I used to be a huge Pat Boone fan. Back in the 1950's and 60's. I had my own Pat Boone Fan Club (the members included myself, as President, my brother as Secretary, my boyfriend Gary P. as Vice President, and Craig F. as Treasurer). That was it. We all lived in the same neighborhood in Marblehead and we were best friends. We all loved Pat Boone back then and we even took up a small collection to buy a scarf once to send to his wife, I have no idea why now, maybe for Christmas. Anyway, we had a lot of his songs on 45 records and played them every day after school down in the cellar where our Club met. One of my very favourite Pat Boone songs was "If Dreams Came True" and I can still get goosebumps now thinking of that song and how it made me feel back then.

My parents would let us stay up every Thursday night, way past our usual bedtime, to watch the Pat Boone show on the telly, at 9 p.m. Such a treat. "See the U.S.A. in your Chev-ro-let, American's asking you to call...." Remember him singing that?

Anyway, I digress.

Speaking of dreams, I dream about decorating my house and have done so since I was little.

Do you have a mental image of your IDEAL living space? I do. It's below.



I saw this photograph in a decorating magazine years ago and cut it out to save it. I wanted to transform my living room into something resembling that room above, not necessarily using the exact paint color - i.e. the yellow - as we painted the room yellow once and didn't much like it. But it does look nice with the blue and white, don't you think?

I was cleaning out a cabinet downstairs this morning and found this folded-up page. Even after all the years since I cut it out and saved it, this is still my ideal living room. To get this look, we'd have to build out the wall to look like a fireplace, but that seems doable, if the husband is willing - which is the hard part. He won't be. I have never showed him this picture before. I wonder if he'd like it as much as I do?

Not sure I'd go with the dinner plates on the fireplace either, but something similar. My two windows along the long wall of our living room are much farther apart than in this picture, too, and aren't as architecturally beautiful as these are. I love the sofa and chairs and the carpet. And the coffee table. I just love the whole look.



I would put the faux-fireplace along the wall behind the sofa. There is another window off to the right of the sofa that can't be seen here.

Oh, if only I were rich!

(P.S. Thanks for your advice on the recliner - namely, sitting in one before buying one. I totally agree with you and that is why I have not ordered it online. Maybe a softer chair, like the one above, would be better, with less mechanicals to go faulty in the future. Just a nice soft ottoman. I could just jump into that room and stay there happily forever!)

Cheers,

Bex