After the Christmas tree came down, I decided to do a little sprucing up in the living room (and subsequently the breakfast room as I've already talked about). In the corner of the living room, where the big Christmas tree goes, I have always had a big fake ficus tree. It was a really nice fake ficus tree when I got it back in 2003, but 11 years later, it had seen better days. It was literally falling apart.
While I would have loved to have found a large fiddle leaf fig to replace the ficus, they are (1) hard to find, (2) expensive, (3) take more light that I could give it, and (4) I would probably kill it ASAP. But it would have been pretty...
Image from pinterest, but I couldn't find original source
After researching into, and looking for a fiddle leaf fig, I decided to change course and look for a chair. I couldn't kill a chair. I found a nice chair for a good price at Homegoods, and then one thing led to another and I was doing a more substantial sprucing than I originally planned. I needed new artwork. I needed new curtains. I needed a new side table. I needed something to put on the side table.
Luckily, I have a lot of stuff stored that I'm not currently using, so that's always a great place to start. And for what I don't have, I have a knack for finding things on the cheap.
Here's a glimpse of some of the changes (some things are still in the works)...
I didn't love the legs on the chair, so I bought new legs. They have been stained, but I keep forgetting to buy a poly to put on them. Eventually, this chair will looked even better with the spindle legs I bought for it.
I next decided that I wanted new curtains. They were just a solid beige. They were in the house when I bought it 9 years ago. I decided I had gotten plenty of use out of them, so I started the hunt for new curtains. Man! Curtains are so expensive!
The curtains I settled on were a great deal from Kirklands. If you need some pretty curtains, but don't want to spend a ton, take a look at Kirklands. I originally bought both beige and red curtains. I hung one of each on the two windows in my living room. I took photos and put it to a vote amongst my friends and family. The red overwhelmingly won the vote. They were really pretty, but the red was all I could see when I looked at the room. I decided I didn't want the curtains to be that overpowering, so I went with the boring beige.
I had a big empty wall space above the chair, which the old ficus had hidden. I decided to turn the large wall in my living room into a gallery wall. This is still a work in progress. I had the painting of Taos pueblo that my Meme painted for me back in the 90's. It had been stored and unused for a while, so I decided to frame it and get it on display. I found those two Ikat pictures at Kirklands.
Once I got all of that done, I decided that I needed a side table. After a couple of months of looking, I found this table at Homegoods last week.
I hit up my CRAP accessories closet and quickly styled it. I don't know if it will stay this way, but I can live with it for a bit and see what I might want to change.
I had this herb pot from Anthropologie and some fake grass for texture. If I get brave, I might try to put something live in the pot!
I love books, and I particularly love these old compilations of the works of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde. They are from 1950.
I thought this little coral ceramic bird is a nice pop of color and great for spring.
So that's some of the sprucing that I've been doing in my living room. I'll update you on the gallery wall when I get it to where I want it to be!
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