Home decorating

Home decorating is not something I particularly enjoy... I don't usually have the confidence to put things together well, and it drives me crazy to spend a lot of money on items that might not work! We moved into our current house in June, 2011, and we've still had a few large, bare walls. DH finally lost patience yesterday, and out shopping we went. Bought two pictures for the 12-foot high wall in the kitchen we'd never been able to find something for, and bought a lovely, sunburst-style mirror for the foyer. Also purchased two new mats for the foyer (front and garage doors).

So, to you, how important is home decorating? I think that our furniture is probably nicer than average, but I'm really not a decorator. DH thinks there's a lot of stuff that he wants to replace, and I'm just trying to deal with the empty spaces right now! I guess we'll have to just make a point of plugging away at the decorating one weekend a month.

I think part of the problem is trying to reconcile our antique and traditional furniture (No 1970's cast-offs, believe me) with a much more contemporary, high-ceilinged bi-level.

With a 1 and almost-4-year-old, I guess I can't see past the toys!

What do you do when it comes to decorating? Do you care a lot?

when our kids were little no way.(everything was hand me downs etc. didn't care if it was ruined). now that they are older we've updated alot. and our current decorating theme is very simple, black/white/beige/greens.. believe it or not i do alot of garage/rummage/thrift sale shopping, dollar store is amazing now for stuff. everything sorta matches. although we do need to 'clean' up the walls with some touch up paint and put up newew pictures of our family. thats in the works. but I LUV decorating. we never spend a huge amount on anything so if we want to upgrade or see something nicer we donate what we have or give it away no huge loss on our part.
hopefully over the next few months as we were on our 'contract' of projects i'll post pics (if i remember before/afters). to show what it all looks like. we rent so we dont' have a lot of options so we deal with what we have.

btw hubby sounds like he did a fantastic job with the walls.

I would love to decorate, but with 3 small kids, I gave up.

I will decorate when they move out, or stop being slobs.

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Originally Posted by i_forget

I will decorate when they move out, or stop being slobs.

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how do you do that when my significant other is the slob? :)

i got some crayon on the wall, does that count?

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Originally Posted by alicia

how do you do that when my significant other is the slob? :)

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make one room your sanctuary and ban the slobs from it.
if that does not work, turn to pretty pictures of other people's homes :)

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Originally Posted by alicia

how do you do that when my significant other is the slob? :)

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Alicia that's a whole other story:lolsign:

Eventually they grow up, well the kids do. I always had limits on what rooms the toys could be in and when they were little we had a basement pit that we just let the mess breed. Then several years ago we had a water issue in the basement and did a full scale Reno the space is now amazing and the kids are great about confining the toys to one small section. But dont get me started on the finger prints on the walls.
I too have award time decorating so prefer to keep it simple. We took everything down to paint in the fall and we still have not put most of the pictures back up.

We moved into our house almost 2 years and it's nowhere close to where I want it in terms of decorating because I'm super picky. I'd rather wait and get things I love than get a bunch of stuff I don't care for just to fill up space.

I love to decorate!

But I have no kids, and don't share my space, so I get to do whatever I want.

I really like diy, and making old things new again. My mom had an old metal train trunk that was blue. I used a leather brown spray paint and taped off all the brass accents. Put a tray on top and used it as a coffee table. It turned out really well, and only cost me about $10 for the spray paint. And it had tons of storage inside.

My biggest issue is that I'm super picky, and it takes me a LONG time to find what I like.

I'm picky/choosy as well. Have been waging a losing rant with the family over their use of a broken piece of bedroom storage unit in the living room, which was repainted 1.5yr ago. The only place that unit should be is a landfill.
Yes, I look at some magazines with photos of other people's homes too but try to look for things/amenities that can help us age better at home (and pitch those ideas to see who is receptive). There are some things that don't suit my senior parents too (keeping that in mind as motion/lifting is a huge deal here) and I am a keener about colour and things working in a room (but not excess pillows!).

We decorated our "little shack" very slowly. We went to Winners and Liquidation World regularly to scope out their deals. We found some Winners are better than others. For example, the one in Whitby had house decorators shopping there on a regular basis, for their customers.

When both stores had sales, we looked some more and bought when they had additional coupon or gift card incentive offers. We negotiated free delivery or Saturday delivery on larger items.

Slow is good.:-)

I love decorating, except i am super picky, and have weird taste. bad combination!

i have 2 chairs in to be refurbished/reupholstered right now, and hubby was laughing at me. the kids are young'ish, and my 4 yr old is a little terror! maybe i will keep them in the den for now, eek!

the chairs, not the kids LOL. ;)

My shopping is done on kijiji, thrift stores, garage sales and even the strret just before garbage day. i found an AMAZING mid century teak upholstered arm chair about 3 houses down, and freaked when saw it. similar chairs when redone and sold by specialty shops are at least $1500. the other chair i am having redone was $35 at the thrift store. this one would easily be $2000 in a specialty shop.

i have a really nice mid century teak dresser i use as my TV console that is easily $1000 in specialty shops and i paid about $60 at the thrift store.

i have lots of mid century ceramics, and IKAT style pattern, wool knotted 8x10 area rug for $190 from homesense. a gorgeous rosewood hutch i got off kijiji, a couple of ikea things thrown in.

it's a mish mash, and definitly a work in progress!

sheesh, i almost forgot, i have about half a dozen mid century lamps hidden in the garage... shhhh, don't tell my hubby. he already shakes his head every time i drag home another vintage find ;)

I feel my place is much more homey when I decorate.

But I usually stick to yard sales, clearance areas (WalMart is pretty good for that) and i am always getting the cast off's from my Mom & sister who feel the need to change up their decorating once every couple of years.

I also found wall decor self adhesive wall stickers at Dollarama...and they have been a huge help:

These aren't the exact ones I have...but pretty close

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they really help fill up bare spaces on walls and hallways.

Ive also done a few framed "art" projects using scraps from wallpaper stores.
I would buy a few low end frames from Dollarama and find a nice patterned roll of wallpaper in a clearance bin at another store then cut out different squares and frame them. They don't match, but yet again they do because they are from the same roll of wallpaper, just cut in different spots.

again..these aren't mine but just gives you an idea:

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I've also found beautiful vases at Dollarama, not clear glass ones for flowers, but decorative ones that you can use to fill in shelves, tables etc.

I love to decorate and Pinterest gives me lots of ideas! Also love Bouclair store for decor stuff as everything is colour co-ordinated lol :)