Pinspiration Monday: Vintage bar cart

I am so over-the-moon excited about sharing today’s find with you all…

So remember last Friday when I admitted that I was on the hunt for a brass and glass vintage bar cart to add to our midcentury styled living room? Well at my mom’s birthday dinner later that day, she happened to mention that there was just such a cart at a local consignment shop in town. Bonus? It was under $50!

The next day, after a really fun tour of downtown Lynchburg lofts (I wish I had brought my camera to share all of the amazing spaces we saw), John and I made a bee-line for that very consignment shop. I tried so hard not to race through the shop only to be disappointed that the cart was gone – So I meandered as I would any other day, but my eyes did a whole lot of extra darting, searching for a hint of shimmering brass.

About halfway through the store, I saw it out of the corner of my eye. No longer caring about restraint, I practically jogged over to the cart. Amazingly, it was my absolute DREAM piece of furniture. Although the beauties pictured below from Pinterest were my inspiration images, I still  don’t think I could have possibly crafted a better version of it in my head.

Source: Cottage & Vine

Source: Reasons to Breathe

We quickly carted our new bar cart home.

I love the brass finish and the glass shelves are in perfect condition. I was happily surprised to find a cart with not one, not two, but THREE shelves for storage and display. The side bars on either side of the top shelf have this really interesting slope to them and a thin partition is created by an extra bar towards the back. John and I have dreams of bottled Coca Cola  lining the back of the top shelf someday soon…

The other criteria I had in my head other than the finishes, was a faux bamboo texture on the bars. Again, my prayers were answered with our newly purchased cart because it exactly matches another brass bamboo piece living in the space – My thrifted magazine holder! They look like a matching set.

So where did we put it? Right by the front door underneath yet another thrifted piece – The Toulouse-Lautrec print.

Here’s the spot “Before”:

And “After”:

Time to style it up! I gathered a bunch of things from around the house that I thought would bring the cart a little texture and color – Things like two glass decanters (borrowed from my sister who is waiting on a “real home,” as opposed to her current apartment, before she uses them), a glass cocktail shaker, a bottle of wine, a decorative kitchen towel, some vintage champagne glasses, a vase of silk peonies, two trays, a stack of art magazines and a silver jewelry box.

The large brown tray was actually a gift from my bridal shower – It has four photos from our engagement shoot behind the glass. Love!

Tada!!!

Here’s that silver jewelry box I mentioned – It was a Christmas gift from John’s parents and is monogrammed with my initials, which thankfully won’t change after the wedding since our last names both start with “W.” I thought the silver was a beautiful neutral against the brass and a happy surprise was that my collection of plastic cocktail swizzle sticks (another sweet gift from my bridal shower) fit perfectly inside the box.

I am just so pleased that I was able to turn my dreams into a reality with this piece. I never thought I’d find it so quickly and for such a great price. All thanks to my mom for pointing me in the right direction…

Cheers!

P.S. I am so pumped to see DreamGreenDIY on the list for Apartment Therapy’s “Homies 2012”!!! Please vote here for us if you think our blog is worthy of the nom. (We are towards the bottom of the list, or hit “control F” and type in “DreamGreenDIY”)

My brand spankin’ new chair

You probably know better than anyone that I am all about the thriftiest purchases. It’s rare that I hit up a big box store for the things we need in our home. Instead, I comb local thrift and estate stores until I find just the right piece to compliment our style. For instance, I am currently on the hunt for a brass and glass bar cart and an authentic midcentury chair, both for the living room. It might take more time, but the sense of satisfaction I get when I stumble upon it amongst piles of dusty second-hand furniture is priceless.

That being said, I have completely gone against my own grain. Instead of waiting for the perfect find, I was so drawn to a brand new piece, that I went for it. Nearly $400 later, our sunny teal living room was united with the perfect arm-chair.

I first caught sight of my latest furniture infatuation via Pinterest (of course). After seeing a pin featuring this gorgeous cream and yellow upholstered chair, I was hooked. I immediately followed along to the original link and was even further obsessed. The chair was featured in the home tour of Jess Constable, Jess LC. Do yourself a favor and click both of those links – Her space is lovely, full of affordable accessories and do-it-yourself projects, and her blog is a new daily read for me. I was incredibly inspired, so much so that I went ahead and bought my own version of her yellow statement chair, originating from none other than Target.com (P.S. It’s now close to $50 cheaper then when I bought it, so step on it if you’re interested…). I knew the warm yellow would be a perfect complement to our stencil wall, plus the midcentury vibe of the wooden legs and button detail in the cushions would perfectly match our home’s style.

Click went my mouse after a few moments of hesitant anxiety over the cost – In the end I’m so glad that I did. Several weeks later, we found a rather large package at our front door – On Valentine’s Day, no less! I actually wasn’t around for the assembly of this piece – My sweet and thoughtful fiance put it together for me as a V-Day gift. Since I wasn’t around, I couldn’t document the assembly, but John took some progress photos of the process to keep you guys in-the-know.

Here she is all done!

And here are the photos I took once I got home and had a chance to style the room.

I’m positive at this point that the lot of you have noticed the issue…Where’s Waldo? Or, in this case, where’s the bright yellow patterned chair against the bright yellow patterned wall?? As much as I wanted the new chair to sit against the feature wall and be the first thing you see when you walk in the front door, there was no way it could stay there with all the camouflaged blending going on.

I had two options:

  1. Repaint my beloved stencil wall with a neutral color and keep the chair front and center where I wanted her.
  2. Leave my beloved stencil wall as is and put the chair in a less conspicuous corner of the room.
In the end, I just couldn’t touch my stencil wall – I love it way too much to get rid of it. So instead, I switched the location of my mod office chairs with the new upholstered chair. Unfortunately, I wasn’t digging the look of both office chairs against the stencil wall, so one got the boot (any interested locals want a VERY comfortable leather office chair?? Hit me up). Here’s what we were left with in the end – Although not ideal, I am so in love with the extra pattern, color and softness the chair brings the living room.
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(See the displaced office chair in the left-hand edge of the photo below?)

The room is really starting to feel finished…Just a few more tweeks to go before we can focus on finishing the rest of the house.

  • New accessory pillows to match the mod vibe that has emerged since we bought them (I am crushing on these from Etsy)
  • Something to cover those awful exposed wires by the record shelf (seen 7 photos up)
  • Addition of the thrift store items I mentioned at the beginning of this post
  • I’d really like a larger rug – Contemplating a neutral, inexpensive rug with a wider square footage layered underneath our shag rug to create a visual illusion

So what do you think?

P.S. It’s my mommy’s birthday today!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! Can’t wait to celebrate tonight 🙂

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