When my husband and I moved to Pennsylvania from Boston, we combined all of our stuff from our past lives and decided what we should take and what we should toss. Actually, I was the one that did most of the tossing. If it had been up to my husband, we would have kept everything. In case you haven’t noticed by now, most men are very attached to all of their belongings and it probably doesn’t matter whether it has a sentimental value or not because to them, everything has a sentimental value. They can and will attach one to everything. If it was a white t-shirt with holes they were wearing when their team won the World Series or worse, the lumpy old bed pillows they had in their college dorm that they are still sleeping on (eek) it will probably be next to impossible to convince them to toss it. So, as you can imagine, I had to tread lightly in some cases and be downright cold hearted in others when it came to our merger.
Luckily, there are a lot of things you can do with your husband’s “junk” that will make you all happy, that doesn’t involve throwing it all away.
Furniture: It was a blessing and a curse to have inherited my husband’s furniture. First off, I didn’t have some of the major items, like a couch or arm chair, because those were all items my roommates had in the past, and never anything I needed to buy. However, these were all items that had been handed down to my husband from his family when they redecorated in what looked like, 1970?….just saying. Anyway, this all ended up being beneficial in the end, so ladies, don’t panic. …reupholster. There are many benefits to reupholstering furniture vs. buying new despite what you may hear about it costing more. First of all, that may not always be true and it certainly wasn’t in our case. Reupholstering a couch, in my case meant that I was holding onto the physical item that was part of my husband’s past, and not tossing it, where it may have ended up in a landfill. Let’s face it, it was so ugly, I’m not sure how much life it had left outside the dump. But, it was in wonderful physical shape, a very sturdy, well made couch like that can be hard to come by unless you plan on spending more. Things are made so cheaply these days and we consider everything to be disposable. When you buy a couch as a young couple, you are probably not considering that you may spend more for something good, but you will have it forever and probably be passing it on to your kids when they buy homes. Usually you are thinking of tossing it when it breaks, which you know will be soon, but hey, you got it for less money, so who cares right? So anyway, I did decide to keep our furniture and actually found an upholsterer in Pennsylvania, but first I looked for new furniture online to compare prices. What I found was that the upholsterer could do almost everything for cheaper, including the cost of fabric, or for the same price as buying new. The major benefits are that you can choose whatever fabric you want. In most cases you are limited depending on what company you are buying the piece from. You are also giving your business to your local upholsterer, in my case, I had just moved to a new town so it was nice to research and see what was around and meet new people. But best of all, we got to hold on to an older, nicely made piece of furniture that has lasted, and will last, for a very long time. I find that a good measure of quality furniture is that I can’t really move it myself. People should probably remember that furniture is meant to be heavy, if you can pick your couch up, and move it across the room in a few seconds, you probably bought a piece of junk.
These are the before pictures of the furniture we already had, as you can see they are pretty ugly.
Here are two images of the furniture we had reupholstered. The first one is a more feminine space and the second one is a slightly more modern, masculine space. The fabric I chose was gender neutral even though it’s a floral pattern. Ultimately, we chose the second arrangement.
Lampshades: This lamp was all gold with a green, metal shade. It came from my father in-law’s office and was not suitable for residential use unless you happen to be a British lord who smokes a pipe and loves to hunt fox, maybe. I spray painted it silver and bought a new shade, simple as that.
Wall hangings: I say always hang your own artwork or buy something you found from a local artist (if you can afford it). Attend local art sidewalk shows, step into galleries, or attend starving artist sales where you can get art for cheap. This is so much more personal than buying a reproduction piece from a chain home goods store. My husband and I love to take pictures, so it is pretty easy for us to go through our archives to find images suitable for framing. If you think you’re not good at photography, think again. These days with digital cameras, anyone can be a photographer. Maybe your strong point is setting up the shot more than it is playing with light, so just pick what you’re good at and go with it. If you absolutely feel you don’t have a great landscape or city scene to photograph, focus on close up pictures of objects and print them out in black and white. This invokes interest and brings people closer to your picture to see what it is and is a great way to get your company to interact with your interior space. If you have random frames lying around and you want to create a sense of unity, paint them all one color rather than buying all new ones. Yard sales, flea markets, and antique shops are fantastic places to find beautiful frames. You could also find someone in your area who has a frame shop and can do the job for a decent price, give your business to them instead of the larger retailers. Establishing a relationship with local business owners/employees is a great way to meet people and it makes you feel good about your community, this is so much better than just buying something cheaply made. If people who are more social are meant to live longer and be more healthy, consider your local business owners as preventative medicine. Know that you may spend more money for quality items and good customer service, but you will only be buying it once and not replacing something several times because you bought it cheap.
Here is some of our custom art made by us:
This painting I did myself, you can get canvases at any art store or just buy them at vintage shops or yard sales. A great tip is to buy an ugly piece of artwork at a yard sale for cheap and paint over it. The french sentiment was an inside joke between my husband and I which makes the painting personal and unique. I am so not an “artist” but sometimes you really don’t have to be to make art, especially when it’s not for sale.
I took some close up shots and put them all together. The red tulip picture was taken by my husband and we had it transfered onto a canvas which is a fantastic way to make your own artwork, it actually did sort of end up looking like a painting and it is the first thing people comment on when they come over.
These frames were all different colors and I just spray painted them gold to make them more uniform. The pen etchings I did myself after I saw a series of them for sale in a catalogue. They are so easy to draw and they are sort of neat to look at. When you are browsing through catalogues and see modern art pieces that you like, they are usually so simple to replicate yourself.
This wall look can be achieved simply by painting wood or canvases from the craft store bright colors. You can arrange them anyway you want. Here are a few other ideas for decorating your walls to create color blocking:
