Lake House Love: Decorating

Showing posts with label Decorating. Show all posts

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Artwork/Photography in our Home!

When we moved into our current lake house almost 6 years ago, our family thought we were crazy. It has the exact same square footage as our previous house (not counting the basement), it is a 3 bedroom instead of 2, has a more open floor plan (lot's of windows), and it is closer to the water. The down side is that we lost our basement which had lots of storage and there are 22 steps leading from our parking area down the the house! Obviously, we had to get rid of tons of stuff. I promised myself that anything we kept would have meaning/purpose to either my husband and I or our family, especially if it went up on our walls. Let me begin with a photo of where our story began........

This was the wedding gift I gave to my hubby.

It is a photo of where we had our first date. In our old house it resided above our bed but now has a new home in our living room. You can see it as you walk through our front door.

This photo was taken on a trip we made to Switzerland to visit my childhood friend and her husband.

It also resides in our living room.

As you head up the stairs, everyone in our family is represented on the wall.

When you reach the top you will see

a photo that we took while on our honeymoon in Ireland.

My hubby has owned this painting since we met.

It hangs in our upstairs hallway and can be seen from my son's room as he falls asleep each night. It reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting. I like it best hanging vertical but in our old house we had it horizontal. After all these years I still love it.

When I first met my husband he had a lot of black and white pictures. I decided to do a grouping of them in our bedroom when we moved. The top left picture is a self portrait of one of my husband's patient's, in the middle is our wedding invitation, a friend in town sketched the lighthouse and lastly the Asian symbol (meaning Tao or The Way/Road) at the bottom my husband purchased while visiting Korea. I still want to add two black and white photos from our wedding on either side of the Asian symbol and then I think the wall will be complete.

Of course the children have their art displayed in their playroom for more inspiration.

I would like to add a quote above the clothes line by Picasso that says "Every child is an artist".

Lastly, this is a display in our upstairs bathroom.

My great, great grandmother made the picture at the very top and it fits right in with our cottage on the lake. It says "Dear house you are so very small, just big enough for love that's all."

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of the pictures that have special meaning to us.

Jen

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Monday, January 30, 2012

DIY Snowflakes!!

It has been a very strange winter here in New York. Typically by now the lake would be frozen and there would be plenty of snow outside. Alas, we have no snow outside so I decided to bring some inside with the hopes that Mother Nature will get the hint.

This is how the snowflakes look like at night.

You can find the printable templates I used here. You may need to enlarge the pattern.

If you google snowflake templates there are lots of different templates to choose from. When using these templates you cut out the gray area after it is folded into a small triangle.

First, you start with a hexagon.

I don't use the pattern with the lines anymore but it is helpful the first time you try it.

Then, you fold the hexagon in 1/2

Fold in 1/2 again

Fold triangle 2 more times and then draw on your template(if you are not using the gray one).

Cut it out

Then you have your snowflake!

This is how they look during the day (yep, no snow outside).

Happy Snowflakery!

Linking to: http://www.serendipityandspice.blogspot.com/

Jen

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Monday, January 16, 2012

DIY Hanging Tea Light Holders!

Do you remember the branches I have in my urn outside our front door? Here is what I decided to do with them:

I think they are going to look really great at night!

I am using flameless tea lights so I don't have the fire department at our house anytime soon.

Here are all the supplies you will need:

Florist wire

Tea light holder (must be the kind with the larger rim, if it is straight up and down the wire will fall off)

Scissors

Tea lights

Cost: wire(.97 Walmart), tea-lights (.99 Michael's), tealights (6.79 Michael's, less if you have a coupon)

Wrap floral wire around tea light and then twist it around itself. You may have to pull tight on the long end to get it snug when you are done wrapping the wire.

Take long end of wire and loop it around existing wire on the opposite side.

Then twist the remaining wire. I did all this with my fingers but if you could use pliers if you prefer.

Voila!

You just made a hanging tea-light holder.

Linking to: http://craftomaniac.blogspot.com/

http://debbie-debbiedoos.blogspot.com/

Jen

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Small Changes!

I must admit that once a holiday has come and gone I am very quick to change my decorations. Living in a small space I have learned the art of shuffling. Shuffling my accessories that is. I thought I would share with you today a few of the changes I have been making.

This is the top of our entertainment center decorated at Christmas. I usually have one large and one medium size apothecary jar here year round. Then I can change what is inside to suit the season.

I moved out the bottle brush tree and put the large apothecary jar in it's rightful spot. Removed the silver Christmas ornaments and put in the mix from my hurricane's that sit on the island.

The bottle brush tree and animals moved from the entertainment center to the island.

I added some snow to the hurricane's.

Our plant moved from the island to the desk.

These candy canes are all that is left of our Christmas decorations.

Since the tree is the first thing we see as we come down our stairs Christmas morning, Santa always leaves candy canes on it so the kids know he has been to our house. This year he also left the little candies.

I replaced my Christmas wreath with this lovely pinecone one I found at Target for a steal (oops, I forgot to take a before photo). I bought two for the price of one! I was sooooo excited.

I put some branches in the urn outside our door.

What will I do with them? Look for that post next week.

Lastly, I have had this velvet pumpkin out since October and it still works with the decor.

What small changes have you made since the holiday?

Jen

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Monday, October 10, 2011

Fall Decorating!

When decorating for Fall I love to use touches of brown, white and orange. Here are a few simple changes we have made both outside and in.

The cinderella pumkins are easy to stack when making our pumpkin man for the front porch. As it gets closer to Halloween we will carve the top pumpkin.

I just love my hurricane lamps from Michael's!

They are so versatile and changing them depending on the season is so easy and inexpensive. Inside are real corks from wine my husband and I have shared, the pinecones are from a mix that were inside my sister/brother-in-laws gift baskets from their wedding and the acorns were purchased from Walmart.

Here are how my electric candles look when lit. They really add a nice warm glow in the evening.

I always have this bud vase on our desk and just change out the flower depending on the season. Fresh flower's always make me smile!

My favorite scent for fall is this Harvest candle. I prefer the multiwick candles because they look so pretty when they are burning. I also have this air freshner in my bathroom.