living room inspiration

Liz Morrow

January 23, 2013

Interior Design, decor

After we finish cleaning up the exterior of the house, the next big project in my sights is a huge DIY bookshelf in the living room. We've got a sort of awkward wall that I haven't been able to figure out what to do with, but after seeing these images of Mattson Creative's studio space, I knew that I wanted to make a shelving unit out of pipes and wood shelves to hold art, books, and cool knick knacks. Not only will it function as a great way to make that space beautiful and interesting, but it'll also be an awesome way to display prints! I've got a few prints of my own, and some prints from other artists that I love, and I think a cool shelf like this would be the perfect way to show them off. I love how the shelving at Mattson Creative has that perfect balance of art, books, and interesting, eclectic pieces to fill the space just right.

the earth laughs in flowers print + winnebago print are my work

I've been slowly acquiring prints and artwork, and a few of the pieces I know I'll want to display are the ones above. I just got the "I love my family" print for Christmas, and got the camera print a few years ago. I just got the ampersand lamp and sunshine print the other day and I'm excited to see them in action. I love big letters saved from old signage, and while the ampersand is new, not salvaged, I think it still has that vibe. I definitely want to find some more big letters/numbers as I absolutely love the graphic, bold look that they have. The Winne print is one I made a couple years ago during my Brave trip, and I made the "earth laughs in flowers" print back in college.

We're planning on doing a small test run version of this in our bedroom that looks more like the smaller version below. I want to thrift a little dresser as the base and start the shelves on top of that, and then go for the bigger, living-room version after we've figured out all the kinks!