Living room artwork progress

This weekend I hung some artwork in our living room, and I love the results. Check it out!

None of the pictures are new - they were all either taken from elsewhere in our house, or had been waiting to be hung. Quick summary of each:

- top left painting - from Nicaragua. We visited last summer as part of a missions trip with 40 others from our church - a life-changing experience for sure.

- bottom left - painted silk in gold frame. We got this on another missions trip (kind of cool that they ended up near each other - I didn't notice that until now!). We traveled to Thailand in January of 2008 - there were 8 of us total (including my husband and I). Another completely life-altering event - I'll have to talk more about both trips sometime! Gold frame was originally from Ross for a few bucks - I purchased it with some other uninteresting picture inside.

- top, center - picture of India, torn from a travel magazine. I love it - the angles make it feel like it has an incredible movement and life to it. I tore it out and framed it a couple years ago, and actually didn't think it would hold up this long, but it hasn't really faded and I still love it. I painted the dark blue frame last week - used to be a standard black frame (like you can find at target, etc.) which we inherited from some friends. The blue was leftover from one of the samples I tried out in our dining room, so I didn't have to spend any money on it! I love the richness of the blue - it's really dark so not an obvious blue but provides so much more depth than the black. I have a couple others of the same frame, so am now motivated to paint them as well. Amazing transformation for a 5-minute project!

- bottom, center - photo taken in Thailand. You can't see it, but it's a field of banana trees with a mountain range in the background, where Thailand borders Burma. Frame is from Ross (but was made in Thailand :))

- right - dahlia photo taken by me several years ago at the Golden Gate Park dahlia garden. I love dahlias. They were our wedding flower and I don't think I'll ever tire of them. Gold frame from Goodwill (a friend's find; she passed on to me - thanks Rena!).

And here's a bit more of this wall, and ..... the rug! :)

Rug is from Dash & Albert, and I love it! We bought a rug pad from Overstock and both are working out wonderfully. I love how the rug acts as a somewhat neutral base for all the color I like to bring in, but gives depth, texture and warmth. It's also a great size for this room - really anchors all of the furniture and brings some much-needed definition (since, as I've mentioned before, our kitchen island essentially overflows into our living room!).

You can also see the temporary state of our ottoman. We rescued it from the side of the road last year sometime, and it's waiting to be reupholstered. It will only take one yard of fabric to do it, but I just need to decide on the fabric! For now I usually have some scarf or tablecloth draped over it (since it's not so pretty on its own). It definitely works, and I'm glad to have it!

Here's a $5 lamp I picked up at Goodwill last week. I don't love it in our space, but it works. We had a lamp casualty a few weeks, ago, so I had been looking for something to replace the broken one. This will do until I find something more permanent. (And I think I would really like this one in the right space, so I'll hang onto it for a future project.)

the wall opposite the bookshelf / new artwork wall

And I'll leave you with one last shot of our new arrangement :) ... what do you think?