Catherine's Crib Tour- Part 1

Welcome to my home!  I hope you will enjoy taking a peek at the madness.  It is a work in progress for sure.  If you have any fabulous, functional, frugal suggestions, please comment.  We love to hear from our readers!

Front door in the 2 story foyer

The dining room (on your left as you enter the front) is a work in progress--truthfully, what isn't?  We bought the table & chairs shortly after we were married.  In our townhouse that is all that would fit! When we bought our next house, we had enough room to add another piece--but not a lot of room.  So, we bought a piece that matched the table--it is called a server and is pictured below.

Server from the last house dwarfed by beautiful lamps with a mirror that was too small--what was I thinking?

OK, so clearly that piece is RIDICULOUSLY too small for this giant room with 10 ft. ceilings.  So, we sold this buffet on Craigslist (love me some Craigslist!).  And bought another one that was wider but had legs.

It did fill up the space a little better.  We also added 3 pictures to fill the back wall.  Jacki painted the pics based on the image below and I framed them.

But, that space needed some more help....Next we added a rug.  That made a BIG difference!  It softened the room and took away the just moved in look we had going.

Sorry, it's a bad pic with the nasty glare but you get the idea.

Still-that leggy buffet had to go!  So, we sold it (on CL of course) and bought one that had a little more heft.  I also added an awesome mirror from Kirklands over the buffet. And, this is what we have ended up with so far.

I would love to add some curtains but haven't gotten there yet.  Hey- I warned you it's a work in progress!

Moving on across the foyer.... is the formal living room.  Really?  Really?  What am I doing? Entertaining callers in the parlor?  Pull--eeze!

So, yea... we are not using it as a formal living room.  I wanted to actually be able to USE the room.  So, it's an office.

This was our first furniture arrangement.

 I got the SILK, POTTERY BARN curtains from Craigslist! Dude- I think that's CL on the computer monitor--I seriously love it!

I moved the furniture around a little and added a rug for texture.  The rug is sisal and from Ballard Designs (google for coupons-always!). You would not want to cozy up on this rug but this is not a room where we spend a ton of time on the floor.  Well, I don't.  But, I do have kids that spend some time in the floor in other parts of the house--in the office, not so much.

I was dying for some zebra print and my wish came true with these ADORABLE pillows from Pier 1.


It was a real trick to coordinate these three spaces (foyer, formal LR & dining) since it is an open floor plan.  But, I think it works, don't you?