ELEPHANT DECOR

Do you ever notice that you repeat decor around your home? 

 I just noticed that I have elephants around my house.  LOL  

In our sun room I have a plaster elephant peeking around my bar cart.  I purchased it for one of the Design Houses I did.  It didn't sell, so it was all mine.  I've said this before but sometimes those items that don't sell become my favorites.

PLASTER ELEPHANT IN MY SUN ROOM

CLOSE UP OF PLASTER ELEPHANT

I have a similar plaster elephant on my screened porch.  It's much larger with a flat surface so it can serve as a small side table.

ELEPHANT SIDE TABLE ON MY PORCH

I have another Chinoiserie elephant on the railroad cart coffee table.  I mixed him in with the blue and white ginger jars.

BLUE AND WHITE CHINOISERIE

One of my favorite elephant finds is this mache elephant from Anthropologie. 

 Originally it was in my kitchen.  

MACHE ANTHROPOLOGIE ELEPHANT IN MY KITCHEN

He's since moved to the laundry/pantry.

ANTHRO ELEPHANT IN MY LAUNDRY ROOM

I'm not done yet.  I decoupaged an elephant image on some book spines.

ELEPHANT ON BOOK SPINES

One of my favorite additions to my new kitchen was the appliance garage.  You can see my elephant mugs on the top shelf.  FYI, that majolica lettuce leaf teapot is my sugar bowl.

ELEPHANT MUGS IN MY APPLIANCE GARAGE

Even though I always love the things that don't sell, there are many who get away.  This elephant bookend was one of those I wished I had kept.

ELEPHANT BOOKEND THAT GOT AWAY

What decor items do you repeat in your home?

What home decor item do you regret giving up?

 

If you're interested in seeing the the original posts for these images, simply click on the highlighted words or the images. 

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Furniture With Hooves

Ever since I saw this bench/coffee table on the cover of Celerie Kemble's interior design book,
BLACK & WHITE (and a bit in between), I have been fascinated by hoof-legged furniture in design.
( I have to say that I also love the over-sized mattes she used when framing the art.)

Celerie Kemble Interiors

Of course as I was out and about with my husband,  I immediately noticed this side table at Zgallerie.  I must have really admired it because he bought it for me for my birthday.  I believe it's no longer available.  That was many birthdays ago.

Here it is perfectly styled in the home of Valorie Hart, The Visual Vamp's blog.
Currently you can follow her on Instagram here or Tumblr here.  She describes herself as a collector of images.  She truly is.  I get lost in her Tumblr feed.

THE VISUAL VAMP

I found a place for mine next to my favorite book-reading chair.  Perfect.

MY SIDE TABLE WITH HOOVES

And not to be out done by furniture, I noticed in my silver plate collection (hoard) that one of my pieces had hooves.

SILVER PLATE TEAPOT WITH HOOVES

Check out those hooves.

TEAPOT WITH HOOVES

So, are you a furniture-with-hooves fan?

If you want even more images of furniture with hooves, go to my Pinterest board, 

FURNITURE WITH HOOVES.

You can buy Celerie Kemble's book on Amazon. 

An Unexpected Surpise Under the Sun Room

When we added the sun room to the back of the house, we not only created my favorite space in my home, but we also gained an unexpected living area on the patio below.  Before the addition, we hardly used the brick patio.  It was very sunny and it seemed that I did nothing but sweat and pull weeds that sprouted up overnight in the cracks between the bricks.   I have to confess that the patio was the place where I'd paint my furniture in the warm months.  Those paint spot speckles on the bricks prove it is my workshop.  Eventually my sweet friend, Nancy, found some chinoiserie furniture for me and I decided to clean up that area. 

My Unexpected Space Under the Sun Room

 

The photos in this post were taken by C.M. Glover, the photojournalist who did my photo shoot for Houzz.  She kindly came back to my house at a later date and took some more photos.  These photos were taken at dusk.  Below is a view from another angle.

Another Angle of the Area

This is the before picture, complete with my son's sports net pitch back and a trash can.

Before Back Yard

To give you some perspective about the space, you can access the back yard and patio from either side of the house.  If you come down the driveway, there's a path to the patio between the garage and the screened porch.

