A Designer At Home

Creating An Atmosphere With Artwork In A Hallway

January 18, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

I know a lot of times the hallway ends up being the family photo catch all. It’s great to have a place, and better yet multiple places, to display our love for family and friends but I feel like I see a lot of people use that as a crutch for getting more creative with this space. Hallways can totally be decorated and they should feel like a space more than just the passage to other spaces. Essentially I beleive that everyone should love being in every part of their home, even if it’s not technically a room.

So a big part of what I’m trying to do with my 3 week hallway refresh is to make it feel cozy and like it is it’s own space. In last week’s design reveal I shared a piece of artwork, but it doesn’t end there. I’m pulling in multiple pieces of art for a couple of reasons.

In a space without windows, it can get even more depressing and dull than it already is. Creating a portal to another place with a piece of photography art of an outdoor space helps tell the story of emotion you want in the space. I want a happy and cozy vibe in my space so when you’re first entering the hallway, there’s a very large print with an outdoor field shot. This is my main “window” for the space.
It can also be difficult to make a space without windows or natural light feel alive because nothing could live without the sun. So I decided the way I would combat the lack of plant life this space would have by bringing in photos of some of my favorite plants- succulents! I’m using these in a vignette at the end of the hallway to help make the trek down it a bit more pleasing.

If I were refreshing any other space, I would look to artwork to help bring together the color palette and assist in telling the story of the space. The story for my space has a basis of cozy. But the story goes on to more than that. We are a family who values happiness and other cultures. So there’s happy photos, happy artwork and global inspired frames and decorative pieces.

To help tell this story, I partnered with minted.com for the artwork in this space. I’ve always enjoyed their vast selection of custom frames but they’ve added a metal line that I know a lot of people are going to be thrilled with. Because the decor is heavily metallic and rustic, I used the copper frame and the natural french farmhouse frame.

The prints are limited edition prints Canyon Flowers, Slow Zebra and Fero Cactus.

I’ll be back again tomorrow with a progress update on the hallway refresh the rest of the week with more cozy tips for hallway decorating.

Be sure to stop by, visit and show some love for my friends participating in this challenge. They’ve got even more room refreshing advice for you today!

New Year, New Room Refresh Challenge Participants:

Casa Watkins

Shabby Grace Blog

Domicile 37

Pretty Practical Home

Up To Date Interiors

A Designer At Home

Iris Nacole

Vintage Romance Style

This Is Our Bliss

White Dog Vintage

Seeking Lavender Lane

Curbside Mirror With Character

January 14, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

Hey There! How are you guys doing? Find anything cool on the side of the road recently? I did! I’m always too afraid and embarassed to pick up items on the side of the road. I always imagined that my trash treasure wasn’t actually trash and the person would come out yelling at me to go away. I’m ridiculous with the things I think up sometimes.

I finally conquered the fear recently one night when taking my son for a late evening drive. He likes to go by the public works building and look at the trash trucks. He’s obsessed with them. So that’s what we were doing when I noticed that there was something resting against the fence separating the parking lot from the city vehicles. I could make out that it was a large mirror and it looked like wood. I pulled on my big girl pants, jumped out of the car and barely fit it into my little car.

My favorite detail is the top part. The mirror itself is big but not that huge but the extra detail at the top gives it a lot of substance

It’s actually plastic. But still looks cool and was completely free! I’m always eyeing the side of the road now.

I think I’ll end up using it in the hallway (I’m doing a 3 week makeover on it for the New Year New Room Refresh Challenge). Hallways can be such a dark spot. I’m hoping the mirror will help bounce around the light and brighten things up a bit

Since it’s plastic would I be crazy to paint it? I’ve never really painted anything and want to try. The mirror looks cool but I’d hate to ruin even a fake beauty.

Now that I’ve had a chance to share a thrifty find with you, let me share other thrifter’s finds with you by sharing my features from the #ThriftScoreThursday feed. I hope you like awesome vintage/thrifted/found finds!

I have a lot of features today. I’m kicking it alone for TST since the other hosts are dealing with an array of things- keep them in your prayers! So I figured I’d show extra love to the feed today.

Click Here To Check Out #ThriftScoreThursday on Instagram

@mariaski63 Tusk-tusk. ☝?️↔️ ? #elephant #teapot #elephantteapot #teapotcollector #decorativeteapot #tea #ceramic #pillow #asian #asiancharacters #thrifted #thriftscore #thriftstorefind #thriftstorescore #thriftscorethursday	@oscarbravohome Omg the sun is out! My best friends @2ladiesandachair tagged me to share #WIDN and after taking down my Christmas decor my home felt like it needed some freshness. So I bought some …	@pamsimpledetails Mondays aren’t so bad! ? Sneak peek of a lamp I scored….$10 at the thrift store! ? ? I just now realized in all of my excitement I didn’t even check to see…
@erin_coleen The beginnings of my #thrifted seascape collection. The painting on top is the one I needed help with identifying the artist signature.	@annabode It’s finally here! ALL my tips for decorating your home with #craigslist — click the #linkinprofile. Tag someone you know who thrifts! @ashleymuirbruhn	@ericareitman Probably my fave purchase of the day from the #rosebowlfleamarket A giant, yummy, soft, Alpaca pillow from Peru. But also who cares about fluffy Alpaca pillows when you’re shopping with the one…

And that’s it from me! Visit me on Instagram @ADesignerAtHome since that’s where I’ll be chillin’ today.

