Ta Da!

At long last, the ottoman is done.

Maybe.

Shall we review? (Is it embarrassing to admit that I am seeing this in my mind as a flip book and the song running through my head is that old Music Together classic, Happy Puppy Dog?).  Here goes.

In the store

Glass = Dangerous for kiddos.  I know, let's make it an ottoman!  Cut wood.

Get foam

Paint Frame purple.  Oops!  Spraypaint black.

Reupholster with the wrong fabric.

Reupholster with the right fabric.

Freehand some rub n buff.  Oops!

Tape off the stripes and try it again

Ah, finished.  No?

More gold = More tape.  Lots and lots of tape.  Table bondage.

Perhaps should not have done this step under the influence of a glass (or two?) of wine.

But it turned out okay and let's be honest, I will probably not fix it.  One more time: Before.

And after.

Love it, hate it, or total ambivalence, you gotta admit it's quite a big change!

Oh.  Why is it only maybe done?  Well, I'm thinking all the gold precludes the need for nailhead trim, but I'm going to live with it for a while before I make the final call.

What do you think?  

Thanks for sticking with me on this one.  I'm usually a done-in-a-day, for-better-or-probably-for-worse kind of a gal when it comes to projects, so this one has been a bit of a stretch.

What about you: are you in the middle of any interminable projects these days?  Do tell!

The splurge pillow

My Brunschwig and Fils silk moire ikat pillow arrived last week.

Have I ever mentioned that I do not love new things when they first come into my house?  It's become something of a joke around here, and now my husband won't even ask about something new for several days at least.  He's been on that roller coaster too many times.  Because, in all honesty, saying I "do not love" new things that come into my house is something of an understatement, and for the first 24 hours at least, I hate them.

Weirdly, when the pillow arrived, in polka dot packaging tied up with string (did you sing that to the tune of My Favorite Things?  You should have), I was ambivalent.  I put in the down pillow insert that was staring blankly from the couch, tried it in a few spots, and walked away with no hate in my heart.  But perhaps no love, either.

But now it makes me happy, and mostly for unexpected reasons.  I love the way white has become a legitimate element in both the living and dining rooms, and this pillow pushed it over the edge.  I love the way the scale and the pattern picks up on the dining room rug, a side effect I had not anticipated (after this analysis, who knew there could be any more to think about?)  And mostly, I love the way the tones are bright and rich, but they don't scream.  I had originally chosen this duralee fabric for throw pillows in here, but ultimately decided the colors felt too hot in the room.  Plus the zipper foot on my sewing machine pushed the fabric through backwards, and I've been too lazy to get the thing serviced.  I'm back to thinking the fabric could work in a smaller dose in the guest room (if you click through to this post, scroll down for the image), but then there's the sewing machine issue again.  We'll see.

Um.  That's a lot of words and analysis of one pillow.  People.  Are we crazy?  I think it might not be normal to devote this kind of time, energy, and attention to a throw pillow.  Please advise.  By which I mean reassure.

Here comes the week.

My enabler ( a splurge)

Do you have a design sounding board?  You know, that friend or relative with excellent taste who you go to when you're making design decisions, just for (the right) second opinion?  Mine is my friend Sara.  When we both lived in New York, there were many flea market trips and purchases approved, many sessions of furniture rearranging, many design projects completed together.  I remember, after a longtime roommate moved on and I lived alone for a brief period of time, I used the extra room as a dining room (SUCH a luxury in Brooklyn), and decided to paint it this color (based on this picture.)

Sara came over and we had a painting party.  She slept overnight, and in the morning it had snowed, one of those peaceful snows where the world goes quite and you're left with something softer than the usual.  And we walked 12 blocks to the subway together down the middle of the street (the cars were buried) and we went to work.

Now I am in Minneapolis and Sara is in San Francisco, but we happen to be decorating our first real family homes at the same time (our forever homes, if we were taken with the idea of permanence, which I don't quite think we are.)  We catch up by g-chat regularly, swap pictures of progress in our homes, share links to fabrics we are considering, get a second opinion.  I can't count the number of middle-of-the-night emails I have sent with photo attachments that start out "what do you think about....." The number of text message photos from her with subjects like "WHAT has gotten into me?"

