I promised to post about my treasure hunting on Monday, and time just slipped away, so here it is 🙂

I took off of work on Monday to do some Christmas shopping. I was so successful, I had some time left over to pop into some of my favorite shops around my town.

The first stop was Nadeau. This fun shop has lots of unique carved furniture pieces. Take a look!

I want this in a farmhouse entryway. And, yes, when I see furniture, it tells me where it wants to go (mostly “take me home with you!”)

I can picture this carved, sage entertainment center in a pretty beach cottage.

I’m not loving the curved shape of this, but check out the ombre staining. Really interesting!

Shoes, hats, scarves, mittens, mail, books, files-whatever it is, I want to label the heck out of this thing and put it in my office…if I had an office. This is why I need a bigger place, so I can put all of my furniture inside!

Lingerie cabinet? Or swanky linen closet?

This piece doesn’t even need words. I mean, look at it!!! It is actually open on the back, but it’s sitting up against a glass wall. It’s so pretty and industrial, I would want all of my white stoneware collection displayed on it. *sigh*

And this little carved wonder was a “steal” compared to this one from Anthropologie.

The prices fluctuate between overpriced for some pieces and reasonably priced for others. But as you can see, they have some unique items, including this beautiful statement mirror that may or may not eventually come home with me…

It has the most intricate bird carvings, which will match my bird lamps in my bedroom. And you can’t tell, but there is a beautiful gold sheen which gives it just the right amount of elegance.

Once I left there, I couldn’t help myself, I just had to stop at Material Culture, which is only the coolest place ever. At least, it makes me feel cool because I know about it. “Material Culture? Oh, yeah, I go there…”

It’s a huge warehouse space with so much good stuff packed in, you can’t even see all of it! Lots of their items are antiques from China, India, and Africa. They have newer things too, like this fab trunk that was fully upholstered in cowhide. Even the drawers were lined in an army green felt. And they shut so smoothly, no wobbling. *swoon*

This amazing carved doorway, probably from 19th century India, was only $5,000. That may sound sarcastic, since I’m always on a bargain hunt, but seriously, if I was renovating, that seems like a small price to pay for such a dramatic impact. Look at Genevieve Gorder’s apartment reno. As soon as I saw this, I thought of her amazing bedroom doorway 🙂

Imagine brushing your teeth in this Italian-eque double sink every morning!

This stately carved mirror was so pretty in person, I had to take a close-up. See all of the detail? No reflection could compare…

And now, the piece de résistance…

Ummm, yeah, I just fainted, came to, then fainted again. I don’t have  a close-up of this, but it is completely inlayed with mother of pearl and is just absolutely magnificent. It must be 11′-0″ tall. I just want to stare at it all day…

I saw a lot of beautiful things, and then I saw this:

Hmmm…

There is one more place that I must mention in this post. The Liao Collection in Center City, Philadelphia. I was there a few times last year and have to share the photos with you. It is similar to Material Culture, in that most everything is antiques. These are all Chinese and Japanese antiques and you know that every piece has a story.

I actually purchased this Japanese chest ($1500) and the tofu mold ($500) for work. The chest is definitely one of those items that I would consider buying from work. It is just so old, you know it wants to say something. Unfortunately for me, it only speaks Japanese…but I can appreciate it’s good looks!

Now you can say you’ve seen a tofu mold in a shower…Woo Hoo!!

