Pepper Design Blog

Living Room Refresh: A New Antler Accessory + the Rose Bowl Flea Market

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! A while back I had the chance to visit the Pasadena Rose Bowl flea market, something that I absolutely love to do, but a visit I rarely get the opportunity to make because Los Angeles a bit of a trek (a couple of hours from San Diego) and the flea market is only held on the 2nd Sunday of each month.

The best of both worlds collided when friends decided that a trip was in order, and I was able to convince Kev to accompany me to Tinseltown for the weekend!

Photo from here.

Kevin did boy things with a few of the other husbands and kids during the morning while a group of us headed out to peruse the many, many aisles.

Photo from here.

The problem with this whole flea market thing is that once you’re there (with list in hand and measurements of near every wall in your house), it can become incredibly overwhelming. I go in with the idea that I’ll find this cool vintage chair or that neat side table, but I find so much goodness that I end up buying very little. It’s hard to commit under pressure.

A collection of images from various blogs.

BUT I picked up some cool antlers (among a couple of other accessories), and they’ve found a place on my living room mantel to be on display for all. (Don’t worry, I spoke with the owner of this little stand and he confirmed that most of the antlers found out there for sale today are from natural seasonal moltings of deer. Yep, that happens annually so there are enough antlers for all! And thankfully Bambi was not harmed in the making of this post).

Here’s a bit of antler inspiration from Pinterest. Yes it might be a bit trendy… but if you truly love the look that you’ve created, then sometimes a little trend is a-ok by me.

Beautiful.

And here’s my new mantel vignette, with its own version:

PS those great billy ball-ish branches can be found here. A side angle view:

Peeking through the dining room! Flea market finds have turned into a great way to tie together the rustic-meets-modern spaces. I like to think of that blend as comfy, casual chic. Is that a style yet?

I also picked up a wooden golf club for Kevin – which was his one request. Here are a few of us post-Rose Bowl grabbing a snack before driving back down to San Diego. Kevin is holding his prize.

Photo by the Rose Bowl companion, Jen. The lovely Jill is missing from this pic!

Later on, that golf club was cut down and turned into this for Liv. Watch out, Tiger.

We’re still working on which way is up, but that’s to be expected when you begin training at this age.

I can’t wait to visit my favorite flea market again! It’s such a wonderful treasure hunt and it might be in the top ten of my ideal ways to spend a Sunday morning. If that comfy, casual chic style resonates with you, you might check out the portfolio of this blogger who visits this particular flea market every month! and is my idol when it comes to spotting and styling such fantastic finds.

Still on my must-find list in the used-furniture department (actually, that might apply to all of the furniture in our home): dining room chairs, a nightstand for our bedroom, a neat chair for the living room, fabric (always!), an over-sized mirror, an industrial floor lamp, a pair of swing arm wall lights, storage for Liv’s toys… but sometimes it’s the little accessories and details like this single antler (for a great deal) that are the happiest finds!

More mantel transformation and living room posts can be found right here.

Hallway Makeover: Lighting Ideas

Our home has a pretty big hallway in the center of the house:

Which is part of the reason we used a corridor of the old hallway to create a second bathroom and pantry, and I’m pretty sure we’ll cut into the hallway even further when it’s time to redo the master bedroom and bath.

The space gets a really great bathing of sunlight because of a large skylight, and it’s also where I used painter’s tape earlier this year to create my own wallpaper design and chalkboard fun area for Liv.

These days the little seating area is gone (I’m looking for a less bulky solution) and the chalkboard chair rail area has turned into a full blown art wall.

The above photo actually brings me to the purpose of this hallway lighting post – I would really love to switch out that above light with something fantastic! The hallway is regularly used by us and guests alike, as it leads to a bathroom, Liv’s room and our bedroom. I’m thinking something oversize? or extra bold? Maybe a store bought solution (if I find it at a great price) or maybe a DIY version inspired by images from my hallway Pinterest board. Here are a couple of examples:

Ooooh the beaded options are intriguing, and how great are the various basket/wood shades! Or perhaps a store bought cone or farmhouse light that’s then painted gold on the inside? I also love the idea of messing around with some sort of transparent plastic to create some unusual shape. I’m all about creating some sort of lighting from scratch, here’s a link to the capiz shell light that I made for the guestroom/office.

Our current light isn’t horrible, actually I really like the style and I’ll try to find a good home for it elsewhere in the house.

Here are a few Ikea inspirations:

For a slightly better visual, here they are photoshopped into our hallway:

First up, something made of a transparent white plastic – kind of fun?

Maybe not first in my book but it’s different.

The next is along those same lines:

I love the idea of a black shade in here! Though I wonder if all of that excellent light in the hallway will become blocked or filtered, depending on the type of shade used. A gold lining would be a neat accent:

I would love to bring an organic basket texture into this space. I love the basket light on my Pinterest board even more, but that one’s a little pricey. Could be a neat DIY:

More ideas! I really love these hallways:

Any thoughts or ideas? I’m hoping to make up my mind on this this weekend to cross one more item off of the to-do list. But there are just so many choices .

Living Room Refresh: Semi-DIY Colorful Canvas Art

Happy start to the week! Getting those cake posts together last week wore me out… but I have several new home projects to share with you this week and I’m really excited about this first one.

