Favorite Decor and Another Small Renovation

Good morning folks!  The start of a new week, and my head cold is much better -- almost gone, I think.  Let's talk about decor for a bit, shall we?  Have you seen the current Country Living magazine?  The November issue, to be exact.  I have to tell you that this is probably my favorite issue of  Country Living that I've received in a long time.  My sweet mom has gifted me with an annual subscription for several years now, and I do love getting magazines in the mail.       Sorry about these first two pics. -- it's very cloudy here today and the house is dark.   

   

    If you know me at all, you'll know the first thing to catch my eye on this cover was those beautiful blue and white plates on the wall.  😍  Then, at the bottom of the cover, it reads, "Embrace that old brown furniture (it's baaack!)  Woo hoo!!  Ironically, my mother-in-law said to me recently, "Don't get rid of your brown furniture; it's coming back in style."  As if I ever would.  No, I'm not typically a trend chaser; if the current trend happens to sync with what I already like, it's a bonus for me.  If not, I'm just out of style.      

        That being said, I do like to see some painted furniture in a home because I love color.  I think a painted piece here or there certainly adds interest and keeps things from looking monotonous.  I have plans to paint a few of my pieces, hopefully sooner rather than later.    But back to the Country Living magazine.  Also included in this issue are two houses with pics of their interiors -- one house in Colonial Williamsburg and the other in Summerville, South Carolina, just outside of Charleston.  I thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the details shown in these homes.  Included are paint colors, furniture choices, etc.  In addition, the issue included info. on furniture styles like Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, Queen Anne, and so forth.     On the home front, I can't do any fall decorating until after this coming week.  We're having this lousy Lowe's carpeting in our den and hallway removed and having engineered hardwoods installed.  The carpet is not quite three years old, and it makes me sick to think of the money wasted -- but a valuable lesson was learned in this.  Always get the best you can reasonably afford; we forgot my husband's mantra of  "Buy quality and you only cry once."   

       To be fair, we loved the carpet when it was first installed, but we quickly discovered it was impossible to keep clean in this high traffic area, with an inside dog, to boot.             

     We think we'll be much better off with the wood floors.  They're still producing the style we purchased for our kitchen, dining room, living room, and foyer, and we feel like the new floors should match the existing ones well.  Our wood floors are just under three years old, too.       

   The wood floors may make our den look darker, but I have some ideas to help with that, too.  At any rate, once again we have to empty out the furniture in the den, disconnect and move all electronics, and find a place to put the furniture so they can install the floors.  The install date is set for this Thursday and Friday, October 3rd and 4th.     In other news, we watched "A Very Brady Renovation" on HGTV last night.  It was fun to see the grown kids and to see that house coming together.  They were showing how the kitchen was done last night, and they were on a search for orange laminate for the countertops.  I could have helped them out with that back in 2012 when we remodeled our kitchen.  We found some of that Very Brady orange laminate 😉 underneath the white laminate on our countertops.  You can read about that here.