Decorating Fun

Last week I spent a wonderful afternoon with my cousin in law helping her tweak a few areas in her home. When someone places such faith in your abilities it is quite daunting, but I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed being invited to come over and help her accessorize.  Although she lives almost 2 hours away it was so worth the trip for me just to be able to play around with someone Else's decor.  Let me just say, professional decorators have got to have the most enjoyable careers ever!


My cousin in law works full time as a pharmacist and has a very active social life with limited time off.   Recently she emailed me about an antique corner chair she purchased for her living room.  After getting home and placing the chair where she wanted it to go, she realized it was much smaller then she had envisioned.  This is the before photo she sent me of the area she wanted help with.

I was so excited when I saw this as I knew right away with the violin on the wall she had some idea of what direction she wanted to go with this area.  Shew!  It's so easy to decorate for yourself when you know what you like, but decorating for someone else takes a little more effort.

The plan was, I would come up for the day and shop her house, then we would do lunch and time permitting go out for a little store shopping for any additional items needed.  What fun!

This was the other photo she sent to show me the rest of this room.  Of course I took this an invitation to tweak this area a bit too.  Little did I know she was going to allow me to tweak any other areas throughout her home as well.  Can you imagine?  She really didn't need much but it was fun making suggestions all the same.

And here is the corner after I finished it, sort of! 

 You see,  I left her with a few instructions to complete this look as her time permits, some of which she has completed.   Some are still to be done yet, including replacing the dead mum with a live plant.  LOL!   I am just so pleased she has gotten this far.  She was so funny taking notes on everything I said.  I was so flattered.

    We pulled the large pedestal plant stand from the foyer where it held a decorative garden artichoke?  I really wanted something to bring some height to this corner.  I liked how this was not too tall or to large of a piece to totally dwarf the chair.  She had a large box of antique sheet music that has been in her family for some time that she really wanted to use.  Perfect!  Some pieces are over 100yrs old and some were signed as well.  After rummaging through we picked out a few cover sheets that had great color and images.   There are three antique sheet music books that I suggested she wrap in twine and place on the stand.  Then we added this  brass candlestick she already had but spray painted with ORB per my suggestion.

We shopped Hobby Lobby for frames for two of our sheet musics.  These frames were prematted for multiple photos but were the perfect size and color matting and an inexpensive solution to custom framing.  I suggested putting the sheet music right on top of the mat so the worn edges would show giving it an authentic vintage appeal.  What do you think?

  

This picture is on the opposite side of the room going into the dining room.  I love how this one had enough room withing the frame to show bits of the music as well.  Even more special is this music has special meaning to her as it was some of her mothers favorites.

Here is a close up shot of the chair showing me how she plans to make a throw pillow for the seat.  While we agreed the chair really does not need a pillow we liked the idea of adding a bit more color to the whole area.

The fabric she found on her own this weekend.  I suggested something with multiple colors and texture similar to a club chair she already owned in another part of the house.  She knew she wanted to bring in a bit more blue in this room.  However, I really wanted her to find something that also had some of the reds and golds she already had.  I think this was a perfect choice! 

Perfect because I suggested she find something she could use on this side of the room too.  I just love how much softer this whole area looks now.  I added the blue pieces (found around her home) on her side table as well as few books to raise the height of the lamp.  She is going to add some blue pillows on the sofa soon.

It was such a fun day!  If you ever get the chance to help a friend out this way, I highly recommend it.  Thank you Lisa for sending me all of these photos, you are so kind! 



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AFTER

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Please be sure and visit the links below for more similar posts and and fun meme parties.

Tabletop Tuesday

and

SSS Before and After

Thanks for visiting today, be sure and let me know if you stopped by.

I love hearing from you!

Mary