This week we finally got some stuff hung on the living room walls… ten things, in fact!
1, 2, & 3. In the left corner of the living room, I’ve hung three things that I’m calling mirror bursts. I bought them over a year ago at Value City Furniture for about $20 a pop, and they add a nice burst of reflective light to the darkest corner in the room. Here a closeup:
4, 5, 6, 7, & 8. On the other side of the couch on the same wall, I’ve hung a fun little collection of frames.
The green frame was purchased at Target around Christmas for $7, and the rest came from Ikea. Everything in this quintuplet has meaning. The two lovebirds, as well as the blue picture to its left are from a Charley Harper 2013 calendar that I bought on vacation in the Keweenaw Peninsula for $4. It was on clearance for 50% off!
The two pieces of copper were discovered in the gift shop of the Delaware Copper Mine, when we took a tour. They were two separate pieces of copper that together looked totally like lower and upper Michigan.
Both of them together set us back $10, but I think it was worth it! P.S. Here’s Mike’s selfie before our tour…
…and a shot of me down in the cavernous mine.
P.P.S. after the tour we discovered that the mine owners keep skunks as pets (don’t worry, they’ve had their stinkers removed!). Someone else discovered this in 2008:
And I got to hold one in 2013 (please ignore the lack of focus in the first one and the lack of balance in the second one… skunk-holding was an exciting time for everyone):
Alright, back to the frames. The beautiful vintage blue flower pattern is actually contact paper that I ripped out of the kitchen cabinets. I thought that framing it would be a sweet way to remember this house after we’ve moved to another one.
Contact paper
And lastly in the quintuplet hanging, the old-timey building is actually a postcard that we got during our overnight stay at Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio. Ghost hunting with my man made the best birthday ever!
Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio
9. Opposite the couch, at the foot of the stairs, I stuck up a map that I made for Mike. I pretty much stole the idea from Young House Love, except that the map I chose was from 1912, and was purchased on Etsy for $13.50 including shipping. I’ve marked out with blue pins the places we’ve traveled together, and the green pin shows where we live now.
10. On the stair landing (that still counts as the living room, right?), I hung a little heart thing I made back in May. I’m not too crazy about it anymore, so am thinking I might re-vamp it in some way. But until I figure out what to do, here it will stay!
And just like before, I used 3M strips (either cut in quarters for the little frames or halves for the two bigger frames). You can read more about my hanging method here.
My favorite is the cluster of frames above the couch. What about you?
–Laura
Makeshift Living 