A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2004 Home decor?

I really enjoy those HGTV shows on decorating.

What would you say your own personal style is?

Are you into modern, country, eclectic, Victorian, shabby chic, etc.? What colors make you happy? Do you bring the gardens in when you are designing a room?

Barb H.

Ohh Barb, don't get me started! I love Designer's Challenge, Divine Design, and the old Designing For the Sexes with the male host.

My style I guess would be eclectic. I lean toward Mission, though a little more modern, with a touch of country. Classy country, not ducks and blue checks. I am not traditional. I like Shabby Chic a lot, but with little ones can't do too much light color. I'm now decorating our guest room. I got a quilt that has two shades of denim, with a floral pattern, and red and blue stripes. It's at target, you can look it up at Target.com. I'm going to get curtains that have tabs that look like overall snaps.

I lean towards earth tones, and like patterns with roses on them. I like good lighting, and fresh flowers when I can. And candles too.

You didn't say anything about yourself!

Rellie,

I like it ALL!! My house is a real challenge right now...being in the 70's style...lol..anything would be wonderful! I like the shabby chic look...eclectic, and country...i am just not sure how to pull it all together.

All of my rooms need to be redecorated. And, I love Michael Paine the old host of designing for the sexes....i don't know why they ever messed with that program and got other people into it...it lost something without Michael Paine, IMO.

Rellie....i guess what i am trying to say is that i don't know what my style is....i have rather small rooms in my house so decorating is a challenge. That's why I am always asking people about their likes/dislikes...so that I can steal good decorating ideas from them!!!

barb

HGTV is on all day here, until Gunsmoke reruns come on at 6. (I'm in love with Festus!!!)

My house decor can not be described. I have all my advertising memorabilia in the first living room. Looks like you walked back in time when you walk in my house! Old signs, sawblades, etc. all over the walls. Hardly any empty wall space anywhere. Old wooden dynamite boxes on the walls for shelves, filled with collectibles like my prized Pee Wee Herman dolls, with my collection of skeleton keys hanging on them. This is MY room.
Then, when you walk into the big living room, it totally changes. Grand piano, a little more formal looking, tapestries on the walls. This is Andy's room! (Boring!!!)
No, I don't think I can put myself into any category!!! I broke all the rules.

Oh I love HGTV too. I get up every morning at 6am just to watch Gardener's Journal. I love all of the decorating shows too. There isn't much on that channel I don't watch:) My home is decorated in mainly shabby chic style, with exception to my living room & bedroom. My livingroom is very modern. All black furnishings, lots of black iron & glass, with silver & gold accents. This is where I keep my huge frog collection too. I have about 200 frogs. They are on the end tables, the coffee tables & all over the walls on shelves. My bedroom looks like a trip into the early 70s. It is decorated with mission style furniture & a large mission canopy bed, and all of the wall tapestries & decor are Grateful Dead memorabilia. I definitly bring the outdoors in...I have plants everywhere. I keep all of my tropicals indoors. Kind of looks like Jurassic Park at times lol:)

I have never seen HGTV but have heard alot about it.

I like english country, pinks and greens almost everywhere but in the kitchen is blue and white with alot of delft.

I watch HGTV a lot.....I like house hunters, and designers challenge....although it isn't much of a challenge when the budget is 30,000 bucks....lol

I decorate in a romantic traditional way.....lots and lots of plants, flowers(real and fake), flower paintings, flower everything....lol My family calls my dining room the jungle room because I have so many flowers in there....And I border on the cluttered look. I don't like sparse, to me it feels to cold.....I am most comfortable with lots of stuff I like.

I use hunter green a lot.....it's in almost every room.....and lately I've been stuck on burgundy.....My living room are those two colors....I asked my hubby the other day if he hated that our bedroom was all done in flowers and vines, and leaves and stuff....luckily for me he likes it....well as much as a man can like all of it I guess.... :p

I just made my own topiaries tonight....took a few of the terra cotta pots I got really cheap, painted them light pink, stuck a round foam ball down in it, covered it with some moss, stuck a thick wire through the ball....and added two more balls on the wire.....covered them with pink, burgundy, and white flowers. They look really nice.....I'm all into making and painting things for in the house. I just painted a terra cotta house sign the other day too......I love doing all the crafty stuff.

Geeze...you all have such diverse ideas on decorating, and i like them all!

Our furniture we brought when we moved from our first house is totally wrong for the house we have now.

We have brown leather sofas with a huge coffee table....looks like a giant trunk the expanse of it has a map of the world. The side tables look like suitcases. It was nice for our old place, but all wrong for here. It's going into the basement, once it has been remodeled into a more suitable family room. Until recently we inherited from the former owners this giant bar totally encased in fake leopard skin fur!!!!!! And a very large pool table. It was/is a 70's nightmare. I have the most hilarious photos of it.