My living room has been, for some reason, a hard nut to crack, and when I first thought i figured it all out, Sara got an email with a lot of satisfied exclamation points.  After the ottoman project got under way, and since I can't afford grasscloth just now, all that was really left were three throw pillows.  Or, rather, the fabric or covers for some blank down inserts that are sitting on my loveseat and armchair.   This should not be difficult--should, in fact, be super fun--but I had dug myself into a corner of crazy specifications, and when I finally found "the perfect" throw pillow, it was an etsy find with designer fabric and well out of my price range.  But there was that money!  That my dad gave me for the vintage lamp!  The one my mom and I found at that sale!  That I did not buy!  And really, when it's perfect its perfect, right?

Guess who got the email?

That's right.  My second opinion.  My enabler.

I said something like this (okay, this exactly, plus some more):

Well, I need a throw pillow on the green danish armchair, and it needs to pick up on/ balance the African textile on the loveseat across the room, which means it should have some hot pink or raspberry in it, plus possibly some golden/orangey color, and then, to ground it in the room, it should have either green or brown, and then to keep things bright it should probably be on a white background or have a good dose of white in it.  A tall order.  And then throw in the fact that the scale needs to work around the very small pattern in another pair of throw pillows and the large tile pattern in the rug.  Plus the fact that it needs to work with the three rigid patterns in the room without being TOO rigid itself.

Oh, and it should be 20 inch square to work with the down insert I already have.

Oh my, writing it out like that makes me realize that of course this has been a challenge.

So I found this.  And I think it might be perfect.  On top of meeting all the above requirements, I like how the stripey edges pick up on the stripey ottoman and a modern painting over the fireplace which is--you guessed it--striped.  Okay, so perfect. Except it's silk moire--not the best for the kids--and it's $70--not the best for the busted budget.  But my dad recently gave me $60 to buy that lamp, which I did not buy.

So.  I should get this pillow and be done, right?

And just in case you don't want to link out to it, here's the pillow in question.

And guess what she said?

She said: yes.  Enabled.

So.  A few things.  I never fully believed in the power of designer fabric, generally thinking that you can fully get it done for less, but this may make a convert of me.  Also, thanks Dad!  And finally, for the record, Sara would have told me if this was a crap purchase.  Instead she said to go for it and then proceeded to pull and old silk jacket from her giveaway pile that might work for additional fabric in the room, and is in the process of sending me a picture.

Are you lucky enough to have a design confidant?  A style enabler?  Someone who will tell you the truth, yet support your crazy plans?  (I'm slightly jealous if this person is your partner.)  Also:  have you ever splurged on designer fabric?  Of course I'll share the outcome when this little old pillow cover arrives.  I'm strangely excited.

Ottoman fabric

Oh, the ottoman.

When I bought this octagon cocktail table on a whim at a thrift store, I didn't plan on turning it into an ottoman, so I wasn't really considering how I would design the thing.  When I did start ruminating a while back, I quickly realized there was a problem.  It's called a bright orange moroccan tile rug.

Don't get me wrong: I LOVE my living room rug.  Orange is our favorite color, and I think it has been established that I love all things Moroccan and all kinds of repetitive graphic patterns.  The trouble, when brining in other fabrics, is the scale of the pattern.  When we first moved in, I bought the Parker Armchair from Crate and Barrel only to discover immediately upon bringing them into the house that the two patterns fought each other, despite a coordinated color scheme and similar points of origin (the suzani and the moorish tile are both middle eastern.)  It was all about the scale.

Yet, if I was designing this ottoman based on the lines of the piece, I would definitely choose a large scale ethnic pattern, not unlike the embroidered indian fabric on the inspiration piece.  Since the room couldn't take a print like that, I had to come at it another way.  I already had a brown couch, a green armchair, and a flokati pillow for solids.  I already had an embroidered african textile and block printed throw pillows for small scale pattern.  Pattern-wise, the room needed a not-too-solid textured neutral, or a stripe.

Also, I should mention the other problem: money.  After the paint debacle, the fabric had to be cheap.  There would be no vintage suzanis or kuba cloth or excellent dhurries for this ottoman, no sirree.

I found a great heavy duty fabric in a sort of basket weave that mimicked the rattan of the table's bottom.  Even better: it had a sort of rubberized finish which seemed durable, and it was a neutral straw with some white running through it.  To be honest, I really waffled on this, but in a fit of impatience decided to put it on after I opened up the canvas dropcloth I had picked up as a neutral alternative and discovered big black imperfections in the fabric.  Thanks again, Home Depot.

