Mix it up

While I hate to put anything up to push V's amazing wedding work down the page, I do want to do my part for the blog and I happen to have a smidge of time this afternoon. I've been meaning to write about this area in my home for a couple of weeks now.

This is the corner wall of my dining room. The thing I love about it is the mixture of rustic and elegant, warm and cool, expensive and bargain. That makes it interesting to me as well as a little sentimental ... lots of things here hold great memories. So I'll give you a little tour of these objects!

In the background on the top shelf (my shiny shelf) you see two hammered aluminum trays given to me by my mom. She collects these, and keeps finding them at the D.I. Then she gets them home and realizes she has no other place to put them. They are hung all around the top border of her kitchen (lovely!) as well as placed in her very neat Mission-style coffee table with a display drawer under its glass top. I'm hoping you can envision what I mean there because otherwise it is hard to describe.

In front of the trays, various crystal pretties from different times in my life. The bowl was a gift from my in-laws after their trip to Czechoslovakia, probably about 15 years ago. The bell was inherited from my husband's grandmother, as was the beautiful trumpet-shaped vase. The wide vase was a wedding gift from my co-workers at Sophie Station hotel in Fairbanks in 1993. The round-topped candy dish was a D.I. find. The photo, of course, is of me and G on the day he received his Ph.D. (Same day I met Michelle Obama!)

On the lower shelf you see some more rustic items with a little bit of shiny stuff mixed in. On the left is a gorgeous African drum given to my son by my dear, dear beautiful friend Lehua. What a precious gift - obviously we are not letting the kid play with it! He can take it with him when he grows up and moves away.

Next, in the background, you can see a set of stainless steel candlesticks I bought one time when I hosted Thanksgiving at our home in California. They are just from Target - nothing too special, but good memories of being with friends. The copper bowls also came from Target. I love their generous capacity, round shape, and pretty patina. I'm nuts about copper in general.

Another hammerered aluminum dish forms the backdrop on the right on this shelf - thank you, Mom! In front of it you see a tiny polished stone vase given to me by my father in law, an avid mineral collector. Love, love, love the natural materials. And finally, some darling little milk-bottle-shaped yogurt jars holding tiny natural treasures - beach glass, driftwood, shells and stones. The yogurt that comes in these containers is called Spega. If you ever find some, get it, because it's yummy and you get a cute little jar as a bonus. Also a couple of extra neat rocks. Seems like we are always bringing home neat rocks. The big white one is actually chalk, smoothed into a nice shape by some river or other - wish I could remember now where we found it.

The shelves, by the way, came from Lowe's a couple of years ago. They now have similar shelves in their "Real Organized" line. You mount a bracket onto your wall, slide the shelf onto it, then screw in a single screw from underneath to hold the shelf to the bracket. They are surprisingly sturdy and I love the way they look - no visible support, nice and clean.

And I do still love the paint color. It was here when we moved into our house. I believe it is actually WalMart paint (which I don't so much love, it chips and peels easily on door jambs and such) and the name of the color is Hoot Owl, or something like that, if I remember right from the spare can the previous owner kindly left in the basement for us. Guess I should just man up and fix those doorjamb dings.

Anyway, the decorating lesson here is, use what you have and what you love, and don't be afraid to mix things together and show your own unique style. The drawback is, you have to keep it all dusted. So be it.

Ana Montana