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Monday, August 17, 2020

Garden Sitting Room, The Library Area


 
  Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!
I am so happy you decided to stop by!!
 
Today, I will finally be wrapping up a Series of posts I did on how I decorated my Upstairs Sitting Room for the Summer.......
 
 But first, I want to Thank Alexandra, over at EyeLoveKnots, for choosing my post, Word of the Month for August, BREATHE, as one of her features from last week's Snickerdoodle Bake,Make and Create Linky Party!!!
 

Thanks so much, Alexandra!!

Please stop by and link up to this charming party!!!

Personal notes:

On Friday, our son, Joey, treated us to Dinner from Mission BBQ....

Joe had the pulled chicken sandwich.....

Joey and I had the turkey sandwich.....

And we also got a quart of their delicious Mac and cheese!!!

Joe ate the fries as he does not like mac and cheese and there was some left over for the next day...

Look at the amount of meat on those sandwiches!!

I finished reading the first book in Sue Grafton's Series......

Now I have started the second one....

It was a nice weekend filled with family......

On Saturday evening, we were visited by our Niece Renae and great nieces Caitlin and Carly.....

I had finally gotten around to going through all my jewelry which filled a jewelry armoire and 2 jewelry boxes....

Over the years, I had collected vintage jewelry and vintage styled jewelry along with vintage costume jewelry....

More jewelry than I could ever wear in the rest of my life time.....

So I condensed down to just my jewelry armoire and an earring box......

I decided to pass on the jewelry that I no longer wanted to my nieces if they wanted it....

I was thrilled that they liked all of it and we also enjoyed a nice evening together!!!

We celebrated Joe's 66th Birthday, which actually is today on the 17th, on Sunday with our traditional pizza dinner with Joey, Jim and Danielle....

We went with a Carvel ice cream cake as his birthday cake!!

It was a big hit!!

Joe was gifted a card with money and a lottery ticket from Jim and Danielle......

No, he did not win anything....

And this from Joey.....

I think he may find a place for it up in Joe's Pittsburgh corner instead of outside......

So Happy Birthday to Joe!!!

The one thing I say to him every year is that he will ALWAYS be older than me!!!

LOL!!

In previous posts, I shared my Summer Fairy Garden Mantel in the Sitting Room.....
 
 
Click HERE to see that post if you missed it.....

And I also shared the "Hearth" and "Hidden" Storage that I use to store all my decorating magazines.......
 
 
 
 
Click HERE to read that post......
 
I shared my Summer Garden Tea Table in the Sitting Room.....
 
 
Click HERE if you missed that post......
 
And I also shared this area of the Sitting Room.....
 
 
Click HERE to see that post.....
 
In a previous post, I shared that our son, Joey, gave me a small TV for the Sitting Room.....
 
 
 
And hooked it up to an antenna that cost only $10 on Amazon.....
 
 
 
 Which allowed me to pick up 26 channels with NO CABLE!!!!!


In this post, I am going to share what I call the "Library" area of my upstairs Sitting Room..... 
 
 
 And were I would like to be able to sit in read......
 
 
Along with the rest of the room that I did not share in the previous posts.....
 

 
When I was a child, I loved to read......

I remembered reading almost all the books that sparked my interest in the school Library when I was in Grade School and in Junior High....
 
One of the things that I wanted to do when I retired was finally to be able to sit down with a good book and a cup of Tea or a glass of lemonade and just be able to read.....

For several years, I was building my very own Library of books......

As a lover of the Victorian Era, I amassed a fairly decent Collection of books on Victorian design along with other decorating books and magazines.....

Just recently, our local free Library, the Osterhout Library, held 2 Drive Thru Book Sales....
 
 
They had several prepackaged Book Bundles that you could chose from to help support the Library.....

 
I took advantage of the paperback bundles that they offered for $10 each!!

 
At each of the 2 sales, I had Joe buy me 2 paperback book bundles....

 
I think I got a great variety of books including 2 books signed by local author Nina Bocci......
 
 
These books were the only duplicates I got which is not a problem as I will be gifting one of these books to my good friend, Anne Marie.....

 
This room was my son Jim's room and when he moved out, I originally had it as a Guest Room with a bed in it.....

