How to transform a niche

Searching for small projects around your home that completely transforms a room?  We are excited to show you how we transformed our niche on a budget.  

I am going to share with you a part of our living room you have never seen before.  We have a niche' in the wall right when you walk into our living room to the left.  After we purchased our home I often wondered what I was going to do with it.  I also wondered what the lady of our  home had adorning her walls inside this niche' once upon a time...  

What made her decide she needed one?  Was she a glass collector?  Did she have a collection of some sort to place in there that she was proud of and wanted to showcase?  I always wonder these things when it comes to older homes... what makes a person decide a home needs something? I like to think there is a purpose instead of it was the style and everyone else had one so they decided to put one there too.

I am too much in my own head to think that someone would want what others have... in fact, I love being different... having unique items in our home, never marching to the same beat as others.  I am comfortable being myself, I always have been... I especially love walking with my head in the clouds and dreaming up whatever catches my fancy at the moment.  

You can see here above, I had some odd pieces displayed... an Easter egg in a pot?  A glass tree also in the same pot?  A plate standing up... a few knick knacks here and there... didn't really make sense, did it?  Looks like a make over is on the horizon.

I like to think some of the items I have had displayed in our niche' were items that would have graced the glass shelves in 1950 when our home was built...  but I also like to think that our own stamp is on each and every inch of our home.  At least that is the goal... we haven't achieved it yet.  I hope to some day, but until then... we will keep taking it one day at a time, one project at a time, and making changes as we can and dream up.  

Being able to use my creativity in our home has been such a delight.  I get to be free, no rules, no one telling me what we can and cannot do... it was really a blank slate when we purchased our home since we knew Driving Miss Daisy was not going to live here, I mean, I am an old soul, but I am not old yet in a matter of speaking... and some of the design choices here, I decided was not my style to look at day in and day out... 

I am a full fledge vintage lover, but there were some aspects I did not love about our home.  I have thoroughly enjoyed looking back at the photos of that first day when we got the keys and how I went along and took photos of each and every room... I have also enjoyed looking back on in-progress photos of some of our rooms too.  Wow, some of those changes really made a huge impact. Our foyer was something that I could not believe how much it has changed over the years.  Then we made a few more updates to the foyer... I always knew we would transform this home... and I just had a feeling we would love it too...

My plans from the beginning were to always document progress of our home from beginning to end... where does it end though?  We are unsure... I think we will always think of projects we would like to do/try here.  Originally I thought I would make a book for Mr. Vintage of our progress, and then I decided to think along the lines of a grander scale, covid happened, and so the blog was born... it became the perfect way to document the progress and projects that we have completed here while being able to connect with like minded people during a dark time in all of our lives... 

Did you know Mr. Vintage never realized how many photos I had taken of our home and the progress we have made?  I think when you live somewhere and see the same walls everyday, you tend to forget what your home looked like when you moved in.  You may not always appreciate the updates and changes you have made until you sit back and really think about where you started... When my husband has free time, he looks though our blog posts and says I do not remember you taking all of these photos... I just smile and tell him I never want to forget where we started and how we have progressed... and where we will end up... who knows?

I showed you above what the niche' looked like before we got started giving it a make over.  I removed all of our pieces, removed the glass shelves, and Mr. Vintage removed the metal strips on the inside of the niche' to be able to wallpaper it.  Yep, wallpaper... again... such a small, easy, budget friendly project, yet at the same time something that really changes the look of a room.  

I will never allow wallpaper to cover all of our walls in our home because of the mess we had when we moved here, but I do love bits of it here and there throughout our home.  When I see the fun patterns we have chosen throughout in small places in our home, they make me smile every day.  It also gives your home character, customizes it since your neighbor will never pick the same wallpaper you choose... or at least I would not think they would want to have the exact same home replicated as yours, that is kind-of creepy when you think about it.  

Mr. Vintage indicated the wallpaper was easy to work with, the curve of our little niche' wall, not so much... he applied, pulled away, applied, and pulled away a few times trying to get the paper up into the corner of the wall.  Then he decided to slice the paper in the corner a few times to allow the paper to be able to get up into the very corner of the wall without creasing the paper.

You can kind of see where he made the cuts so he was able to push the paper up into the corner on the right.  Unfortunately, the paper was not as wide as the niche so he had to patch in on the left.  We decided this would be the easiest to apply the paper to the wall.

Do you see our wall is not square, a bit off... oh well, you will have that with an older home and it is one of the reasons older homes are not always so easy to work on.  The character and building materials of yesterday though?  They are the best, bar none.    

I am loving the pop of color on the wall... and the roses?  You all know they are my absolute favorite!  

It is complete!  I sat in the living room and just smiled when it was finished.  Now to style it... 

I put the shelves back in and did you notice we have a light at the bottom of the niche?  I am going to go with the idea that the lady of our home had a glass collection she wanted to look at everyday.  The light would have really drawn your eye to her collection and it would have filtered through all of her glass pieces.  Do you care to give your thoughts what you think she would have showcased?  I enjoy making up stories about our home and why they chose certain things when they were building.  

From what we have been told, the same builder built our home and the home next door.  Again, from what we have been told, both homes were built from Indiana Limestone, but have very different exteriors.  The home next door has a turret front at the entry and was built in 1935.  Our home is a cozy English cottage and was built in 1950, very different homes, but that is what I love about the older neighborhoods, no two homes look the same on our street.

Come back on Saturday when I show you how we decide to style our fancy pants rose niche'.  I am still working on it, who knows when I will think it has reached perfection... Do you have a niche in your home?  How have you styled yours?  Happy Friday Eve! Yep, that is what we call Thursday's around here...       

Loving those roses in our living room...