A little ORB love

I decided I was going to spiff up a few little items in the front rooms, to go along with the recent painting of the walls...we aren't done yet with this room, but I wanted to get some decor up.

These medallions started out gold, then white-washed gold, now bronze...stay tuned, they may yet be painted back to gold...they are circa 1950's and go with the mid-century furniture in here.

And I hung them a little differently, back next to that big ole mirror, on the advice of a friend. 

(yes, eventually we are going to put up the wainscotting!)

Well, that was easy enough - I'll just paint the ancient frames for this pair:

Yet again, gold.  On minty green. UGH.  Easier said than done, because the portraits are watercolors and after decades of hanging in a moist environment at my MIL's house, they were starting to disintegrate...

YIKES.  I was just able to get them out, paint the frames, and put them back....but in the future we will have to get them professionally reproduced.  

The frames have lovely detail...

 

But I don't know why these folks seemed so stern!

Hubby has fond memories of his grandmother.  I once asked my mom why old photos never showed anyone smiling - she said they didn't have as much to smile about, life was hard.  Wonder if that was true for Marie and Otha?  They came over from Norway, not speaking much English, settled and made a life in Galveston.

The last thing I painted:  my garishly gold owl. Then I rubbed a little off with sandpaper so he would have some detail. It doesn't take a whole lot of spray painting before I am sick of it, though...