Fresh Vintage Home: Flippin' Awesome!

The other day I received the new Restoration Hardware ~~book~~ catalog. Holy macaroni, I felt sorry for the mailman who had to carry it! I live in a neighborhood where the mailman still walks house to house and delivers right to my door. I love it. I cant imagine what a hard job that must be. It's great exercise...I mean, you never see a fat mailman. They walk, walk, walk all day ... everyday. I'm tired just thinking about it, then add that massive catalog to the bag...I wonder if any of my neighbors had one delivered the same day. He might have had like 4 in his sack! Whew.

Ok, bringing it back, focus... As I was saying, I got the magazine and while browsing through it for ideas, I noticed that the rooms I was drawn to had neutral rugs. Sisal or cotton or wool. But all in solid neutral.

We bought the living room rug about 4 years ago from Overstock.com. It's a wool rug, and wasn't cheapy, but wasn't expensive either. I've been real happy with the purchases made from them. Including 4 mattresses. Yes, Four. We have a lot of beds. And shipping is only $2.95 on EVERYTHING!

Here is the rug in my living room. Please forgive the tired sofa, it gets a lot of love:)

Its a beautiful rug, but has more gold than I would like these days.

Its a perfect rug for the winter. It's warm colors hide dirt really well. I thought about switching it with the sisal/cotton rug from my room. It has soft green cotton woven in with the sisal (also bought on overstock!) Then, today as I was vacuuming, the corner of the rug flipped up...and I got inspired! I grabbed that corner, pulled her back farther and said "Heelllllo beautiful!".

See that texture! And amazingly there are no stains on the entire thing. There is a little

hole...from when I staple gunned the rug to the floor...but I hid it under the couch along with the manufacture tag. It took some blood, sweat, and tears to flip that sucker! In the process, I unearthed another animals worth of hair from under the couch. It's a good idea to flip your rug, just to clean under your sofa. The neutral color is a breath of fresh air. Hopefully it will stay clean. My husband may think I've lost my marbles, but that's nothing new. I had him at the drawer hanging on the wall in 1988. It made a great shelf, what can I say. You can pull the girl from the thrift store, but you cant get the thrift from the girl!

So, what do you think?

The dark green walls seem to suck all the light out of the room. It was a gorgeous sunny day and much brighter than it appears. We plan to paint the living room a lighter color this Summer. My Pintrest board is full of lighter inspiration. Don't you love discovering new creative blogs while searching Pintrest. A nice bonus!

Once I saw the change from the rug, I became excited about bringing Spring inside. Spring is just now showing its face in our corner of the world. And I love it. I opened the doors and let the sunshine in. I tinkered around outside today, too, soaking up the rays. My neighbor has several Camillia bushes, and they have been blooming in succession. They are so beautiful. I have been cutting flowers (they hang over the fence) twice a week for a month now.

When I emptied out my antique booth last month I kept several old wood doors to use around here. My favorite is this one.

I brought it into the living room and set it against the wall by the piano. I don't know if I will keep it there, but its fun for now. I'm making a folding screen out of the other doors to use on the back patio. I can't wait to show you when it's finished.

Well, tomorrow I am going to the Apple store to get my laptop fixed. YAY !! Hopefully it's a simple fix. Have a happy SPRING weekend everyone.