Zen Front Room

For my first project I am going to write about is that I redid my front room. Yes the first room that everyone sees as they walk in. We moved into our house six months ago and the furniture from our old front room followed us. It was your typical two couches and a couch table and somehow the TV ended up in there during the super bowl and had never left. This meant that the Xbox, the kids and everything that comes along with teenage boys ended up in there. Yes including dirty socks that never seem to make it to the laundry room.

When it comes to decorating I’ve never had a good eye for it. I always go to other people’s house and wonder how they picked the décor, where did they find something so unique and why my house never looks so put together?  So for this one I had to call the big guns in….. My mom. Yes I called my mom to help. She has a talent at decorating and says it is one of her favorite things to do. She even flew in from Seattle to help me…. Well at least I would like to think that but I guess there are other people here too that she had to visit.

Okay to the front room, this is what it looked like before. Not at its finest hour.

Don’t mind the dogs

The couches got moved out before I could get a before picture

And this is why another TV ended up in the front room during super bowl.

Yes I know we are crazy to have that many people over to our new house. But hey it’s super bowl and who doesn’t love to show off their new house.

I told my mom that I wanted a Zen feeling but also unique. Something that when someone walked in my house they couldn’t help but feel peaceful and of course to think wow that looks amazing…. Rather than what I am sure they thought…. ummmm is that your kid’s sock next to the Xbox games tossed on the floor.

I was a little skeptical when my mom told me that we could find very unique items at the thrift store. So much that I went ahead and bought a picture; the main center piece off of Etsy before my mom made her way to Utah. I needed to know that there would be one unique item in there that I loved.

I decided to go with the colors red, black and gray. Although it’s not normally the colors I am drawn to. Usually it’s blue, but I needed a change and I was going big.

When my mom gets into town we set off to find the perfect items. We get to the first thrift store and nothing seems to look like it will work. Finally my mom points out a green vase. Very pretty but not the color I want. Then she tells me that we can paint it red. Hmmmm it never even occurred to me that I could paint our findings different colors. So we get this vase and I have a little bit – not much but some hope, as now I don’t have to focus so much on the color.

Off to the next thrift store. We pass this table looking thing and my mom suggests that I get it. Ummmm no thank you as I walk away. We look around for a little bit longer and somehow she lures me back to this very odd looking table. So I give it a second look. She then tells me that I wanted unique and this is very unique. I glance at the price tag and for $7.00 I decide to give it a chance after all it might be the look I was going for. So we lift this heavy table into our cart and move along our way.

To the third thrift store. This place is not very big at all and I can already tell that nothing is going to work. But then we pass some chairs. Again my mom points them out and I am hesitant and tell her we should keep looking. And again she makes her way back to these chairs. I glance at the price tag $15. I finally give in and we pick the best two. Because at this point I am hoping she has a plan and am trusting her to make something amazing. Also we need somewhere to sit in this hopefully amazing looking room. And by the look of these thrift stores I didn’t have high high that we would find something better. We go to check out and wahoo they are on sale ½ off.

Last thrift store for the day. So we actually had really good luck at this thrift store. We had a basket full of potential items, nothing is the correct color but that is alright as we are painting most of it. I just need to find something to go on the other wall in my front room. I am looking for something big and metal. I have no luck. I find my way over to the pictures and I come across two sets of three pictures hooked together by ribbon. Each picture has a Japanese symbol with the word. Which seems perfect for my Zen room. My mom is the type that will grab everything that she thinks looks good and put it in her basket. She then goes over to a little corner of the store and lays it all out. Putting pieces together to see what looks good and goes together  So of course we go over to the corner of the store and lay all our stuff out. I think people might think that we are crazy but I just pretend that I don’t notice them looking at us. We finally decide what it is that we want to get. My mom takes all the stuff that we don’t want and puts it away. I start grabbing the stuff from the floor. I go to put something in my basket and as I turn back around some lady is stepping on my picture, cracking the glass. Thankfully it was salvageable.

A few quick stops at JoAnn’s and Lowe’s and we are headed home to work on everything that we got. We paint the the table, chairs, and a few of the smaller items black. We paint the vase, a green plate and a few little stuff red. We put new ribbon on the pictures making them two down instead of three. The next day my mom is so excited she gets up before me to put it all together. Even though I heard her get up I was way too tired to get out of bed so I let her do it. And it looks pretty good but it is missing something. We go back to Lowe’s where we find a water feature and it is almost perfect.

I think it needs a rug. I get on Amazon and find the perfect rug that will tie it all together. I patiently wait for it to get to my house. I lay it down and it is perfect

So I guess the lesson to be learned here is have an open mind when shopping at a thrift store. Also Paint and a little imagination can go a long way.