Redecorate Without Spending a Penny

Sunday was my niece's birthday.  The birthday celebration was at my brother's home.  After lunch, my sister-in-law and I started to chat about her plans to update her bedroom.  They want to redecorate the room and she wanted my opinion.  (Before I continue this story you should know that I had no idea how much furniture we would start to move, so I don't really have before photos and all the photos were taken on my iphone).  So...we went upstairs and I took a look.  She told me that her plan is to remove the wall to wall carpet and add hardwood floors and to repaint the walls.  She wanted my overall impression of the room.   She had this very large chaise lounge in her bedroom.  The piece felt very overpowering in the space.  It didn't take much convincing to get her to agree to let me move the chaise lounge to the sitting room on the first floor.  She thought my brother would be against the idea, so I called my husband upstairs.  I knew he would move the chaise with me.

Here is the chaise in its new location, the sitting room.  It goes perfectly with the decor in there.  They colors in the room are golds and creams and they have a black baby grand piano.  The chaise looks so much better here.  What a perfect place to curl up and read a book or listen to someone playing the piano.  I wish I had taken out my phone to take photos of my husband and my sister-in-law's sister-in-law (got that?) carrying the chaise down the stairs.  We were all laughing so hard because it felt like we were doing this undercover, all the while with my brother in the other room watching the football game with everyone else.  My brother and his wife have beautiful furniture, most of it from Ethan Allen (my favorite store).  It was just a matter of moving it all around.  Next step was to add a seating area to the master bedroom where we just removed the chaise lounge.

Here is their new seating area.  One of these chairs was in their family room and the other chair was in their foyer.  My husband brought them both upstairs to the master bedroom.  The table in between the two chairs was one of their night stands.  The truth is that they need a desk area in the master bedroom.  This new desk will be in lieu of a nightstand.  My sister-in-law has put me in charge of finding the perfect desk.  I am in love with this new seating area.  I wish I had a before photo of the chaise lounge in this space (I did ask my husband to bring everything back upstairs just so I could get a before photo...he didn't go for that one).  Isn't it gorgeous?

Then we moved the chair from the sitting room (where the chaise lounge now resides) to the foyer to replace the chair that is part of the new seating area in the master bedroom.
(Are you all still following me?)

Now that I took away one of the chairs from the family room, I needed to add something back.  I added these two stools that were just hiding in a corner.
I also needed to balance the piece of furniture that was to the left of the fireplace.

I did that by having my other brother (I needed to recruit more people in my plan at this point) move this little secretary desk to the other side of the fireplace.

Then we moved this chair and table over to the right in order to center it more in the window.
Four rooms redecorated and not a penny was spent.

So what is the moral of my story?
Before you go out and spend any money on new furniture...first shop your own home.  You will be surprised at what you find.  If you are having trouble seeing your existing furniture in a new light, ask a friend or relative to help you.  I promise, you will have so much fun!

-Judy

Outdoor Decorating

The weather was just gorgeous here this past weekend.  Sunday we had the house power washed and it was finally time to take out all of the patio furniture.

We have our outdoor furniture stored in our shed and in our pool house.  The whole family worked together to bring everything out.

Once we took everything out, I started arranging the furniture.  With the new patio, everything is different.

We decided to move the seating area to the other side of the pool deck.  I love how it looks with the landscaping behind it.

That whole seating area used to sit here.  Now, with the new countertop area it no longer made sense to have the huge umbrella and chat area here.  Notice the umbrella in the granite.  If we kept the seating area here, the two umbrellas would be on top of each other.

What became clear is that we need to buy some more furniture.  We knew this already, but until we laid everything out, I wasn't exactly sure what we needed.  Now I have a better idea.

I found this set at a local outdoor furniture store.  Wouldn't this look great sitting to the right of the sliding glass door?  A few issues...one - this is the only fabric they stock it in and I don't know that I want browns and taupes... I wish it had a more neutral fabric.  Second...it's over $5,000!!!  I'll have to continue my hunt for the perfect sectional (or try to find it somewhere else for less).

