Somewhere along the line, my rustic shabby country farmhouse has turned a bit industrial. I mean with the poles in the middle of the living room there weren’t many places to go…

So I embraced the poles (not literally, though there was that one night when I thought I’d try pole dancing… best forgotten. Forget I mentioned it…) and built a TV unit/room divider between them.

Now I have a proper separation between the ‘work’ and ‘entertaiment’ areas of the living room. Instead of trying to hide the poles (ever tried to blend in poles in the middle of a room? impossible) I painted them black and made them a feature.

This resulted in a slightly more industrial feel to the decor.

Plywood and poles will do that.

I also bought a new leather couch and ended up with a scandanavian style instead of the old gentleman’s club style that I thought I wanted. The colour and style really suits the new rustic industrial farmhouse decor.

Here’s a preview of the new couch in place, including the mess all around it…

Anyway, I decided it was time to up the industrial aspect of the living room with some original recycled artwork.

Plus, it was time to take the christmas tree down!

These stencils are all real, factory shipping label stencils, some have even been used. Many times. Others are just plain old. They were given to me by a great friend and soon as I saw them I knew I wanted to make this artwork.

I recycled an old frame I got from the tip shop. I had originally put fabric in it to match some cushion covers and hung it over the bed in my house in Fentonbury when I was selling it.

Since then its been in our bedroom, just sitting there.

Waiting.

Till yesterday.

Yesterday I took it down to the casita, took out the fabric, laid out the stencils in a way that pleased me, used a ton of glue to hold them in place (there’s no glass on this) and then decided the frame looked wrong in distressed white.

So I taped off the inner rustic timber ‘mount’ and sprayed it gloss black. Then, after it was dry but before it had cured completely, I used a paint scraper to scrape a bit off here and there to show some white through.

Much better.

I especially love the splashes of blue!

It kinda looks good there now. It goes with the black poles and the little record side table. Which I haven’t shared yet… oops.

We’re getting there.

All I need to do now is paint the living room white. Or a grey that isn’t blue. Get rid of the carpet and put down some kind of floor that’s easy to clean and doesn’t make me gag. Finish the TV unit. Get a bigger rug. Find a solution to the world garbage problem.

I’ll get right on to it.

Easy.

z

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