decor: closet shopping

My hands-down favorite place to go shopping for home decor is ... my mom's basement. There are decades worth of flea market, antique store and thrift store finds in storage in that basement. Oh, you aren't using that stool anymore, are you, Mom? Oh, that bowl would look so good in my house, Mom. She's a good sport about it.

On a related note, my second favorite place to go shopping? Grandma's basement.

And I've recently discovered my third favorite place: my own closet!

When Tony and I moved into our house, I got all organized. As we were unpacking, I gathered all of the home decor items that weren't going on display and put them all in a big pile. And then I sorted everything into four categories: small art, large art, household breakables and household miscellaneous. I put everything into large Rubbermaid containers and labeled them clearly. (Is it hoarding if everything is organized?)

A few weeks ago, I wanted to change things up around the house, so I dug out all of those containers and started rooting around. And several areas in my house ended up getting refreshed with things I forgot I even had. 

In the corner of the dining room, I have a dresser next to our table for extra storage, and here's how I ended up dressing up the area:

(The dresser, by the way, was a Freecycle find. I love its cool deco style, but it needs a fresh coat of white paint and a little TLC, so I'm not going to show it to you ... just yet.)

I'd forgotten about this print, which Tony and I bought at an art gallery in the middle of nowhere, Arizona, when we lived out west. I have my living room and dining room area done in turquoise with pops of orange, so the colors in this painting are perfect. I stole the matting from another painting that's in storage. And my dad and I made this frame and another identical one several years ago, and had intended to put my college diplomas in them, but we don't really have an appropriate space in my small house for displaying college diplomas. So I'm borrowing it for now.

The frame is stained light, and I like the way it looks next to this dark wood box:

I also brought that vintage planter out of storage. I'm kind of obsessed with old planters, by the way. I love the way they look, and they're perfect for storing all kinds of little stuff. TV remotes. Jewelry. Keys. Change. Love em.

And I've told you before the story about these vases. I dig how they look on the dresser. The sleekness and shininess of the vases and planter mix well with the roughness of the wood box and frame.

So that's my newest adventure in home decorating. I'll keep you posted on fixing up that dresser.