Path From Driveway to Patio

Or, you can enter from the kitchen side of the house and follow a different path to the back yard.

Path From Kitchen Porch to Patio

 C.M. suggested that before she returned, I should style the area as if I were hosting a party.  
I couldn't believe it when I went to Trader Joe's looking for flowers and found some in the exact colors of my cushions.

Styled Table

 

 Here's a closer look at the flowers.  Did you notice that I found a spot for those orange shutters?  I just couldn't part with them after I purchased them.  They hung around for a while in the garage, with everything else in my secret stash, but I knew I'd use them.  Their orange color was my inspiration for the space.  I still have a few more hanging around.  I'm hoping to pry them from my greedy little pack rat fingers and put them up for sale.

Table Setting With Chippy Shutter in Background

 You know how I love clocks and demijohns.  They were perfect on the bar cart with some ferns from my garden.

Clock and Ferns in My Demijohn on the Bar Cart

I put candles in the candelabra I suspended from the pergola.  I even did place settings on my 

clock face table.  You can see that I really got into this styling. 

Under the Pergola

I had some faux cabbage leaf place mats to go under my cabbage dishes.  I paired them with some leopard print flatware and glasses--gotta get that animal print in somewhere.

All Ready to Eat---Where's the Food?

I thought the flowers looked especially nice as the sun was setting.

Building Fragment, Sphere, and Lambs Ear

Sweet Woodruff, Hosta, Lamb's Ear, Nandina, Ferns

 

Hosta, Dracena, Impatiens Along the Path

       I'm very happy with my surprise living space and guess what??   
The shade from the sun room also took care of the weed problem.  I still paint on the patio and the sun room offers me shade and protection from raindrops too. 

Kathy

I have to show you the "before" of the Chinoiserie settee and chairs.

 

Before the New Upholstery

If you missed my Home Tour Feature on Houzz, go here.

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Sister Saves Sister From Change Up

Do you remember when I found that iron day bed and decided to use it as an inspiration for
 a change up on my whole screened porch ?

My New Screened Porch Decor

 You also might recall that the change up left me with a room full of wicker furniture.
Death knell for the wicker.

Sister to the rescue.
One of my three sweet sisters describes herself as being in my home decor food chain.
She had just enclosed her back porch and said she'd love to use my wicker there.
Whew!  How timely was that?

My husband and I loaded up the large van before she could change her mind
and drove it over.  We arrived  at her house with quite a load.
We were filled to capacity.

My Filled to the Gills Truck Arriving at My Sister's Home

We had an empty room to work with. 

She painted the walls Benjamin Moore's Davenport Tan and one wall Shelbourne Buff. 

The floors look amazing.  Her handy husband installed them.

We placed the sofa and painted table on the far wall.  The floor lamp is vintage.
The clock completes the vignette.

You know I love to mix fabric patterns.  There was no exception when I sewed the pillows and cushions for the wicker.  The main fabric was the P. Kaufmann monkey fabric.  To the mix I added the houndstooth, the paisley, and the pillows with leaves.

To see more of my mix and match fabric choices, go here, and here.


I was lucky enough to find more of the houndstooth fabric and sewed some draperies for the sliding glass door.  This is looking in from the hallway that adjoins her kitchen.

The side wall with the huge window has a wicker rocker, a wicker chair, and a large wicker sofa table.  They're all vintage.  The carpet is stenciled jute in just the right color tones.  I covered a long bench with coordinating paisley fabric.  It can be seating, or if she adds a tray, a coffee table.

This is another view of the mix and match fabrics, the rocking chair and pillow with buttons, the birdcage, the bench, and the fabulous sofa table.

We even have monkeys on the lamps.

On the wall opposite the sofa is a lounging area with a chaise.

My sister said that the chaise and the glass-topped nesting garden tables with the attached lamp is her favorite spot to relax with a cup of coffee and a book.

My sister and her family are really enjoying the new room. They call it the Monkey Room.

What do you think?

Kathy

If you missed my original screened porch post click here.

To see view two go here and for view three here.