Heptagonal ottoman

I was flipping through my copy of Domesticities, a collection of house tours featured in The New York Times Magazine, and found myself pausing as usual when I got to pictures of the Houston home of John and Dominique de Menil, designed by Philip Johnson and decorated by Charles James.  I love the contrast between the home's modern architecture and the antique furniture and bright colors brought in by James.  I particularly like the seven-sided octagon that James designed for the living room, sitting in front of a Rothko and to the side of an antique Steinway piano.

Doesn't this look like a great place to spread out with a book from the collection visible to the left of the room?  Or to sit and listen to the piano being played?  The size of the ottoman is probably its most luxurious aspect; I know I certainly don't have room for a piece of furniture that size in my house, although if I did, I'm sure it would get a lot of use.  It would be a great piece of furniture for kids--I can easily imagine my son using it to spread out on to read books or as a launching pad for adventures in flight.

Here are a few other large-scale ottomans on the market now if you don't want to go the custom route:

Inman slipcover and ottoman from Hickory Chair

JAR Designs clover ottoman from Overstock

Graham large ottoman from Ballard Designs

Lotus Antrazit ottoman from CB2

Bevin tufted ottoman from Horchow

Oasis ottoman from Crate & Barrel

Image from Domesticities, photograph by William Abranowicz

Before and after -- bench slipcover

It's been a while since I've had the time to complete a sewing project.  The key word in the previous sentence is "complete," because I have started many projects.  In fact, Josh looked around the house this weekend and said, "There are piles of fabric everywhere!"  This was true, and I also have plastic sacks full of matching spools of thread and invisible zippers and yards of trim.  My sewing is progressing at such a slow pace in part because I refuse to pay full price for anything from the fabric store.  By the way, pillow forms will be on sale for 54% off (good price!!) at Hancock's Fabrics starting this Thursday, so I will hopefully get around to making a few throw pillows this weekend.

In the meantime, I did (finally!) complete this little bench makeover.  I already had some green tweed-like upholstery fabric, so I decided to make a slipcover for a bench we already had and use it in the living room for some additional seating.  Here are a couple before and after pictures.  In case you're interested in the step-by-step process, I'll post pictures below.

Before

After

The "how to" steps:

 Materials: foam (I used 2-inch foam), fabric, and piping.  See how bored the dog is by my ongoing projects and the photographing of these projects?

 I ended up using three packets of this pre-made piping, although you could easily make your own if you want to do self-welt or want something more custom-looking.

To cut the foam, use a serrated knife or (if you have one) an electric carving knife.

 Here is the foam cut to fit the top of the bench.  I also added a couple layers of light batting just to bring in a little more cushiony feel.  (And in case you're wondering, yes, my son is wearing a long-sleeve thermal shirt that says "Snowy Peaks Mountain: Fresh Hot Cocoa."  It was 90 degrees outside at the time.)

 Cut all your pieces of fabric: one for the top, and a few to piece together for the skirt of the slipcover.

 I cut the top of the bench out first, leaving an extra half-inch all around for seam allowance.  I pinned the piping to the top, carefully keeping it right at the edge.  Then sew this piping on to keep it in place.

 After sewing on the first piece of piping at the top of the seat, I sewed together four panels to make a box around the top of the foam.  I sewed this band to the top of the seat, then pinned on another piece of piping, again leaving about a half an inch at the bottom for the seam allowance.

 Next, I sewed together the skirt itself.  Unless you're using a fabric with no discernible vertical or horizontal pattern (in which case you can just run a length of the fabric all around the skirt without seams--called railroading), you will probably have to sew together a few pieces of fabric to make the skirt.  I pinned the skirt fabric to the bench before sewing to make sure that the seams would be hidden within the corner pleats.  Then just sew them together in one big band and iron your seams open.

Once the skirt has been sewn together, pin it to the top of the slipcover and fold in pleats wherever you want them.  Carefully sew the two pieces together, making sure to stay as close to the piping as possible to get a nice, clean look.  Once everything has been sewn together, hem the skirt by folding up some fabric, pressing, then folding again to get to the correct hem length.  (You can hem the skirt before sewing it to the rest of the slipcover, but I like to wait till the end because measuring isn't my strength and I'd rather not have to correct a mistake at this point!)

 The finished slipcover has two lengths of brown piping running around the top and bottom of the seat, with a pleat on each corner.  I may sew some strips of fabric with velcro underneath to make the top of the slipcover more taut, and I'm thinking of adding some sort of tie at the corners just to reign in the heavy upholstery fabric.

And here's the final look: the bench neatly fits a spot in the corner of the living room.  Right now we're using it to hold magazines and books, but we could easily pull it out to seat one or two people when we have company.  Also, what do you think of the chairs?  I decided to use the ivory slipcovers for now because I don't think it will be a huge pain to remove them for cleaning periodically.  Do we like the ivory/tan/green/brown color scheme going on here or not?  I think we need a new lamp with a darker shade, but we had this floor lamp already so it will do for now.

Pairs of chairs

Country Living

Heather Hilliard

Sunset

Elle Decor

House Beautiful

Vogue

Ginger Barber via Cote de Texas

 Alan Henderson

Atlanta Homes Magazine

Cote de Texas

Marco Meneguzzi

Nuevo Estila via Delight by Design

Notice the common element in all of these rooms?  If you said "a pair of chairs in neutral upholstery," you are correct!  I think a similar style of chairs might go well in our living room, opposite our couch, to add more seating to the space.  The trick is to find a chair that meets all my requirements: relatively small in scale, comfortable, preferably with a washable slipcover, not too pricey, and available locally so I can try before I buy.  I am thinking maybe the Luxe Chair Frame from World Market would do the trick:

I am not crazy about the exposed legs, but a custom linen slipcover would solve that problem and get the chair looking more like my inspiration: this Louis Chair from Cisco Brothers, which I love but which is also way out of my price range.

 What do you think?  Workable solution?

IKEA MICKE desk

We are in the process of slowly making over a small bedroom to function as a home office (see the tentative plan here).  The latest thing we did was to put in an actual desk instead of the kitchen table we'd been using for about four years!  I actually really liked the table as it was roomy enough for two laptops and a bunch of books, but it didn't have any storage or drawers and was really too big for the small room (especially once we moved a full-size couch in!).

Here's what my desk looked like a few weeks ago.  I was working (well, kind of...notice the IKEA website up on the laptop?) and realized how surrounded I was by electronic devices.  All those electronics mean cords and cables, which kind of drive me crazy.  So when we were up in Minneapolis recently, we stopped by the Twin Cities IKEA store and picked up the MICKE desk in white.  IKEA has a couple new variations on the MICKE, including some with deeper drawers, a small one-person desk, and a corner workstation.  Prices are really affordable, $150 and below, which means we certainly didn't pay for an assembled product!

The IKEA man from the directions and and my husband were not on speaking terms for a few hours.  But once put together, the desk has been really sturdy, and I am happy with the dimensions, especially the depth since the desk doesn't stick out very far from the wall.  The best part, however, is the built-in (and hidden!) tray along the back for storing all those USB cables and power cords.  There is a hole in the top right corner of the desktop so all the cords can be dropped down into that tray.

I think I might like to eventually add a piece of glass to the surface, but for now we are pretty happy with this desk!  Now on to the next project: a desk chair!

Wingback chairs + desks

So I have an old wingback chair that I am in the process of redoing.  I was going to reupholster it, but now I am thinking of slipcovering it instead.  Either way, I was wondering if it would work as a (comfy!) desk chair, perhaps with casters added to the legs to raise the height a bit.  The following pictures are encouraging this idea...

(All images from Decor Pad)