Sunday 1 August 2010

I actually rearranged the living room ~ shock, horror, gasp!

My parents decided to have some new living room furniture, which of course eventually led to having their living and dining rooms redecorated and new carpet as well ;-) So, we now have their old carpet and sofa. The sofa is in lovely condition since Mum and Dad only used the matching armchairs. The carpet is faded but is waaaaay better than our old one ~ and to be honest, I rather like the "vintage" look of it!

This led to me finally getting my arse in gear and having a mega tidy/rearrange/dust/clean in our living room ~ which has been very neglected these past couple of years. It does still need redecorating but in the meantime, I am very pleased with how things are looking thus far :-)


I forgot to take "before" photos, though, so you will just have to take my word for how messy the room was!

These shelves are on the wall above the sofa and the books are now all those belonging to Adrian, since I've moved the cookery books out to the hall. Now we don't have books-piled-on-top-of-books! The ones on the bottom shelf are all military history books ~ mostly about Wellington and the Battle of Waterloo.

The school photos are of the gruesome twosome. The one in the middle was taken during their last year in junior school and the two either side of it in their first year of senior school. It's nice to have some of my pretty ornaments on display now, too.

A corner of the living room.

How strange! Little Audrey here seems to have found her way from my shed to the new sofa ;-) She was originally bought as part of my plans for "altering" dolls which need TLC and was in fact out on the worktop waiting for a session in the dolly spa!

This bookshelf, which used to be in the dining room, has mostly my books on it ~ I have a whole load more out in my shed, too, as well as some in the hall and yet more in the kitchen.....

The photo is of my sister and I, taken in May or June of 1965 :-)


A close-up of the bookshelf showing my little collection of Yoborobo plushies ~ which I absolutely love! The old brass coal scuttle on the little side table will be having an aspidistra plant in it ~ just as soon as I've got the poor thing potted up LOL

The sweet little Japanese geisha was a gift from Adrian many years ago, which he bought from a Japanese restaurant in Marylebone Road ~ which is still there ~ near to where we used to work. I bought the boots on the shelf above to turn into pincushions but I liked them so much I decided to keep them for myself :-D

This little display is set out on yet another piece of furniture which belonged to Great Aunt Mary :-) The little brass pixies standing near Gervaise look after the candlesticks ;-D The photo is of Adrian and I taken around 1982/83 in the office where we both worked.

The coffee table now stands at the other end of the sofa. The pretty "fan" is a photoframe. I will be putting a plant in the empty pot as soon as I get my cuttings sorted out!

A closer view of my collection of knitted cakes. All were bought from Ebay apart from the pretty lilac one at the top, which was a gift from Sandi :-)

Julia is very happy since the chair she usually sits on has been moved ~ she can now see out of the living room window and watch the world go by :-)

Amber wasn't bothered about the smelly 'ole vacuum cleaner ~ she just went to sleep as if it wasn't even there!

Surprisingly, this is a collection that hasn't really got off the ground.....yet! No, not the video-tapes and DVDs ~ I'm talking about the cut glass on the shelves, of course ;-P

I started out with a pair of little trinket pots which my Mum gave me ~ she had them when she was a child ~ many years ago but it didn't develop into a collecting "obsession". Before I did my back in, though, I had started to notice one or two nice pieces in the local charity shops which, of course, made their way home with me but amazingly I have managed to keep this collection in admirable check ~ even if I do say so myself ROFL

This is "candle corner"! I got virtually all my brass polished ~ just like a "real" housewife ROFL ~ but ran out of brass cleaner. I've got some more Brasso now so I can finish off the few little pieces I didn't get round to.

I decided to group all my bits 'n' bobs of brass together and I'm really pleased with how this little corner beside the chimney-breast looks now. Things do seem to look so much nicer set out in groups :-)

As you can see from the photo near the top of the post, I decided to cover my "new" sofa with a pale-coloured throw for summer (it is midnight blue leather with an oak frame). I was so pleased with how light and summery the living room now looks that I thought I would try to brighten the wood-burner too :-)

I decided to swap this basket out for a larger one since this photo was taken. It has oddments of pretty, sparkly bits 'n' bobs which I add to every so often.
The knitted brooch and the peg doll with the knitted sweater were also gifts from Sandi and the little lady standing beside her is a vintage peg doll I recently bought.

And talking of peg-dolls, I made this little miss for my daughter a number of years back and I've not made any more since! Beverly seems to love Peggy, though, so that's all that matters at the end of the day :-)

Peggy was once a dolly peg belonging to my Grandma. Her discoloured face is the result of years of service holding Grandma's washing on the line!

Peggy was kind enough to allow me to photograph a glimpse of her undies :-) I didn't like the thought of the poor thing not having any knickers, so I made her some bloomers and a petticoat from pieces of lace!

Do you remember the magazine mountain which was out in the hall? Well, I decided to bring it into the living room so that I can easily go through one or two magazines each day, cutting out the bits I want to keep. The files on the hearth are for keeping the clippings in :-)

Rearranging the living room meant that I also needed to sort out all my dolls ~ a pretty daunting task!

I've finally made the decision to downsize my collection of non-fashion-type dolls, as I just haven't really got enough space to display them *sigh* I have also sorted out a few fashion dolls to sell on. Once I have given some of them a session in the dolly spa, I will be listing them on Ebay and no doubt will post about it here on my blog, in case anyone may be interested ;-)

All of these on my chair, though, are the ones I don't want to sell! I will pack them in a couple of boxes for the time being as I haven't got a display area set up for them yet. I have it in mind to use the top section of an old lounge unit we've got out in our lean-to but that's a project for another time LOL

This corner is beside my chair :-)

My fashion dolls are safely packed in a box which I've stored beneath this table for the time being. I also have a large plastic basket under there for my favourite home interiors books as I like to look through them on a regular basis!

Isadora is "wearing" a doily less to preserve her modesty and more to protect her porcelain body from the doll stand LOL I have so many naked dolls ~ I really must get on with making clothes for the poor things!

I decided to remove the manky, torn, dirty, once-upon-a-time-white vinyl cover from Grandma's old ottoman and look what I discovered beneath it! I can't imagine what on earth possessed her to cover up such lovely fabric. I did already know that there was some kind of lilac fabric beneath the vinyl, because it was visible through the damaged sections. I had always assumed that the fabric was damaged, too. If I'd known that it was in this wonderful condition, then I would have taken off that awful vinyl years ago LOL

I decided to protect the lovely fabric on Grandma's old ottoman with a cloth beneath the baskets. I will have a look through my doily collection at some point to see if I have any more large ones, then I could sit the big basket on a doily and take away the cloth ~ then the pretty newly-found fabric would be on show :-)

My hubby really does like music ~ this is his CD collection!

I like music too, but my collection fits quite comfortably into these four baskets LOL

Troll Corner ~ before Trixie and Troy decided to start a family!

Finished at last!

The living room needs to be decorated but I am happy with how things look in there for the time being :-)

Next stop ~ the dining room!!!

Of course, you will no doubt have realised that I did get the table cleared off in time for Beverly's going-to-Orkney dinner LOL The mess was not as bad as it looked! I will take photos of the dining room once I have finished properly in there ~ at least this time I remembered to take some "before" photos :-)

Amber wonders if she should volunteer to help but decides to go back outside for another little nap first ;-)

No comments: