Fall Family Room 2015

We had our first snow on the mountains last week, and it snowed down here in the valley yesterday. I love the snow! I'm all ready for Thanksgiving except for ordering the turkey, buying the food, cleaning the house, setting the table, and cooking the dinner. Wait a minute! I'm not ready! Lots of time left, though, so no worries. :)

Today, I'm sharing a few simple touches of Autumn in the family room. 

Soon the fall leaves and flowers will be traded for Christmas greenery around here, but until Thanksgiving we'll still be enjoying our fall colors inside. I'm super excited to start decorating for Christmas, though. I've been taking last year's gorgeous holiday home tours again from my Pinterest Boards, so my brain's brimming with ideas. But for now, I better go order my turkey! 

Have a great fall day!

Let's go to some parties!

Elizabeth & Co.
Our Home Away From Home
Cozy Little House
Between Naps On The Porch

New Spring and Summer Area Rugs for the Family Room and Living Room

I'm just popping in today to share a quick peek at the new area rugs I found for our living room and family room. Here in Boise it's very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, and I've found that what's underfoot can affect how we respond to those extremes. So I've begun switching out some of our area rugs for the seasons. I've searched high and low to find well made and good looking, yet very affordable area rugs that I don't mind having rolled up in our attic for six months out of the year. 

Last fall I purchased this large 8'x10' deep sumptuous shag rug in rich warm colors that complement my decorating in the living room during the cooler months of the year. (This photo is from last Christmas.) This plush rug was only $398 at our local Lowe's and brought instant color, warmth and coziness to our living room.

However, during our hot high desert summers here, I've learned that bare hardwood floors with smaller and lighter weight area rugs help us feel cooler. This is the same room with the 5'x8' jute area rug I bought on clearance for $120 from our local Pier One Imports on Saturday. (As you can see I still haven't unpacked this room since the new floors went in.) 

I originally purchased a different sisal rug from Overstock.com that I'm now giving to my daughter. Although that rug was beautiful, it had yellow and green grasses that washed out the sofa and walls and made them look dingy. This rug has both gold and gray grasses woven throughout that seem to marry the armoire and sofa well while complementing the Manchester Tan walls. 

 I love the informal look of natural jute and sisal rugs for summer along with the textural layer they add to a room, but I'd read many reviews that said they were difficult to vacuum and keep clean because of the thick weave. This rug has a relatively tight flat braid that my vacuum glides over more easily, and I have a Dyson handheld that makes quick work of vacuuming the fringe. (The thick grassy fringe is one of the things I loved best about this rug.) 

Though nothing about our cottage can really be considered formal, the living room is a more formal room in our home that gets less traffic and wear than others. So I feel comfortable leaving more of the hardwood floor exposed and unprotected in there than in more high traffic rooms. 

And I already feel cooler.

Here is my (headless, oops) husband and Tucker checking out the new family room rug. Our family room lives hard with the whole family watching movies and munching on snacks and just hanging out informally here in general. Add to that the dog and the door leading out to the deck and yard, and we needed a sturdy, tough, easy to clean rug that will protect the new hardwood floor. Believe me, it's not easy finding a neutral rug with those requirements that you also really want to look at everyday.

This 8'x10' indoor/outdoor rug, purchased at our local Home Depot on Saturday for $119, fit the requirements for us. It's drag-outside and hose-off tough, but still looks nice enough for our summer family room. I love how it brings together the creamy walls and white TV console with the brown leather furniture and how it adds some texture and pattern to the room. 

I also originally purchased a different rug for this room online from Target. Luckily, it was an easy local return to the store because, like the first living room rug I ordered, it was less than appealing. I've come to the conclusion that for large size rugs, computer screens just can't adequately convey true colors and returning them is a pain in the rear. As difficult and limited as shopping is here in Boise, I'll still be sticking with purchasing rugs locally from now on where I can see them in the store before bringing them home.

Since we have the final rug sizes, I ordered custom cut rug pads for all our new rugs from rugpadusa.com, whom we've been happy with in the past. The high quality felt pads cost as much as some of our inexpensive summer rugs, but it would be crazy not to protect our new hardwood floors properly, and we consider that money well spent. 

Now that I have my neutral summer backdrops in place I'm looking forward to adding more layers and textures throughout our house. I'm planning on taking it slow and including only items that we really love. There are four boxes sitting on the dining room table waiting to be unpacked (just a start) and I'm excited to get started making our house uniquely ours again.

I'm so glad you stopped by to see our new spring and summer area rugs today. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week!

  

I love to party!

Savvy Southern Style

My Hero

I mentioned how nice it would be to have the family room painted before the new hardwood floors are installed next week...

...and my husband surprised me by taking the day off on Friday to paint.

My hero!

Christmas In Our Family Room

Happy Friday, everyone! 

Today, I'm sharing our family room all decked out for Christmas.

This is where our family hangs out whenever the kids come over to visit, so we have plenty of comfy seating here for all six of us. It's the perfect room to be laid back and casual.

We watch lots of movies together here too, so when I found these vintage film reels in my Ballard catalog last year, I thought they'd make great wall decor for our family room. 

For our chalkboard Merry Christmas pennants, I was inspired by Rachel at Shades of Blue Interiors to try making some like hers with my computer and printer. Using simple shapes, a chalkboard font, and rubbing some white chalk over the black parts of each print after I cut them out, gave them a sweet chalkboard look. 

I just love old toy farm trucks, so I waited until this reproduction went on sale for half off at the craft store after Christmas last year and snapped it up. It's been driving around the family room and finally found a spot to park here in my little forest of trees with the rag bunting curled around them on the ottoman. 

I really depend on pillows and cozy throws to add seasonal color to our brown leather sectional (from Bernhardt.) These throws are the best buy ever (at $14 each online from Target) for the warmest softest throws you've ever felt. I have them in just about every color they make. The solid pillows are from Pier One, and the Christmas pillow is from Tai Pan Trading Co. The leather and wood ottoman (from Costco) has big deep drawers to store extra throws and pillows and pull-out trays to hold popcorn and drinks. Our huge wood ottoman tray is from Ballard Designs and provides a stable flat surface for decorating the ottoman, while leaving enough room to rest lots of pairs of feet around it.

You know how much I love chalkboards. This unframed one on the wall is the one I made by painting an artist canvas with chalk paint for my potting bench last fall. It's lightweight and easy to hang quickly with just a push pin. My husband used to quote this Ren and Stimpy saying to the delight of our girls when they were little, and it's the perfect sentiment for how we all feel about spending time together now at Christmas. 

The chalkboard on the front of the wood toolbox is also great for portable sentiments whenever and wherever the mood strikes. 

Chalkboards are great!

For seasonal artwork on my photo clipboards (photo clipboard tutorial here) I turned to my printer again. I used some free printable tartan scrapbook paper from Scrapbook Scrapbook as a background and added some white snowflakes from PicMonkey.

Last year we had a small live tree in a basket here next to our little writing table, but this year I bought a fake tree half off at the craft store and put it up on an old fruit crate with my homemade tartan tree skirt tucked around it. 

I haven't found time to properly decorate this little tree yet, but it's nice to have its sparkle and shine in the family room. I have plans to make some charming new handmade ornaments for it in my spare time. 

(What?! Spare time?!)

Most of our Christmas decorations this year are new or handmade by me, since we've given most of our older decorations to our daughters for their own homes. Our raggedy snowman, a sweet gift from my sister in law, is one of the favorites we kept. 

We really miss having a fireplace in our home this time of year, and a cozy fireplace for the living room is definitely on our remodeling wish list next year if we can win approval from the National Historic Commission to move a window. 

For now, we are enjoying a virtual fireplace in our family room, complete with stockings hung on the mantle and crackling fire sounds. While sipping on a glass of wine with some soft Christmas music playing in the background, we can feel the heat coming from our big screen as we bask in the glow from the "fireplace" and tree lights. 

Well, okay, maybe after two glasses of wine...   :)

Go on, give it a try!

Feel the warmth? 

Thank you for letting me share our family room with you today. I'm looking forward to baking some Christmas cookies this weekend, and I hope to be back early next week to share our festive Christmas kitchen.

Have a wonderful weekend!

{Visit our Christmas living room and dining room and kitchen, too!}

Please join me at some lovely parties!

The Charm Of Home
The Cottage Market

Family Room Writing Table

 When I replaced a huge old ugly desk in our family room with my vintage dresser-turned media stand last year, my husband no longer had a place downstairs to work on the paperwork he often brings home from the office. 

 I'm pretty sure he didn't mind being moved upstairs where he could work while watching football and hockey on his big TV, but I missed having him in the family room with me on those evenings.  

Even though I was kind of loving the new uncluttered space in our family room, I decided I loved my husband even more and started looking for a desk to surprise him with for his Father's Day gift.

 

The available space was pretty tiny, and I didn't want to make it look even smaller with another bulky desk. I also didn't want to block the light and view out the back window. I thought about making a pallet wood table, but I didn't know how I could keep that a secret. So I hunted high and low at thrift stores and consignment stores and just regular old stores for something small enough.

 

I finally found this little wood writing table with metal legs for under a hundred dollars at Target. It had a rustic industrial vintage vibe going on that I liked, and it fit in the corner perfectly. There wasn't one on display in our store, so I had to go by the photo on the box and the online description which said it was composite and veneer. 

