City Cottage Living Room

Today,

 since the weather is getting cooler,

 I thought I would start a story on Kris's living room.

As many of you know.....

She's my bidness partner.

We are very successful bidness women.

We have been in bidness now for 7.5 years, 

and have almost gotten out of the  red!!!!!

Kris's goal is to make 25 cents.

I keep offering to pay her, but she insists that I get paid all my money back first.

I like acting like a big money bags.

I keep waving quarters in her face, but she feels I'm being flashy.....

ANYWAY.....

As I said, this story is timely because of the encroaching cold weather.

Her home is all toasty colors.

She is an orange, red and brown kind of a gal.

She is very attuned to her husbands sensitivities, so I was not allowed to go crazy with flowers.

She had me stick to paisleys and stripes.

I have met all my best friends through work.

A million years ago....(or 15, whichever is less....) I got a phone call from Kris.

I did not know her.

She did not know me.

We did not know each other!!!!!

She had seen some of my work in House Beautiful, and lived one town over.

What had struck her the most forcefully, was that I seemed to decorate for people who had children and dogs.

Well!!!!!

SHE HAD  BOTH!!!!!

She ended up hiring me and we slowly became 

friendlier, and

friendlier, and

friendlier!!!!!

This is how her living room looked when I first saw her house.

The Foosball table wasn't in the living room, but everything else was like this.

Check out the fireplace with the bookshelves on either side.

I will now do a side by side so you can see how I did a little architectural tweaking to make the room feel more gracious. 

The brick fireplace stuck into the room, so the previous owners had added those board bookcases to line up with the projection.

Since the wall angles into the bay to the right of the fireplace, the bookcase just kind'a smushed into the wall.

SOOOOOO.....

I had the bookcase ripped out and the wall framed out around the fireplace to create a more traditional detail.

Then I found this beautiful mantel from a company that makes beautiful mantels!!!!

Don't ask me who the company is.....

I CAN'T REMEMBER!!!!!

If Kris and I were to do this room today, we would have wallpapered it.

But this was in the days before I knew her as well as I do now, and I didn't know that she was so easy to brainwash.

So instead of wallpaper, we have covered almost every inch with dog pictures.

I like dogs.

She likes dogs.

Her husband likes dogs.

He's not so sure about so many of them in decorating.

He told her not to bring home any more dog paintings or figurines.

WE DON'T LISTEN TO HIM!!!!!!!

So, here's a picture of more dogs!!!!

Let's get closer.....

There is so much to talk about in this room,

but I'm kinda tired from yesterday.

Being scared for so many hours is exhausting.

The hurricane came through here and we lost power for two hours.

Worrying about not being able to make hot air pop corn has worn me out.

I was on the phone with Amy Chalmers talking about the fabric I was painting for custom pillows in her store when the lights went out and my phone call was dropped.

And then I was all alone in the dark with no popcorn.

I was going to pop it after my conversation with Amy.

SO IT'S HER FAULT!!!!!

Thank goodness for my ipad.

So I chomped on an apple and ready my mystery in the dark.

Anyway, that's my excuse for ending here.

I will continue showing you guys this room later this week.

Latah, Gatah

partying at: