Side Table to Boot

You tired of the mini-makeovers I hinted about in this post? I hope not, because I am loving them! Having all these small changes around the house make a big impact! Dare we call it irony? You can check out the other two mini-makeovers I have done here and here. This one is a pretty big makeover in my eyes! It is in the living room though, where most of my minis have been so far. It is nice to get really detail oriented in the room where we spend so much time. Now let's get down to it. This is the space in need of the face lift.

Can you guess which element I am changing? Not the chair; the chair is a wonderful hand-me-down from Eric's dad but the lamp is just one of those old pieces from our more collegiate/apartment days. It was great for a younger look, but now we are wanting something a little dressier for the space.

This was one of the pet projects my mom and I undertook while she was here. The story of how we found it has quite the dramatic flair. So much so there are no pictures to help with it. Hopefully my words will paint you a good enough picture! It all started with a lamp we found at TJ Maxx. I saw it and fell in love and hemmed and hawed whether I should get it. I just knew it would be perfect (are you already saying that those are famous last words?). I ended up not getting it the day I saw it...although I did get the next day because I couldn't stop thinking about it that night! It was such an exciting moment to bring it into the room, followed by a devastating reality check where our bright faces slowly drooped. It was all wrong. It was a stand-up lamp in bright silver. A terrible fit. Can I emphasize that enough? We should have realized it with all the soft gold tones in the room. It was mom's last day there and she wanted to see the project through, so we trekked back to TJ Maxx and returned it. Such a sad moment. We decided to give it one more try at Target - where we hit the jack pot. We had so much fun pulling tables and lamps into the aisles (maybe it wasn't as much fun for the other shoppers!) and trying to find the perfect table/lamp combo. And oh did we ever.

It came together like this:

Then it all came together with the new lamp and lampshade and accessories that we already had in the house. To me, this is huge change! It makes the whole side of the room look different.

Here is another before and after for you for emphasis on the grown-up change.

Now what did we do with the lamp that we had? Even though it wasn't perfect for this space, I still have dreams for it. It ended up landing in the first guest bedroom.

I accessorized it up with some things already strewn around the room. They look much better all together here! I actually really like how the lamp fills the space. I still have ideas of painting this and changing the lampshade. For now, it works great (especially since this room didn't have anything here before!).

You can check out the initial house tour of the guest bedroom here. 

Entry Way Update: A little clay, a lot of iron!

First of all, let me say happy (belated) mother's day to all the wonderful mothers out there...especially my beautiful mother. Thank you for being the best mom and best friend a girl could ever have. This post is dedicated to her since it is another post showing some of the fun makeovers that we found together when she visited. I showed all of our goodies here and then had the first makeover reveal here. Now I have another reveal for you! It started with these two finds:

Can you believe that both of these made it in the same makeover? Yep, they did! This is the reveal of the entry way (if you can call it that since it really is part of the living room). What I am referring to is this pre-makover.

This is what I define as the entry way. To work as a functional entry way for us me it needed to have a place to hold my purse. Unfortunately my purse never had its own place so it always ended up stranded on the floor. How terrible is that?! (That was slightly sarcastic for some of you fella readers out there. But ladies, you know what I'm talking about!) This is usually where my purse landed.

Yup, on the floor. Look at how lonely and forlorn my purse looks just thrown casually on the floor. No home, at the same level with shoes (aka dirt). As my purse taste has increased (sigh, which also means its dollar amount) I now have reservations about just throwing it on the ground. So it was time to fix it. I had the perfect spot to find my little holder.

See how this vacant place here is just screaming for something? After my mom and I went through many "something" options at various stores, we stumbled upon the perfect holder. Yup, you guessed it!

That is it in place. Now in its full glory!

See how perfectly it fits in the corner? We wanted something that was not wood - there was already enough of that in the room. We also wanted something that didn't take up too much space both physically and visually. As it is located in a corner I didn't want us to bump it all the time. I also didn't want something heavy there weighing down the look.

There it is in use - and there is the vase too! I thought the blue really dressed up that area.

A few quick fixes to dress up the look and functionality! Now I just need to find the perfect ornamental object to dress up the lower tier of the purse stand. Any ideas?

Question:
Any small makeovers that make a big impact in your life?

Dismantled to Mantle Makeover

Can I just say I made myself proud with that pun of a title? I do love my puns. Anyways, getting back on track, I am back with a reveal after Monday's teaser. Remember this guy that we picked up from Estate Specialists that I said had a double surprise?

Well that was no hint. It was literal! There actually are two!

Does that red wall give it away where these two guys found their new home? If you guessed the mantle (aka the only red wall in our house) you were right! They were just so beautiful and majestic in their twin beauty that it inspired a whole mantle makeover! Remember back in my first house tour post with the living room tour? This is what the mantle looked like then:

There was just a smattering of items that made their home on the mantle a little too organically in a hey, let's put that there for now and never think about moving it way. The mantle kind of happened instead of being planned. So once they twin vases came into my life, I knew their hues just required a place on the mantle. The thing was, there wasn't a logical place to put them. They also didn't mesh well with the randomness that currently reigned on the mantle. But I'm not sure is anything meshed well on the mantle. So it all came down and it was time to play. My favorite way to revamp something is to strip it bare of everything. Then it gives your mind freedom to imagine new ways to place items without having to try and see through the old figuration already there.

Once everything was off the mantle, I knew that I really needed to play off the gold tones of the picture frame. The melding of gold and red was too beautiful to ignore. It was also surprising to me since I am definitely a silver-toned person. It was even more surprising to me to find out that I actually had quite a few gold-toned items that would work on the mantle.

With the assistance of the keen eye of my mother, we came up with this new arrangement.

Mom had a great idea; she said that it didn't look that great having items scattered around the mantle. Instead, she suggested grouping them on either end, thus showcasing the picture even more. What a good suggestion! You can see that we used a few items that were on the mantle previously, but also gathered items from around the house that would work well. I was surprised how many gold-toned items I had. Let's take a closer look.

The vase (from China!) and candle stand (stand from Estate Specialists and a super stellar beeswax candle) were already there, but the sand dollar and clock (Waterford no less! A wedding present!) were taken from other areas of the house. Fortunately, they were sort of just placed, not placed just so, therefore no big holes from where they were taken.

Now the mantle features the beautiful family keepsake that I got for Christmas from my mother-in-law, passed down a generation or so.

What a sparkle this guy adds to the assortment!

That whole makeover was thanks to these twirly twins! All you need are a few inspiration items to kick-start a sort of stale area. Let's look at the before and after one more time just to conjure up a little sigh of happiness.

Before:

After:

There you go! The first of the teasers revealed!

Question:
Do you have any items that are your items of inspiration? Or how about a place that needs a little inspiration to kick start a makeover?