A room in which to live

At this point, you may be wondering if the only places in our house we live/doing anything in are the kitchen and the "French Room." After all, these are really the only two rooms of the house you've had a full glimpse of. I assure you, dear friends, we've got more than just two rooms in our home. Today, I invite you to take a sneak peak at the room where we surf the 'net, watch the Brewers and, more often than not, eat our meals: The living room.


The reason I haven't shared the living room in full is that it's never been quite.... right. To tell you the truth, it's still not. Not exactly. You've seen our white frame collage, and our thrifted dresser, but you've never seen it all put together. Now, with the addition of a quirky flea-market find to one of the once-bare walls, I'm beginning to feel like it's finding its style. 


Remember last month when we headed to the Northwoods to spend Eric's birthday camping? Well, on the way home we were fiending for some McDonalds totally healthy breakfast, and one our way to the fast food joint health store, happened upon the Shawano flea market. It was an incredibly hot day (if I remember correctly, the high was 97), so we couldn't spend much time there, but we decided to take a quick look to see if there was anything special we just needed to have. 

Aside from the obvious treasures, like Eric's $1 back scratcher (which we came home with) and the eloquent t-shirt and Wienee Mobile (which we did not), we found this somewhat perplexing, but very interesting-looking display board.

We think it was an old hardware-store hose display; it's got listings of all the different hose gauge sizes (is that the proper term?), and just sort of caught both (or all four?) of our eyes immediately. It reminded me of something you could find on Three Potato Four. We haggled to $17 for it, and took it home.

As it is now, our living room has a gray/yellow color scheme to it. This is the fashionable color combo of the moment, and I admit I'm a sucker for it. I knew this display board would look perfect in our living room... it just took us an entire month to hang it.

After going back and forth on whether to replace the wire hangers with little shelves to hold books and trinkets, we decided to keep it in its natural state - it was unique, it was industrial and it just look pretty dang cool all there on its own. And so, it was hung.

And we both loved it.

So, now that you've seen the new addition, and now that you've seen the left-hand corner of our living room, it's time to show you the whole thing.

 The lamp you see in the center is my biggest embarrassment of the living room - I've had it since college (it's the definition of a "college" lamp)! I can't wait to replace with with a lamp that fits more into our personal style, but I haven't found anything that has wowed me. I'd never buy anything "just because" or just to fill up space - if I'm spending my hard-earned money, I better love what I'm buying! Besides, we all know great home style comes with time.

Remember our thrifted dresser Eric found at a thrift store by his office? Well, he also found this intricate clock and this vintage globe (which still boasts the Soviet Union) at the same place!

The next photo is to show you what is on our TV six out of seven days of the week. Coincidentally, Yuniesky Betancourt (the batter shown on the TV) was just in the process of hitting a home run against the Pirates on Saturday. This entire shoot, Eric was shuffling around the living room so he could still watch the game while staying out of the photos.

So there it is. Like the rest of the house, the living room is a work in progress. We'd like to add a couple  more accent colors and accessories, but I like where it's headed. Clean, simple lines with a splash of personality sprinkled in. It does the job, and is the perfect space when we just want to kick back and relax.