My Decorating Style is COUNTRY ECLECTIC...

...according to a HomeGoods quiz I recently took...


I love HomeGoods. The garden bunny and birdcage on top of the bookcase in my banner came from HomeGoods. And I wrote about them here when I got these storage baskets for under our coffee table; here when I reorganized my bookcases; here when I prettied up our TV area; and here when I created a little vignette on our kitchen counter. So let's see how close their quiz came to defining my decorating style...

Donna, you are a Country Eclectic

You have wide-ranging interests and influences and therefore appreciate a mix of styles, periods, and objects. You would never use a matching suite of furniture or could stand a home that seemed cookie-cutter.


Well, that's true... After all, I did pair this old, ornate mirror with a very modern CD cubby...

But you love the breezy, layered look of wonderfully personal beach houses...

I have to admit, this vintage beachy seagull painting definitely 'spoke to me'...

... and the happy florals of English cottages.

Well, this vintage floral cottage mother's motto is one of my favorites! So far they've got me pegged.

Bringing the outdoors in makes you happy...

That's so true... I use bird garden statues and a basket of lavender (from HomeGoods) on top of the TV in the family room...

And Patience, who used to live in the garden, was moved into the house perrmanently last year...

a little chintz or ruffle or weathered furniture,

Patience sometimes sits on this rusted garden table.... yes, I do love weathered furniture...

...urns filled with tennis rackets, colored glasses filled with cut flowers, vintage-looking, mixed tea cups, and all things that give a sense of a happy, simple life.

Yes, cut flowers in colored glass makes my heart go pitter pat...

You value comfort. Your home is a warm and open friendly place...

I try...

and you feel happiest when everyone is cared for and relaxed in your space.

Spotty can vouch for that!

Elements like pillows

Very true... I can't resist big, plump pillows (from Marshalls) on the couch...


...or the windowseat.

throws,


I do love using throws on my wing chairs... lightweight throws for summer...


... and vintage chenille throws for winter.

overstuffed furniture, and good lighting set the mood

Is anything more inviting than an overstuffed chair paired with a "free by the curb" reading lamp? Okay, Mary Higgins Clark, I'm ready for your next book!

You may also enjoy layering different fabrics or mixing patterns to create a cozy effect.

I love layering... solid white paired with this vintage robin's egg blue tablecloth...


...or maybe a quilt (from TJ Maxx) layered over a white tablecloth...

Click here if you'd like to take the HomeGoods Stylescope quiz created by Deborah Needleman, editor-in-chief of Domino magazine. The results of my quiz perfectly matched my decorating style, Country Eclectic... So what's your style?

COMMENT RESPONSE: Patience, my lady planter, was purchased a couple of years ago from The Christmas Tree Shop. She was a dark brown/bronze color and I sponge painted her light grey to look more like a cement planter. Ironically, that same year (after purchasing Patience) I saw very similar planters at HomeGoods!!!!!

Donna

Organization is the key!

Oh my gosh, it feels so good to be organized!! I'd love to have a room completely lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Not only do I love the look of bookcases, but I have so many more books than this (not to mention all of my girls' childhood books), so I'd have no trouble filling them up!


(click on any photos to enlarge)

I love having the bookcases pushed together on this wall (why did it take me so long to do this?)... And although I hated having the TV and/or treadmill sitting in front of the bookcases (this post), I think the chair looks right at home in front of them... A cozy little place to sit and read (recognize the free reading lamp I found this summer? Perfect for this spot!)...


I used to be so embarrassed by these cluttered, messy bookcases (previous post), but not anymore...


Oh, I know, they're probably still too "packed" with books and such, and there's probably some perfect "book-to-knickknack-to-basket-to-dead space" ratio that I'm way out of whack with, but they're so much more organized than before!!!


(It wouldn't be fair if I didn't let you in on a little secret though... the wing chair is conveniently hiding the shelves that still need some organizing... so don't look behind it!!)



But the rest of the shelves got tidied up... I've started organizing old photos in storage boxes, and I picked up these great woven baskets at Home Goods. That place never lets me down - I take my measurements with me when I go and I always find exactly what I'm looking for! (Remember the vintage chenille scatter rug storage baskets I got there that looked like they were custom made for what I had in mind?)

I also did a little shopping for the top of the bookcases at Home Goods... I fell in love with these garden rabbit statues. I'm really trying to incorporate a year-round "garden room" feel for our family room, so these were perfect! I must have put them in my basket (and taken them out) about 3 times... My daughter, who was with me that night, said, "Mom, you're really going to be sorry if you don't get them." I'm so glad she gave me the nudge I needed because I really do love them! I already had everything else... it was just a matter of pulling things from different places and then arranging it all. (The little resin fox in the birdcage might go back to the garden come spring, but he likes being inside for the winter!)

The tall bunny sits on an old copy of The Wizard of Oz that was mine from childhood. (As a child, I was apparently quite worried about losing all of my books because I wrote my name in about five different places in each one!)

In keeping with the garden theme, a little birch tree birdhouse sits between books and little stone birds...

My bluebird music box and Mellen Infant Formula bottle (thrift finds I posted about over the summer) are on another shelf...

And here's another little garden bird statue, as well as a closeup of the beautiful woven baskets...

I also spotted this little "bookend Scotty Dog" at Home Goods and, since I was picking out a few things for my bookcases, he came home with me as well...

I like this view toward the sliders so much more than this..... What took me so long to rearrange this room???