We've already had three dumpsters here to take some of this stuff away! And we need three more, at least. Total work in progress! But, I think I'll have fun decorating once i get a bit more confident about what i want....and what i can pull off!!

One thing i will say about leather...thank goodness it's washable...otherwise i'd have had to buy new sofas every year because of my three grubby little boys.

My rooms are tiny, so I think I will find a good paint color and stick with it for most of the first floor to tie everything in. I love a color called butter cookie...it's cheery and yet almost neutral.

Barb

Barb , that bar sounds like a nightmare.....lol That's too funny.....and I have small room too except for the living room.....butter cookie sounds nice....lighter colors always help to make a room appear bigger.....and maybe hanging a mirror across from the windows to help reflect light and make the room look bigger.

Don't feel bad about your bar, we ended up with the ugliest outdated 50's style kitchen!!! We haven't redone it yet, but I'm counting down until we can. At least we have new appliances, that helps a little.....The rest of the house isn't bad at all, except for the ugly gold carpet upstairs......we want to put new carpet down but the thought of moving everything to lay it has kind of stopped us.....lol

I've always decorated and dressed in what I like, not what the magazines say I should wear or decorate with....I think that's the most important thing.

Barb: That bar would be my nightmare too...but it would be my son's dream. He & his fiance live in the upstairs of our home in their own apartment...walking up there is like walking into a different world lol:) I love my son, but his style is Rock and Roll Pimp meets George of the Jungle lol I am hoping once Danielle and him tie the knot that she will redecorate & teach him a bit about decorating with style lol

After we bought our first home ever-I was dying to get color in the house.I panted out living room a colbat blue-ver dark and shiny. I did discover that you don't paint wall in enameal! Many many coats to get it even-but was worth it! I have white sheer curtains and white shelves with my preeties. I cvan't resist neat looking branches or rocks so there are alot of them. Lots of green plants to. Very cozy. My husband and I have finally saived up enough money to put down hard wood floor in there. can hardly wait. My kitchen is yellow walls and blue and red accents. I took the cabnient doors off to kind of open it up. Uesed an old side rail from the kids bunkbed and made it into a pan rack. Painted one of my daughters room last week a lovely saide of apple green with raspeberry and orange as accent colors. Painted the upstairs hallway into a forest with different color leaves and with sayins on it. The teenagers love it. My baby painted her room a very dark blue in only one coat so that there are strecks all over. She said that it adds texture. Hung up dragons and wicca posters and she and her sisters wrote all over the way different sayings to. Haven't touched my bedroom though-myhusband has declared off bounds until he can decide what He wants -nothing "hippie". ha ha ha Just love it.

Our house was built in 1932 and is a colonial revival.

Actually I guess we do have more than just pinks and green.

My living room is 13 x 20 with a fireplace, 3 - 6 x 8 oriental rugs came with the living room. The rugs are green with a burgundy background.

One of our best purchases were 2 wingback leather chairs and ottoman. We bought the 3 pieces separately, about 5 years apart but they match perfectly.

Our dining room had very old wallpaper at least 20 years old that is water stained, but I love it. It is from Williamsburg and a copy of a very old pattern.

Our bedroom is pink with white trim and I love it. Hubby questioned it at first but really likes it now.

Our daughters room is grape purple with white trim.

The boys room is huge 2 full/double beds fit in it. It is a pit!!!

I love different paint textures and treatments.

Our bathroom down is sponged in a few shades of green. I love sponging, crackling and marbilizing paint.

Our ceiling in the bathroom was peeling terribly. I scraped and leveled the cracks with spackling, then glazed over it with a watered down green and then sponged over it.

No one has a ceiling like it! But then again maybe no one would want one like it!!

Loz,

LOL...you have gold carpeting...i forgot to mention that i have orange shag!!!!!!! We've pulled up most of it, to find some pretty decent hardwood floors which need to be refinished...however i kept the carpet on the steps for now since they are twisty and turney and i don't want my boys to fall on the steps.

You've got the right idea about decorating how you like it. I can't tell you how much i admire my SIL's taste..but she never seems to get new furniture or fancy things...but her house always looks put together. Casual elegance, I guess you'd call it...no newest, latest or greatest..just a comfortable home.

Rue and Chrissy...

ROFL...George of the Jungle! I can just imagine how that looks...having three boys of my own!

My upstairs has two larger bedrooms (bigger than my small master one!) and a bathroom...that is the boy domain....and it too, is a PIT! But it is nice to have them contained upstairs....with dire warnings to guests not to go up if they ever want to see the light of day again!!

I'd never painted until we painted our last house...right before we sold it!!! It took us the better part of a year, but we scraped painted on wall paper and painted. I enjoyed it, but don't know if I have the aptitude to do anything fancy.

I did see something on Decorating Cents, where they painted in a mustard color...reminded me of my butter cookie paint...then used a squeege to sort of wave the paint. It gave it texture, and interest. Maybe I will try that.

