Give Me Plants and Books and Tea…

Nicole lifestyle decorating, home tour, lifestyle

It seems a little strange to be sharing a house tour today, since I’m not living in this apartment anymore! I took these photos a week before we moved out, fully intending to blog them, but when our whole housing situation became a housing fiasco, I didn’t really feel like sharing them. It’s been a few months now though, so I can look at the pictures without nostalgia: I do miss the way we’d decorated it, but a few months later, I don’t miss living there! There were things I really liked about living here, such as the neighbourhood, the view from our living room window and the amazing amount of closet space (seven closets in 800 sq.ft!). But there were definitely things I didn’t like: the noise between the apartments, the terrible bathroom, and the extreme heat in the summer. So, all in all, I’m not sad to be out of this place, but I’m glad I took some photos before we moved to remember it by.

First the living room. This is my trusty old IKEA shelf, that perfectly fit on the only wall that didn’t have a baseboard heater. Someday I’d love to make or get a wooden shelf, but until that day this one does well. (Although every time I move, my brother and Dad would say they’d like if that day came sooner: this one is awful to move, since it has to go in one piece!)

You can quickly tell after entering our house that my sister and I have two great loves: books and plants! (hence the title of this post) We’ve completely filled this shelf between the two of us, and have even more books hiding behind the first layer, and on other shelves! The portrait in the top right shelf is my “Georgian novel hero”. I bought it as a gift for my brother, and then ended up keeping it for myself, as the portrait just seemed to belong amongst the Classics section.

This is my favourite chair that I found in a thrift store, back before “vintage” furniture got expensive. It’s surprisingly comfortable, and still in quite good condition. And, this little hot air balloon just hangs out in the fig tree. I got this tree for free when my church moved buildings. For some reason they decided that they didn’t want it in the new place, which didn’t make any sense to me, but I was more than happy to adopt it and bring it home! Until I find a more permanent place though, I’m going to leave it at my family’s house, as it’s not happy to be moved a lot.

You might recognize that I have several iconic IKEA pieces, including my borrowed sofa, and my striped rug. As much as I love my rug, it is horrible to keep clean, so I would probably not purchase it if I’d known that back then. I love a lot of the pieces that IKEA comes out with each year, but I am always hesitant to buy them, as they are so recognizable that I don’t want my house to end up looking like a catalogue!

The decor in our living room is quite bright and punchy, and it is not anywhere near what I’d like to have someday. Red is my least favourite colour, but since I am borrowing the sofa from my parents until I find one of my own, it will have to do. I’d eventually like to get a cream and mustard floral or brocade settee, but haven’t found just the right one yet.

One of the problems I have with decorating is that I have too much artwork and too few walls. We did a gallery wall in the living room to help with this problem. This also worked well, as there were a lot of nail holes in this wall from previous tenants, so I didn’t feel bad adding a few more. It also worked to cover up all the holes, so we weren’t stuck looking at them. We did a black, gold and cream theme, which I liked since it looked cohesive, yet still had variety. (I also noticed, after I took these pictures, that I never centred the photo in that large white frame-oops!)

Here is the aforementioned “tea” alongside the plants and books in the title. I couldn’t happily live in a house with no plants! At last count I have twenty-two plants (not counting my sister’s)!

This is the view from the kitchen, to the dining room/office/art room. The living room is to the right of the picture (where the wall jogs in on the edge of the photo). I didn’t take a photo of the kitchen, since there really wasn’t anything interesting about it. It had cabinets from the 70’s and no place to hang artwork, so it was quite boring and un-photogenic.

This is my sister’s china cabinet in the corner, which holds our collection of blue and white china. We inherited many of these pieces from my Gramma, and some are pieces I’ve purchased along the way.

Here’s the art desk in the dining room (that I actually didn’t do too much art at, unfortunately.) Quite a few of the furniture pieces in our place were borrowed from my parents. It’s always nice when your parents love antique furniture and you get to put it in your place 🙂

And lastly my bedroom, which was a very small room, and had just enough room for a walkway around my bed. It had two closets though, which was absolutely lovely for all my hats!

Hang vintage fashion artwork in your closet and dresses on your closet doors- it makes it so much prettier!

Well, that’s it!

I do love decorating, and the thing that I love about decorating my own home is creating my own personal style. I don’t like to follow trends or styles too closely, and while I might incorporate a few here and there, our place doesn’t fit into any one “niche”, but is mostly made up of collected pieces we love. I think it has a rather eclectic vintage feel- what do you think?

How do you like to decorate your home? And does your decorating fit into one specific style, or a mix of many?