Elsie and the gang at A Beautiful Mess have featured our living room as a part of their “At Home With” series! I appreciated the reminder to capture our home at this moment in time, as this place is like a living creature- constantly changing as the days go by. Head on over to my interview at A Beautiful Mess to see more photos of our living room and to read a bit about our home and my favorite treasures.

L I V I N G   R O O M   D E T A I L S :

Mostly everything in our living room is second-hand or homemade, so I don’t have sources for you to find your own. But I did find a similar coffee table here, our shell chair rocker can be purchased here, the ice cream poster can be found here, and the photo frames here. I bought my kilim rugs from eBay and can recommend this seller and this seller. If you’re ever in the Canton area, you can shop some of my favorite sources for affordable second-hand home decor- the Route 43 Antique Mall (in Cairo near Hartville), the Medina Antique Mall, and Stagecoach Antiques (Akron).

Our bookshelves were made with poplar wood (7″ pieces at the top, and 14″ pieces at the bottom) and were mounted using standards and brackets that can be purchased at any hardware store. I did have to special order 6″ brackets from here, though. I used brackets that were smaller than the width of my shelves, and on the bottom of the shelves  I used a dremel to notch out the space for the raised bracket edges to fit together with each shelf. If you have any questions, I’ll answer them in the comments!

Have you ever stumbled on an inspiring picture that you just can’t get our of your mind? When I saw this living room picture from Lonny Mag, I was instantly obssessed. The floral wallpaper, fun art, and glamorous bar cart! So lovely. But where could I find art like that for my home? Well, I recently found the answer!

The heart art is an Andy Warhol piece, and I can buy my own from Art.com. I never studied Andy Warhol in any of my college classes, so I wasn’t familiar with much of his work besides the Campbell’s Soup Cans and Marilyn Monroe. I was surprised to find quite a few of his pieces that I’d love to have in my home! Right now I’m saving my pennies to buy my own framed piece from Art.com, and am so relieved that they actually have affordable framing services too! (I just found out how expensive custom framing is- yeow!) I’m thinking we’re going to spring for the Elvis, or as I call it, The Douling Elvises. How fun would that be?! Which one is your favorite?

On December 5, 2011, our tree stand broke in half, sending our Christmas tree crashing to the ground. The next two days we drove around town trying to find a replacement stand, but each one didn’t quite work. The frustrating search didn’t seem to matter much anymore though when on December 7th, my friend Lauren took her life, and two days later my two month old unborn baby died. Our Christmas tree laid in the middle of our living room floor, pathetically lit and undecoratd until New Years, when we finally packed it away. What a sad holiday season it was for us.

But remember when I talked about patience and weathering through the bad stuff until good things come along? Well, this year is it! We will be celebrating with my whole family in our new house with our new precious baby. This Christmas is sort of a makeup holiday for last year. Lauren is still gone, and nobody here on earth can give me back the child I lost. But this season is about hope, and we’ll be celebrating hope in Christ with refreshed hearts this year! And how exciting this season of life is!