I immediately felt that it was too yellow, too beachy, with the black base.  Don't you think?  On a white or natural wood base and in a beach house, it would be perfect.  One last pass at the fabric warehouse turned up a fabric I liked, for $7.50 a yard.  It was off white and a sort of golden tan to pick up on the paler neutal colors in the room, and best of all, it had a dark brown to black pinstitch running through it, which both gave it an ethnic vibe and tied it in to the black base.  It was a stripe without being too stripey.  I decided to add the fabric right over the straw, which was much stronger than the new fabric and gave the piece a stable base.

While, again, I didn't really want a directional fabric on the piece, I do like the stripe in the room.  I like the way the cream and tan sort of cool down the other colors, like the hot orange rug and the hot pink, green, and blue in the 70s oil paintings that are hanging in there.

But I'm not finished.  The next decision: whether to glam it up with details or leave well enough alone.  I have these brass and black nailheads that I was planning to space about an inch apart all along the edge (back when I thought I was going totally drop-cloth neutral).

And I have a tube of gold rub n buff, just ready to trim out the details on the base.  What do you think: glam it up, or keep it simple?

Progress, people, progress.

If I could just steal someone's living room....

It would be this one.

[Design: Jonathan Adler; via Elle Decor]

It has so many of the things I love (and have blogged about): the color orange, an octagon table, an amazing poof, a beni ourain rug, and THAT CHANDELIER.  And of course the paneled walls and vintage fireplace!  I would ditch the bust on the pedestal, but other than that: perfection.

I actually found a set of those brass masterkraft tables (used as a coffee table here) when I was pulling together our Boulder rental.  They were at an amazing thrift store in Denver --Lee Alex decor--and they were reasonable at either $75 or $99 each. I SO wanted them to work.

They felt a bit flimsy in my living room, especially with the big lamps that came from my previous house, but Oh, how I wish I had them anyway!  And then looking at this room, I have to laugh, because the influences of Adler's room are clearly there: the brown button-back sofa, the teal drapes, the overall color palette, the moroccan rug.  It always makes me wonder whether rooms like Adler's permanently imprint upon my brain, or if it's more coincidental that I like some of the same things that he likes.

What about you: do you have a favorite room?  Do pictures you see in magazines influence your choices in your own home?

Fabric Madness

I have always thought I loved this fabric.

Parish, from Ballard.  I say "thought I loved" instead of just "loved" because really, who can tell from a thumbnail swatch online?


I recently ordered a couple of swatches from Ballard for the x-benches in the New Jersey living room, and since there's a 10-swatch allowance, I threw in one or two for myself.  They came the other day and guess what?

I.  LOVE.  IT.

Which may seem silly, because it is not glorious or dramatic.  It is not a statement fabric.  The scale is quiet.  But I love it.  (The brown is richer than it appears on my screen, the contrast to the black and white is crisper.)  Looking at it, I realize that in one thing at least, I am consistent.

Remember the guest room headboard fabric?

Oh, and then I got some of that in green, which will likely go in the girls room.

And then when I was digging around in the fabric bin, I found this cotton sateen from a million unfinished projects ago.

Are we sensing a theme here?  The Parish is more of a quatrefoil to the leaf/artichoke design of the others, but still.

Do you do this?  Are you drawn to the same things over and over without even realizing it?  Who knew I was so predictable?  Now the question is: does it go on the cocktail table turned ottoman that I'm working on for the living room?  Or just a couple of throw pillows for the loveseat? Truth be told, I was reading Ashley Hicks' book about his father yesterday, and it made me want to layer on the pattern even more than usual, and take this fabric to the ceiling for drapes.  Plus throw pillows.

Meanwhile.  While I was at Ballard, I saw some nice, small scale buffalo check in indigo on sale for $4/yard, and somehow I ordered up a yard to accompany my swatches on their journey.

Weird how that happens.  I love a good classic check, and kept buying my husband shirts from J Crew in this pattern last spring.  Makes me think of this amazing "Gustavian Fantasy" from Ines de la Fressange.

[Domino, natch]

And those awesomely expensive mattresses.