Right now, I am getting ready to start scraping more wallpaper...including a venetian 70's scene on the wall...too hideous...but i've gotten so used to it in the last year, i may just miss it. When we get bored, i get the kids washable watercolors out and let the kids paint the scene...they love that!

Barb, removing wallpaper is such a pain in the butt......lol My parents love wallpaper actually and have many rooms papered....it's a lot of work but the kind they have looks really nice.....but if they ever want to take it off, what a chore..... :p

My brother came in from MI and came over to our house yesterday and the first thing he said was that he loved the way I decorated....that it feels cozy and comfortable and not like a museum....the kind of house you can relax in and not worry about messing everything up....My main problem is having too much stuff.....I'm always running out of room to put things.....but do I stop buying?.....

And yes, the gold carpet....lol Eventually we will get around to it......We have all hardwood floors under the carpet downstairs.....but, neither of us like the cold feel to hardwood....the carpet downstairs is actually nice and in good shape, and not GOLD!!!!LOL......Now I'm curious.....wonder if there are hardwood floors under the upstairs......hmmmmm....I may have to check that out. You have orange shag????LOL.....What were people thinking when they put that stuff down....When we first moved in my mom and dads house from england in the 80's the 4 bedrooms were orange, hot pink, electric blue, and green.....

Do ya'll ever watch the shows "While you were out","Rally round the House" or "Suprise by Design". The originality of their ideas has me hooked. I love the way the turn ugly unused items into functional attractive stuff. I'm fixing to take a couple of my round stepping stones and turn them into ladybugs(red,black and white paint)
Have any of ya'll ever used the ideas from a design show?

Karen

Yes that is a great show.

Oprah had one show where a designer took a tiny apartment, I think 800 square feet and aded all kinds of storage, made the area look like separate areas and the space seemed so much larger.

I love the ones where the people are having difficlties and people go in and fix the place up for them.

I love Surprise By Design, Rebecca & Robert are great, so funny:) Rally round the yard is one of my favorites too, I have used many ideas off those two shows.

Hey, Loz!

I love wallpaper, actually! However, when someone has several layers of wallpaper, and a couple coats of paint on the wall....well, i'm too much of a lady to tell you how i really FEEL!!

I am dying to wallpaper my dining room in a Donna Dewberry paper...the bunny one? But i am afraid my husband would not like looking at cute bunnies everyday....and being the only girl in the house...well, maybe i can get the baby to be on my side!!!

Anyway, I have ugly paneling up in the dining room, and with all the other major remodels we need to do, I think I will just paint the paneling, and when the it's the kitchen's turn for a remodel, have the diningroom done too.

ROFL...your parent's house was 80's in America, baby!! :rolleyes: What part of England were you from? My father in law married a lovely English lady from Norwich, and they now live there. Wish we could see them a bit more often!

BARB

Barb ~

We have paneling in our familyroom that was VERY dark brown when we moved in. My husband painted it white, and I love the way it looks. It gives the walls a little detailing, but is still bright and neutral.

Lynne,

My friend had panneling that she painted too...i always loved it. I like the country look...shabby look and I think it will suit the room.

I think that this summer I will really try to transform the house with paint! LOL...it certainly couldn't look worse than it already does..lookin' on the brite side!

Anyone seen those tiny crystal chandeliers that you stick on your can light trim? I saw them once last year and can't find them anywhere.

i think they were called recessed can light chandelier or something like that. They are acrylic crystals and they have two-tiers, they were really sparkly...Anyhow I need a couple and now they seem to have dissapeared. Any help would save whats left of my mind

Mommamia wish I could help you out.....maybe someone will know.

Barb .....We grew up outside of Manchester England....Dad is from London, Mom was from near Liverpool.....She saw the beatles play a few times actually. And yes, their house was 80's ugly when we moved over....lol But it is a huge brick house and they could see the potential....has beautiful wood details, and pocket french doors, 4 bedrooms, nice yard......

Our house(which is across the st from my parents) has wood paneling in EVERY room but the kitchen and bathroom.....I HATE wood paneling....I like light and airy, not the dark wood in the living room.....So we painted it last summer....we didn't fill the lines in with that putty stuff.....We took some sandpaper to it because several people suggested that, then used a good primer, and painted it.....It looks really nice.....I'm so glad we did it.....it's now Saratoga Sand, instead of ugly dark wood.....really brightened the place up....we painted the dining room paneling a very pale green color......it turned out nice too....luckily the paneling upstairs is very light....I can live with it, it's either live with it or paint it, and after all the painting we did last year I just can't get enthused to paint again :p ......lol Let me just add, my hubby was very skeptical about painting the paneling, but I pushed for it, now he thinks it was one of the best things we did....eventually we may drywall but this looks great for now. We use a semi gloss.....

Laura