It’s Bait-and-Switch Friday here on DustandDoghair.
Today, while the rest of the “Where Bloggers Live” tribe is sharing their “Just like Home” stories, I’m sharing the LAST of my decades-in-the-making, Living Room makeover adventure.
For REAL. No take backs. No promises of “one last project in the next post.”
Stick a fork in it, it’s done…for better or worse.
“Hey, that’s not fair! You’re supposed to be talking about a place that ‘feels like a second Home.'”
Look, there’ve been so many changes to Home this year that, TBH, even HOME doesn’t feel entirely like home anymore. Want to know what feels like home? Short answer, compliments of Billy Joel: “wherever we’re together, that’s my home.”
While I continue to adjust to three less kids and one less dog on a daily basis, I am going about the business of living…which…
I can now do in my finally completed LIVING ROOM.
This has been the most lugubrious makeover adventure ever recorded in the Bloggersphere. It has shown me once again that the “making over” isn’t my problem… It’s the subtlety of deciding every. single. thing. about. every. SINGLE. thing.
AND, you know what? I suddenly don’t feel like that anymore.
Maybe it’s the result of being trapped in my house for a year, but there are about a million and two projects I want to start right now…and I feel like I know EXACTLY what I want to do for each of them.
Right? And this isn’t even an April Fool’s post!
So let’s wrap up this Living Room and move on before I start overthinking the next things on the agenda …okay?!
Here is where we were exactly 5, f-i-v-e years ago; right after I had last refreshed the room:
And here we are five years later, having followed nearly all of the decorator’s suggestions that I second guessed.
She got HER part done right away! I labored for three additional years on decisions regarding wall paint (we ended up taking her suggestion)…
the curtains (I’m THRILLED that I didn’t take their workroom’s suggestion and did eventually decide to interline them)…
updated the floor lamp…
and end tables (thank you, Craigslist).
I also decided to try a gallery wall.
Even though I had picked up a few pictures pre-pandemic, I didn’t have enough of a “collection” to work with mid-pandemic, so I shopped the house and got creative with pictures and mementos, was able to repurpose frames and paint my cast buffalo head a new color (for the third time) and finish it all before post pandemic arrived. Well, actually, I finished it just before Thanksgiving, which is when I THOUGHT post-pandemic would arrive.
To assemble this wall, I put everything on the floor, arranged and rearranged it,
measured how much space it required top to bottom, left to right; then put painters’ tape on the wall to mark the space:
and used the tape as a baseline to measure where things would go as I transferred them from the floor to the wall.
In do-over world, I might have put everything a little closer together, but you know what I don’t have plans to do? Yep, a do over.
Incidentally, I also refreshed the serpentine dresser by swapping out my DIY beaded drawer pulls…
for new brass pulls.
Okay, there may be a new accent pillow or effortlessly tossed blanket somewhere in the future, but I’m happy to leave the Living Room behind for now…and move on to a new project …ONE of which involves several yards of this fabric….
Any guesses where this is going? Do you think you’ll have to wait five years to find out?
While you ponder these great mysteries, check out my blogger friends who ARE likely following the rules and are writing about the things that are “Just Like Home.” Bettye’s on break for this post, and Leslie is grappling with some technical issues, but stop by anyway, there are always fun reads by::
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Em at Dust and Doghair
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Over the next few months, a group of six bloggers will be sharing their workspaces, their homes, towns and more!
Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!
BEAUTIFUL!! A labor of love. Every detail is perfection – including the space between art on the gallery wall. Don’t you move a thing!! That buffalo bust is adorable. I call my youngest daughter Buff and sometimes Buffalo, would love to have one like that for her room in our house. Which is really a guest room these days and not her room at all.
I imagine you hardly recognize home these days…not only because of the refresh this room has been given. But I bet it is awfully quiet. My mom used to say that was the hardest part of us leaving after a visit to their house. The quiet. Hope Buffalo spring weather is allowing you time outside and that sunshine and playing in the dirt help you adjust to this new chapter.
Sending you big love from El Paso.
You fooled me with the bison in the email… Sneaky… You know I’d’ve clicked anyway 😀 Your living room looks so refreshed and light. I love the transformation. The gallery wall is perfect too, especially since there’s nothing furry in it… Furry is a mother to dust anyway. (Or so I hear. From people that, you know… Dust.)
I am clearly NOT that people (a duster) as the title of this blog might convey. Also, I am very sneaky, but hopefully in a good way. And I seem to be rhyming, which I hope is okay; so I’ll stop here and wish you the happiest day.
Your friends from Hallmark.🤣 (I crack me up.)
Such a pretty room, so bright and crisp! Your gallery wall is perfect! Well done!
Thanks Patti… now I have to add life, i.e., some of the gracious and fun entertaining options I see so often in your posts.
WOW, you’re much more efficient with your gallery wall than I was – looks great. Actually, the whole room looks great. And I love the curtains. What a great idea to put the bamboo shade up high. I might have to try that trick in a bedroom I’m re-doing.
Enjoyed your post. Enjoy your room now.
Grace & Peace, Iris
http://www.IrisOriginalsRamblings.com
Thanks, Iris! I feel really good about that room now. I did need a second opinion, of course, on the blinds…you just get used to seeing things in a certain way. I was grateful to get a thumbs up from a trained source…it meant a lot, if that doesn’t sound odd…like I got something right on my own, haha.
Oh, WHAT a gorgeous room. It looks elegant but livable and peaceful.
I do love your take on “home away from home” to mean “the home that’s no longer the same as it was.”
It’s nice to be done with a big project. I hope you can have a little break before the next one.
Bettye
https://fashionschlub.com
Thanks, Bettye. I am always worried that I’m stuck in a certain time period…just want it to not look Grandma-ish.
The home thing is so intriguing right now… I feel al little like a fish our of water…and everything seems off kilter. I’m even finally able to go into my parents’ house…the house I grew up in… and I was antsy, and not entirely comfortable. SO weird. But I do find home in the people I love. I know it’s entirely related to the lockdown year, and actually, I am excited to get right on the next project, believe it or not. Mr and I are kind of in a clean slate mode. And maybe that’s a good thing to redefine the place called home… But the living room stays! haha.
Wait….I need your help with my gallery wall now. I don’t love it and need to redo it (man, I’m starting to sound just like you, haha)
I love the idea of taping it off that way. And painting the buffalo head is brilliant!!
I love how you interpreted this theme to fit for you. It’s no different than how we restyled our fashion magazine outfits.
As for the new fabric. It’s absolutely beautiful. I’m guessing the bedroom and I bet it’s done in less than a year!!
Xoxo
Jodie
www jtouchofstyle.com
The painters’ tape was a big help…and probably the only suggestion I am qualified to give, haha. While posting the pictures, I noticed how I changed the layout and thought, “should have stayed with the original?” Then I remembered that I added more black for balance, and felt better about it. All to say, even my own eye is inconsistent.
I’m VERY excited about the new fabric…hope what’s in my head looks the same in real life!
The final “look” was worth the wait. I love the light feeling of the room and I think the gallery wall looks proportioned as is. I LOVE the new fabric, it looks happy—and made me smile 🙂
Ah, Tina! The exact reinforcement I needed! Thank you. I do tend to second, third and fourth guess everything, so it is extremely appreciated to receive an independent thumbs up!
Same too for the fabric choice. For a change I didn’t overthink it and pulled the trigger. The project is already well under way (shocker, right?) and my family is already excited about it…to the extent a family gets over decorating adventures.
Thanks for sharing the smile!