I have been looking for a large piece of art for the living room for some time, but everything I come across is either out of my price range or the wrong size/look. But I’ve found a solution. Using a one yard piece of fabric from Spoonflower + a couple of tubes of oil paint/acrylics, I channeled my inner artist and created a piece of art for the living room.

The fabric did 90% of the work, but maybe that’s why I’m so thrilled with how it came out .

Here’s a reminder of how the space looks when coming in through that above door:

The color palette in this room includes plenty of neutrals plus the occasional bright pop of green and raspberry red.

And this new painting ties in perfectly with the scheme.

The inspiration behind this piece of art came from when my family traveled to Australia two years back to visit my younger brother who was studying abroad in Perth. The aboriginal art was absolutely stunning, full of brilliant colors and beautiful abstract patterns and I badly wanted to bring a giant canvas home. That wasn’t quite possible, mostly due to luggage and price reasons, but it did cause me to begin a search for a potential DIY solution.

What’s kept me from trying this out? The thought of hanging art in the house where I am the artist. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m very critical of my own work and art is very much ‘on display’ – as opposed to maybe a repainted chair or even a room that we’ve completed. Fast forward to this spring, and my finding Ish & Chi’s and MadeByGirl’s absolutely stunning aboriginal pieces of art by artist Jeannie Mills. What a fantastic pop of color for the space! How beautiful!

I know, I know, mine does nothing to contend with the originals. But if your’e not familiar with where my inspiration came from, it’s a fun, extra large piece to have in the house and to bring in that bright coral color.

Original oil paintings (unless awesome thrift store finds – I’ve picked up a few small ones) can be pretty expensive, but when I came across thisfabric on Spoonflower while searching for other random project fabric, a semi-DIY art idea was born. Here’s that exact fabric, plus a few other designs that I loved by the same artist. (Maybe I’ll move the painting to Liv’s future big girl room and use these as the accent fabrics… that watercolor version is amazing.)

That fabric sparked the idea of creating my own canvas art to hang, and the best news yet? Spoonflower gives you the option of ordering on a canvas cloth! It’s not really as thick and sturdy as a gallery canvas, but it is hardier than your average cotton and gives a similar look to the pattern printed on it.

I really love art that is edged out in a simple wooden molding. It’s usually attached to the canvas post-production and sits maybe 1/8″ from the edge of the art (Ish & Chi actually had hers framed just like this but in white). I have a friend who’s aunt makes her own and I was inspired by her birch versions to use this Ikea frame, which worked just perfectly! and for a great price.

The third component to this project was a set of oil paints or acrylics. I have been collecting these little tubes for years and years and was so excited to finally pull my ‘painting’ box off of the bookshelf.

This box holds all kinds of trinkets that I’ve been saving for my future art days. {sigh}

But back to getting that frame all ready to go. First up was ironing out my fabric (Spoonflower ships with fabric folded rather than rolled so there are always a few decent creases) and then flipping it over and cutting to size.

I pulled the fabric nice and tight and added to the frame (with glass and mat removed).

A little super glue along the inside helped to reinforce the position of the fabric. (Photo below shows clamps which were helpful in lining up the fabric on the front side of the frame before securing in place.)

Now we’re ready to paint! Though this particular fabric would have looked great just framed and on its own. (No, I have not kid-proofed my bench seat in seran wrap , that’s just the plastic from the Ikea frame above that I eventually used to protect my table from paint smudges).

See what I mean about little creases? I used the steam option on my iron to get out the last of em before applying paint.

I chose a selection of reds, corals, crimsons, yellows and whites from my paints and began mixing up various shades that could be found in the fabric.

Then I tested my paints out an an extra piece of fabric and gingerly began applying small accent pieces of color throughout the canvas.

But soon enough I realized that the texture of paint brush strokes is really the look I was going for, and before long I had huge globs of paint on my square brush!

(My paint tray has plenty of dried paint in greens and blues and what not, but I used just reds and oranges and yellows for this project).

I slowly began to fill the canvas until nearly all of the squares in the pattern had an accent of real brush strokes (I like the look of highlighting or shadowing one corner).

The project took me an hour, maybe two. Which, in the art world, is like running a marathon at a sprinter’s time (you just can’t beat that!).

I really really love to paint. I don’t have the time (or maybe I should admit that I have had the same half finished canvases in my garage for years – one that’s maybe 15 years old?) but I do have the passion. Maybe a hobby for when I retire .

Liv helped me hang the piece. If you look closely you can see a tiny little hammer in her hand.

In case you’re curious about the door, here’s a shot that shows that the stopper halts the swinging front door just in time. The door couldn’t physically swing that far but it does make me a little less nervous knowing that there’s no glass involved with this art, either.

You can also see here how the weight of the paint on the fabric has caused it to sag a bit. I should probably go back and restretch it – or should have made that a final step before hanging. And to those of you familiar with Spanish-style homes, that’s the original solid door and hardware! It was produced in the 1930′s and while I don’t necessarily love it, it’s probably a crime here in San Diego to replace it.

Total cost for semi-handmade art? (Sandra Lee, anyone?) $25 for that great birch Ikea poster frame and $18 for a yard of canvas fabric from Spoonflower. I already owned the various paints and brushes (yard sales are a great place to pick up extras) so my grand total came to $43, which for such a huge piece is an awesome steal.

More living room posts can be found right here.