This isn't Pottery Barn!

I love Pottery Barn. They have beautiful things at affordable prices for the masses. I am not the masses. I can't seem to make myself buy anything straight out of the store and use as is. I almost always buy vintage and if I do buy new... I most often paint it or change it in some way. (this drives my Mom crazy)

Oh...I do have several mercury glass candlesticks from Pottery Barn and I am always tempted by the Pottery Barn knock offs at Target. Love, love, The Target.

But back to my living room decor....

Many times when I go to realtor open houses...I describe the decor as..."it looks like Pottery Barn threw up in there"! And when I say that...I don't mean that the decor looks bad....they are often very tasteful...its just they look like everything was picked out at Pottery Barn. I like my home to be full of things you can't just buy at any store or one store. I like a collected over time look. I know it's not for everyone. I know it's not for most. But it's for me.

Now, after saying this, for my design challenged friends....I sometimes advise them to go straight to Pottery Barn and buy everything they need. Because I know if they go there...they'll come out with something that looks nice. And sometimes that's better than the hodge podge they'd create on their own.

So, I de-Pottery Barned this house. People in this town really love earth colors. Meaning...tan, brown, olive, gold with a little red and lime green thrown in. So, when I bought my house and told people I was redoing the living room by using butter yellow on the walls with a pink sofa and an aqua blue ceiling. I got eye rolls from women who couldn't believe I'd use such tacky colors in my house. One actually said to me "Oh...are you one of those with flowers on your sofa"? No...I don't have flowers on my sofa....my sofa is solid pink and I searched high and low to find that pink fabric to cover it.

If I lived with a man, would I have a pink sofa? No. But since I live with four weenies and they seem to like pink just fine....I have a pink sofa because I want to.

By the way....the weenies aren't allowed in this room because they jump on the sofa and throw the pillows everywhere. Don't worry they're totally allowed on the sofa in my den.

Here's a photo of my living room as it appeared in the realtor's listing. This view is from the dining room to the living room towards the front door.

before

Nice, isn't it? But the walls were a grey/olive. It was attractive...but I can't live in a house with grey/olive walls. Too dark. There were awnings on the front of the house. Mom and I took those off the first week. They made the living room too dark and it ruined the view to look outside.

Here is a photo from a few months ago when there was still green outside...

after

The walls aren't really that yellow and the sofa isn't really that bright pink but you'll see photos with better color later.

Here is a picture from 1992. From the file of photos left in a drawer by a previous owner.

1992

In the first photo you see to the left a large media armoire. This is where the fireplace had been originally. Once the previous owners moved out...I could see where the plaster had been patched on the wall and on the floor you could see where the hearth had been filled in with oak planks. Whoever did it hadn't bothered to piece it together with the old planks so that it blended. No, there was still the distinct outline of where the old hearth had been. Which was a good thing...because that told me exactly how big to make the new fireplace. You can see a glimpse of it in the current photo of the room. I'll describe it's creation in depth soon. It was long gone by 1992 even. What a tragedy. But I did such an awesome job of creating a vintage looking art tile fireplace that people always think it's original to the home. I'll show it in depth soon.

The chandelier was an ebay find...

Every light fixture in the house had been replaced at some point with all bad and bland 70's fixtures. I thought this was a great thing since I have a light fixture fetish. I love buying light fixtures. So I started on the hunt to replace every fixture in the home.

More next time on my fireplace.