About 4 years ago, we realized that in close to 40 years, we never had a guest so we got rid of the single bed and bought a nice rocker recliner for the room , turning it into my Sitting Room instead of a Guest Room.....

Little did we know that a Pandemic would hit and our oldest son, Joey, would come to stay with us for a few months during this time!!

Actually, he found sleeping on our Living Room sofa with the ottoman quite comfy so it all worked out....

He also found the rocker/recliner in this room quite comfortable too.....


This is what I call the Library area of the room......


After cleaning out my neighbor Elly's house, I realized that I had given her a bookcase that my Dad had made so I took it back and painted it white as I did all the furniture in this room for a more uniformed look......
 
It is the bookcase on the right......
 
I also found. over at Elly's, a small table that fit perfectly on top of one that I already had so I created another book shelf...... 

The one of the left......




You can see that the TV fit nicely on top and it is angled a bit so it can easily be seen from the rocker/recliner....


For now, I chose to keep some "Pretties" on these shelves......


When I converted this room over to a Sitting Room for reading, I did not want a TV in this room and only wanted to be able to listen to music when reading so since I am still "Old School" and have a lot of CD's, I have a portable CD player/radio in this room.......




The wall above the shelves.......


The scarf on top of the book case that my Dad made was tatted and embroidered by my maternal grandmother......


I have several different types of books and magazines in this book case......


Paper back and hard cover...both fiction and non-fiction......


Self Improvement and decorating books......


More decorating books and Christmas magazines.....


And all Christmas decorating books.....


In this cute little red wagon is all my sons' childhood Christmas books including some vintage Golden books that were mine as a child!!!


And all of their other childhood Golden Books, many of which are vintage.....




On top of a smaller book case that I bought for $10 in Tamaqua on our way home from Vanity Fair in Reading many years ago......


You can see that the TV antenna fits nicely here and is by the window which brings in 26 channels for me when our son only gets 16 with his which he has as a back should our cable ever go out.....




This book case is filled with mostly fiction books......




And my Collection of Classic Novels and Anne Perry Victorian Crime series......


In a wooden basket which I have yet to decide on how I will finish it that I bought from the Amish Farmer who sets up produce stands every Summer at the convenience store down the road from us....


I put most of all the new paperback books I bought from the Library sales.....


In the corner is one of the 3 curios that I took from my neighbor Elly's house when cleaning it out for her sons.....


On top of the curio.......


I debated about also painting this corner curio white but I decided not to make anymore work for myself.....


I have my Mother's yellow depression glass and a collection of Angles that joe bought for me in this curio.......






You can see how small our 2 back bedrooms are in this picture.......

 
Both back bedrooms are only 8' by 10' which is crazy as the Master Bedroom is 16' by 20', the same size of our Living Room!!!


I bought this swag lamp at the estate sale of a neighbor who passed away for $20.....


Since these bedrooms were so small, I used shelving on the walls when my sons lived here for all their electronics, books, DVD's etc......


I originally had shelving on each side of the window.....


I kept up these shelves to display some "Pretties"......






I also painted this vintage table white......


And embellished this lamp shade......


More decorating books are stored here......


I use this closet for storing off Season clothes along with craft supplies for Christmas crafting.....

Hanging on the closet door is Joe's Christening gown which was also worn by both of my sons when they were christened......


Also in this corner is Minerva.......

I bought this wicker dress form in a consignment shop and I found the lace dress in a Costume shop on Clearance for $10!!!

Minerva is decked out in Victorian finery.....

Back in 2012, Minerva was part of my Halloween decorations in our Living Room.....

But then I decided to move all the Halloween decorations into the Dining Room and decorate the Living Room only for Autumn.....

So now Minerva's home is here in my Sitting Room, next to my faux fire place.....

On the floor in a container is all my Garden, Porch and Patio magazines for the Summer.....

And I already shared where I keep the rest of all my decorating magazines.......



Unfortunately, I have not spent the amount of time in this room that I had hoped to, reading.....

Because of the small windows, it is impossible to put an air conditioner in this room without having to first pop the window out and Joe standing on the roof of the Den outside to do so......

I do use a fan in here but with the record breaking heat we have had this Summer, it was still too hot.....


Next year, we are hoping to replace the windows in our townhouse for the second time as these replacement windows are already 33 years old.....

