Art Musical Chairs

There is finally one room in my house that has all the desired art on the walls and has NO empty frames.  Huzzah!! After getting the new living room rug, I started rearranging the art a bit, leaving it rather unbalanced.

For the past year, this print and it's brother have been flanking the tv waiting to be a completed composition.

Flashback to a year ago:

With the new rug, the "brother" print ended up at the end of the couch.

I've been drawn to images on pinterest that draw attention away from a tv with a gallery wall.  Since we have our enormous gallery wall in the office, I decided a mini one was in order here.  There was a bit of trial and error.  My initial plan for the wall looked kind of awesome as composition itself, but when I looked at it with the whole room it got a little nutso busy.  I don't want the tv wall competing with my plate wall, afterall!

I was planning to paint all the frames white or silver to unify them, but after living with it this way for 2 days, it just didn't feel right in the room.  That actually makes me sad, because looking back at these pictures, the wall itself is really successful.  I really like it, a lot, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice my other design elements to make this the feature.  The whole room was starting to look crazy overdesigned.  Not good.

Luckily I used 3M picture hangers instead of nailing everything into the wall, so I was able to very very carefully pull off the adhesive and move all the art.  (I'm currently having a love affair with the 3M picture hanging strips.  That's what we used in the cutest nephew ever's nursery, and they're awesome and easy and they should totally sponsor my blog.  hint hint.)

So I simplified.

It's not as dynamic on its own, but it makes so much more sense with the rest of the room.

Did you also notice the other art switcheroo?

The repro map of our town from the 1800s (that I got at a tag sale for $2) earned a place of honor after a spray paint make-over.

I am also pleased to report that the dining room is painted and I've started cutting the picture rail pieces.  I can't wait to see this room come together like the living room has!!

Weekend Happenings

I hope you had an amazing and productive weekend.  I know I did.

I obviously made a decision finally on what to do in my dining room!

I have 48 feet of this:

being delivered hopefully today (from here).

Its. going. to. be. amazing.

AND

I finally convinced Hubby (with the help of Massachusetts' tax free holiday) that a new living room chair would make me a happy wifey.  The only demand he made was that he wanted to sit in chairs first and get something comfy.  Check!  We ordered this lady in a sexy red custom fabric.

The only problem with our custom order is that we have to wait until mid-October to get it.  You know how bad good I am at waiting.

Did you spend your weekend covered in paint like I did, or did you actually do some relaxing?  I should try that some time: relax on a weekend... novel concept.

Wanna Know a Secret?

I'm finally ready to divulge the mysterious secret of the desk that I told you about here.  But, you'll have to wait until the end of the post.  Unless you're just THAT impatient and scroll down right now. I've been working like crazy to refinish this $80 craigslist find so I could deliver it to my sister in law this past weekend.  $80 is probably more than I would have spend on a regular old desk, but as I mentioned, this is no regular old desk.  It's original state was sad, though.  I would have loved to salvage the wood, but the veneer desk top and drawer fronts were beyond help.

Naturally, the solution to that was paint it bright green.  Naturally.

I'm kind of in love with the color.  It's so glam.  Good thing I can't cheat on Hubby with a color, he might have competition.  The flower knobs are from Anthropologie, and for the amazingly inexpensive DIY ring pulls, I followed Sarah M. Dorsey's tutorial.  But, we all know by now that this desk is more than meets the eye.

It's the PERFECT piece for a spatially challenged NYC apartment.

I have never seen one before.

ever.

Is the suspense killing you??

Ok, fine.

I'll tell you.

How cool is that?!

Shared at the link party at Primitive and Proper