HILL COUNTRY LIVING -DAY 25 OF THE 30 DAYS OF BLESSINGS

One of the reasons I consider our living room a blessing is because of the time and effort I spent decorating it so that it would represent my feelings of the Texas Hill Country and ranch living.
The paint color, for instance, took many trips to Sherwin-Williams trying in vain to get the right color of brown. Every time I would go in to their store and try to explain what I wanted, I came home with a color that reminded me more and more of the color of flesh.
Jeffrey Dahmer would have loved these colors.
Finally, and to the delight of our contractor *they can get so snippy*, I had a brilliant idea!
I went to the chicken house, grabbed a brown egg, drove to Sherwin-Williams, pulled the salesman out of the broom closet I saw him run into when I drove up, and told him to picture the brown egg held up in front of a herd of goats..............THAT was the color I was looking for!
Now, was that so hard??? Look at those brown walls - perfect.
You're looking at the living room from the entry hall in this first picture.
This second picture has you on the other end of the room looking towards the entry hall.
And I must tell you.....when we remodeled the "big house" as we call it, we had to take it down to the studs. Frank the Tank mumbles to this day that it would have been cheaper to build a new house....
The hardwood floors are original.....
The "coffee table" is an old beat up table from the basement of an 1800's department store in downtown Kerrville, Schreiner's Department Store, that closed this summer. We love it!

This is the southeast corner of the living room - you can see into the entry hall in this picture........When we took it down to the studs we discovered that there was no insulation in the front, south-facing, walls. This is because the cold wind would blow out of the north - most houses in south Texas built in the late 40's and early 50's didn't have insulation in the south walls. I thought that was interesting. This bookcase was original *except for the doors*. If you stand in just the right spot and look at them you can see that they're a wee bit crooked.......you're looking at the northeast corner of the living room.
The fireplace next to the bookcase is original and was built using the same stone as the exterior of the house......and if you look above the fireplace at the picture hanging......it's an original oil in the original chipped and warped frame. On the back of the painting it describes the scene, a snow storm, the year it was painted and the owner's name, a resident of Center Point. I "did" the entire room around this painting.
This leather chair sits at the end of the fireplace at the entrance into the dining room and kitchen area.
This very old armoire from Mexico is on the west wall of the living room and houses our television......though it's big enough to hide a body. The thing is huge and according to my husband and all of his friends that helped move it in to the house, it's really heavy *grin*.
This is the cozy corner of the sitting area. Big fluffy down pillows that envelop you when you sit down....hmmmmm. I picked out the fabrics in an attempt to emulate the feeling of the Hill Country and really like all of the deep red color in the furniture and the window treatments.

I love this room and the feeling of "home" that it invokes. I tried really hard to make it a place where you would want to curl up under an afghan and visit or watch T.V. with someone you love, or if you were a bunch of teenager boys, you really couldn't hurt anything.

I think between the filthy chicken egg, the deep reds, leather, hardwood floors, paintings and window shutters that I was successful because, like I said, I love this room.

THIS ROOM BLESSES ME BECAUSE I PUT SO MUCH OF ME INTO IT.

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