I've been slowly but surely working on turning our home into a space that we really love -- one that is functional and fun and that reflects the way we live. Like everyone else, I've gathered loads of inspiration on Pinterest; one of the great things is that, by looking at all of my pins together on each board, I can really start identifying the things that are common to each room. This makes adding those types of items to my real home so much easier.
One of the things I've identified that I truly truly love is mid-century modern furniture -- mainly credenzas and shelving units. While I'm still on the lookout for a credenza (to use either behind the couch as a sofa table or as an entertainment center), I completely lucked out at the Peddlar's Mall (a local flea market here in Murray) and found this beauty. It has sliding glass doors that cover the two upper shelves, but I've removed them because they tend to rattle a lot when you walk past them in our house (old house == old floors).
The photo really doesn't do justice to how beautiful this piece is. I've got all our games (which were stored in a cabinet that this piece replaces) in the three drawers, and the open shelves and top are the perfect place to display many of my vintage treasures. I love shopping in antique stores and flea markets, and while I "find" tons of things that I think are really cool, I'm pretty selective about what I bring home. The truth is, we just don't have a lot of room, so I try to keep things simple. These collections are pretty much it for me:
a globe collection on top (which is basically complete at this point, unless I find something that's just out of this world)
vintage cameras on the next shelf (along with our subscription to National Geographic -- I love this magazine, and it's the only one that I actually subscribe to in any format, print or digital)
the vintage typewriter I picked up for $6.00(!!!), a wooden N and number 4 metal tag -- both of which represent our last name and the number of people in our family
a John Derian tray (from Target) and three apothecary jars containing old game pieces and dominos, along with a set of vintage flash cards, a cool little wooden person (these kind of things really catch my eye at flea markets) and a vintage scalloped linen doily
and the bottom shelf holds my 1968 edition of the Childcraft books -- I love the gray binding with rainbow colors -- and can you believe I got the entire set from a thrift store for less than $10?
Styling was a process that took a while; I piled lots of stuff on the shelves and then started mixing, matching, rearranging, stepping back, looking, moving more items, taking photos and sending to my sister for her input, moving items again...you get the point.
One of the best resources that I found was Rachel Denbow's Style Your Space e-course for Red Velvet. I've always loved Rachel's vintage style in her own home; while my tastes do include some "modern vintage" pieces, there's a lot of rustic/natural and cottage elements in our house too (with four people living here, everyone has the things they like, and it's taken a lot of work to get all those tastes to mesh). Rachel's course is helpful, no matter what style you prefer. We live in a rental right now, and there are a lot of things that we can't change (the awful paint job in the living room, for example -- though I'm working on that!); Rachel even has tips on finding your look while renting. The course is really fantastic, and there were great materials included. It definitely gets my whole-hearted endorsement.
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