Finishing touches - painted walls!

While avoiding doing laundry, I've been looking through some of my favorite design blogs today.  I've found lots of inspirational pics.  Since we finished painting upstairs and in the family room, my mind has made the shift from "what color paint should we use" to "let's decorate these blank walls!"  I like this shift in mind-set.  :)  So, here are some things that I've found.

Things I love about this pic:  that big wall shelf system.  It's got a kind of mid-century mod thing happening - it looks like it could easily flow back in time to "Mad Men's" Pete Campbell's home.  We've got one big wall in the family room that needs something there, and a series of shelves like this could be it.  Or a combination of shelves and pictures, perhaps?

This dining room is just yummy.  Of course, it's probably because I'm a fan of all things clear acrylic and dark wood.  But I really like it for the airiness of the room.  It evokes a feeling of calm and openness.  This is a room that I can imagine having brunches with the family or reading a book over a cup of coffee - all in my sweats.  It's comfortable and friendly, yet with just the right amount of elegance to keep it from being totally casual.  I guess one could say that this is the feeling I'd love my whole house to look like.

This picture makes me appreciate the impact of a large piece of art in a large room.  While a really large piece of artwork isn't really what the basement space needs, we could easily work it into the decor of the living and dining room area.  We have a (roughly) 3'x4' canvas over the living room couch, but nothing for the large dining room wall.  I may have to look into the option of echoing that larger piece of art with another one on the opposite wall.  Stay tuned, I suppose!