I'm cleaning out my old armoire right now and want to find a good home for it, but it someone else's house! We do have two other armoires in our home that are in use, one in the MB that houses a TV as well as has drawers below that dh uses for his undergarments. The other one I got 20 years ago from an antique shop. At some point, it was used as a wardrobe. You could see where there used to be drawers on one side and likely a hanging bar for pieces that needed to be hung. Whoever had it before me, had removed the drawers, but there was a bar across the top. I needed it b/c I was living in a tiny apartment in Manhattan and had no closet in my bedroom. After I got married, it moved to my parents' house b/c I had no room and couldn't bear to get rid of it. Now it's been repurposed again. Several years ago, dh removed the bar and added a shelf across the middle. It's now my computer armoire that does double duty as my "office" since I don't have one of those either. It's in my living/dining room and closes up nicely when we have company and the dark wood goes with my rosewood formal dining set. I think it dates to the first half of the 1900s. The armoire I'm getting rid of is a nice Hooker entertainment cabinet that we no longer have room for. It was first in our family room but we moved it to the basement rec room a few years ago when we got a flat screen TV. Moving it really opened up our family room as it's not a big room and the armoire was so much deeper than our current console/hutch. It was fine in the basement but again, took up a lot of valuable space. The only wall it could fit on because of its height as well as window locations, prevented us from having desirable seating. So when the old tube TV died a couple of months ago, we got a flat screen TV w/console that allowed us to redesign the furniture placement. However, the armoire is SO heavy, that it still sits in the room. Dh wanted to just take the thing apart to get it out of the room and take it to the dump, but it's a solid wood nice entertainment unit that someone might want. I'm willing to give it away for free just to ensure that it doesn't get relegated to the dump. So today a college student that we sponsor is coming over with some friends to help dh move it to the garage until I can find a happy owner. I'd keep it and try to repurpose it, but our home is small and we have nowhere else it could go. If anyone in the DC/Baltimore/Annapolis area is looking for one, it's all yours. :) I must admit, it's not nearly as beautiful as the ones posted here. However, it's solid wood and a good brand we purchased from North Carolina. Hopefully someone on CL will want it. I haven't advertised it yet b/c I wanted it out of the rec room first. But yes, I do agree that there are many uses for armoires besides hiding away old TVs!

"If anything I find my tastes are influenced negatively here, not in a bad way really, just differently. I love funky bohemian combined with traditional and modern but don't feel that love from most posters so sometimes I second guess myself. There are some canvas prints at Pier One I am crazy about yet they are cheap. Will I hate them because they look cheap? ($30 each btw) Will they make my decor seem too wild? Cheap? As an artist, most other artists abhor this kind of thing and usually are quite snobbish about having only originals in their house. They would not buy a cheap print from Pier One! So, can I over come this pressure and the pressure here (subtle however) and actually get what I love? I do not like the vast majority of art people choose for their home so I would never ask anyone here "what do you think of this print?" I'm rambling but I guess it's all about keeping myself true to me." Bumblebeez, I feel your pain, really I do. :) Something that would truly *speak* to me, would be a gliclee of Monet's Sunrise. It was a work that was derided by critics in its time and I had the opportunity to see it in the Monet Museum in Paris. It would have much more meaning to me, and to my husband, than something I bought off of Etsy or Ebay. At least you, as an artist, have the pedigree be able to get away with buying what you want (not that you should have to make excuses). It's the same way about furniture. If it's not heirloom or CL, there will always be detractors. I just try to suck it up and decorate to the best of my abilities.

Kswl that is the perfect size TV for me. That's one huge disagreement between hubs and me. He says tv's of a certain size aren't even worth watching. I had a tiny one when we first met. Never bothered me. Had a small one in the bedroom, good enough for me. Hubs claims he can't see the tv images well when they are small, but I have terrible vision and I can see the tv just fine. I guess I just don't put much stock in the images on the screen and their quality. I prefer real life for that kind of thing . . . Hubs is gone visiting family and I totally don't miss the big screen monster being on all the time. I have been aware that it is intrusive but now more than ever. It was wanting to get away from the monster that led me to the smaller set in the bedroom in the first place. Both hubs and I are boomers, so I know darn well that life went on for our parent's generation and grandparents without these huge TV images and they never complained about not being able to see . . . hear on the other hand . . . but that had a remedy. I can't stand the loud tv noise either . . .

Bumping this to say that the Quilt Canada national conference and exhibit was actually in Halifax this year so of course I had to go. I worked a friend’s booth for two days and that was super fun, then took a day long course in landscape collage. Here’s my first - but not last -collage piece in progress