Rockin'.

Our lovely neighbor across the street is moving. She assured me it had nothing to do with us. (We seem to be losing neighbors like leaves off an autumn tree! I'm starting to get a complex...)

The one and only good thing about her moving was the sale of her house's contents. In addition to scoring a shelving unit for our basement and a much-needed dehumidifier, I bought this purple velvet rocking chair for $100:



I didn't buy it right away, but after seeing this Victorian glider at a local auction earlier this month...

...and falling for it but not for the $275 it sold for, I had vintage purple velvet rockers on the brain. So when the neighbor's rocker didn't sell the first weekend of her sale, I went back in the second.

The woodwork is in great shape, and has lovely detail:

And while at first I wasn't 100 percent sure where I'd put it (oops), after some shifting around it found a perfect home in our almost-completed master bedroom next to the dresser that is still one of my favorite thrifts:

This makes the MBR almost ready for prime time. The one "situation" that still needs to be addressed is the closet doors:

When we moved in the room was what I would describe as Very Dusty Rose, and the metallic lilac-washed (!) closet doors with lavender (!!) curtain panels seemed right at home in the pink palace. Mike's first reaction was to rip the doors off the hinges. But they are old and charming (I could insert "just like him" here but I will resist the temptation. Oops! It slipped out...). Just look at the doorknobs:

The people we bought the house from salvaged the doors and the knobs (separately) and built the closet around them.

I started my long-awaited door improvement project this past weekend by sewing new panels out of inexpensive white faux linen, which definitely softens them a bit:

Now, do I paint the doors white? That was my original intention, but with all the dark woodwork I fear they will stand out like a bad set of over-bleached choppers on a Hollywood starlet.

Any ideas? Stripping the doors is really not an option, I don't think. With all of the layers of paint on them it could take me into 2013 easily. As it is, scraping paint off the glass took me about six (wo)man hours.

Did I need these lamps?

Of course not. But when I saw them sitting in all of their vintage goodness (while I was out Christmas shopping. You know - that time of year you're supposed to be shopping for others?), I decided they had to come home with me.

I had the perfect place for them:


They need to be polished up and one of the lamps could use a bit of rejiggering (there's a loose socket that I think I may be able to fix myself) but I like the light they bring to the room, especially at night. The black shades tone down the too-blue walls (you can read more about my master bedroom paint drama here) and almost turn them the grey-blue I was hoping for.

Any impulse purchase(s) for you while you were "gift" shopping over the holidays? Go ahead, enlighten me. (Har har.)