How To Save Buying Furniture Online

January 13, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

I’m sure you’ve seen everyone’s secrets by now. But last night I saved so much more on the dream piece for my hallway refresh that I had to whip out the laptop and share with you what I did so maybe you can save some moolah, too!

The piece that I shared in yesterday’s mood board I found on the Wayfair.com site. It’s the Vintage Dongbei Style 2 Door Cabinet by Antique Revival. I’ve been absolutely smitten with it. I spent a lot of my evening moping about it and rechecking Craigslist for something similar. Husband told me to just buy it, but I couldn’t justify the $240.

I found a few other cabinets that I liked. But they didn’t totally jive with the vision I had. I had to have that old wood look. The big knots and the unique hardware. And they were still right around the $200 range. I wanted to be more like $150.

When factoring in artwork and lighting and rugs and all the other decorative things I wanted to fit into the budget, $40 is a lot from $200. And $200 is far off from $150.

When Craigslist kept coming up short and I couldn’t find anything else that I liked from Wayfair, Target, Pier1, LampsPlus, Walmart, West Elm and World Market, I figured I’d Google search the image to see if I couldn’t find anything similar per Google’s standards.

If you’ve never done that before, go to images.google.com and click on the camera in the search bar. It’ll then give you two options, to upload a picture to search for or to search by image. You can either right click the image and “copy image image address” or right click and save the picture to upload.

This all matters because it’ll show you a list of web pages that have that image on it. Start clicking on the links. I visited all of the first 2 pages. That’s when I found the same cabinet on Overstock‘s site. For less!

$40 totally makes a difference! I can put that $40 into something else for the space. But wait, there’s more!

If you read here regularly, you probably know now that I am an Ebates user. I’ve used it for 4 years. So it’s pretty much habit now to check Ebates to see if the place I’m shopping has a cash back option. Overstock had a 2% cash back when I checked. Better yet, Ebates also has coupon offers. Ebates had a 15% off Furniture promo. Sweet!

So the chest I just had to have for my hallway came out to $174.24. Free Shipping. And I’ll get 2% of that back through Ebates. I saved $65 on a piece I wanted to pass up on. And it ended up being cheaper than the less exciting contenders.

To Sum It All- Save Buying Furniture Online:

Google Image Search The Item
Go Through The Listings To Find The Cheapest Retailer
Search The Retailer In Ebates For Coupons & Cashback

I hadn’t actually had anything planned to post today but a $65 savings seemed like it warranted a share with you guys. I hope this helps some of you!

Hallway Decorating: New Year New Room Refresh

January 12, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

Hey guys! It’s 2016 and it feels like a good time to give new life to a new project, amiright? I’ve been working on the bathroom for ages now and I had to take a little bit of a break. So when my friend Stephanie from Casa Watkins asked if I’d be interested in joining in on a challenge- New Year New Room Refresh I was happy to accept. The space I chose to refresh is not a room per say, but rather the space leading to lots of spaces- The Hallway. Because hallway decorating is totally a thing, right?

We have one long narrow hallway to leads to a couple closets, the only bathroom in the house and all the bedrooms. There’s 1 light fixture that doesn’t provide much light for the space and no natural light, even with the doors open because we have awnings that deflect a lot of natural sunlight (project for the spring, maybe?)

Why make pretty spaces if I don’t like heading to those spaces, I thought to myself. So that’s the space I’ve narrowed in on.

The main challenges of the space that I plan on addressing:

Lack of Light
Lack of Plants
Lack of Color
No Rug- hard and cold floors are not cozy
Ugly brass doorknobs
Storage (there’s never enough!)
Eyesores On The Walls

Hallway Decorating Thoughts:

The light should be pretty easy. It’s a frosted boob light now so there’s plenty of room to improve it. I already cheated and painted the walls (see which tools made the job easier here!) a bright white which does a lot for a space without natural light.

I can’t put real plants in here unless I want to remember to rotate them through spaces with real sunlight. But, I do think I have an interesting idea to bring plants in without bringing plants in. Plants are pretty much a top 5 necessity for decorating with me, which you could probably tell.

