Category Archives: the House

Adventures In Hanging Plates

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Awhile back I commented on the fact that I was going to be painting my dining room very soon. I had painted the swatches on the wall, chose the perfect color, bought the paint and all the other supplies. I was ready, but then the holidays came, then my Fab sale, and a bunch of other little things.

I had mentioned to my brother in law, Trey, that I really wanted it painted and that I would totally pay him to do it when he had free time, since I didn’t have any myself. His response…

“Sweetie, I’ll come over tomorrow night and do it!” and HE DID! It took two nights and a second trip to Sherwin Williams, but in the end it looks AWESOME!

I LOVE the color! and I think it really makes the room feel more special and unique.

Before we painted I had a bunch of stuff on the walls… a huge Batman print, a few shelves for my Dunnys, a mirror and bunch of plates. I think the only traditional thing in this room was the wall of plates. I couldn’t wait to put them back up on a new, much darker, wall.

Since I decided to paint this room, months ago, I had accumulated a few more plates in my collection. A couple I picked up at thrift shops and major retailer, and a few my grandmother gave me. Those are all on the right side of the table above. They were all from her very own plate collection! How neat is that? apparently plate walls run in my family. ha. Anyway, since I had new pieces I couldn’t just put them all up the way they were! My plan of attack was to arrange them on the table until I found an arrangement I liked.

That didn’t work, so instead I chose my favorite plate (the white one with the black branches and bird) and placed it in the middle of the wall. I then just chose a random plate here and there, making sure not to have colors too similar next to each other, and hung them up. As you can sorta see from above, I changed my mind every so often. Like with the periwinkle colored plate. It moved all over the place. I ended up having the wrong plate hanger size for a few, which I plan to buy very soon, but for now it is DONE!

It’s one of my favorite walls in the house. I love that it combines new and old, and plastic and glass. Each plate shows a little of my personality and life! Like the plate CT painted during her first vacation last year, or the plate from the set we got as a wedding gift, or the plate we ate off of all the time in our first apartment!

I hope to keep adding more pieces, which I plan to share with you guys along the way.

 

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House Tour: The Front Door

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Ah, the front door, the beginning of your house, sorta. We don’t actually use the front door much. We prefer to use the back door, where the cars are kept.

Anyway, currently this is one of my favorite spots of our house. We’ve only lived here for little over a year, so I may change my mind soon. But for now this spot makes me the happiest.

I’m not much on white walls, or off white contract color walls, and we are surrounded by them now (were thinking light grey, everywhere). To break up the white until we had time to paint everything, I decided to paint our front door a dark plum. I still think it was one of the best things we’ve done to the house so far. I smile every time i look at it.

oh and that chair, is our best thrift story ever…

I don’t believe it is a real Eames lounger, but it looks very close to one. It’s super soft and comfy, so I really don’t care. We found it at a thrift store about 8 years ago. It was just sitting there for $200, which at the time was just a little too much for a used chair. We were about to walk away from it when over the speaker we hear “half off all furniture”. Apparently $100 wasn’t too much for an old chair, so we swooped it up and somehow got it home.

It’s been dragged all over Maryland with us, sometimes it fits the appartments we were in, sometimes it was just too big. I think it’s finally found a perfect home in our library. oh and CT LOVES it! as you can tell, it’s basically her chair now.

 

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Displaying My Collections: Vinyl Toys

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As I’ve said before, I’m a collector, of many things. Books, Cameras, Band T shirts, Show Flyers, Bird Figurines, etc etc… It all takes up a lot of space, but I just can’t part with anything, yet.

One of my larger collections is designer vinyl toys. I received a new one this week, So I decided to show how I display them.

In previous houses and apartments I’d just stick them all up on a few bookshelves and call it a day. As you can see below, It was a bit overwhelming.

(this photo is about 4 years old)

Some days I loved looking over and seeing everything so bright and colorful, other days I just cringed.

When we moved into our first real home last year, I vowed to keep my collections under control. For my sake and for CT’s. I decided to divide them up into different rooms and even pack some away until I knew what to do with them.

My first project was all my Be@rbricks, Dunny’s and Qee’s. I had the most of them and they were all kinda small. Plus my Dunny collection had just quadrupled thanks to a very kind hand-me-down from a friend, so they needed the most help.

I looked everywhere for nice little shelves or risers to put them on. They all just reminded me of my previous toy mess. In the end I decided to use shadow box frames. I even found ones at a few of my local craft shops that fit all three toy sizes perfectly! I bought them slowly so I could use one of the many 40% or 50% coupons sent out. So it never really cost me too much.

I apologize for the crappy photo. It’s been very dreary here lately, plus this set up is in a stairwell with no windows! Anyway, as you can see it’s a lot less crazy looking and basically turned my toy collection into art. Plus I have enough room for 6 more frames! I actually plan on buying two more soon, since I found some missing Be@rbricks and Qee’s that need a home.

Oh and this is the new Holiday themed Dunny I received in the mall this week! The one that sparked this post. Isn’t he cute? Ha!

I’ll be adding him to a frame tonight, maybe I’ll take pictures of the very easy process.

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