Over the 3-day weekend, we finally purchased fabrics for our throw pillows. I just double-checked my initial post, and yep, it has taken us 5 months to choose these fabrics. I was not kidding when I said this would be one of those “slow-but-steady” projects.
Anyway, I’m excited to be able to share our plans (at last). As a brief refresher – our sectional sofa is massive and bright-white, so we need a lot of pillows and nothing cream-based. We had a really tough time finding home dec fabrics with white backgrounds. Almost everything out there is off-white — and we have a lot of selection around here!
We fell in love with this Bull’s Eye pillow from West Elm (below) and were really close to buying it, but the background color is cream — not white. We were afraid that it would end up looking dirty once we got it home and next to the sofa. This has happened to us several times with blankets and other accessories, so we left the pillows at the store.
However, we came home inspired and decided to make something similar. We gathered up some Silk Radiance fabric in several shades of blue and champagne for a machine-pieced version. Now that we finally had a few fabrics chosen, we took these with us on our next few shopping trips. At F&S Fabrics, we found this white/green geometric fabric in linen. We also purchased some pale blue lame (the top fabric in the upper photo) that we are going to use for some tone on tone stripes. In the store, it was so shiny it was almost wrong — but I think it actually provides the perfect amount of contrast.
It’s possible we still might need some soft, textural fabrics — but we are going to get started and see how it goes. My husband suggested we make a pleated pillow from the darkest blue fabric to help ground everything. There is so much white fabric on the sofa to break these up, that I think that really helps.
Anyway, it feels good to finally make some progress. I’m hoping that I might actually get to start sewing these next weekend. What about you? Anything new in the works?
Filed under Fabric & Sewing, House & Home.
Tagged with decorating, fabrics, the last 5.
By Kelly
September 6, 2011
Thank you so much for all of the kind words about the picture frames in the living room. You guys really are the best! Today, I wanted to share another small decorating project.
While my husband was marking off the living room wall with masking tape and the laser level, I had to do something to keep myself occupied. I finally took the plunge and removed all of the dust jackets on our books and started grouping them by color. (You can see what our bookshelves looked like before here.) I know that this idea is nothing new, and I worried for a minute that maybe the trend had passed and was no longer cool. Then I thought “who am I trying to impress?! Does it really matter as long as we both like it?”
So, I gave it a whirl. Many of our college books are paperback, and while I’ve thinned the collection and donated a bunch, there are still some we just haven’t parted with yet. I was worried that the color arrangement might be a bit Rainbow Brite for our tastes, but I think it ended up being more subtle than I thought. We have lots of black, white, and grey books that tone things down.
I spent about an hour grouping and arranging everything by color and still need to make another pass to get it all right. However, I am liking it so far. I will show another picture once it’s all done. Have you tried this or is it too matchy-matchy for you? Do you also worry about the secret decorating police who will come and judge your room?
Filed under House & Home, Organization.
Tagged with bookshelf, bookshelf styling, decorating, rainbow, the last 5.
The title of this post says it all: We have art on the wall in the living room! There is a huge part of me that wants to shout this to random people passing by on the street and invite them in. LOOK! ART! WALL! US! (Except of course for the obvious safety issues of inviting random pedestrians inside your home.) Thank goodness for blogs, right?
So hanging up artwork is what happens when all of Los Angeles is trapped inside for a weekend. Thank you, Carmageddon.
Remember this post a couple of months ago? We’ve known we wanted to hang some of our photographs on the wall, but we just couldn’t decide on a layout. Well, looks like I was over complicating things again. Who needs fancy layouts? We are symmetry people. Eight large square frames in two neat and tidy rows did the trick.
It took us a long time to sort through thousands of photographs and narrow it down to eight, but it was worth it. Each of the photos has a story to it.
I’m still in that state of post-decorating bliss where you find yourself entering and re-entering the room to admire whatever changes you made. I have viewed this little spot from every imaginable angle — standing in the kitchen, in the entry way, in the reflection of a nearby mirror. My husband has asked me to stop doing this because apparently it’s creepy.
Next up: the bookcase! Isn’t amazing how one little change can set you on a roll….?
