Good morning! For today's Monday Decor, I thought I'd share how our little bar cart is doing. Ever since I rolled this $25 bad guy home from Goodwill, letting my preschooler trail behind me all alone (we're starting our free range parenting early over here), I have loved this guy.

Until I stopped. I think a bunch of things were going on. First, it's practically illegal to write a blog and not do a bar cart "styling" at some point, and I tend to get bored when things are ubiquitous. I know I'm not alone in that. Second, though I loved it as a little sleek ode to alcohol in our old family room, I thought it looked a bit awkward in our dining room. Let me see if I can dig up a before picture of it.

There she is. That's a pretty "before" before pic. And I had had a bench between our bookshelves in here.

Here's where we are now.

I'm pretty happy with it now. I think it'll still change a bit as we go along, and possibly be removed permanently down the line, in favor of a real buffet (or rather, a dresser we have that I'll convert to a buffet - Spoiler!), but I do like it right now. MVP Is clearly those large, glossy, tropical leaves, which were for $4 each at a local flower shop. I have been trying to rein in my fresh flower buying, what with the environment and all that, but deep in frigid February I found we needed a little floral cheer. And I love these leaves so much that I might have to buy them, weekly, forever, even if it puts us in the poor house and single-handedly destroys a rain forest somewhere.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Those awesome green and teal cocktail glasses are thrifted from a few years ago, and remind of me of Mad Men. I guess the whole bar cart thing does, really, and that show is probably responsible for the trend.

I didn't have a wine rack, so I reused a plate stacker I sprayed gold last summer. Then I thought it'd be nice to stack up all our cook books, and next to that is the rest of our booze. The two bottles of moonshine I bought in Montana about three hours before finding out I was pregnant - I'm looking forward to our belated introduction. Ditto with the sake our brother-in-law brought back from a trip to Japan. Ditto all of it, really. I like alcohol. I miss it.

The photo of the NYC skyline is something I didn't expect to love - it started out as this banner-type thing from Target, on clearance for $8. I actually bought it because it was a banner - I planned to reuse it (and did, for a Sweet Lou's sign in our old apartment). But when I was looking for art for in here, I hung it up out of curiosity.

It photographs fine, and better even than the glare-tastic framed version, but the format wasn't working for me. So I cut it to fit one of our frames and tried it like that, and we all liked it. It's really grown on me too; it almost mimics a window, which this side of the house is sorely lacking.

So that's how I came to re-love the bar cart. I just love the leaves and print over there in the dining room, adding life to that side of the house. And I think we've established I love booze, so there's really nothing about it that isn't working for me at the moment (except maybe those sticks, which I think are looking busy and unnecessary as I look at the photos. That's easily remedied though). Thanks as always for stopping by, and I'll see you tomorrow!

If you see anything that inspires you here, please take a moment to share with someone who may feel the same way! Thanks!