 

When I opened the box at home I didn't find a wood veneer top at all, though. At least not any wood veneer I'm familiar with. It looked more like a picture of wood.

You know the saying? If it sounds too good to be true... ?

Yup. 

 

 I liked everything else about the table, though. I liked the fairly heavy metal legs and the size, and the directions sounded easy to put it together. I don't like shopping, and I like returning things even less, so I did what any self respecting DIY-er would do. 

I painted it with chalk paint, distressed it, and waxed it.

 

Then I bought a shiny new lamp at Pottery Barn to go on it.

 

 I hung the girls' portraits above and put an extra dining room chair below. 

 My husband loved it, and I do too. 

It's just the right size to jot down notes or make a shopping list during the day, and in the evenings my husband is back downstairs where he belongs, watching Rehab Addict with me while he works. 

 How about a party today?!

Elizabeth & Co. 
Our Home Away From Home 
The Scoop
From My Front Porch To Yours  

DIY Photo Clipboards

 I hope your week is going well so far! I've been having the best time in my craft room the past couple of days working on some small projects for our home. 

Love Grows Wild

The one I'm sharing today is a tutorial for making my version of some DIY photo clipboards inspired by Liz at Love Grows Wild. I featured Liz's clipboards last August on Friday Finds and thought they might be just the thing for a long narrow wall space above my family room sofa.

My Television Console

 I changed the finish on my version of these clipboards to fit the vintage feel of our family room and tie in with this white chalk painted media stand with a dark walnut stained top that's on the opposite wall. I've been wanting to display photographs of the beloved furry members of our family for the longest time, and I think my informal distressed clipboards are just right for some lighthearted four legged artwork. 

Following Liz's tutorial, I started with a 1" x 12" x 6' pine board. I cut the length into five 13" pieces to make five clipboards. After sanding, I applied a coat of dark walnut stain and let it dry overnight.

  

The next day I applied two coats of homemade chalk paint. When the paint was dry I used coarse sandpaper to distress just down to the dark walnut stain. After sanding the boards once more with fine sandpaper I applied a coat of clear furniture wax for protection. 

  

I didn't like the way sawtooth hangers made the clipboards stand out from the wall, so I improvised my own hangers by wrapping some floral wire around two small nails. I measured each hanger carefully to make them all the same.  Taking the time to do that made it much easier to hang all the clipboards level with each other on the wall. 

 

I hot glued squares of cardboard over the nails so they wouldn't scratch the walls. 

 

For clips I found these cute miniature clothespins in the craft section at Fred Meyer. I dropped them into some dark walnut stain and then drained them on a rag and wiped them off.

 

I used a piece of 8"x 10" scrap paper to figure out where I wanted the clothes pins to hold each photo, marked the spot on the board with a pencil line, and then used a thin line of hot glue to apply each one.

 I probably should have used wood glue for that step, but I was impatient and didn't want to wait for it to dry. So far, so good, though. The hot glue is holding the clothespins just fine. 

I think it took me as long to find and prepare my photographs as it did to prepare the wood. I edited and re-sized each photo to 8" x 10" using Photoshop. If you don't have photo editing software on your computer, I highly recommend PicMonkey. 

 

At this point, my printer ran out of ink. Grrrr...  When my sweet husband brought me some home that night, I printed out my photos. 

 

I trimmed the photos on my paper cutter, but scissors will work great too. The last step was the easiest: clipping the photos onto each clipboard.

 

And here they are! Our little ragamuffins! 

 

Our family room has a high bank of windows on one wall. We love the view of the trees, but they only leave a narrow strip of wall above the sofa on which to hang artwork. 

 

I think our new photo clipboards fit here perfectly. 

 

Every time I walk into the room and see our furry family members looking at me, they make me smile. Each photograph captures their unique personalities; Tucker, my black lab, is smart and he's always watching me attentively to see where I'm going and what I'm doing. It's hard to see here, but there's a big grin behind that lolling tongue. Molly, a golden lab and my oldest grand dog, is loving and gentle. Jake, the West Highland Terrier and my youngest grand dog, is always looking for trouble. He's so darn cute, though, he melts our hearts, and no one can stay annoyed with him for long. 

 Our pets enrich our lives so much. They really are family members, and we're happy to give them a place on the wall. And in case you're wondering, my daughters' photographs are hanging on another wall in our family room. I haven't forgotten the humans!

I'd love to know if you display photographs of your cherished pets around your home too.

Thanks so much for coming by today, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week! 

 

{Check out my Spring and Winter clipboards, too!}

Let's Party!

From My Front Porch To Yours 

Elizabeth & Co. 

Beyond The Picket Fence 

Rooted In Thyme 

My Repurposed Life

It All Started With Paint 

Cozy Little House 

Jennifer Rizzo

Knick of Time