My Mom's Do-It-Yourself Decorating Tips

My home's overall ambience is, well, homey in a sunny, eclectic, country-ish way, dappled with greens and yellows and checkered prints in various sizes and colors. But then your eye catches a shock of hot pink or streak of "hot" green, not colors I would have thought to use. I worried it felt discordant, but everyone tells me those splashes are what make my living space unique. (TIP)  

The brightly-colored splotches come from furniture I acquired when my parents were downsizing. The home décor of my formative years owed its charm to my 91-year-old mother, who revels in color and whose resourcefulness made it fun to live among her creations.

During a recent phone conversation, I asked my mom how she came up with the look of our home. She answered that, when furnishing our split-level, she admired the hot pink, charcoal gray and black scheme a decorator used in her friend Bea's home. "So I decided to use it too," she said. (TIP)

"I went to NY, to all the design places. I saw this fabulous marble-top buffet table but it was too expensive, so I sketched it out and, after I got back to Philly, I took the drawing to an ironworks place. (TIP) Instead of marble I got a Formica top that looked like marble, because marble stains (Formica costs less too)." (TIP)

Mom also designed a desk with a base that looked like a sewing machine base with a wormy chestnut top. As she recounted this, I smiled that my mother was years ahead of the distressed-look trend. "And when we moved," she said, "we cut it down to fit in a corner." 

Whether it was dresses or furniture, my mom was always cutting, repainting, revamping. (TIP) Mom asked rhetorically, "How many times did I cut the love seat and change the colors to match the carpet? When we moved I decided it should be a bench. So we cut off the back and covered it in black patent leather, painted the legs black and piped it with a little gold." (TIP)

Then they moved to an apartment and changed it again, to a shiny white material with lime green buttons, to match the green carpet. This family treasure now resides below a mirror in my dining room.

All the revision talk triggered the thought of our piano, which we blurted out simultaneously. "The piano," my mom reminded me, "was a beautiful walnut Knabe, a very good piano. Since I decided everything should be in Bea's colors, I bought a gray circular couch, hot pink throw pillows and a charcoal carpet. But the piano didn't match. So I had someone paint it gray." It was more like a wash, which gave it a gray and whitish look. (wacky TIP, painting a piano?)

As my mom talked, that piano appeared before me, as though I could just ease onto the hot pink upholstered piano bench, open my shiny red John Thompson's piano book and pick out the tune of "Ferdinand the Bull."

For the WOW factor, a framed black and white Italian architectural drawing the size of a door hung over the couch. "I saw it in Wanamaker's in the design section. I had to have it, so I went to the library (TIP) and went through 39 huge books—I was so excited to find it. This photographer blew up [a celluloid of the drawing] and we had it framed. (TIP) The whole thing cost around $250. That was a bargain in 1959."

My favorite castoffs from my mom are a high-backed chair, painted hot pink, that looks like it materialized from an Eloise picture book. Above it in my front hall hangs a black with gold speckles open lantern that my mom had found in a flower shop. (TIP)  She painted the inside hot pink and electrified it (TIP) with the magical effect that it looks like it belongs on Cinderella's coach. 

I could go on and mention the den rug that had thin stripes of lime, hot pink and royal blue with a thick cream-colored border. A needlepoint throw pillow that matched the rug's pattern completed the look. (TIP)

We hung up and a minute later my mom called back. She wanted to remind me that she gave the piano to my sister, but not before having it painted green, to match my sister's carpet.

What memories do you have of your childhood home's decor? Anyone else have a creative mom like mine? I'd love to hear from you in the comments box below.