Beachy Keen Living Room

You may have not noticed.....

But I took the weekend OFF!!!!

I AM RETIRED.....

I AM LAZY!!!!!!

So here I am, back in blogland, to share what I've been up to.

I've been helping my neighbors.

I am a wonderful and beneficent neighbor.

They should worship the ground on which I lightly tread!!!!!

My neighbor (and friend, I don't do this for just anyone, ya know!), Helene admits that she's clueless when it comes to decorating. 

So she's at my mercy, because I could tell her that mirrors over her bed are the in thing right now, and she'd believe me.

I've been helping her with her front room.

It was supposed to be the dining room in the model she has, but then it would

never get used!!!!!

So we changed it to a sitting room, that gets lots of attention and  sprawling bodies.

I gave her most of the furniture in the room, as I was emptying out a small  cottage I had in West Palm Beach.

Her husband almost had a coronary, 'cuz he doesn't like cottagey design.

BUT IT WAS FREE!!!!!

JEESH!!!!

This is how it looked by the end of yesterday.....

OK, now here is how we did this.....

We started with a brown room the day I had the sh#% furniture moved into the house.

The sofa, wicker chair, armoire, two slip covered chairs, floor lamp and rug were from me, me, me.....

Helene had the ottoman, which her twin toddler girls had peed on, among other things, in their short life.

She likes blues and greens, so we decided to not use the draperies (hanging on the chair to the left), and bring in new toss pillows to change the color direction of my furniture.

The first thing we did,

 (this was two years ago, this has been a work in progress.......oy!!!)

was take an upholstery class at our local high school and reupholster the ottoman.

It was a plain canvas fabric with lots of interesting stains and smells.

So it was stripped down to its frame.

And we replaced all the foam and dacron, and then Helene came to Betsy's house for her own private sewing lesson......

So after I sewed the cover, it looked like this......

Stripes are really versatile, depending on how you seam the fabric.

By mitering the fabric, you can create squares or crosses.

Soooo.....

Then I chose a color for the walls, and somehow, I ended up helping with the paint job.

Don't these kids know.....

I'm too old for this #$%????

I chose a soft green, 

Don't ask me for the color!!!!!

It would look different in your house!!!!!

So, the room's now green.....

and we started to work on accessories.....

THE WALLS WERE BARE.....

OH NO!!!!!

BARE WALLS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!!!

I know!!!!!

Lets throw a bunch of stuff on the walls, and see what sticks!!!!

So I started with oyster plates, because Helene wanted to do a nautical theme.

I worked on the arrangement on top of the armoire. 

It was this.....

Needed some tweaking.....

So I added in a starfish theme.

Ya know, choose something and then do it over and over and over and over.

Helene, very cleverly attached the starfish on the basket by just hanging it on a nail, pushed through the woven side......

Just don't jostle it!!!!

We do things right down heah in Flerida.

Then we attacked the wall over the sofa.

Once again, I did a theme collection of nautical stuff.....

Now.....

at this point our friend and neighbor, Lissette....

(we all live on the same block)

felt that I had hung enough stuff on the walls.

HA!!!

She was sooooo wrong.

Now I just have to make her admit it.

The arrangement over the sofa felt flat and two dimensional to me.

Too pat.

NOT ENOUGH STUFF!!!!!

WE NEEDED BRACKETS!!!!

yeah, man, that's what we needed alrighty!!!

So I made advised Helene to buy them from Ballard Design, 'cuz I had seen some nice ones.

I had her get two of the large, and four of the medium size.

Next post, I will show how I worked out the wall arrangement, and planned out the whole shebang.

Later, Gator

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