Everyone has different styles that they lean to. I know what I like and can usually see how to replicate it. I was at my aunt's house the other weekend in Norfolk and I just love the vibe I get from it. Her house is small, nothing fancy, and filled with a great combination of vintage hand me downs from my grandparents mixed with TJ Maxx and consignment finds. It just hits all the right notes with me. I wish these pictures were better quality but they will give you the jist of things.
Vintage needlepoint art.
A teapot and cup collection
My grandmother's beautiful sideboard with a fabulous gallery wall. Love the arrangement of everything from the plates across the lower level to the mix of art above. She really has a knack for pulling Asian inspired art work together.
I adore this vignette and admire it every time I walk in the front door. That old chest is a great storage piece and I love the beautiful picture of my great grandmother, Hun, that hangs above it. A glass bowl of grapes sits to one side (those were my grandmother's too) and perhaps my favorite piece, are the two tall, slender amber colored vases on the left hand side, both of which she picked up for a song at TJ Maxx.
Note she still has another one of my grandmother's dining chairs to hand over to me. :)
This is her little den area. She hasn't progressed to the world of flat screen tv's but my husband is working on her hard core. I love how she painted the fire place black and flanked it with the shelves from Ballard Designs. We got the dog print from
Decorum, one of our favorite furniture spots in Norfolk when we were shopping together one day. Again, funnily enough, I think my favorite thing about the room are the two wheat grass bunches that sit on the mantle. She claims those are also TJ Maxx but I am waiting to find something like that in the one near my house!
This picture of the kitchen turned out way too dark. It is actually a really light space. She put a regular dining table smack in the middle of the space and I love how instead of feeling cramped, it just feels homey and welcoming. She positioned two of my grandmother's Tiffany decanters along side a flowering plant.
This is another interesting vignette she set up that I wouldn't have thought of:
She really took time to decorate her kitchen with art and accessories to make it feel very warm and lived in - but at the same time it doesn't feel cluttered to me.
I adore that over-sized plate above the stove. She just pulls it down right off the wall when she needs it for parties.
The backyard and the guest house - aka the Shed. I've spent many a night in there. Thankfully it has heat and running water.
She'd slaughter me if she knew I posted pictures of her bathroom on my blog. But, since she isn't super tech saavy and hasn't read a blog a day in her life, the chances of her finding me out are slim to none. Shhh. Don't tell. Anyway, aside from showing you all of her beauty products, I just really like how she uses the shelf along the mirror and takes vintage glasses and vessels and mixes the in to give a room that serves a lot of function, great style as well.
Our family tree with family photographs lined up below. My grandmother got a copy of the family tree made for all of her kids and the grandkids before she passed away. It is something we all cherish.
