All change!

image from Kiddicare.com

When we adopted Matty and Nikki, sweetie~pies, we decided that it would be a jolly good idea to fit child safety gates (we chose the style in the photo above) across various doorways downstairs (which don't have actual doors), namely the living room and the kitchen ~ the former because this enables us to keep them shut in when we answer the front door, and the latter for obvious reasons LOL  Although Amber slept on the landing at night, we didn't want to start this with Matty and Nikki ~ can you imagine two not-exactly-small dogs sprawled out on our tiny little landing *eeeek* 

To prevent them from going upstairs, we fitted another gate at the bottom of the staircase as well.  This, however, caused something of a problem my loves because the dresser in the photo below was too close to the stairs to enable the gate to be opened properly!  So a change around of the furniture was called for ~ oh what joy!

Said dresser is now in the living room, along with the unfinished dolls' house (Westbrooke Manor) which my parents gave me.  As you can see, sweetie~pies, everywhere does still need to be decorated but I decided not to let this fact get in the way of displaying and enjoying all my pretty little bits 'n' bobs :-)

Like a lot of the furniture in our house, this mahogany-coloured shelf unit was a cast-off from my Mum ;-)  The two cloths on these shelves are in fact a pair of antimacassars ~ who says they have to be used as chair-backs, eh ;-)

Most of my little pretties have either been given to me or are what I have been bought in charity shops.  Very little has been bought "new".

Having said that, this little wire hen was indeed bought new LOL  I loved her as soon as I saw her and she makes a very good container for pot pourri :-)

I am sure that you have already guessed that the plant on the corner shelf is faux, my loves!  Sadly this corner really is too dark for a live plant but I did so want some greenery here ~ my Mum gave me this faux plant ages ago and this is the ideal spot for it.

Shock, horror ~ I have brought some of my beloved blue and white china out of its prison...aka the display cabinet in the dining room!

 

When we moved the dresser in from the hall, I at first set it out solely with blue and white china.  It looked nice but to be honest I wasn't quite satisfied ~ there was something missing, somehow.  After all the Christmas decorations had been put away, I decided to try adding in some of my other bits and pieces ~ most of which seem to have a pink theme going on!

 

I'm really happy with it now ~ it's much more cosy looking :-)

I put this nest of tables in front of the dresser as a sort of buffer to stop the dogs from knocking into it so much.  So far it seems to be working well!

Oh how I do love my eclectic blue and white collection ~ and since I keep finding more lovely little pieces, I still have a cabinet full in the dining room LOL

A closer view, my loves...

...and another :-)