I figured this would work in the guest room on those lampshades that I wanted to cover in ticking, if only the most common fabric on earth was not eluding me so.  Like ticking, the check has a traditional, classic, and linear feeling that is a nice counterpoint to the block print headboard, the silk draperies, and the Turkish rug.

Loving these developments.  Better get the sewing machine tuned up!

What about you: what projects await?  Also, while I'm asking questions, would you like me to be slightly more focused in my posts?  You know, a little less process-y?  Fewer words, more pictures?  Let me know: I can take it.

What I need

I generally write my posts the night before, but every once in a while I take the night off and find myself posting in the morning.  I try not to read other blogs before I get my own up, but sometimes I give in to temptation.  This was one such morning (procrastinating spring cleaning).  I just went to Little Green Notebook and read Jenny's great post on decorating in layers and building a room over time, and it ties in nicely to what I'm thinking about this morning.

My living room is headed towards the final "layer."  The big pieces are in, the color scheme set, the major fabrics chosen, the art is up.  I need to finish a number of projects (upholster the ottoman, sew the throw pillows), and then pull in the final bits and pieces.  But there is one bigger piece missing.  And it should have been determined in layer 1 or 2: extra seating.

The room has a funny layout.  It bleeds into an open hallway on one end and has an L-shaped half wall across from the long, exterior wall.  In that half wall is a gas fireplace and a bunch of cabinets that hide our wiring.  There isn't space to put real furniture in front of the fireplace, but without something there, the circle of seating is broken.

Enter the poof.  A pair of leather poofs was sort of the plan from the get-go, I just needed to wait and see what color.  But now I'm mostly out of money and those things tend to be a couple hundred each.  Plus, this is the kind that I decided would be perfect, in a bigger size, but I haven't been able to track it down (okay, I haven't really tried):

[LivingEtc via Sarah Wandering]

So I've been looking for other kinds of stools or benches, on craigslist, at consignment stores, at Home Goods, but I can't find anything that works with the crazy mid century Moroccan meets California traditional vibe of the room. (Are those real styles?  I think not.)

And then I saw this.

[My Marrakesh, spotted at Parlour]

Which made me think back to a post over at Sarah Wandering about making a dogbed from ikea rugs.  Similar concept.

I had been planning to make some square poofs for the basement with that fabric I was attempting to dye with sucky RIT, but now I want to do this for the living room instead.  Only problem is, I want to make them out of rugs exactly like this.

Which was on One Kings Lane in a tastemaker tag sale, was way out of budget, and there was only one anyway.

Anyone have a good source for simple dhurries like this, on the way cheap?

Just asking.

This also makes me regret, for the third time in as many weeks, apparently getting rid of this embroidered cream moroccan bedspread with inset mirrors.

I say apparently because I don't remember choosing to get rid of it, but it isn't here, so it must have gotten away from me in the crazy days of packing up our Brooklyn house after we already lived in Boulder.  I wanted it for the guest room here, just as what it is: a bedspread.  And then for the ottoman.  And now for these square poofermania floor pillows.  And with each project, I got all inspired to use this, and then had the sad realization that this bedpsread, which I already had, I have no more.

Anyway. I'm curious: do you decorate in layers?  Have you ever gotten really stuck when you skipped a step?

In Which I Use the Power Tools

I've got a little project going. I keep thinking I'm going to whip these things out, and then realize they take some time.

Remember the new coffee table?

Well, as my husband feared, the glass top is not the most child-friendly. But I love the shape in the room, so I wanted to figure out how to work with it, and then I got inspired by this.



Okay, I love everything about this room. It's sort of "global traditional," a look I have always been keen on. I love the color palette. I love everything about Indian textiles and fanciful flourishes, and what's not to love about this octagon ottoman?

So it was determined some time ago that my glass coffee table would become an ottoman. And being a copier, I would love to just use some embroidered paisley and some tassel trim and do it right up. Except that my living room already has that moorish tile rug in orange. And an ikat fabric in orange and red and green and blue. And a different fabric on each of three upholstered pieces. Plus the coffee table does not have the simple legs of the inspiration one, meaning I might need a simple fabric, which is not generally my first instinct. So the fabric is a work in progress, but I decided to go ahead and get started on the project.

