Woman in Real Life

Last week I showed you our basement bar set-up. This week I'm sharing a look at another wall in our basement. Quite honestly, until I started sharing thrifty finds on this blog, I didn't realize how many items in our house were picked up at the road side, purchased at a thrift store, flea market, auction or garage sale or passed along from others.

We live in a suburban home, completely free of any of the grand Victorian touches I had always imagined my future home would have when I was a teenager. I think that's why I gravitate towards furniture that is contemporary (and fits into a new home) but then mix things up with lots of thrifted and inherited finds and personal touches like children's art work.

As we continue with our 2016 4-month purge, the house is starting to look more tidy, a little less cluttered. We envision the basement as a place for watching TV comfortably (we bought a great sectional sofa from my sister), doing crafts (at the rustic wood table my dad gave us), partying (see previously mentioned bar) and playing games (we tackled the abundant games closet over spring break). I'm not one to hang out in the basement that often (I am never too far from the kitchen), and any time I went down there in the past, I would inevitably start tidying up. I want to keep it free of clutter so that I can enjoy our family time rather than noticing mess.


Our basement decor is very much a work in progress - once we get past the clutter we'll focus more on decor. The previous owners painted a feature wall in burgundy and we have yet to change it. For now we have made it our kids' art wall. The centre of the wall is the chalkboard, which allows for changing artwork - freedom of expression if you will. This is one of those items we acquired over the years and I honestly don't remember where!

We're going with mismatched frames for the kids' art largely because we have so many spare frames around the house - some thrifted, others from IKEA. Our craft cubby is underneath the artwork - on top of it sits my vintage (read really old) Kenmore sewing machine, my thrifted vintage sewing basket and a vintage craft cards set. I plan to hang a cord of some sort above the art wall so the kids can rotate art as they choose.

We are making good progress towards creating a place where we can hang out, explore hobbies and relax as a family. How about you? Do you feel you do enough of that?

Vintage Bliss Tuesdays - Join The Party!

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