For the first time in a long time, I went thrifting yesterday. Now that I have sold my house and bought another, things have calmed down and I have a bit of spare time before the packing nightmare begins. (I don’t want to say anything else about the house because it’s in my lawyer’s hands right now and I don’t want to jinx it, but as soon as it’s a done deal I will post some photos). I ended up going a little nuts at my favourite thrift shop. It’s about an hour away in a small town west of the city, and it proved to be worth the drive. And luckily, I had my parent’s SUV to fill. Since I am moving, there will unfortunately be no photos of these in their new homes anytime soon. I am just going to have to pack these up for the time being. And there are a couple other things I bought but they are for my niece for Christmas and my sister doesn’t want to see them early.

UPDATE: We went to yet another of my favourite thrift stores this afternoon. Bought more junk. Must stop going thrifting. Very dangerous. I am broke.

Sean Johnson’s interior design firm was established in 1992 in New York and has become very successful over the years. “The firm’s ability to accommodate a true diversity of tastes, atmospheres, and specific collections of fine art makes them a favorite of discriminating clients who value a design studio whose comprehensive understanding of the history of style and art results in highly developed environments of rich sophistication.” The firm’s portfolio has so many fabulous elements that caught my eye, from the antique settee, to the bold yellow walls and couch, to the gorgeous colours in the little girl’s room.

The other day I spent a bit of time perusing the site Normal Room looking for photos for a post. It’s a great site for ideas on how to decorate “normal” spaces on “normal” budgets. After some time digging around (why so many photos with Christmas trees???), I found a selection of photos that I think are far from normal (my favourites are above).

David, who has a 32″ flat screen TV, sent us an email about a design dilemma he has and it goes a little something like this: “Why does it seem that no one in the magazines or design sites has a TV? We have a micro-sized house with one living area. We like to watch movies every now and then on our couch in said living room, but we don’t want the TV to be the focal point of the room. We feel like a grouping could be done that would minimize the impact of the TV while still having it across from the couch, but I can find no inspiration in magazines or online to help me find the answer I seek.”

I personally think flat screen TVs are kind of nice to look at and don’t need to be distracted from, but hey, I see David’s point. My favourite is when the TV is positioned in a convenient place in the room in terms of design aesthetics, but you can’t view it easily from any given chair or couch. I saw this exact scenario this afternoon on an old episode of Home to Stay. Gimme a break people!!! So I went digging around my photo stash and came up with some photos to help David and anyone else out there with this common problem. Hope this helps. (I added a photo of my living room – I found that by filling the wall around the TV with photos, the TV was way less obvious.)

kontakt Magazine	Christopher Gaona
Form Architecture	Domino
Studio Ilse	Kenneth Brown
Robyn Karp	BKSK Architects
fernlund + logan architects	Jerry Jacobs
The Lawrence Group	Pappas Miron
PointClickHome	Domino
Nicholas Haslam	my living room