After some debate, Dave and I decided to--are you ready for this?--do the simplest, most straightforward thing. It's true! After much talk of kraft paper patterns and graph paper scale drawings, we just put the glass right on the plywood and TRACED it. Take that, pattern maker. (Now, I'm sure you don't need a tutorial on tracing. I am including this photo to remind myself that every once in a while, we CAN do things the easy way! And also, that sometimes Dave helps me with these projects.)



And then I got a lesson in power tools. As I explained to Dave, I have no fear of tools, it's just that it's much easier to have him do projects for me than it is to do them myself. But then, he's not always around, and I am impatient, and so...



Jigsaw master.



The plywood is a bit thicker than the glass was, but once the foam and batting and fabric is on there, I don't think it's going to matter. (Says the Queen of Jinx.)

Stay tuned!

Accidentally On-Trend

I saw this story on Apartment Therapy a few days ago.

Trying on a Trend: Green and Orange Rooms.

Guess what I've got going on in the living room? You guessed it: green and orange. (Okay, and red and blue and brown and white and black and gold. Did you ever watch that show Find Your Style on HGTV? I loved it--except I could never understand how anyone could build a room using only 4 elements.)

I wouldn't have chosen green and orange, but I had the rug, and I had the chair, and I ran ot of budget before I had it recovered, so I'm embracing the combo.

My new fabrics just arrived, and I'm excited to get to work finishing things up in there.



Well, not finishing-finishing, but, you know, completing the next step.

Coffee table swap out, just in time

It seems fitting, somehow, that I picked up a new (to me) coffee table the very day I saw my beloved mid-century extension coffee table, above, knocked off by Crate and Barrel. I bought mine at the 26th street flea market a decade ago, before that parking lot became luxury apartment towers, and I think I paid close to $300--a major investment for me at the time. Well, and still. It has faithfully supported countless feet, piles of magazines, wine glasses and coffee mugs for all these years, but it was never the right shape for this current living room. I had just resigned myself to sticking with it (as the budget runs out), and had even picked up some restore a finish to reverse some of my decade's worth of use and that of untold owners before.

Then.

I was at Blick art supply picking up a projector to get the continents on the walls of Oliver's nursery and it turns out there is a home consignment store next door. I saw this puppy for $29, and would have bought it on the spot if it could have fit in the car with my kids and the load of cheerios and diapers from costco.



It was still there when I went back yesterday. Considering that the hubs says it looks like something from his 94 year old grandmother's house, I suppose there was low risk of losing it to another shopper. But who knows, someone else could have spotted this one, made over to perfection, over at the eagle's nest, and got some ideas into their heads, too.

The intricate detailing on the side of hers is far superior, I must admit, but I love the octagon shape.


It's the perfect size and shape for the living room, but the glass top is not particularly practical when you live with a 2 1/2 year old with a penchant for climbing onto and jumping off of furniture. So it's on a trial basis. The girls and I had a talk about it this morning, and hopefully they will listen to me for once. (When I say "the girls," do you hear Stacy of Stacy and Clinton talking about breasts? Just curious.)

I am thinking that it wants to be black, trimmed out in gold. Other ideas?

Meanwhile, beloved old coffee table. Enjoy the slower pace of retirement in the basement den, where you will rest most of the week and only occasionally host a game of Candyland. You have served us well.

Validation: green and chartreuse

Green keeps creeping into my life.

I didn't plan it, and often I didn't even choose it, but my house has plenty o' green going on. The Danish modern armchair in the living room, a craigslist find by the hubs back in Brooklyn, is upholstered in green, and much as I keep meaning to change it, there it is. Green. Lots of our art features green prominently, from an overscale photograph we got when the bidder backed out at an auction to a small engraving of a tree that my aunt gave me to a watercolor from my dad for my high school graduation. Green finds me.

And this would be fine. Except. I'm really loving chartreuse (as you may have noticed.) And I've never been so sure about green and chartreuse together. In fact, half the reason I wanted to reupholster the Danish armchair was because, from certain angles, you could see it in the same line of vision as the (chartreuse) dining room curtains. They're not even in the same room, just in the same line of sight!

Anyway, one day I was going through some old tearsheets and I stumbled upon this.


It's from the old Cottage Living, and truth be told, there are 1001 things I love about this house. Maybe even more. And it was funny to see it again and notice that the designers used a lot of chartreuse, and in the living room they paired it with green. And what do you know: I like the overall effect.

