If you're a treasure hunter who likes a bargain, you'll meet your match in homeowner Doris Ayres, who's created her own fantasy bed and bath with inexpensive fabrics, fabulous flea-market finds and family treasures. Doris found almost all the graphics in her home at flea markets, in people's basements, and at estate sales and antiques stores. In her tiny dressing room she has a wonderful collection of Lester Costume Company paintings framed on a wall. Each hand-painted design is a treasure (figure A). She found the stack of original designs at a flea market for 50 cents apiece. Right off her dressing room is what she calls her fantasy bathroom. Because the bathroom is generally the first room one enters each morning, she considers bathroom decor exceedingly important to one's well-being. Her bathroom is filled with items that didn't cost a lot of money -- family heirlooms, flea-market finds and collected items such as coral. The costliest item in the bath is the marble countertop. Ceramic tile with the look of limestone is used on the floor. Inexpensive cotton fabric woven with a bit of gold lame thread gives the shower curtain a lustrous elegance. Inexpensive muslin and fabulous vintage fabrics combine beautifully in her recently redecorated bedroom (figure B). Yards of white muslin hung over French doors blow in the breeze, giving the room the feeling of a tropical island. A white muslin duvet cover is an effective backdrop for a jumble of pillows covered in vintage fabrics (figure C). Doris finds old fabrics at cut-rate prices and has them turned into gorgeous one-of-a-kind pillows. Inspired by hand-painted frames she'd seen during her travels, Doris painted unfinished frames in geometric patterns and used them to frame small Pompeian posters. She used both marbleizing and flat paint in shades of brown and russet and added dots and lines in gold and silver. Doris suggests adding colorful touches to a room with items that are easy and inexpensive to change -- such as simple drapes, fabric table coverings and pillows. And if you love bargain hunting, don't be afraid to dig and get dirty. Your search may yield a perfect decorative item at a wonderfully low price.
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