Home decorating hints...

[donkortajr]

hello,
I'm trying to redecorate our family room at home (on a budget)and wonder if anyone has any ideas or suggestions. I'm a collector, and my wife, the stay at home mom is a minimalist. Looking for ideas with a Disney theme to redo a 28x17 family room to accomodate my many collections (plates, mugs, Coca-Cola, Disney, books, G.I.Joe) but in a very Disney and/or early american design. I absolutely love things ling main Street, Haunted Mansion, and the dark green paint (anyone know the color) on so many things like rails and light posts at the Magic Kingdom.

All ideas welcome.
Don

 

[iluvdisney]

I actually use the collector decorated plates to line my room like a border. It sure does attract the visitor's eyes here. Some of my other collectibles are on bookshelves and in curios. Don't know if this helps your design ideas.

 

[flyinglizard]

After all is said and done, you and your minimalist wife will have to agree on what color schemes, wall hangings, display cases, etc. to put into the room. Minimalist vs. pack rat, huh?

Check out the Disney Gallery Paint by Behr selection at Home Depot. For the green you are looking for, check "100 Acre Trees"... A bit brighter and more colorful than what they use on the lamp posts, but will still look green in incandescent light at night. The exact lamp post color would look black at night. Very ugly. Don't use a lot of that dark green! You'll find a lot of other bright colors in the Disney/Behr paints that would be found on Main Street or throughout the parks.

Maybe search eBay for some lamp post signs that would be colorful to hang, or some vinyl banners from the park events. The banners will look great hung from towel bars appropriate to your decor.

Cheap display cases are rare. Good Luck! Display cases should have excellent lighting. Open shelving is less expensive but the collectibles will need dusting regularly.

A simple "mickey head" is composed of one large circle, two equal smaller ones. That might look good on the walls. If that would have interest, make the circles by outling household articles of the appropriate size; plates, saucers, jar lids- depends on what size you want to create.

That's a start, use your imagination and don't be afraid to use color.

 

[LindaBabe]

Once upon a time, I bought a Cybis Porcelain owl. She was very expensive and precious. Because I loved her, everyone started getting owls for me as gifts. I had them from all materials from coal to pewter. We moved to Germany and my landlady wanted to arrange them. She did - all in one spot - it looked like an invading army. They are all gone now, except the first one, which brings me a LOT more pleasure than the multitudes ever did, AND requires a lot less dusting.

Very often collections, which start out as a few carefully chosen items, suddenly grow like crazy and then it's about quantity instead of quality. I've found it's a fine line between "collection" and "clutter".

Since your wife is a minimalist, I suggest promising to dust your collections yourself, and choosing one of the following ideas:

1. Box up all the collections but one. Figure out how to display that collection attractively, together, not scattered about the room. A grouping of similar items has more impact than having them spread out. Rotate the collections in and out of storage one at a time, monthly, or quarterly, or annually.

2. Pick the cream of each collection, an odd number of items - say 5 or 7, and display each as a group. Store or sell the rest.

 

[Dom13]

Having just bought a house and finding I had enough art work to hang art least one piece on each wall I decided to theme some of them.

This is my computer room. I painted it a periwinkle blue and have themed it to the villains and NBC. I am still looking for a small, hanging shelf unit to display some of the more knick-knack type villian over on the blank wall near the window. I also hope to get a big fig or 2 for the room.

Comp. Room1

Comp. Room2

My bedroom is themed Peter Pan. It is still very much a work in progress, hence the Marvin Martian lamp .

Bedroom1

Bedroom2

I am planning on theming my spare bedroom Marvin Martian and the living toom is general Disney. Not much to show in either of those rooms yet as I'm still trying to find everthing!!