Little Bit O' Progress*

Ever since we moved in nearly four months ago, our foyer has been a little bit sad.  I mean, I call it a foyer, but it's actually a 4' x 4' square right inside the door.  Anyway, it's been looking kind of downtrodden with its inappropriately tiny $2 IKEA doormat:

Womp womp.  This picture also shows one of my least-favorite things about the house, which I've mentioned before: the mismatched doorknobs.  One of these days I'll get motivated to replace all the huge shiny brass knobs (like the one on the entry door) with small old antique brass knobs (like the original 40's one on the coat closet door), but until then I'll just die a little on the inside every time I touch a monstrous 80's "update" one.  

Anyway (aside to Mrs S: ennyWAYS), on Monday I made a pilgrimage to the local Target and scored three Nate Berkus bath rugs for $5 each.  They weren't supposed to be $5, but they were mismarked and the nice Target-ers offered to sell them to me as marked.  Whee!  I also bought a larger jute-and-gray diamond patterned rug.  Ever since last month's attempt to layer one rug over another, I've been thinking I'd like to try it again on a smaller scale.  Years of working for J. Crew have left me completely unable to leave the house without a "third piece" on my body, so why shouldn't my floors get all the benefits of the layered look?  

This morning I tossed one of the Nate Berkus rugs on top of the jute one.  This photo's colors aren't great (you can't at all see the pattern on the bottom rug), but in person it looks pretty awesome:

And then I decided to throw an old mirror (its frame was black when I paid $39 for it at T.J. Maxx last year, and I painted it gold just 'cause) on the wall just to see how I liked it:

 Hey you guys!  That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight...

And I'm kind of feeling the overall effect.  This way we can stop on the way out the door and make sure we're presentable, and it's also reflecting one of my favorite vignettes in the house: our old bookcase with its books arranged by color.  You can sort of see it behind me in the photo above.

Another vista, this time with my halfhearted attempt at mantel decor (I really wanted a shiny reindeer to go up there with my cedar garland, but I couldn't find on anywhere, and I have some stray lights dangling on the side, yeesh):

Side note: something I DO love about this house is that it has two electrical outlets over the mantel; to plug in the Christmas lights all I had to do was take my Henri Cartier Bresson print (bought at the Benaki Museum in Greece in 2003 when I worked on an archaeological excavation in Athens) off its nail and lean it on the fireplace.  Voila!  Outlet still covered, lights plugged in.

And finally, another mini-update: several weeks ago at T.J. Maxx (this is becoming a theme) I spotted some orange flame-stitched pillows.  I tried to resist them, because I really have no good place to put two orange flame-stitched pillows, but they were so, erm, affordable that I wound up bringing them home.  They've been hanging out on my bed ever since, and while they probably won't stay forever, I have to admit I kind of like the crazy pop of color in what is otherwise a boringly neutral space:

And also, I hate using the flash on my little point-and-shoot since it makes everything look yellow as hell, so please pardon the chiaroscuro effect in the photo above.

*Aside to Mrs. S:  Little bit o' problems, little bit o' problems!