Country Living Storage Style

On a scale of 1 - 4 (one for each chamber of my heart) this book gets a 4! It's been a while since a home decorating book has filled my heart with such love! Yes, it's about the practical subject of storage, but it's also about using vintage pieces to store (and organizationally display) the myriad of needful not-always-so-pretty objects we use in everyday life. From the five glossy photo-filled chapters for each room in the home, be it a mansion or small cottage, it was impossible to pick a favorite. Heck, I found an idea on page 2 that I've already put to use at home: I'm using an old wall plate rack to store my favorite books and magazines!!! There is page after page of colorful ideas, and in each chapter, there is a photo of a room where they point out and label five storage ideas cleverly used in the room that you could easy incorporate into your own rooms! It doesn't get any easier than that!

Huh? What's that you say? You wish you had some of the cool pieces like in the book to use in your own home, sweet home? Well, sharpen your pencil and mark these dates on your calender:

March 19, 20, 21 & 22 -- those are the next sale dates when all the Roomies will be gathering at Room With A Past to get the goods! Until then, get your hands on this book (Hearst Books ISBN 13:978-1-58816-660-9), get some ideas and get your heart pumping on all four chambers!

A Return To The Past?

There is no doubt in our minds that there has been a surge in the sale of vintage items and that the good design of vintage items is on the rise! Creative reuse of what has already been produced and purchasing fairly-priced vintage items, as opposed to higher-priced newer items, is being given high priority in today's reality. Folks are pinching pennies where they can--Victory gardens are once again being plotted as we speak, both for enjoyment and to offset the cost of produce in the family budget.

This new frugality of hunkering down at home does not mean the end of happiness or fufillment, however. It does mean using your noodle to come up with creative ways to get what you want. Staying closer to home is already more commonplace than it was a year ago--why not make it a nice place to be? That's where Room With A Past comes in. We strive to bring you unique home decor items, from accessories to furniture, at fabulous prices, topped with the cherry of our personal customer care!

With this blog, we hope to bring our fellow "Roomies" (see column at right) tips, inspiration and things we've overheard (and wish we'd thought of first!) on the subject of home decorating and design.

Will this "economic downslide" bring about a return to values of the past? A renewed attention to, and an appreciation of quality design and decorative detail? A focus on hearth, home and family? One can hope...