thanksgiving do we use the top oven. And when I make an elaborate meal that involves two ovens (that doesn't happen very often, believe you me!) The flip-side of the super-cute vintage oven deal is that it is quite hard to clean. Yep. Speaking of which, I probably should do that again.....
To read more about the "eat" sign, please click here.
To read more about the "eat" sign, please click here.
Dining Wall
The dining area has a brick wall with a metal wood stove insert. The wall was extremely ugly when we moved in. It had been painted but not well. the coverage was very sparse and even non-existent in some areas. One of the first things I did was paint the wall a creamy white color which took me three days to do (the wall extends into living room as well). The brick really soaked u a lot of paint, and I really had to push the rush into all the crevasses.
We do not use the fireplace insert as a heating source, so it just sits there, taking up space, and looking very rustic vintage.
To see the free apron pattern, please click here.
I discovered that this antique buffet fits in front of this wall perfectly: the handles from the doors of the metal insert fit perfectly underneath, and do not interfere. So I pushed the buffet in front of the insert to create a place to stash stuff. (Don't you love flat surfaces?) Decorations on top and above the buffet change around all the time....: funny how that happens.
Click here to learn more about the large key wall canvasses.
Home Office
I tried really hard to make the home office have a masculine flair since it belongs to the hubs. I used manly wall-art and colors, while trying really hard to be frugal (let's hear it for Craigslist!) and practical (gotta have a place to put all the paperwork!)
Click here to see more pictures of our masculine home office
Sewing Room
I love things vintage, so naturally the sewing room is equipped with a vintage ironing board (metal exposed: it is used solely as a storage table: not for ironing).
The wall displays some vintage sewing patterns in old embroidery hoops.
Click here to learn more about the vintage pattern embroidery hoops.