I like color and I feel like that it brings life and warmth to a space. So artwork and a colorful rug is a must. I’ll see if I can work up anything else, but for now I’m relying heavily on great artwork and a great vintage rug.

No rug should be easy. As I mentioned yesterday, I did some rug shopping recently!

It seems the Pinterest trick of spray painting door knobs holds up well so I’ll probably do that instead of forking out those kinds of dollars for all new hardware. Next trip to Home Depot will involve some Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint for sure.

There’s 3 closets in this hallways but I want to add a small chest or cabinet at the end of the hallway to make the space feel more like a room and for additional space to store linens.

And then there’s the eyesores on the wall. The thermostat and the other dials and knobs and outlets on the walls are ugly. I’ll have to get creative but I want them hidden. With all the other pretty visions floating around in my head, I’ve got to figure something out to conceal these. Otherwise they’ll be a huge buzzkill in the overall design. Any ideas?

I’d also like to replace the doors and trim, but that’s not in the plan for the refresh since that would take too much time for a 3 week challenge! And too much money, just being real here. We replaced the trim in the bathroom so eventually we’ll bring the other spaces together but for now this area is simply getting a facelift.

Make sure you’re following along for all the updates and ideas and please check out my friends who are also participating in the challenge:

New Year, New Room Refresh Challenge Participants:

Casa Watkins

Shabby Grace Blog

Domicile 37

Pretty Practical Home

Up To Date Interiors

A Designer At Home

Iris Nacole

Vintage Romance Style

This Is Our Bliss

White Dog Vintage

Seeking Lavender Lane

Boho Bath and Kitchen Buys

January 11, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

I can’t believe we’re already nearly halfway through January. I ended up doing a lot of selfish shopping for myself around the holidays and I thought I’d share the boho bath and kitchen purchases with you. Because you guys get me, I’m sure you’ll totally get the excitement behind these buys. And I think they kind of give a small glimpse into where things are going these next few months (I gave a vague forecast in this post). And, of course, they’ve got a boho style I think you’ll enjoy.

[Read more…]

Vintage Family Jewels

January 7, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

It feels a bit strange to sit down and write a #thriftscorethursday post! We’ve taken the last 2 weeks off to enjoy The Holidays and it was so nice to decompress and focus on other things. But I’ve missed chatting thrifty finds so I’m excited to jump back into the swing of things and share what a recent score of mine as well as loads of great thrifting inspiration from the #thriftscorethursday feed on Instagram. Yay!

First I’ll get my find out of the way since I’ve already sortof spilled the beans on it anyways.

A few weeks back my grandmother gave my mom a large jewelry box full of vintage jewels from my grandma’s husband’s mom. They’re getting to be pretty old and maintain 3 properties so they’ve slowly been passing along duplicate items or things they just don’t need hanging around anymore.

My mom knows I just live for this stuff so when I came over for a visit, she told me to take first grabs on anything I liked. There were tons of things to pick through, and my OCD-like self had to sort and bag everything, but I also found a lot of stuff that I wanted to keep.

There’s the necklaces that I think suit my style and look perfectly. And the necklace charms only need the right chain to be chic. And the watch my dad had snuck off and gave to me later. I love it! It doesn’t photograph well since it needs some repairs- one day though!

And then there’s the lot of brooches I scored. Many have matching earring, too! I have a fun idea for these in the
future (just too busy with other things right now), so for now they’re sitting in bas so they don’t get damaged.

I didn’t want to take anything that was broken because I’m notorious for holding onto broken things for far too long. I just end up tossing it years later.

But there were a couple pieces with really interesting detail. I just couldn’t pass them up and risk them getting tossed aside.

Pretty cool, right? It’s the second time I’ve inherited jewels from a deceased family member and it’s still such a special moment.

If I can find a fashionable way to share styled pics with them, I’ll post them to Instagram @adesignerathome

And now for the heaps of jealousy inducing thrift scores. You may want to skip these if you envy easily 😉

@mariaski63 is an incredible thrifter. Here are 3 she shared while we were out.

@mariaski63 Welcome, new year! I court you! ?✨??✨? #chinoiserie #chinoiseriestyle #chinese #chineseart #asian #asianart #asiandecor #plate #decor #decorative #decorate #chinesedecor #madeinitaly #wonyltd #wony #rug #textile #thrifted #thriftscore #thriftstorefind #thriftstorescore #thriftscorethursday

@mariaski63 ✖️ marks the spot. #wicker #rattan #vintagerattan #sidetable #footstool #rattansidetable #rattanfootstool #peacocksidetable #peacockfootstool #boho #peacocktable #peacockstool #peacock #bohemian #bohostyle #bohochic #jungalow #jungalowstyle #bungalowfurniture #vintage #vintagefurniture #vintagestyle #thriftscore #thriftfinds #thriftstorefind #thriftstorescore #thriftscorethursday #goodwillhunting #goodwillfinds — @mariaski63 ✖️ marks the spot. #wicker #rattan #vintagerattan #sidetable #footstool #rattansidetable #rattanfootstool #peacocksidetable #peacocktable #peacockstool #peacock #bohemian #bohostyle #bohochic #thriftscore #thriftfinds #thriftstorefind #thriftstorescore #thriftscorethursday #goodwillhunting #goodwillfinds

