Je deteste the home that looks like it arrived off the truck via the front window of West Elm.   No offense West Elm – I love you and own many pieces from your fine store, but please just demand I turn in my paint swatches if I sink so low on the imagination scale that I can’t even mix and match.  The thought gives me the decorator hives.  That looks like a coral or rouge color bouclé – very unattractive.

Marianne Evennou . So very perfect in that French way.  Cool Retro furnishings and toys, tied together with a fresh coat of red paint.  Ca Marche.

I revere those that can imagine an entirely different use for some piece of furniture, broken piece of pottery, by-gone appliance, TV Case, or trunk. Instead of proclaiming it junk, they bring the funk – making you ask yourself – Why didn’t I think of that?  So simple, so brilliant.   They are the trendsetters.  The design visionaries.  The believers that aren’t afraid to make believe.  As far as I am concerned, all that dreaming results in some pretty wondrous things.

I love the nautical charts as wall covering…but it’s been done.  Still – done nicely here.  

I’ve been thinking so hard about what I could do that would be A. new, B. inexpensive, C. cool and clever of course.  Because you can do some things that are different all right, and you can do some things that are cheap.  You may even be able to string the first two together, but you are not close to being a design trendsetter unless you are also cool and clever.

An Artful Ladder.

So I’ve been scouring magazines, and books, blog posts, and open houses to see what I could see, that made me see things in a new way – if you know what I mean.  I don’t want to just be a copy cat – though I content that I never mind when somebody copies me.  I’m pretty good at closet design, but I want to come out of the closet and see if my talents can stand elsewhere.  Only time – and The Manse will tell.  I don’t think my efforts will earn me a letter grade, and I am certain there will be no extra credit that will tip me into the honorable mention category.  It’s going to be pass or fail, and I suspect the failure rate for a bunch of junk that you try to make look cool is pretty hight.

HGTV Gets creative with a desk turned nightstand.

I’m banking on some high gloss paint, and some beautiful rosewood shelving to turn an old ice chest into a linen closet outside the main bath.  I did’t take the heavy doors with their substantial door latches.  I thought I might hang pretty curtains in their place instead.  If it’s a “fail”, I won’t have invested too much into the piece, and it is just the right size for the nook it needs to snuggle into.

Ingenius!

So – Paint and new cushions which soften the patina of age, are going to play a big role in the pieces that populate this space.  Here’s to hoping it’s cool.