How to style a niche

Searching for ideas on how to style a niche?  Take a look at how we wallpapered and styled our niche with vintage flair.  

We finally have our niche styled with a lot of vintage goodness... I do love to collect those items for our home!  Especially when some of those items include sentimental pieces, it makes it even better in my opinion of course...

When I uploaded my photos, I realized I missed taking the ornament out of the vase at the bottom.  Oh well... I stuck it there to get it out of my way and now I see it... some days you just miss things when you are taking photos.  What can I say?  This work week was a blur and I was just excited to get to Friday... did you see how we wallpapered the niche earlier this week?  

I decided my milk glass collection at the top was staying... I found all of those pieces on the top shelf at a vintage shop.  Do you know they wanted to get rid of all of that vintage milk glass wonderfulness and boxed up all of those pieces, a punch bowl, countless teacups, and a few other great milk glass pieces all for $28.00!  I guess they did not see the beautiful loveliness in this collection like I did, so I immediately scooped it all up and ran out the door before they changed their mind many years ago!  

The next shelf down... a Mr. and Mrs. snow globe we received from my sister as a wedding gift.  She and I have always had a soft spot for snow globes since we were children so it was only fitting that she gave us one on our wedding day... it plays a Christmas song.  A snow globe and music box?  A gal could get spoiled around here pretty quickly... 

The Josef Original bride and groom was something I searched for a while... when I was small... my mom started a collection of Josef originals for my sister and I... each year on our birthday we would receive one... I recall always being so excited to get to my 16th birthday where it was a music box and figurine... things in life changed as they sometimes do and I never received the music box... maybe one of these days I will finish out my collection.  I did do some research on them a while back. Once the production was moved to China, the figurines lost all of the details and coloring... I was not a fan of the later years because of this so the years 17-21 were not on my radar to add to my collection. I’m only missing the 16th year... I may need to begin searching her out to complete my set. 

The antique bride and groom... when we purchased this piece, we had planned to use it on our wedding cake when we were married.  When we met with our cake maker, she commented on the size being so small, so we found a Lennox piece to put on our cake instead.  I will have to search for it, I am sure it is packed away in our attic somewhere.  

The vintage lady... her hat is a small planter and was a piece given to me by a family member.  Those pieces are held near and dear to my heart.  I do love items that are handed down over generations... I am a very sentimental person and I really hold on to things given to me and enjoy having those items out where I can see them on a daily basis.     

I of course have more milk glass pieces, the end two still have their Fenton stickers on them.  It always amazes me when I can find these items with the sticker still in place. It is not an occurrence that happens very often.  Do you see I used more of the rose soaps in the small vase?  I find uses for them all over our home.   

Our bride and groom pieces... do you know how difficult to find a Josef Original with brown hair?  They were mostly blondes... so I was pretty excited when I found a brunette bride and groom and knew they would be perfect for our collection on this wall. 

I am unsure if you can really see, but in between the milk glass pieces, there is a Waterford shamrock.  My sister brought it back for us when she visited Ireland a few years ago.  There is also a paper weight with a snowflake in the center of it... I love vintage paperweights, they remind me of my childhood.  

My childhood best friend's parents were HUGE antique collectors (I say that with love, I have only come across one other person with such a vast collection {Mr. Vintage's aunt}), their home was like a museum (maybe some of my collecting came from them, no one in my family really collects antiques).  Can you believe we used to toss the paperweights back and forth like a softball?  Kids... we had no idea we were playing with precious antiques at the time, but wow, how I wish I could find some of those pieces now, their home was bursting at the seams with antiques, it was really a sight to see.  They even had a hidden hideaway in their home that was there from The Underground Railroad.  That was something that fascinated me about their home and it is the reason they purchased it.    

Here is a closer look at our milk glass vases. 

I really feel like the wallpaper has made our pieces pop in the niche.  I have another milk glass piece with Mr. Vintage’s boutonnière from our wedding day inside of it.  The lead glass vase in the middle on the bottom shelf was one of two he had waiting for me at the church the day we were married, he had them filled with red roses... what a sweetheart. And finally a picture our photographer took from our wedding framed inside a Claddagh and Celtic knotted frame also given to us by my sister as as wedding gift. 

Poor thing, it dried out, and looks the worse for wear, but I am not throwing it away, the sentimental schmuck I am... lol. 

I am happy to have this area cleaned up and feel like it is part of our living room now.  When we purchased the antique bride and groom from one of our adventures the seller indicated it was from the 1920's... I love this time period... and we both thought the piece was something we would cherish since we have the memories from a fun outing.  You just never know what you will find around this cozy cottage.  Our interests are pretty diverse.   

I found another use for this wallpaper in our living room and the pops of color are pretty refreshing sprinkled throughout. I do enjoy a low cost project while being able to also bring a bit of fancy pants too...

More living room posts include splurging in our living room, how to  layer, our roll top desk, how we made a few changes, and some different décor in our living room...