Filed under House & Home, Photography.
Tagged with decorating, decorating dilemmas, frames, Photography, the last 5.
It’s possible that I have watched one too many episodes of Secrets from a Stylist. My husband pulled me aside this weekend to have “the talk.” This usually happens after a really great HGTV marathon when my spirits are high and my decorating fervor is renewed thanks to the encouragement (as if I needed encouragement!) of Genevieve Gorder and Emily Henderson. Alas, these shows do not seem to have the same effect on my husband who asks me nervously just how many accessories I really think the room needs and when exactly will we be finished decorating. (insert maniacal laughter here)
He gets his revenge though. He has diagnosed my decorating type as “hoarder chic.” (That’s fine. I’d rather be “hoarder chic” than “minimalist prison compound.” Unfortunately, if you combine these you could potentially end up with “hoarder prison compound.” Something tells me we might not make it onto Emily’s show.)
Since he does not seem too interested in my latest decorating question, I am appealing to you. If you could convince your minimalist husband that your living room really needed one extra little something — would you go for the moroccan pouf or the garden stool? (The options above are just examples. I’m not tied to a color or particular style yet. I will need to find the bargain of a lifetime since they will be in constant peril of minimalist husband giving them the axe.) Of course, I guess you could also tell me that these things are over, but at our place, I always allow for a design trend “grace period.” It’s only fair since it takes us a bazillion years to make a decision.
Up above you can also see some of the pillow styles we’ve been auditioning. I haven’t abandoned my pillow project yet, but I am having a terrible time finding the right fabric. Our couch is white-white, and a lot of the prints I’m finding are a creamy sort of beige that ends up looking dirty. I may end up purchasing the focal point pillow and then make the stripes and a few textural companions myself.
Hope your week is going well!
Sources:
Willow Sofa, $1,699
Amazon.com: Bongo Ceramic Garden Stool, Misty Blue: Patio, Lawn &…, $350
Goods: Moroccan Poufs, $345
Keys Turquoise Pillow, $129
DwellStudio | Search results for: ‘pillows’, $58
DwellStudio | Decorative Pillows – Modern Throw Pillows – Decorative…, $106
DwellStudio Home Metallic Masala Bronze Pillow, $48
UrbanOutfitters.com > Pintuck Velvet Pillow, $32
PB Classic Stripe Outdoor Pillow | Pottery Barn, $23
DwellStudio | Decorative Pillows – Modern Throw Pillows – Decorative…, $62
Filed under Friends & Family, House & Home, Inspiration.
Tagged with decorating dilemmas, garden stoul, moroccan pouf, pillow project, the last 5.
[Image from Ikea]
I think we are nearing a solution for artwork in the living room. We have debated canvas, framed photos, and a dozen different layout options — everything from one giant piece of artwork to triptychs. This has only taken us 18 months which is quite speedy for us. In fact, I hope we have not rushed things too much here. ;-)
A few nights ago, we went through our photography archives to try to choose which photos would make the cut. I think we realized that a collage of smaller prints will work best. On demand canvas printing seemed really cool, but committing to a few favorite images was just too hard. We’ve taken thousands of photos in the past few years and our favorites are eclectic, so going with smaller photos will allow us to mix and match some flowers, special places, people, and maybe even a few animals (my design concession to my husband). Our one rule is that we have decided to only use photos we’ve taken together.
Now for the hard part: the layout! I really this photo from Ikea (up top) of the ever-popular Ribba frames. The mixture of depths from the shadow boxes and regular frames makes me really happy. So tactile! However, we need an arrangement that is symmetrical or boxed in neatly somehow. We just don’t do organic very well.
Here is one of about 4 different arrangements I’ve been playing with which didn’t make the cut (awkward spacing around some of the frames):
We’ll get there. Eventually.
I owe everyone a pillow update, so I’m working on that post, too. Alas, I still have not made it to the fabric store for pillow fabrics. We’ve been running around like crazy, and I’m just trying to be at peace with our schedule however packed it’s going to be. I hope your week is off to a good start!
Filed under House & Home, Organization, Photography.
Tagged with decorating, frames, living room, photograph, the last 5.