@mariaski63 Lord of the Rings. The background for these ? brass napkin rings I scored at an estate sale, is from a book I also thrifted, "The World We Live In" (Editors of LIFE magazine & Lincoln Barnett, 1955). It is filled with various stunning illustrations & photography. Here's more on this photo..."Uplifted land, a fold of layered rock raised by subterranean pressure, created Sheep Mountain on Wyoming's Bug Horn River. Millions of years ago the once-level sediments of an ancient sea bed were arched up into a massive dome far greater than the present mountain. Assailed by frost, wind and rain, it too was worn away. But its inner spine and a rampart of concentric hogback ridges remain as monuments to the ceaseless conflict between earth-shaping forces." #brass #napkinrings #brassnapkinrings ##vintage #tablesetting #tableware #placesetting #brassaddict #brassforeva #brassisback #brassisbadass #estatesalefinds #thrifter #thrifted #thriftstorefind #thriftscore #thriftscorethursday #naturephotography #lifemagazine #theworldwelivein #1955 #sheepmountain #bighornriver #wyoming — @mariaski63 Lord of the Rings. The background for these ? brass napkin rings I scored at an estate sale, is from a book I also thrifted, “The World We Live In” (Editors of LIFE magazine & Lincoln Barnett, 1955). It is filled with various stunning illustrations & photography. Here’s more on this photo…”Uplifted land, a fold of layered rock raised by subterranean…

And then there were lots of ornate treasures shares. I’ve recently started an Imari ceramics collection and I think the piece on the very far right may be an Imari piece. The gorgeous details in those glasses and that mirror are everything I want in life right now.

@reposhture Look at this amazing Indian inspired mirror I just picked up at the Red, White, & Blue! Delish! #thriftshop #thriftscorethursday #thriftingfinds #bohodecor #eclectic #indian

@urvintagegirl It's almost a crime that I got these for $1.00 ea .. Some folks just don't know what they have. So I just handed her $5 and walked away with them. My win and it completes my set #barcartstyling #culverglasses #urthriftygirlfinds #barcartaccessories #mycollection #finditstyleit #madmenstyle #glamglasses #hollywoodregency #midcenturymodern #thriftscorethursday #thriftfinds #fleamarket #chestersc #glassware #barglasses #rockglasses #thriftingdiva — @urvintagegirl It’s almost a crime that I got these for $1.00 ea .. Some folks just don’t know what they have. So I just handed her $5 and walked away with them. My win and it completes my set #barcartstyling #culverglasses #urthriftygirlfinds #barcartaccessories #mycollection #finditstyleit

@vwbuggythrifter Rain keeps the thrifters away ... but not this girl. Rainy winter nights are perfect for having the whole store to yourself. Picked some ginger jars for $5.99 and $3.49 both made in Japan. Funny story my mom collected Chinoiserie as a kid as I thought it was hideous and HATED dusting it all. In fact mom still has some pieces in her garage...which I need to raid soon. And here I am 20 years later buying it all up in thrifts. #becomingmymother #scarystory #thriftscorethursday #salvationarmyfinds #thiftedhomedecor #chinoiserie #gingerjars — @vwbuggythrifter Rain keeps the thrifters away … but not this girl. Rainy winter nights are perfect for having the whole store to yourself. Picked some…

Be sure to stop by Cassie, Brynne, and Crystal today, click on their pretty faces below to head over to their blogs. And check out the #thriftscorethursday feed and tag your finds!

Want To Join In? Here’s The Rules!

Want to host? Got an Instagram and Blog? We want to hear from you! Fill out this form for details.
We want you to participate! Hit up your local thrift stores, craigslist, yard sales, estate sales, side of the road, anything! Thrifty doesn’t necessarily mean from a thrift store. We want to see your good deals, wacky finds and treasures.
Don’t feel like you need to save those finds for Thursdays! Yes, features are shared on our blogs and Instagram on Thursdays, but we’re all checking in on (and using!) the hashtag all week long. So, when you see/find it, feel free to share it!
Each week, Trisha from Black and White Obsession, Cassie from Primitive and Proper, Brynne from The Gathered Home, Myself (A Designer At Home) and occassionally a guest co-host will pick a favorite thrift score or two to feature! So please note that by linking up with #thriftscorethursday, you are giving us permission to share your finds via social media or on our blogs.
Please remember that we can only share love for photos shared on public accounts. If your profile is private, we can’t see your finds.