We also need two to three counter height stools.

image from Hanamint 

Probably this one from Hanamint to match the small table and chairs we bought last year.

We also need better chairs for around the fire pit.  Those chairs are not in great shape anymore.  They were originally from Bed and Bath and are close to ten years old.  Not bad for cheap chairs.

image from Frontgate

Finally we need two nice chaise lounge chairs.  We threw out four slingback lounge chairs that had rusted and gotten gross over the past few years.  My only issue is where they will go.  The lounge chair area used to be where we just moved the chat area.  I'm going to have to spend a little more time planning out this space today.  Maybe it's just me, but I am shocked at the cost of outdoor furniture.  We have bought inexpensive furniture in the past (ie the outdoor chat area at the pool is from Target).  Unfortunately those sets really don't seem to last more than a few years (and we put all of our furniture away for the winter).

Next step in conjunction with adding more furniture...adding some color.  Way too much grey already.  I'm looking forward to picking a color scheme.

What do you think so far?  Any outdoor decorating going on at your home?

-Judy


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Finding the Perfect Furniture Arrangement

Whenever I redesign a room in my home, I always start with graph paper and cut outs of my furniture and make a floor plan.  It's much easier to move around the paper furniture than the real.  For the most part a floor plan is great in determining is something will or will not fit.  But the only way I can get a real sense for the room is to actually move the furniture.

Here's my living room.  I had a sofa and a love seat in the living room.  When we got the baby grand piano, I thought the only place it fit well in the room was in the bay window, so the love seat had to leave the room (which bothered me).  I thought I had found the perfect furniture arrangement and we lived with this furniture arrangement for the past few years.

Before

Before-piano in the bay area of the window

Before

Each time I'd pass this room or play piano in the room something bothered me about it.  But again I didn't think I had any options with the piano fitting anywhere else.  Then, about six months ago I decided it was time to change the window treatments in the living room.  I had just changed the window treatments in the adjoining dining room and now these window treatments really had to go.  So, the day before the window treatments were to be installed I needed to move some of the furniture to make room for the installer to hang the treatments.  I rolled up the rug, moved the ottoman and then my husband and I moved the piano into the center of the room.  It hit me then, but I didn't dare say it out loud.  The piano could be moved across the room to the other side.  I would be able to get my love seat back into the room.  It would make the room look larger.  I ran into my office and got out my floor plan out of the file cabinet (which I had created originally when we set up the room).  On paper it looked good.  The next day the window treatments got installed.  After the installer left, I decided I would move the piano myself.  That way in case I was completely wrong about the new furniture arrangement, no one needed to know.  FYI - baby grand pianos are heavy...even if you are rolling it only across the room.

Here is the new arrangement.  Look at how much more open the living room is.  The tree left the room and is on my parents enclosed deck now.  

Now when I walk by, I love what I see.  The piano is more of a focal point, whereas before, the piano looked like a huge barrier.  

The end table that used to be next to the sofa is now next to the chair.  It looks better too now that you can actually see it.  

The best part is that this all happened because I had to move the piano out of the way so that the installer could hang the window treatments.  By moving it, I was suddenly able to see the room in a whole new way.  

So if you're not happy with the way a room looks but you don't know what to do, this is what I would suggest.

1.  Start with a floor plan.  Move furniture pieces around to see what options you have.

2.  Empty out the room.  You will be amazed at how differently you look at the room without the current furniture arrangement staring you in the face.

3.  Use furniture moving pads.  They are a back saver and make furniture moving easy to do (I do it all the time and I often do it alone).

4.  Shop your home.  Move pieces from one room into another.  Little changes can make a big impact.

Hope I've inspired you to do some no-cost decorating this weekend.  Let me know what you think of the new arrangement.  Have a great weekend.

-Judy

By the way, Debbie Doos is having a Pet Link Party on Monday.  I'll be there...hope you will come too.