My Favorite Room

     I know a lot of bloggers share their favorite rooms in their homes.  I thought I would share my favorite room with you today. 

My favorite room in our home is our formal living room. I'm an old school gal, and I love our formal living room.  I love it for many reasons.  It has family pieces of furniture as well as new pieces.  It is always calm and quiet in this space.  It is ALWAYS clean.  But one of the other reasons that I love this room is that it turned out EXACTLY the way I had envisioned it in my mind.  You see, I had the room decorated in my mind BEFORE we broke ground for the house.  I had almost all the furniture for this room before we even began to build our home (family pieces).  And then, YES, I actually bought the sofa and two chairs to go there BEFORE we broke ground.  This may sound crazy to you, but it just worked out perfectly for us. 

I love to come in here and talk on the phone. 

The room is always waiting to greet company and make

 guests feel welcome to our home. 

I'm glad you're here for the tour!

Let's start the tour with the sofa table. 

I received this pair of matching cloisonne' jars for Christmas many years ago.



To the right of the sofa table is this chest.  It is new and I love it in this space. I bought the chest after we moved in.  I had admired the round mirror at a friend's home and when she prepared for a move and wanted to sell it, I was happy to make the purchase.  I selected the Blue Willow plates at an antique store.  They weren't very busy that day and the dealer had a good number of different sized pieces, so I just made arrangements on the floor using different sized plates.  These are the ones that I thought would look best in this spot with the mirror (they looked good on the floor, too).

Here is one of the two chairs that I purchased before we started building our home.

I love this picture above the fireplace.  The curved top of the frame makes this picture.  I've seen the same print in a square frame and it just didn't look quite so nice. 

An antique fireplace screen and tools that belonged to my great aunt finds their home in this room. 



The second of the two chairs along with one of two tables that I have in my home that belonged to my grandmother. 

This is the remaining vase from a pair that sat on the mantel of my aunt's home.  One day, a squirrel came down the chimney and ran around in the room and it caused the ruin of several family pieces before exiting.  The mate to this vase was lost that day (along with several other items).  I usually like squirrels......

Moving along to the next wall, you'll find this marble top table (a family piece) along with a portrait of my daughter when she was four.

Here's another view of the table.  It has ornately carved legs.

I love this hand-painted pitcher.  It was in the same room with the squirrel, but escaped injury!

I couldn't resist this little antique chair that I bought years ago.  I wish it could tell me the story of its life.  It is English, I believe, and the stories are bound to be interesting.

And now the sofa (bought prior to building) and the coffee table (I refinished the coffee table-from my great aunt's home).

The view from the sofa.

The pillow I needle pointed goes perfectly here, I think.

Here's a view of the room. 

 We don't have any window treatments except for the plantation shutters that were painted white to match the trim in the room.  I thought I would make drapes, but decided I liked the windows the way they are with just the shutters.

Thank you for taking a tour of my favorite room!
I love all the neutrals that I see in Blogland and I do appreciate them, but this room was decorated (BB) before blogs. I wonder what it would look like if I was building and decorating our home today?  I don't think I could paint my family pieces with ASCP, so
I'm glad I love this room!

Joing the party with:

Savvy Southern Style WOW

 

Tuesdays Treasures

 

Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson



Mercury Glass Winter Table

   I love mercury glass!  Do you?  I started collecting mercury glass several years go and I use it to decorate my formal dining room table in the winter.  After weeks of Christmas decorations, I wanted to continue in the spirit of sparkle and decided to do it with silver mercury glass. My dining room doesn't receive much natural light so I don't always get very nice pictures of my table in the winter.  This year, though, I think I have done better--would you like to see?

 I used mostly my finials and my mercury glass trees with

 a few candle holders and my mercury glass birds.

I had been putting my decorations on just my white tablecloth.  It was an impressive display because I had a lot of pieces, but it didn't photograph very well  and I was tired of the look.  At some point this year, I decided I would add some greenery to my winter table.  I looked at the artificial greenery I had used on my mantel and thought when I took it down, I might use it on the table.  Then, I had an even better idea.....I would cut up our Christmas tree!  Our tree was super-fresh this year and was not dropping needles, so I thought, why not?? 

