Love The One You're With- My Notting Hill

Today I am so excited to have Michele from My Notting Hill as a guest blogger! Her blog is one that I have been reading since I first started blogging, I feel like we go way back, just like old friends.

I love Marianne's concept of "Love the One You're With" and was very excited when she asked me to participate. The reality is that we bought our house more for the location than the layout and over the years it has been a source of occasional frustration. Although there's been additions and remodeling projects, I've chosen a few spaces that weren't going to be altered but still needed to be improved upon. First up - the right corner of my living room. No matter the furniture placement, it always seemed to be a dark, forgotten corner. This was particularly troubling because the room doesn't receive much light anyway. For a number of years a large round table was there but that only seemed to reinforce the slightly off center placement of the fireplace. One day I was moving furniture around and by accident this demilune table from Wisteria ended up near this corner. Well, it seemed to work, especially when paired w/a narrow mirror I had recently bought, painted and couldn't find a place for until now. During the day the mirror picks up light from the other room and at night reflects back the light from the lamp.
This is where the black demilune table used to be - off to the side of our front door. Now there's a more practical bench that serves as a temporary place to collect kid's backpacks, etc.
Our house is a 1950's ranch and I hated how the bedroom door opened directly into the hallway right off the living room. After much complaining on my part, my husband agreed to move the door over a few feet (into a former closet) to create a small entry before you now enter the bedroom from the side. This entry is 3 1/2 ft wide and 5 ft deep and for a long time there was nothing in it, leaving it feel a bit neglected. Now I'm happy w/this narrow bamboo table that also adds interest to this space when you view it from the living room. The bamboo piece is the bottom half of a coat rack and the books stacked on top camouflage the opening where umbrellas go.

Marianne - thanks again for asking me to participate. It always feel better to love what you have than to pine for something different!

Thank you Michele! I especially love the mirror and now I have added a bamboo piece to my wish list after seeing yours.