As an artist, it is my dream to "decorate" your home. I would love every wall in your house to be covered in something painted by me! Haha! For that matter, I would love to paint all of your furniture and dishes too. (Why, yes, in fact I do paint furniture and place placesettings...insert shameless plug here and here!) But, as much as I enjoy seeing my own work, I would have to be the first to admit, it might be a little Julie Ann overkill to have it spread across every crevice of your living space. Even in my own home, I know my artwork's limitations.

So, with my new project I must take a more edited approach. I have recently been asked to help with the redecorating of a home. Who? Me? When I said I could paint, I didn't mean with a roller!  However, if you know me, you know when it comes to paint, I don't discriminate. Whether it's a solid color on a wall or a tiny brush stoke on a canvas, color is my world!

I am thrilled that my style has been inspiring enough for someone to ask for my opinion!

Now, I assure you this is not my new line of work, and in fact I have several canvas projects in the pipelines!! (Yay! Keep em coming, friends!) But this is an amazing opportunity to expand my reach and flex my decorator's muscle.

Therefore in honor of my new project, I thought I would share some pictures from my own home with you.  This is especially timely as we are about to depart north Georgia to live closer to Atlanta in Decatur.  So, soon all of the pictures will be taken down and the holes filled and painted over.  Bittersweet! We will be moving NEXT WEEK! EEk!!

So, enjoy the pictures, as I need to go flex my real muscles and start hauling some boxes!

Pictured below is what you see when you enter the place my husband and I have called home for the past year and a half!

       

Above is a close up of the entrance wall and our bench.

To the left we have our staircase with this painting at the bottom:

This was painted by my Aunt Karen. She was painting in a friend's art studio and had left over paint she had mixed and didn't want to waste. So she grabbed a canvas, cleaned off her brush, and created this awesome modern piece. While we were staying at her house in Seattle, my husband fell in love with it and we boldly asked to take it home with us! She obliged!

If you keep walking down the hall, instead of going up the stairs, you see the picture wall to your left. I found the quickest and best way for me to design the picture collage was to lay it out on the floor in front until I liked how all the shapes and sizes fit together.

To create a theme among the pictures I put in a splash of red in three areas of the collage:

1: We had one of our favorite pictures framed in red. 2: I matted a doily from our wedding in red.  My Aunt Ele has beautiful penmanship and hand wrote scriptures on doiles for each of our placesettings at our wedding! What a treat for us! (We had clear glass plates and guests could read the verses about love once they finished with their meal!)

3. That same aunt also handmade a card with birds and a red heart for us. I framed that as part of the collage. The red added a perfect accent.

The hallway takes you into the living space! On the left is the piano. On top of the piano you can see our "love rock."  My husband and I found a heart shaped rock on one of our hikes and I had it framed.  The framing experts thought I was a little nutty! I have it sitting on the piano now, but once we move into our new house, I will hang it up then! The funky mirror gives us a fun preview of the color across the room.

Next to the piano is the fireplace. Hanging in the center is one of the first items my husband and I purchased together for our home.

The painting had a modern tree with a green bird on it.  I thought it would be fun to paint birds on the wall as if they had flow from the painting. To save myself time and energy color matching the bird, I just repainted the bird with my wall color (from the living room accent walls) and painted the wall birds to match!

To the right of the piano and fireplace is the living room area.

You can take a closer look at my "LOVE" painting here.  And let me know if you can find the word love in it!  Turn around and you can see our media stand and box shelves.

I thought straight boxes might be a little too..boxy? boring?  So, I decided to have some fun with them.  I was able to position the boxes on books in order to screw them into place, but it was the last box I needed a little visual help with.

My patient husband kindly volunteered to help complete my visual aid (see image).

Behind the couch is one of my favorite pieces. This was a wedding gift.  It originally came in one piece.  The canvas was painted by a child in Africa. The purchase of the canvas by our friends ensured that the child would be fed for an entire year.  I loved it! What an incredibly thoughtful gift!  Yes, I cut up my favorite wedding gift!  I loved how the brown looked against the teal wall. My husband had these empty frames hanging (that's right, they were empty and hanging on the wall when I met him).  It was a perfect fit.

I cut up the canvas and was able to preserve the whole piece and stretch it out into a bigger focal point of the room. I love how it turned out and I did receive approval from the friends who gifted it.

Right around the corner is the dining room with my 1920's Country Club of the South garage sale find!  I love this unique table.

I recovered the chairs when I lived in my previous home (so you can see a hint of girl in it). The leaves pull out and there is an extra chair with arms that also goes with the set.  We purchased the light fixture from Lowes (I used to be only a Home Depot girl, but Lowes does lighting and wallpaper really well!).  I created two flower centerpieces using vases from my wedding. The centerpieces were made for Thanksgiving dinner, but I liked them so much I kept them out.

Hidden in the nooks of the built in shelves are some lemons and an owl cookie jar set from my great grandmother.

Owls are back in style now, but this was the original!

Across from our table, in our dining room is our chalkboard wall.  Everyone needs one of these! The possibilities with chalk are endless (check some out here).  My lovely friend Sarah is modeling the Christmas chalkboard for you.  

I am going to skip over the kitchen and do a few quick pictures from upstairs.  Here are some pictures from our master bedroom:  The "Love is..." picture is actually our wedding guest book.  With the help of my bridesmaids I taped out the words "love is.." with blue painters tape on white fabric and had guests sign their names and write what they believed "love is."  I also love the shelving unit we have filled with fun items and our favorite books! 

I do have a few more pieces of my artwork sprinkled about the house. This piece I created for one of  my lessons with Wellspring Living is hanging in our downstairs bathroom: 

In my hallway upstairs is a group of modern paintings I created.  Here are some close ups: 

Thanks for checking out my house!  We will see how everything comes together in our new home!!