***Now, I have to say here, that for several years, my husband has been cutting up our Christmas tree (while it was still in the stand) when it was time to take it down.  Yup.  He takes the pruners and lops off a few of the larger and longer branches and escorts them outside.....so much better to do a few branches at a time than trying to wrestle a whole tree out the door!!! 

So this year, I snipped off the branches that I needed and when I needed more, I just went back to the tree.  I was very happy with the way things were turning out.  The tree still smelled so nice, too!

I had also decided that my white dishes looked pretty plain on my white table cloth.  I thought I would check out the area sales for silver chargers, but I didn't see any on sale.  Michael's had one for 1.99.  I needed six and I was feeling a little cheap, too, so I'm glad I didn't find what I thought I needed,  because I decided to use silver trays for chargers instead.  Why not!  IT WAS PERFECT!  Yeah!  Something I already had on hand--saving money and not having another set of chargers to store.

I have a number of silver trays.

This one is engaved and is from when

my aunt retired from teaching grade school for 34 years.

This one is engraved on the back with my wedding date

 and our names.  It also has the dates and names of my great aunt

and uncle who married in 1925 and then a cousin who married in 1976. 

I added  green glasses and green napkins with

silver snowflake napkin rings that I already had.

 

 Here's a picture from last year with the candles lit for an evening meal. 

 There's really no comparison to me.  I love the new look so much better!

  I used fewer pieces of mercury glass, but have a look that is new and fresh.

  I know I'll be cutting up the tree again next year!

WELCOME WINTER!

Joining the Party:


Between Naps on the Porch




Coastal Charm



  My Romantic Home


Table Top Tuesday with A Stroll Thru Life

WOW Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Party 100


Showcase Party



Time Travel Thursday

World Traveler Coffee Table

I love to travel.  Do you? 

                                 I thought I would share my

                    world traveler coffee table with you today.  

I usually like to think about vacations to the beach in the summer months. I often like to express those thoughts by decorating my coffee table in my family room with shells, beach pictures and other beach-related items.  This year, I decided to try something a little different. I decided to use some things I have on hand to make what I'm calling a World Traveler Coffee Table.

I haven't painted my furniture, but I decided to lighten

 up the look of my coffee table by adding the linen

 table runner my grandmother made years ago. 

Here's a another view of the table runner.

  It adds a perfect lighter look to the coffee table.

Then I added to the table, this old globe that

 I can always remember being in our home.

  My mom said it is over fifty years old. 

I can remember that this dial on the top always fascinated

me when I was a little girl.  You could see where it was day

 and where is would be night just by the turn of your finger.

I found these vintage-style maps at a store recently.  I thought they might

look good on the table, too.  The magnifying glass came from

 the desk in my great-aunt's bedroom.  I don't know how

 old it is, but my aunt died in 2001 at the age of 100. 

The postcard is from a stack of vintage cards a friend gave

 me several years ago.  It is an old one of Panama City Beach, Florida.

Here are two vintage brochures from The Statue of Liberty

 and The Empire State Building.  I have visited both

 and was happy to find these at an estate sale several years ago. 

 The picture is my favorite one of my

daughter on the streets of New York City in 2011.

Now I have to show you this cute little table that I got for Mother's Day.

  I'd been looking for something like this and was delighted

when I found this on a shopping trip to Birmingham, Alabama. 

I love the distressed look and the yummy turquoise paint on the sides.

I was prowling around at my Mom's the other day, and we found

 this little book from Pompeii, Italy and several Italian coins. 

It brought back memories of a trip long ago that is still fondly remembered.

A piece of vintage sheet music completes the table top.

Here's a final look at my coffee table and the

 new look that I'm so enjoying this summer--Thank you, Blogland! 

What are you enjoying this summer? 

 The fresh fruit?  The sunny weather?  Photos from a recent trip?

I'd love to know what you are loving this summer!

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