Living Room Decor

My headings are the most boring headings in all the land.
Anyway...

Time to post pics of what the living room has been looking like lately. We had the sectional separated into its 3 pieces for a while. It worked in some ways, but not in others - we couldn't use 1/3 of it (the chaise part) because there is no cushion (Peegate 2010, ahem... Pepper... We still haven't gotten it replaced, but that's the plan. Ugh. Pets!)

I digress. So, the chaise was out in left field by itself, and basically was only used by the cat, who would get up there regardless of what we wanted her to do. I admitted defeat and threw a towel on there, so at least all her little hairs aren't imbedded into the couch base.

Real life - blankets strewn, towel on the cat's lounge chaise lounge, laptop hanging out on the couch, ya know... the exciting life we live.

Adding on to the wall, frame by frame. I need to find something un-frame-like to break it up a little.

The mantle. I'm pretty happy with it, even if leaning the mirror came from plain ol' laziness when we moved in. I've had the wrought iron thingy since my apartment days, and I like it leaning there :) The mercury glass candle globe-y things were from TJ Maxx, as well as all of the candles. And the wooden candle lantern was on clearance at World Market for $8, because it had a small scratch on one piece of the glass. The non-scratched ones were $20!

The giant, wood-framed mirror was a lucky-as-hell $14.99 Target clearance purchase from when I worked there in college. It was originally part of that limited Global Bazaar line $150, and a lady returned it while I was working at the Guest Service desk. It just so happened that all the Global Bazaar stuff was marked down to 90% off - they were clearing it out, and all that was left of that section were single cloth napkins and weird odds & ends, and this lady walks in with a kickass item! I saw her walking up to the desk and called dibs. Huge Target perk there!

A you-are-not-a-photographer pic of my newest little pretty thing up there.

This is just to the right of the TV. I still need something to go on the other side...

I do have this, which doesn't have a home yet. It's been sitting up in the entryway on the console table. (You can see our paint samples here - I'll post that when I actually get around to cleaning taking the pictures!)

And here is the TV stand we found at HomeGoods. We needed something on the small side, since we didn't want the room to be completely filled with furniture. I want to get some low-profile shelves (like the leaning kind) to go on either side at some point.

So, that's it for now. I'll post more as we go along :)

**UPDATE**

So I had a root canal done Monday, and afterwards I was feeling so great that we wandered over to some of the shops nearby. My endodontist's office just happens to be right next to one of my favorite shopping areas because they have pretty much every store I love: Target, World Market, Pier 1, and of course...a HomeGoods/TJ Maxx combo store. The funny thing is, I don't really remember wandering around shopping. This morning I was trying to remember when we got our newest stuff, and it's only then that I realized it was only YESTERDAY! I was on some major painkillers. (Which is why the rest of the afternoon was spent getting sick. Gross, I know. Toooo many painkillers!)

Anyway, I'm glad I was feeling so great immediately after the appointment, because we found a great deal on one of those folding stair-step styles shelves at Pier 1. It was the floor model, and it had some dings in the back, so we asked for a discount. You'll never see the back, but Pier 1 doesn't have to know that; they gave us an additional 15% off :)  Woo hoo! Here it is, in our living room, alongside the entertainment console:

With the discount, it came out to around $127! I've been eyeing a shelf like this for the side of our console forever, and I see them everywhere - but I always hold off, because they're usually at a much higher price, like this one from Pottery Barn:

http://www.potterybarn.com/products/studio-wall-shelf/?pkey=ccabinets

So cute, but at $299, it's definitely out of my price range. Our patience paid off, and our white shelf came out about 57% cheaper than the PB design!

Fun Find: Funky, Cheap Prints!

I stumbled across this awesome find, wallblank.com,  on one of my all-time-fave blogs, Young House Love on this post of theirs. These are two of the most creative cats I've seen. And they have a baby! How they get it all done is beyond me! Anyway, I guess the gist is that this Wallblank site posts a new, original print each week. The YHL peeps found this cute little print for their nursery:

courtesy of younghouselove.com, http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/04/nursery-progress-adding-some-art/

At first glance it's just peas in a pod. But look closer, and you'll see that the entire thing is made of actual Ps...as in the letter P. How crazy is that? I just love stuff like this. (Side note, I think the technique is called 'stippling' - I remember doing some stippling in high school art. Check out that random knowledge!) Bonus for them, they have a P last name; so it works as a monogram as well.

Meanwhile, if you're not really liking the current selection, and you need more options NOW...check out Wallblank's vintage section. It's chock-full-o-fun-and-funky-prints, like this one:

...this one:

...and this one:

How fun are those? (all courtesy of wallblank.com)

I immediately emailed the link to the hubs (who probably saw it and immediately wondered, "Does she ever work??"  ...but that's neither here nor there...) Seriously, I already have a huge wishlist a mile long from this find. You can't help but go through it and mentally place the different prints around your house.

Backing up a little to the YHL post where I originally discovered Wallblank, they have a fabulous, custom, and cheap art idea that I MUST do now: frame interesting pieces of scrapbook paper in similar frames to create a wall collage that's tailor-made. I may be a nerd, but that's my idea of a good time!!!