Decorating with PURPOSE!!!

we had a wonderful weekend with tons of family over for lexi's 13th and brittin's 8th birthdays.  it was a great time of catching up and everyone checked out our new furniture adventure!! 

my sister-in-law said i must be watching nate berkus, but to be honest, tho i know who he is, i've never watched him.  for shame i'm sure!!  so i guess, my latest personal trend in decorating is what nate does...???  and everyone seemed to love it, so i thought i'd blog about it! 

i call it "decorating with purpose"!  when it comes to your home, i have a few firm beliefs:

1.  your home should be decorated to reflect YOU, your interests, family, and lifestyle.
2.  it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg to decorate.
3.  every piece you bring in should serve a purpose or be LOVED.

i'm going to try REALLY hard to stay focused and not ramble!!!

1.  i think this is the most important for me!  i often wonder WHY my house is ALWAYS full of people!!  but my daughter explained it to me... our HOME is cozy and comfortable... the kind of home you want to hang out in.  good to know!  so how did we create that atmosphere?

i think it starts with two things:  FIGURE OUT WHERE YOUR FAMILY LIKES TO CONGREGATE and PICK OUT REALISTIC FURNITURE.

try as we may, we can NOT get our children to "hang out" in the family room.  everyone wants to be in our main level great room.  it's open to our kitchen so we decided to focus the majority of our attention and $$ on couches and a dining table.

remember, i said be REALISTIC!!!  would i LIKE to have a white slip cover sofa from pottery barn??  OF COURSE!!!!!  is that realistic with four kids, 2-13 years old plus two fur babies???  absolutely NOT!!!  so for the first time in my life, i made a GOOD decision on couches!!  We went with an Italian Leather... NOT CHIP LEATHER PRESSED TOGETHER!!!!!  as cheap as i am, i want to stress, if you are going to go with leather, make it good!  i LOVE our leather sofa, love seat, giant chair and ottoman!!!  and, the best part is... we shopped around and found an "over stock/warehouse" type place and got a SWEET DEAL!!!  we had to drive 90 minutes but it was totally worth it!  we got all 4 pieces for $1800.  the sofa alone was priced at $1500 on some websites we found.  so SHOP AROUND and do some checking!  see if you have an overstock warehouse near you!

for our kitchen table we did the same thing... we realized we needed to seat a minimum of eight and the table needs to not show every smudge of left over syrup and pencil mark from a homework mishap!  we went with farm table with bench.  after some checking, we realized there was no way we could afford one, so mike and my father-in-law built one!  it's amazing!! 

 

mike built the bench, then we found six chairs on craigslist (an excellent resource!!) that we painted to match the table and we reupholstered them as well.  did i want some awesome fabric... YES!!!  but what i got instead was a "marine grade vinyl" that matched our leather furniture.  the upholstery on our former kitchen table was a NIGHTMARE!!  do my kids eat anything or just smear it on the chair seat?!?!?  the vinyl was a much better fit for us and our current lifestyles!  

2.  i sorta covered being thrifty in the previous section.  i think it's just really important to shop around.  and that doesn't mean you have to buy junk.  be willing to have "previously owned" items. 

i took some pictures from around our home to show some of my favorite items and how inexpensive they were. 

 i just love this little vintage Velveta box!  and its great because i LOVE it AND SERVES A PURPOSE! (thats from #3!!) my husband ALWAYS puts his keys in the same spot, but sometimes they would get burried under one of my paper hoards (hey, i'm not perfect!!) but now, he can put them in this cute box!  i also suffer from "CAN'T FIND THE 8 YEAR OLDS GLASSES" syndrome!  they were like the keys!  they SHOULD be in that special spot, but were usually burried or shoved over somewhere.  now, we can skip the morning panic attack because the glasses are in the box!

 i have always had a thing for old interesting looking books.  i just think they're cool.  and they are GREAT for changing the height of other pieces.  i have a NEW obsession!  ROOSTERS!!  i can't expain it!  i found this super cool iron rooster napkin holder at a garage sale.  $3 and he was mine all mine!!  i'm not really into "napkin holders" for holding napkins, so i put a cool black & white photo booth strip of two of our girls in it.  i <3 it!! 

so cute!!

i found this frame at a garage sale... 50 cents... REALLY??!!!  i love the pic of me and our youngest :) she melts my heart!  and the blue bottle is a nice PoP of color!!  DON'T BE AFRAID OF A RANDOM POP OF COLOR!!!

these vintage tinker toys brought back fond memories when i saw them at a garage sale :) so for $1 i figured i had to have them!!  this is my attempt at "tinker toy flowers"... NOT every decorating attempt is a winner the first time around!!  this is still a work in progress!

all together on a garage sale dresser in our kitchen.

 i found this basket of vintage wood blocks at the same sale for 50 cents.  adorable!  and we ALL played with wood blocks as kids!  i tipped the basket over on a coffee table with a clearance walmart lamp.  i sorta hate that it's from walmart, but at least it was clearance :)

 the first birthday card mike ever gave me said "i love you" on the front.  awe!!!  and on the inside it read "like a fat kid loves cake".  if you know mike... this card makes perfect sense!  i made this frame at a local pottery joint (that has since closed... sniff sniff)

 this shelf needs a major makeover, but i wanted to show it for a couple of reasons... this shelf has lots of sentimental stuff.  the far left pic is my mom's baby pic.  i have pictures of my grandparents up there... a family pic of us... the pheasant is because my husband and son are avid bird hunters... the hanging baby gown is from my daughter brenna who was born into heaven... the shelf reflects US... that makes me smile!

and lastly... remember, dressers DON'T HAVE TO STAY IN BEDROOMS!!! 

wrapping up...

number 3 was about purpose and loving your items... i think i pretty much covered that... i don't personally love mass produced "art" from chain stores... i'd rather leave a wall blank for awhile until i find the perfect piece...  so just remember, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks as long as YOU love it!!!