Maybe I can have one installed that will open wide enough for a small air conditioner to fit in or we may look into buying one of the new portable ones....

I do hope to spend time in the Winter months in this room reading and enjoying my faux fireplace since having a fire place was always a dream of mine since I was a little girl.....

After all, I turned my toy chest into one at Christmas when I was only 9 years old!!!!

I hope you enjoyed seeing my Garden Themed Sitting Room......

It will stay like this until I decorate it for Christmas in October as I do the entire upstairs at that time.... 

In future post, I will be sharing some of my tea cup and tea pot collection......

Many of which I have on display in this room.....


I take back everything good I said about the new Blogger interface being easier as I had such trouble doing this post....

Uploads were slow and it kept doubling pictures when I tried to move them around!!!

That is why it took me so long to get this post up!!

It was a real pain in the you know hat!!!!!

I hope Blogger gets this fixed soon!!!

I hope you will stop by to visit again soon!!

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE  give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment.  If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......


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14 comments:

  1. Sue Grafton, Mac and Cheese, BBQ and a birthday! What's not to love?

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  2. Happy birthday Joe! YUM, on the BBQ. I just roasted a boston butt and we had pulled pork. I can't believe you got 26 channels with the antenna and no cable! You go girl! And look at your cute little 9 year self and I am impressed by the fireplace out of a toy box! Girl...is there anything that you can't do? Loving all the pictures. Hope your week is good. Hugs and blessings, Cindy

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  3. Happy Birthday to Joe! I have always wanted a reading nook, but somehow the "spare" bedrooms at my house keep getting filled with cribs!

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  4. Happy Birthday to Joe!A lovely post!Your gorgeous teacups collection caught my eye!Amazing!

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  5. Happy Birthday to Joe. It sounds like he had a great day. I love your sitting room, Debbie. It is so warm and cozy filled with such pretties. How wonderful that you are able to include family heirlooms and treasures in your decor where you can admire them all the time. Have a great week. Hugs, Melisa.

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  6. I love that room! So cute :) That cake also looks amazing - my boyfriend loves ice cream cakes!
    Jenna ♥
    Stay in touch? Life of an Earth Muffin

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  7. Sounds like you are all safe and sound in your cozy home...my goodness that is a lot of books for $10...great grab! Have a great week, Sandi

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  8. Happy Birthday to Joe! Good score on the books and love the sweet room and your collections. The tea-cups are especially pretty. Hugs xo Karen

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  9. Debbie--You and I have a few authors in common. I used to warn my kids when I was reading Janet Evanovich as I would laugh out loud. Love Sue Grafton and Charlaine Harris, too! I, too, was a reader as a kid. As usual, I enjoyed seeing all of your treasures. I lay down for an afternoon siesta most days to rest my back and legs so I prefer paperbacks; gives my arthritic thumbs a break--and if I fall asleep, the book won't break my nose if I drop it!

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    Replies
    1. Kathy,
      I am now on C of the Sue Grafton books and I love them!! I do not have the entire Alphabet series but I figure that I can read what I have and then get the rest from the library. The one thing I really wanted to do when I retired was start to read again and I have to really make a conscious effort to take time out to do so!! Thanks so much for stopping by!
      Stay safe!!
      Hugs,
      Deb

      Delete
  10. I'm visiting from Pink Saturday. What a lovely blog you have. So many beautiful things in your life! My philosophy is that you can never have too many books. I love seeing shelves loaded up like yours. Unfortunately for me, I like both fries and macaroni and cheese, so I would have eaten them both!! Talk about a carb overload.

    Blessings,
    Patti @ Empty Nest Homemaker

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  11. Minerva complements your lovely library perfectly! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm!

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  12. Debbie,
    Love your library area. I have read all of Sue Grafton books and love them. Janet Evanovich is hilarious, especially if you have ever done books on tape and listened to the different characters. Congratulations, you are being featured at Over The Moon Linky Party. I hope you stop by. https://www.eclecticredbarn.com/2020/08/over-moon-linky-party_23.html
    Hugs,
    Bev

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  13. Debbie! I love this room! I love reading as well and I love how you've incorporated your favorite books into your decor. Thanks so much for sharing it at Farmhouse Friday!

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