This got me to thinking about the notion of validation. My first reaction was to think, hey! it's okay for me to have green and chartreuse after all! Lookie here--they did it in a show house! I suppose we look to those who are more "expert" than we are to say what is and isn't okay, what we should, and should not, do. Just tonight I was reading a piece by Mark Bittman in the NY Times about frozen vegetables (thanks to the hubs keeping my reading interests broad), and Bittman, something of a foodie and an expert himself, went looking for validation from someone more expert than he when it comes to his experience with the use of frozen vegetables.

The truth is, others can "show us how it's done," but in the end we have to do what we like. If frozen vegetables taste good to us, we should eat them, no matter what anyone else thinks. If we want to pair chartreuse and green, we should go for it. And by the same token, if we didn't like a color combination before a shiny magazine trotted it out, we certainly don't need to change our minds.

I am not worshipping at the altar of green and chartreuse. But I am allowing it to be where it seems to want to be. In the girls room, the plaid fabric that went on the beds has both hues, and I put chartreuse moire on the bolsters and green trim on another pillow. And guess what? The rug in there happens to combine both green and a metallic chartreuse thread, though I did not know this when I ordered it. In the living room, I decided to treat the green as a proper element, and embrace the chartreuse next door, rather than trying to ignore one or hide the other. And while I have to admit, I would never name this as a favorite color combination, there's something to be said for allowing these things to emerge.

I may be a control freak, but I can also acknowledge that a lot of decorating magic happens when you just let go.

What about you: did you ever make a decorating decision because a magazine said it was "okay"? Did you shy away from something you loved because it broke the "rules"? I'd love to hear about it.

Textiles tie it all together

Happy Monday!

It's so fun coming back to design-blog-land at the beginning of the week to see what kinds of projects people got up to over the weekend. Looking forward to seeing what Danika came up with for her kitchen countertops--faux marble or no? As for me, I may have cracked the color code in my living room.

Usually, when starting in on a room, I need to start with the busiest, most colorful element, which for me is generally the rug or a textile, and pull my other colors, patterns, and textures from there. I'm sure lots of people work this way (and others probably have better methods, but it works for me.)

In our current house, the dining room's teal and chartreuse scheme built from this rug

The guest room's navy and raspberry scheme came from this rug


The girls' room is completely built around this fabric


And the master bedroom started with this duvet.


Oh, but what about the living room?

It has taken a while for the living room to click, especially when the new loveseat changed the vibe for me and I had to shake loose the old vision in my head to make way for something new. Over the weekend, I refined the color palette a little bit with some minor editing (and some new lamps!), and then realized that part of my problem was that I was working backwards from my normal methodology. I already had my furniture, my art, my rug, and while each thing related to at least one other thing in the room, I didn't have the one piece that tied it all together.

I needed my textile.

It needed to fit with the Moroccan tile pattern of the rug, the mid-century furniture, and the 70s art. Already a tall order, if you ask me! It also, I realized, needed to have green and raspberry and, ideally, blue, orange, and brown. Whoa. That's some funky jewel tone magic happening there, not my normal thing.

I figured ikat was my best bet. It's ethnic enough for the Moroccan-inspired rug (and a different pattern scale), timeless enough for the retro stuff, and colorful enough for the crazy combo of hues I've got going on in here. Many searches later, and I found this throw pillow, from an etsy seller I have actually bought from in the past.

And I could just go ahead and buy this pillow from her. But that might be too easy. Also, I figured that if I could track down the fabric, I could make a pair of pillows for the same cost, or less. Well. Guess what? My awesome sister-in-law Maud, of Union Place in Excelsior, found the fabric at Duralee. So my options open up.

How about going beyond pillow, like recovering a pair of lampshades??? I love this post about customizing lampshades, at Isabella and Max Rooms. What do you think? lampshades on these new green lamps,


Or the old brassy ones?


The green lamps need a little change up on the old silver bases, and the brass lamps could get sprayed something more in the black family. OR the throw pillow(s) on the brown couch. I'm taking votes. Democracy in action.

Just kidding. I guess it's a sensitive time to be flippant about democracy, what with the turmoil in Libya and the rest of the Middle East. But I do still want opinions.

What say you?