home-making v.2

One of the perks of moving to a bigger house with a completely different floor plan is that it's forced us to move furniture and decor around to fit the new space. Our $100 black cabinet/shelf combo served us well in our old living room and held DVDs for years. The movies were put into drawers when we swapped out our bachelor-pad tv stand for an antique buffet last December, and I never really got around to styling the shelves. I always hated the frames on top (you can barely see them in this pic) but for some reason I never moved them. I'm embarrassed to show you this sad display of haphazard styling...

Hooray for second chances! The black cabinet is currently in our new family room located in the basement. It's packed with books and isn't styled at all, but that's because it's out of sight out of mind and I'm currently focusing my attention on the main floor. So that cute rhino and potted succulent got moved to our cubby bookcase, which resides on the wall in between the stairs going down and the stairs going up. The box on the top left is where I keep my stationary and stamps.

I put in a new, bushier (?)  succulent and formed a little trio with a tiny paper mache bird and a Smith and Hawken mister from Target.

This is what the bookcase looked like at our old house. You can barely see the "A" and "Z" bookends, so I'm thinking about painting them. Do you think they'd look crazy if I gold leaf-ed them?

The fake flower and cute bowls are now paired on our side table. For those sweet readers who are wanting more info on our house, this pic is from the living room, facing the front door. The door cut into the wall on the left is the staircase to the basement, and the door beyond that is the half bathroom. The dining room is opposite the bookcase and the kitchen is opposite the half bath.

Speaking of the kitchen, I nabbed a terrific kitchen island off of Craigslist last week and I can't believe I haven't blogged about it yet! Check it out -

I couldn't be happier with it. I've looked at a ton of microwave carts and kitchen islands online, and this was a steal for the size and storage. You can see it's on wheels, and there's a leaf on the back that can come up for an eating area. It came with two bar stools, which we're storing in the basement. I do want to have an eating area in the kitchen, but I'm picturing it here -

That rug is temporary, btw, and I can't wait to get rid of those curtains once I figure out what we want to do with window treatments. This nook is a great spot for a bistro/cafe/bar set, but the only problem is that the table is going to have to be tiiiny. See, to the right is a pantry, so if the table is too big then it would make it hard to get to the pantry. We could move the island to the middle of the kitchen and put the leaf extension to use, but I think it would look awkward. Plus, I like the way it looks flush up against that wall, which would be awfully bare without it. Hmm, we'll see.

Stay tuned for more home-making posts...