Ever feel like "getting back to basics"?

 I do considerable reading from time to time also, it requires not so much noise to be absorbed better also. I would greatly miss not seeing HGTV and a few of the shows, particlarly in the house decorating type. They tend to spur me on, that an person can do lots with nothing much and it turns out looking fabulous. When was the last time you colleced large river rock and then painted them to look like an village of English houses and then added the figureines for an Christmas display?...see what I mean, great ideas. Especially for an "country" type setting. Of course I understand you might be doing "castles" over there instead of an village..winks*

Here's another idea, take an sturdy in-expenisve thrift store plain wooden coffee table,,,staple fabric around the top of it to let it fall down around the sides, make an pillow for the top..instant sitting bench. You can make round foot stools out of the small inexpenisve tables with scew-in legs, cutting down the legs..I think they sell something like $5 to 10 at most stores, add your fabric and pillow on top...make for nice little gifts. I have an neighbor that collects foot stools of all kinds. Have an elegant dinner coming up?...take miniture christmas lights and on an back dining room wall, take every thing down and staple the lights in an up, over an bit, and down and over an bit and back up...uniform fashion, and end up downward near the wall plug. You can always take out the bulbs you don't want lit up. Now, hang panels of sheer currtains, or fabirc to match your diningroom table decor and plug in the lights, they give an elegant soft glow..an quickie to do and and quickie to take down. They took an older house, the upstairs bedroom, it had two tiny closets on each end of an wall, and they took the doors off, and put across the whole top one large railing piece, and under the railing placed two panels of semi clear plasic, that would roll to one side for getting into the closets, panted the rest of the room bright blue and with the white..added all silver painted like "stainless steel" wooden bed stands. white center of the floor fluffy carpet, it took this old house and really made it look modern. Remeber an few well chosen decorative items is better then crowding the room....then they added an picture in between the white wall with the rolling panels that was simple and classical...with touches of matching room colors of white, silver and bright blue.