Sunday, August 15, 2010

Dining Room Project 1

I am a big fan of taking old things and making them new again. Since I first settled on a paint color and "idea" for our dining room I have been keeping my eyes open for accessories. I find this the hardest part of decorating because I can never make up my mind and I don't want to spend the money if its just not going to look right when I add it to the room. Lucky for me, I prefer to shop at flea markets, Goodwill, and the Habitat Restore. This makes it a lot easier on my wallet and if I mess something up I can always store it away to maybe use for another project.
The idea for this project started when I saw a couple of large bird prints at a flea market that I went to at the start of summer. I thought they would look perfect in the dining room with the color of blue that I had picked out. Then, about a month or so after, I was at the Goodwill store near our house and found a pair of matching frames that were a pretty cool yellowy-white finish and they looked large enough. If you have never thought to go into second hand stores you really should give them a shot, if nothing else but to just browse around in the household section. Frames are pretty cheap there and can be made to look however you want for only a few bucks. People are usually selling them because they have the UGLIEST artwork in them (see my example below). Anyways, there is a framing store near our house and I finally took the time to stop in there this past weekend to see about getting some large mats cut to display the bird prints in the Goodwill frames. They did a great job, at minimal cost. After I picked up the mats, I took out the old pictures and mats, inserted the new pics and mats (twice because for some reason the words did not line up the first time and I knew that would bother me since they would be hanging side by side) and used the old mats as the backing. I absolutely LOVE how they turned out. I think that they are quite Pottery Barnish, don't you? You will have to wait and see them up on the wall though. I'm not quite done with the rest of the room.

Flea Market Print


Old Goodwill Frame (with ugly pic)


Finished Print in Frame

2 comments:

Liz said...

the look so great! now that we have a house I am kicking myself for not getting the rest of those prints when he offered us a deal on them!

Monica B said...

Looks great! And I am glad to see the blog up and going!