 

HJ and I have had this sad IKEA Malm headboard for the past 3 or so years. It was only $25.00 on Clearance, because they discontinued the finish (not surprised, it’s soooo boring…)

I had always planned on doing something else with it, but just couldn’t decide what I would like best. So a few weeks ago, HJ and I went to the fabric store and bought 2 layers of batting and a textured linen fabric, for less than $50 bucks. Score! 🙂

Here’s how we did the transformation:

1. We read a ton of other blogs that did it before 🙂

2. We measured and added about 5 inches to the sides and top so we would have enough fabric and batting to wrap around the sides to staple

3. We knew we wanted to do a nailhead trim, and several blogs said that the shank of the nailhead wouldn’t pass through thick batting. So, we cut the first layer of batting 1″ smaller all around the top and sides to give padding to the center only. Then, we spray-mounted it in place. We did this step in our well-ventilated storage space in our apartment building, so we wouldn’t ruin our floors or furniture

4. Then we wrapped the second layer of batting all the way around and stapled it to the back. We started in the center and worked our way out, as suggested in a few blogs. We also trimmed around the mounting hardware

5. Next, we just kinda guessed when we did the corners…basically, we cut the extra fabric off and left enough for there to be fluff around the edge

6. Before we wrapped the fabric, I made sure to give it a good ironing

7. We laid the headboard finished side up, so that we could make sure the fabric lines were straight. We stapled a few staples in the center of each side and top so that the fabric would be secure when we flipped the headboard over to finish stapling. See the nice “tufting” that was created on the back of the headboard with the staples? I really love that effect and wish that we could do it on the front, except that we don’t have anything to hide the staples…hmmm…?

8. HJ folded the corners nice and crisp so that I would have nothing to obsess about 🙂

9. The fabric and batting didn’t come in a width that was going to cover the entire headboard, but that was OK, because we knew it wasn’t going to be visible. So we just stapled the fabric and batting to the front, no problem!

10. Ideally, this is where we would have used our new rubber mallet to hammer in the nailhead trim, but we just ordered it today from here

We got too excited to see the *almost* final result, so we put it back into place and will put the finishing touches on it as soon as our trim arrives in the mail!

And the before again, just for fun:

Once everything is finished, we will be mounting the headboard pretty high off the ground so that it will be really dramatic! Right now it is just sitting on the floor. I will do another updated post once we get the trim attached and I am also planning on doing another before and after post of the entire bedroom, since this is pretty much the last room we’re tackling 🙂 What do you think so far?

**See an update on this post here!**

Here is our home all decked out for Christmas! Hope it makes you feel as cozy as it does for us! This is also the first time you are seeing the Living Room/Dining Room/Kitchen all finished. So, I’ll show you some Before and Afters 🙂

Hallway Before:

Hallway After:

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen After:

Dining Room Before:

Dining Room After:

Living Room Before:

Living Room After:

And some more just for fun!

We are  I am beginning to decorate for Christmas around here. So, to prolong some of my seasonal decor, I am repurposing some of my fall items.A few months ago, I paired a petite manzanita branch I bought at HomeGoods for $12.99 (much to Hunky J’s confusion “Why do you need to buy a branch when you can get them outside for free?!”) with an ominous black crow found at Michael’s for about $2.00.

But to answer your question, Darling, it’s because this one is aptly sized for vignettes, perfectly smooth, so we won’t have creepy bugs hiding in peeling bark, neutral enough so I can use it for all seasons, AND, because I saw it at HomeGoods, wanted it badly, but restrained, went back 2 weeks later and found it nestled in between a fake fern and a seashell encrusted picture frame 🙂

I decided that I would relocate Manzi to another shelf in our kitchen, where she could make friends with a sweet little cardinal bird I got when HJ and I were in Peddler’s Village with our friends last month.

So cute! He just clips right on, and he was only $4.99! As a side note, the shop where we got him had a beautiful bare tree with lots of different sized cardinals and owls made of twine and bark perched on its leafless branches 🙂 So pretty and wintry, you could leave it up the whole season long!

To confirm the awesomeness of my simple winter vignette, I came across this photo on Pinterest!

source

And that’s why the I’m the MAN-zanita branch 🙂

We FINALLY got some work done in the hallway! Here is a before picture of the hallway leading into our home:

And here is the Progress:

 

and one more, just because 🙂

 

The long blue wall opposite Owlie will soon have a picture ledge with lots of family photos. Stay tuned, hopefully HJ will do this for me this weekend, ya know, as an anniversary present!