Sunday, January 16, 2011

Destination Living Room - home tour continues...

We wanted this room to say "sit a spell" --
and turned to the pasture, the meadow, the woods for our colors...
Brown, white, greens (with an "s"), and rose pink.
Wood & Lace & Chippy Paint.

By chance, we ended up with two love seats in this room, splitting up
furniture sets.  Originally, the green love seat with a matching couch was intended for this room.
However, when we were unable to move the brown love seat up the stairs to sit with a matching chair in the study...destiny intervened.  Why not have two love seats facing each other (after all whoever sits in the middle of a couch)-- and we would move the couch to the den.
To anchor the sitting area, we needed a substantial "coffee table"
-- one that could hold its own in this big room.
At a flea market, I found this green carpenter's trunk with a metal top...
and with rain showers beginning, $35.00 sealed the deal
(it was outside of the dealer's tent & they wanted it sold before rain ruined the wonderful green paint).
It now impatiently holds all the spring & summer decor for this room.


The wool rug in the living room was another interesting story of kismet. 
We were at the point in our home's restoration/renovation where we were going to pull up several layers of carpet in the living room.  We knew we wanted a rug underfoot (I like to be barefoot, and wood floors alone just don't do it for me).  I had my book of room measurements in hand on a weekend trip from our prior home in Sun Prairie to the Farm to do more work...when we stopped at the Tomah Antique Mall. Rolled up in the back corner of the mall was a rug with a tag that had the dimensions -- exactly what was in my book for an area rug for this room.  And, even better, on this particular trip we were hauling up our boat to leave at the farm.  We traveled the rest of the way with the rug in the boat.  When we eventually pulled up the carpets -- the shadow of an area rug that originally had been in this room exactly matched this rug. 


This cupboard was also found on a trip up to the farm during our year of restoration.
We moved from a home half the size to this
much larger farmhouse -- so finding
additional furniture was a fun part of this project.
We found this in the corner of a basement in Black River Falls.
It is two pieces -- with brown, green & off white.
It houses our stereo, bird cages & clocks (two of my favorites to collect).
The little green mirror on the second shelf from the top is one I just found Saturday antiquing.
**The door to the left is the original 154 year old front door -- with skeleton key still in the lock.

This is looking in from the dining room.
The white cupboard in the corner came from Beaver Dam.
The two windows are almost floor to ceiling and are covered in white sheer lace --
found at the Kane County Flea Market in Illinois for a song.
I picked the green paint for the walls --
because, well, I love green (same color as kitchen). 
All the paint colors are from the Martha Stewart collection...
and all the white in the entire house is "Daisy White"...
learned my lesson in our last house to have consistent colors for ease of touch up.


The brown closed cupboard behind the green love seat holds books.
Peaking off to the right is our dining room --
and the pie safe that holds all my linens
(but that will wait for another day).
Today the living room is dressed for Valentine's Day...
see the sweet little red chair and heart on the mirror next to it.


If you stood in the middle of the living room...
this would be looking through the dining room to the kitchen.
The white table & cupboard on the right is just for
my holiday "show & tell"!
The rug between the living room and dining room
was given to me by my sister, Randi.
She found it in a home they once owned in Madison
-- rolled up in a ball in the basement...she knew I would love it!


There is my "show & tell" shelf on the left
--- only purpose is to make us smile.
On the floor next to it (to the left of the doorway to our den)
is a stack of pillows for our cats...right in front of a heating vent
 -- insert purr here.


Current Valentine's Day "Show & Tell".


Again, standing in the middle of the living room...
this is looking into our den/t.v. room.
Notice all the fabulous wood work -- it was already painted white...
so I was thrilled to just repaint ---- ALWAYS wanted white woodwork!!
The little green dresser was bought at auction in Eau Claire
 and houses rotating display pieces.
On the shelf above is where the very first picture of this post (remember way back then)
was taken from.  The chair came from the Columbus Antique Mall...
We painted all our floors a pale yellow.

That is a little (sort of long) tour of our living room. 
I imagine that when I was a child,
the teacher rolled her eyes when it was
my turn at show & tell...
**Note to my sisters, Randi & Lori
-- did you know I once took
Tippy's kitten to kindergarten for show & tell?
Good news, my teacher adopted one of them,
bad news, mom was waiting for me when I got home.
Insert smile here.


    Would you sit a spell with me?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful!
thanks for sharing, and giving such inspiration!

Kari from Meadowview Farm said...

Thanks, Mary Jo...
I trouble with posting all this about each room -- which is why I hadn't done this earlier in my "blog life" -- feels kind of, I don't know, eogocentric. However, I know I love to see other people's homes -- that is where all my ideas come from. I look over & over at magazines, books, blogs that show what real people are doing in real homes.

Anyway -- on a real self motivated note, I do love knowing that this blog now provides a lasting journal of this farm -- something I might look back at some day, too.

Kari

Anonymous said...

LOVE your photos of your home-simply beautiful!!! I want a tour someday!!! :)
Hope all is well this winter, see you in the Spring @ the sale!

Small Holdings Farm said...

I have a barn which I love, but yours looks really really nice and mine does not have a hay loft and its only a morton building--but I too have some great barn sales. I also have the very same rug as yours in my bedroom. Like your house and now you are making me think I need to plan the date of my sale. Good Luck Sherron

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