(P.S. We had a beautiful New England snowstorm today... I'll share some photos tomorrow!)

Donna

The improved TV area...

Before:


(click any photos to enlarge)
To recap our TV dilemma... no matter which side of the room the TV sat, it always blocked a bookcase.


Add to that the fact that bookcase shelves housed related electronic equipment (such as the DVD player and speaker in the above photo)...


...and the VCR, cable box, & speaker were permanent fixtures on top of the TV... It always seemed cluttered and messy...

After:

I rearranged the room so that the bookshelves no longer sat on either side of the slider. That one little change freed up this whole corner (which means the TV is no longer blocking anything!).


The cluttered look is now gone... A big yippeeeee in my book! And this TV, although an elephant, has a great feature - it's on casters, so we can easily roll it flat against the wall or angle it toward the sofa or chairs for viewing...


And now, instead of electronic equipment sitting on top of the TV, I have my stone birds and Home Goods lavender...

Oh, there is one more thing on top of the TV - the center speaker sits behind the woven basket, perfectly concealed...

(How cute! Spotty walked by just as I was snapping this photo... He's no doubt heading for the window to do some serious sunning!)

This is how the TV looks after the 'shelf project' I wrote about yesterday. I originally intended for the material to fall to the floor, but I actually like the way it looks with one of my tablecloths as a runner. It drapes down far enough on both sides to hide the ugly TV silhouette that I wrote about yesterday, so I'm just going to leave it as is (for now! I'm sure I'll occasionally switch out tablecloths - or even chenille spreads - for a different look from time to time)...

I picked up this little white nightstand at Target and it's perfect for the CD/DVD player (and the drawer is great for storing CD's, DVD's, and remotes!). I actually need to put the VCR and cable box on top of the nightstand (they're temporarily tucked underneath).

So there you have it - our little TV shelf and room rearrangement project that made a big difference in our family room! Next I'll show you where the bookcases ended up!

COMMENT UPDATE: Yes indeed, that is Clive Pearse from HGTV's Designed to Sell (I love that show!!)... And did you all know that Clive is an animal lover? As a matter of fact, he sits on the board of the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation (an animal rescue group/adoption site whose link I have added to my sidebar)... And I have to admit, although this TV is very hard to work around when rearranging, it is wonderful to be able to watch shows like Designed to Sell on such a big screen!!!

Donna

The good, the bad, and the ugly....

The Good:

A teaser of what the top of the TV looks like now....

A basket of 'faux' flowers (gotta love Home Goods!) and two stone birds that I brought in from my garden. (Can you tell I'm desperately trying for a garden theme to get me through the rest of the cold New England winter?)

The Bad:

What the top of the TV used to look like.... cable box, VCR, and speaker... bad, bad, bad....

The Ugly:

Elephant #1 (from previous post), in all its glory...

Back in November, we (I) decided to spiff up the monster TV and all the electronics that go along with it. These old TV's are not attractive - they have a very narrow 'shelf' top, but as you can see from the side view, they become quite large about half way down... It just doesn't make for a pretty silhouette...

So we (I) decided to attach a larger 'shelf' to the top of the TV (part of my plan to conceal the ugly silhouette). We (hubby) measured and cut a piece of plywood to fit the top of the TV...

Now we needed a way to attach it to the TV... Industrial strengh Velcro to the rescue!

We used the whole package and just kept placing strips on the top of the TV, with the interlocking strips on the bottom of the plywood shelf.

Since the back of the TV had two small flat surfaces (visible if you enlarge the photo), dowels were screwed into the shelf and now rest on those two surfaces for additional support.

The next step was to paint the front lip of the plywood shelf... I thought I'd just have to paint the front strip, but you could see a bit of bare wood on the bottom sie of the shelf between it and the TV, so we carefully removed the shelf (thank goodness all the Velcro strips hadn't been applied to the bottom of the shelf at this point)....

... and I painted a few inches of black on both the bottom and top of the shelf. (I didn't paint the entire shelf because I had plans to cover it.)

Now it's still a big old elephant (there's no disguising that), but it looks a heck of a sight better than it did before. I'll show you the finished project tomorrow.

Donna

Storage issue solved!

I love using chenille scatter rugs around the house; some vintage, some new. My problem has always been where to store them. I thought baskets might be a good solution (in a small house, you need to get creative about storage space)...


... so I measured my rolled up rugs, measured the space under our sap bench/coffee table, and set out for Home Goods.


I found exactly what I was looking for! These two baskets are the perfect size for my chenille scatter rugs and they fit underneath the sap bench perfectly! If I'd had something custom made it couldn't have worked out better! While at Home Goods, I also picked up some baskets for my bookshelves (another organization project I'll share in a future post).


And I have to tell you about this new little rug and the incredible deal I got on it! It's just a 5'x8' indoor/outdoor rug but for $4.99 I couldn't pass it up!! I found it at The Christmas Tree Shop (a chain of stores here in the northeast). When I got it up to the register the cashier said, "This rug rings up at $49.99." I said, "Oh, I thought the tag said $4.99!" to which she replied, "It does. Let me call a manager." So the manager came over, looked at the rug, looked at the price sticker and told her to give it to me for $4.99 even though the price was actually $49.99! Then he told me I got the buy of the year! Thank you, Mr. Manager! "Don't you just love a bargain?" is the jingle for their commercials... Yes, I do!!

Donna