A Pottery Barn Inspired Bedroom Update

My sister and I spent the last two weeks of August decluttering, reorganizing and redecorating much of her home as she prepares for retirement in January.  We started with her new downstairs family room and "Andi room" and then moved upstairs for a living room re-do.  

 

All that was left was the Master Bedroom. We just finished that and I thought I'd share what we accomplished.  I think we learned, once again, that "Less is More".

 

Collect Moments Not Things

“ While you are alive, collect moments not things."   

                                                  ~Aarti Khurana

I've had a great time this year helping friends and family members declutter, reorganize and redecorate their homes. I've always loved to organize (my spices were in alphabetical order long before Fly Lady and Marie Kondo!), never pursued it as a career, but look forward to being asked to help others "spark joy" in their homes.


So far, "The Accidental Organizer" (me!) has had great fun this year helping to "reclaim" the homes of  BFF Mary Elizabeth, niece Katy, and (the current project) my sister, Andi. Andi and her DH both had homes before they were married so the first step was a major decluttering. We had both learned a lot from reading (repeatedly!) The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Andi was determined to keep only those items which "sparked joy".

Wash, Dry, Decorate: Laundry Room Update

When we moved to our retirement condo on Applegate Lane, there was a stackable washer and dryer squeezed into a small closet in the first floor bathroom.  You could actually see it from the living room . . . definitely not a good look, even if I tried to pass it off as steampunk!

 

Our house is a 2-story with a gambrel roofline . . .


So we found wasted space under the eaves . . .

and moved the laundry room upstairs next to the master bedroom. 

Here it is!

Under the sloping wall, we added an area for folding clothes with lots of storage underneath, hidden by a fabric "curtain" threaded onto a length of heavy wire secured to the underside of the counter top by small eye hooks.

 

This space is also really handy for wrapping gifts and laying out fabric for sewing projects.

I love some of the photos shared by blogger Miss Kopy Kat in her recent post entitled  How To Transform a Laundry Room.  Her fabric treatment under the counter is similar to mine and also hides a storage area.  Her laundry room even includes a coffee station and wine bar!

 

If I had wine in my laundry room, DH and I would have the cleanest clothes in town!

I hot-glued brightly-painted clothespins to a yardstick and mounted it on the wall between my dryer and folding area to hold those mystery socks that always seem to exit the dryer without their mates. The paper towel holder is handy for spills and a framed pattern envelope from the 1950's adds a little color and whimsy.  (How about those hats?)

 

On the opposite wall, I found room to hang a miniature clothesline to display a collection of vintage dolls' clothes.  

 

 An old apple ladder holds an antiques child's dress and an assortment of vintage wooden coat hangers. It's useful as well as decorative . . . I hang newly-ironed clothes on it until I put them away.

And the piece de resistance? A chandelier we rescued from the original porch of our former 1830's home. It's so unexpected in the laundry room that it just makes me smile!

Extra craft storage is hidden on a shelf unit behind the door where I can get to it easily. And there's room to leave the ironing board up all the time for quick touch-ups as clothes come out of the dryer.

 

 This room works perfectly and makes good use of formerly wasted space in our home.

 

Who says doing laundry can't be fun?

 

 

This post is linked to:

 Party Junk at Funky Junk Interiors

Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

 

Vintage Sunglasses as Wall Art

As some of you know, my sisters and I lost our mother in April. When we were going through her things we found that she had taken the time to write little notes on items that held special meaning for her. In the bottom drawer of her dresser, I found two pair of vintage celluloid sunglasses in a baggie. The note on these said, "June 1946 - His & Hers Honeymoon Glasses".
How sweet is that? 

I knew that this memory was a little gift from Mom to us and that I didn't want to hide the glasses away in a drawer. So I found this shadow box frame at Michael's, lined it with vintage-looking scrapbooking paper, and framed them.

To give the shadow box a sense of place and to add a little color, I put an old postcard of Wells Beach, where Mom and Dad spent their honeymoon, in the frame, along with Mom's note . . . and hung it in a grouping in my living room. With a little creativity, I've found that you can hang almost anything on the wall as art. (In fact I'm currently working on cleaning up and hanging my grandfather's 100-year-old violin; but that's another post!)

Here are Mom and Dad on their wedding day in Bradford, Massachusetts, June 29, 1946. . .

And a couple more old postcard views of Wells Beach back in the 40's.

Don't you love the cars?

Although we grew up in Connecticut, our parents rented a cottage for our family vacation at Wells Beach every summer. Those days were some of the best of our lives and left each of us with such a love of Maine that all four of us eventually moved here.

 

Mom left us more than one gift when she tucked that little note away with the old sunglasses.  She left us a glimpse into her youth as well as a love of the ocean, and Maine, that will last each of us a lifetime.  And that's important enough to hang right out there on the living room wall!

 

 

 

This post is linked to:

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Toolbox Decorating: Incorporating Found Art Into Your Home

I've always been drawn to vintage tools , , , especially those with bright old paint, wood handles seasoned with oil from long-ago hands, or just the right amount of rust on them.

 

Every time I go to a yard sale of flea market, old hand tools and garden implements seem to call out to me.

 

This was the "business end" of a broken rake. Screwed to the kitchen wall, it displays my vintage and collectible linens.

I found this authentic tin letter "L" at a moving sale in Kennebunk last year. It's quite large...must have been part of the sign on a store at one time. Since our last name starts with "L" and the price was right (only $10.00), I snapped it up.

My great big rusty "L" is now part of a grouping on a wall near the reading chair in the living room.

 

 

To fill in the space next to it, I framed the sunglasses my "Greatest Generation" parents wore on their honeymoon to Wells Beach, Maine in 1946. Not exactly tools, but "found art" for sure.

 

 

I found this vintage T-square ruler at the Liberty Tool Shop, an amazing junkers' paradise in the tiny mid-coast Maine town of Liberty.

 

It too looked like an "L" so that's the way I decided to hang it...as part of another grouping in the living room...

Above my vintage doorknob collection...more "tool bench" finds.

 

 

This old planer came from a small shop in Freeport, Maine. I had to have it for the great mustard color on the knob.

 

 

I display it with this book that I found in my father's desk after he passed away...

 

Dad used the book to build our family's first home in Newington Connecticut in 1950. He, his father and his brother, built the house by hand...step by step...using this book and the tools they had.

 

Now the book is grouped with a photo of my Dad and the planer on the bookshelf in the living room. Every time I see this little vignette it brings back so many memories.

 

I guess a ladder is a tool of sorts...I use this one as a drying rack for damp clothes in my laundry room I just like to look at it!

 

 

 

  

 I've still got quite a few rusty tools and "found objects" to come up with uses for. I buy them because I like their shapes...then I decide how I'll use them. I think the rake might end up on a wall with some sort of display hanging from the tines. I plan to use the saw handle as the top support for a sea glass mobile, and the horse bridle piece...who knows? Maybe a towel holder.

 

See how it works? Function follows form...

 

 Do you collect or decorate with vintage tools?

 

 

 

How do you use them???

I'd love to hear your ideas...

 

 

I'm hammerin' this post to the following blog parties this week:

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On the Porch

Motivate Me Monday at Keeping It Simple
Masterpiece Monday at Boogieboard Cottage
Time Travel Thursday at The Brambleberry Cottage