Treat for the Eyes

I have lived in this house for two years now and am just now getting a feel for what is needed to make things look like home.  It isn't that I don't have the 'stuff' to fill it up and decorate it.  It is more that I needed to get the feel of things and to muster up energy every now and again.

One place that has been really blah and boring is the hallway.  I had an idea about what I wanted to do and how I want to make it seem like a cozy transitioning place and not just a stark roadway from one room to another.  But for a couple of years, this is how it has looked.

See.  Isn't that pretty blah and boring?

The quilt stand is one I bought several years ago at an antique consignment shop on a rainy Sunday afternoon outing with some friends.  We were suffering from cabin fever and got out and poked around in a little town's shops on the square.  The two quilts were crafted by two of my great grandmothers.  Neither one of the quilts are very pretty or even well crafted.  I just love them because of who stitched them together.  The pink one was made by my mother's maternal grandmother and the multi-colored one on the back of the rack was made by my daddy's paternal grandmother.  Isn't that cool?  If they weren't there, the place would look like the black hole of the household - well, I guess it wouldn't be black but it would look even more yucky.

At my former house I had these sconces hanging on either side of a painting right above my sofa.  Well, the painting didn't seem to fit in the den of this house and the sofa isn't against a wall.  So, the sconces have been stored away in a cabinet.  I once saw a photo of some ritzy house with sconces flanking a painting and they had these expensive antique vases perched upon them.  So, my rendition of that decorating idea was to perch the cheap blue and white vases I had on the sconces that I picked up for half-price at Hobby Lobby.  I loved the look and decided to transition that to this house.  So, here it is providing a treat for the eyes at the end of our hallway. 

I had to use power tools to get this up there and everything.  Mike was watching a football game and he just kept grinning when I'd traipse through to get another tool to use.  Here is a close up of one of my bargain sconces.

They are this mingly brown, gold, green, verdigris, aged look.  I also love all the swirls and ribbiness of them and that little floral sort of thing at the bottom.  I used a drill to make holes for those little plastic anchor thingies and hammered them in.  I used a level to make sure they were even and straight.  Then, I turned screws into the anchors and hung the little hooky things on the back on the screw head.

The vases were a find, too.  The taller one came from a yard sale.  I think I gave about three dollars for it.  Isn't it pretty for a cheap, ahem, inexpensive find? 

The shorter vase is even more special.  My friend, Kathy, ran across a deal on it and knowing how I like blue and white things, got herself and me one.  I plunked some inexpensive artificial lavender in the two and perched them on the sconces.  (I wonder what the difference in cost between the inspiration picture in the magazine and my vignet might be.)

 

The basket is one that I bought years ago when I was collecting Longaberger baskets.  It has navy blue splints woven into the pretty honey maple colored ones.  I think the collection it belongs to is called Heritage.  I have two others that I almost hung there with that one which create a graduated effect because one is a bit smaller than this one and the other is a bit smaller than that.  However, I ran across this mirror on the Hobby Lobby 90% off shelf because it had a little piece missing from the frame in near where the bevel of the mirror is - look closely and you can see it.  Yet, I think that just adds character.

I plopped a bit of grape vine looking silk greenery down into the basket to make the area seem a bit organic and cheerful.  By the way, doesn't the sweet cross-stitch piece my sister gave me years ago look nice reflecting in the mirror?

I want to add some framed photos of our children on the long wall to the left.  I've begun collecting frames and companion-looking photos to hang there.  I think I want to make it look sort of like a gallery.  My mother has done that on her stairway wall at her house and I like the look of it.  So, when I find enough photos of Mike's children, that will become a different Saturday afternoon project, I guess.

Things are slowly evolving and becoming more personalized and homey around here.  I just wish I had more time to work through some of our STUFF to figure out what works where.