Hey guys.  What an amazing experience the Philly Home Show has been.  As you read this, I am moving the remainder of the inventory from the convention center back to the shop for next weekend’s sale!  (Save the date – February 23rd)  I met so many wonderful, like minded individuals who love to repurpose and reinvent their homes.  So welcome to all of the new readers.  I hope you find some inspiration here!

I wanted to share some fun tidbits today about what goes into putting a room together at the Home Show.  As I pictured before, you start with NOTHING.  A huge open convention center room with nothing more than a concrete floor.  This is how it looked when I arrived two weeks ago.

Within the hour, the carpenters were installing walls.

They are simply sheets of 4×8 drywall erected to carve out a 12×20 sized room.  At that point, it was all mine to do what I wanted with.  Exciting.

First came paint.  Major thanks to my friend Marc from Radon-Rid who was a trooper with set up and break down.

Call him to get your radon levels tested!  And Ryan helped too of course…

Then the wall installation which consisted of vintage blueprints.  This was the most time consuming part but also the biggest impact in the room.  Because I planned to salvage the 40+ year old paper again, we very carefully and gently hung it on the wall.  It wasn’t a permanent installation.  Major thanks to my mom for helping with this tedious job.

Many people asked where I found all of these prints.  The renderings belong to Ryan’s dad – my father-in-law to be.  Each was drawn, signed and dated by him in the early 70’s.  Now you understand why I wanted to salvage as many as possible, right?  Again.  It is a bit of a time capsule.

Many retired architects and contractors commented on the installation and told me about a stash of similar drawings they have and never knew what to do with.  They don’t make ’em like this anymore with the evolution of CAD and similar programs.

Now obviously this is an extreme example of re-using the blueprints but there are other options for reuse too.  Like lining drawers with the paper.  Or just installing one accent wall.  Or a gallery wall of framed, sentimental sketches.  I always thought this would look cool in a little boy’s room or a home office to give it a little punch.  Side note, the original blueprint of hour house is permanently mounted in our cellar stairway.  It is so cool.  I just wish I could move it to a more noticeable place.

Next we arranged the furniture while installing pallet wood baseboards and yardstick chair rails to break up the paint and paper.  I love how the greyed out pallets coordinated with the blue walls.  By the way, the inky blue wall color is called Ming Vase by Clark & Kensington, Ace Hardware’s line.  I am a regular at Fisher’s Ace and they kindly donated the paint.

And finally the accessories.  My favorite part.  Circa Dee’s mission mentions family heirlooms…

The mission at Circa Dee is to inspire home through repurposing, refinishing & reinventing.  Learn to give vintage, family heirlooms and found materials a new life when mixing them with modern decor.  High style never looked so eco & budget friendly.

…so I thought it was important to have some of my own in this show room.  There are a lot of little personal touches like old family photos.

These are all relatives of mine on my father’s side. My great grandparents…

This is a picture of my maternal grandmother taken right in Philadelphia decades ago.

Ryan’s thesis is tucked in this little reading corner.  Don’t worry we have extra copies to loan if you want to read up on immunology and the like.

There you have it – blueprints, family photos, thesis.  What heirlooms are subtly placed in your home?

More pictures of the finished room can be seen here.

Linking to Funky Junk Interiors