I Believe In Art By Victoria Lynn Hall: One Wall Living Room Makeover

A hastily taken before photo of the fireplace wall in my living room.

Our living room is the room that puts the "cab" (short for cabin) in "the cabbage" (short for cabagelow). It is a spacious room with log walls that serves many functions and It has been a huge decorating challenge for me since the first day we moved here. I've just never had a clear vision for the whole space and probably couldn't afford it if I did. So I decided recently that I would just start with one wall and go from there. I chose the wall with the fireplace because I want that to be more of a focal point.

My decorating projects always start with a big dream. Basically, I ask myself what I would do if I were to win the lottery and then I try to scale it back to something more realistic. In this case, my lottery budget would go to hiring someone to bump out the walls on either side of the fireplace and building in some custom bookshelves (all my dreams involve bookshelves). My realistic alternative to this was to enlist Hippie to help me remove the log panels from the walls and put up some narrow display ledges in their place.

Display ledges instead of log cabin walls.

Ideally I would have covered the plywood you see in the photo above with something else but, to save time and money, I decided to just paint it for now. This kept my budget for this part of the makeover at a very realistic $75 and I was pretty happy with the results.

The Fireplace wall after painting.

I then had a nice blank canvas to fill in, just in time for holiday decorating. I started with the mantel.

My holiday mantel

A closer view of my holiday mantel.

Next, I started filling in the display ledges. I actually determined the spacing of the ledges on the right with my Three Kings paintings and my Wise Men collection in mind.

I think my Three Kings and Wise Men look right at home here.

On the left I placed some lovely Leland Brewsaugh owl prints I found at a thrift shop along with more Holiday decorations.

Owls and Santas.

In my lottery dreams, I would have bought new chairs for Hippie and I to lounge by the fireplace in but instead I splurged on some new blankets and pillows from Target. Our cats Motley and Isabelle had to test them out to make sure they were good enough for us.

I think this means Motley approves.

Isabelle is ready for tea time.

And with that essential stamp of approval, I believe we are all ready to settle in for the winter. At least until I get an idea for the other three walls.