Rustic Elements

Last week I expressed my love of rustic decor. See my post with examples {here}. I also promised to show you some of the ways we've showcased natural materials in our own home. 

You guys are probably familiar with our white washed walls in the living room and dining room. I'm so glad we experimented with this treatment. It could have easily been a swing and a miss (considering we didn't have a clue what we were doing), but it turned out to be a home run (at least in our opinion!). We love they way it makes the room feel casual and cozy while adding character.

Of course one of my favorite things in our entire house is the dining room table my husband built from wood we tore out of the house. It brings texture and warmth to our informal dining space.

And back in the living room... we added mirrored accent chests to each side of the fireplace soon after we moved in. They brought a little bit of glam and dimension to the space, but have you noticed the finish on them? 

The creamy paint between the mirrors has a distressed finish which allows them to fit in quite nicely (not too Hollywood glam for our wood paneled room).

And now for one you haven't seen...

I recently added an old barn wood frame to our master bedroom. The dresser display never felt quite right. Everything was a little too "cold" for my liking.

I first thought about changing the artwork, and just before Christmas when walking through historic Franklin with hubs, his mom, and some of her friends we saw this beauty...

I loved the entire look of it, but with a sold sign (and ridiculous $600+ price tag anyway) we immediately thought a DIY was in order. Hubs spouting off, "I can make that" was like music to my ears.

But THEN my sweet mother-in-law remembered she had a very similar frame sitting in her garage. She said we can take a look at it next time we were in town and keep it if we wanted. For real?


Ok, now I was excited. I was hoping this would be just what we needed for our master.

So then the dresser vignette went from this... 

To this... 

First I thought about replicating the canvas and different quote 

but ended up leaving it just like this...

I love it leaning up against our current canvas!

I even love the rustic tangled wire on it. Adds character, don't you think?

On another note, we also recently had five dead trees removed from our yard. Yes, FIVE! I'm glad we did it in the winter so hopefully we won't miss the leaves as much. Overall, I'm just glad they're outta here though. I'd rather have a little less shade then a tree truck through my house! 

Why I'm telling you about our dead trees? 

Because I asked the nice tree guys to cut me two stumps about 2 feet tall. My original plan was strip the bark and make plant stands for each side of the door... or something. 

However when I came home, I was very happy they obliged my odd request, but I didn't know how BIG they would be!  I'm pretty sure a friend of ours had back pain for a few days from moving one of them into the garage for me! Oops. 

Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them. 

Any ideas? 

Plant stand? Really big cake stands? End table?