Decorating the New Place: Afghan & Wall Collage

This post is going to be stuffed with pictures, fair warning ;)


When we moved in, we unpacked as quickly as possible. But I took my time with decorating. I shoved every picture frame, nick knack, and candle into a closet and left it there for a while. Now, things are finally starting to come out of the closet. It took a little bit for this apartment to start to feel like home, and now I'm finally feeling the desire to make it look like home too. Which means color and decorations and way too many candles.

So here's my start:



Color on the walls and the furniture! It wasn't necessarily on purpose that I picked brown furniture. I originally wanted a chocolate brown couch that was out of stock, and the light brown was a similar model on clearance. The chocolate brown bean bag chair was a nice way to get the brown I wanted to begin with. But it made our living room kind of blah, especially with brown carpets and cream walls. I was tempted to paint, but paint's expensive in Japan and I honestly didn't want to move all the furniture around again.

So.

First, I finally finished my crocheted afghan a few weeks ago. It was a granny square pattern I repeated over and over and over again in different colors, envisioning a colorful and cozy blanket. I actually finished it a few days before the earthquake, so it kept us warm when we didn't have power!



It's a thick and heavy blanket. It also has the blues and greens I love and wanted in the living room. I had the hardest time picking a granny square I liked that didn't seem too "granny". This fits pretty well for me though.



The blanket's also huge. Here it is on our queen bed while the comforter's in the dryer. I prefer cuddling with a big blanket that can go from my chin to over my feet, so I knew I wanted to make plenty of squares. While it took forever and I was sick of the colors by the time I sewed the last piece, I love it now.





And now onto the more recent project I've been toying with for a few weeks.



I collected all the pieces I wanted to hang, and knew I wanted to cover a big chunk of wall. One night, I mapped out an approximate area for the pictures to hang.



Then I copied the same measurements onto the floor and fiddled with the arrangement for a good couple of days. (This was a good time waster during the quake's power outage!) Jeff got a little annoyed with walking over frames, but it helped.



I took a bunch of pictures to remember the arrangement, then started hanging the pieces on the wall. It turned into a little bit of a mess, because I bought the wrong Command strips. So I had to use nails, but it was going to be a lot of nails! There were also cement beams (I have no idea what they were, but this is what our sponsor told us was back there, so I'm going with it) in portions of the wall, so I couldn't nail in certain heights. I finally gave up with just a few pieces hung and ordered the correct strips off Amazon. Then left the wall as is for over a week, which drove me insane.



It was during that week, though, that I decided I didn't want glass in all the picture frames. They always had a glare. Always. Either the bright sunlight or the lights, this wall somehow always gets light. So I could hardly see what was behind the glass (at the moment, old pictures that were in the frames before).



I could never decide what pictures I wanted, so I ordered some scrapbook paper and burlap. I was going to use both as accents to the pictures, but decided to just fill in each frame. Well, I really liked the way that turned out. I'm not sure if I'll ever fill in with pictures or not, because I like the color and pattern. The sunlight washed a lot of that out in these pictures, but they're pretty blues, browns, and greens with pattern and texture. And our wood plaques and decor are mixed in. Some kind of eclectic movie themed, Irish and pirate vignette?? I don't know, but it's all stuff we like.



This one is one of my favorites. I've had it for years and it was one of the first things I hung in our first place :) I also think it fits really, really well in this household!



I think the wall collage fits pretty well too! It fills up the wall without feeling too crowded (although if you ask my husband he'll disagree. He said he thinks all collages look cluttered, and I happily disregarded his statement and starting hanging things...) And since it has some color to it, I don't mind the white walls as much. It also has some wiggle room on each side to add more in the future, but don't tell Jeff that ;)



I'm really happy with the start of my decorating! It makes me smile and that's really all Jeff cares about. Although I used all the Command strips I ordered and was telling him I need to order them in bulk so I always have some on hand and he just rolled his eyes and tried to change the subject. (These are the Command strips I wanted, and I used them for everything but the heavy wood plaques.) It's not my fault the BX here doesn't carry the exact version I want!



If you're curious, this is the scrapbook paper I ordered. It was kind of expensive for just paper, but my options are limited here. It turned out to be nice, heavy cardstock with texture and beautiful colors, so I don't think the price is all that unreasonable for the quality. I'm trying to think of other things I can use the sheets for, since I still have a ton left.



The picture makes it look pink, but there were a lot of pretty red pages I wished I could use somewhere. I don't have red in the house though. Maybe the office needs some red???



Here's the texture I was talking about. This is heavy cardstock, so I'm sure you could use it for tons of different projects.



I also have 2 yards of burlap, minus the couple inches I cut for frames. I want to do something with it, just not sure yet. I was thinking about making a little burlap covered box to hold all my laptop cords and drives in the living room... or something else? Not too sure, but I've got a lot to work with!

So there you have it, a much more finished and colorful living room. Some of the other walls still need some attention, and the couch is calling for new throw pillows, but this satisfies my need to decorate for the time being.

Now I'm off to go stock up on Command strips so I can continue to hang things around the house and annoy my husband with my "cluttered" style. He really doesn't care what's on the walls, I promise ;)