Guest Post - A Stroll Thru Life

Today I have Marty from A Stroll Thru Life as my guest poster.   Marty has a beautiful home and is the best at creating vignettes.  I discovered Marty's blog during the first week of blogging and she is on my daily check list.  I know you'll enjoy her blog.  Here's just a sample:

My name is Marty from A Stroll Thru Life and I am so happy to be doing a guest post for Judy while she enjoys a little vacation time.  Today I am going to show you some of the latest changes I've made in my home.

When I changed out the breakfast room and dining room chairs, the Living/Dining area changed so much I pulled out my favorite decor books by Charles Faudree and started hunting for inspiration.  The chairs seemed to change the feel of the room, a little more country french with the farmhouse table and ladderback chairs.

The height of these chairs seemed to make the dining table apprear much darker, so I was hunting for some kind of inspiration to lighten and brighten things up.  Charles uses a lot of gorgeous silk plaids in his decor.

I had just the right fabric in my stash that I had gotten to make sofa pillows and then only made one, so I had plenty to make a new table runner out of, and I had some remnant fringe too.  The fabric is a beautiful silk taffeta in a wonderful combination of yellow/orange and green.

The colors are just perfect to go with all my sofa pillows.

With the height of the chairs, my floral arrangement also needed to be taller.

I did it in this brown planter, but it wasn't very tall.  Something to elevate it on.

 I had this brown metal planter, but it didn't elevate it enough, so what to do.

 I turned it over and it was the right height.

 I just sat the original planter on top and it was perfect.  I love to improvise and this is definitely a case in point.

 Now it has the presence that it needed to have.  I love it when something works out that way.

I wanted a lighter look for the living room also, so I removed the area rug.  I think the room looks bigger without it.  Just one big expanse of carpet.  I love the look of layered rugs, however I was beginning to think the area rug drew your eye to the seating area, and didn't allow you to visually see the entire room.  Not a good thing in such a small area.

Small changes, but they do make an impact.  Try to take a really critical look at your rooms and figure out if there is something you can improve with just some really small changes, and the best part is mine were free.  Fabric and fringe I already had.

Thanks Judy for allowing me to step in for you.  I would also like to invite you all to visit me at my blog - A Stroll Thru Life and to join me for my weekly party called Table Top Tuesdays.