Fall decorating

A little redecorating and furniture shuffling has been going on, nothing extremely autumnal, but just a nudge toward velvet, wool, plaid, and a few natural objects like pumpkins and acorns.

 

 

Sammy approves of the new placement of armchairs on either side of the fireplace, as this presents him with two places to sleep during the cold months.

I am enjoying this quiet, cozy layout for a month or so before glitter, twinkling lights, fair isle knits, and wreaths and garlands mark the onset of Christmas in the house.

House tour -- powder room

I was looking through the newest issue of Veranda magazine last week and noticed something familiar in their roundup of freestanding sinks:

The same Kohler sink (pictured on the far left in the article above) in our powder room:

It truly is a good sink; it has more surface area than other pedestals, and it feels sufficiently solid and looks sufficiently old-fashioned to me.

I don't think I've ever posted photos of this room before, so here are a few shots:

 

A little gallery is growing on the walls as I slowly find and add new pieces. The little circular ink drawing above is a flea market find, and the blue city scene is from Salzburg, Austria.

 

All of the fittings are from the Kohler Bancroft collection.

Paper cut-out ship from a flea market; ink drawing from a little art store on the grounds of the Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

 

Two ink drawings from Istanbul, Turkey (I posted about how I framed the bigger one here).

Before and after -- master bedroom

I haven't done any house tour photos for a while, so I thought I'd share a few of our master bedroom.  It's definitely still a work in progress, but it's coming along.  Here is the "before" picture, taken probably about a year and a half ago:

And here is the little plan I drew up, illustrating the changes I wanted to make:

And here it is today:

I recovered this chair in Waverly's "Garden Lattice" fabric.  This was my first upholstery project, so it was a trial-and-error process, often mostly error.  :)

 

Yet another DIY project: Check out how I dyed these lampshades here.

 The room setup hasn't changed, but I did swap out the big comforter for a coverlet instead.  I made a white linen duvet cover that we use with a down comforter in the colder months.

We have these white faux-wood blinds in all of our front windows, and I really like them.  From the street, they give the house exterior a nice, consistent look.

I know a lot of people don't like having a TV in the bedroom because of the temptation to keep it on all the time, or because watching TV right before bed can make it harder to fall asleep. We don't use it all that much, but it is nice to let James watch Saturday morning cartoons with us or turn on the news while getting ready in the morning.  The framed etchings here were a terrific flea market find.

I keep this little bowl from Anthroplogie on my nightstand.  Mostly I use it for barrettes and hair clips, but for some reason I always have this little kid's toy watch in here too.

I made the headboard--it's a faux leather fabric that is very easy to keep clean.  I worry about a fabric headboard getting too dusty after a while.

I am thinking that I would eventually like to replace the coverlet and dust ruffle with a custom-fit bedspread, probably in a beige linen that is close to the wall color.  I wouldn't mind going with mostly solid fabrics and getting rid of the more patterned chair and pillow fabrics.  I only have the aqua curtains because we needed to buy something for a home show, but I would prefer less color in the room.  So we'll see, there may be another "after" post sometime in the future!

Sneak peek -- our den

We're making progress!  Last week I shared some inspiration photos for our new den, so I thought I'd give a little update on how it's coming along.

As you can see, the couch came in last week.  Here's a little peek at it.  So far it's been great.  Josh stretched out last night to watch the Kansas basketball game, and I believe he found it sufficiently cozy.  I think it will be a good napping couch because it's so long and deep.  The rust-colored silk pillow may or may not stay in this room, but, local readers, I found it at Repeat Boutique on Ingersoll.  Contrary to the store name, all their pillows are brand new and well priced!  They do have some consignment furniture and other decor items that are used.

Over the weekend we made a really quick trip up to the Twin Cities and sped through IKEA (twice) to get the components to build an entertainment console (more pictures coming once we finish the room).  Yesterday Josh spent the whole day putting it together and mounting the TV on the wall to make it a little safer place to play for the two youngest members of our family.  The ivory ginger jar lamp just needs a finial and it will be complete--anybody know of a good local resource (I would need two matching ones, and I am looking for a carved and/or stone design).

Also new to the space is this oil painting I bought just before the end of the year.  I'd been looking at it for months in a local consignment shop and finally decided to buy it when I had a 20% off coupon (and a really big editing job that I had just finished!).  :)  It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's actually a pretty large piece, so it fills the space over our sideboard well.  I'm not crazy about the frame, but that can be changed sometime later.  The silver tea and coffee service will probably go into storage for a while, and I'll put more den-ish items on top of the sideboard (what are den-ish items?  leather bound books? accessories that smell of rich mahogany?).

And here are a couple fabrics I've purchased lately for the room.  I think the one on the left (that cross between a flame stitch and ikat) will make a pillow or two, and I'm not sure yet about the damask on the right.  It has a more beige background, so I might do a long lumbar pillow for the couch or cover an ottoman.

I'm planning on ordering these thermal curtains as well to help with room darkening (since the TV faces three windows) and hopefully to warm up the room a bit in the winter (again, three windows!).

We still have a lot of work to do, but at least it's a usable room now, and it feels like we're actually moving along--always a good thing!

What projects are you trying to get finished this month?

House tour -- bathroom

So after my last post on bathrooms, I decided I should come clean and show you my bathroom, which does indeed have a wood vanity (but not a wood toilet seat!).

I don't think the dark wood vanity overwhelms the room.  I tried to use a lot of bright things throughout the rest of the space (a large mirror to reflect the window opposite), nickel faucets and such, white towels, and a creamy marble countertop.

 

I made the roman shade over the window out of a thick brown linen and trimmed it out with some cream grosgrain ribbon.  I am a big fan of that window; it makes the smallish room seem a lot bigger, and I just like having natural light in a bathroom.

So there's my confession in photos: as much as I love all-white bathrooms, mine is anything but!  :)

Vintage stereo cabinet

So after yesterday's post about wood furniture, I thought I'd give you a glimpse of our newest acquisition: this cabinet stereo from the '40s or '50s (I think -- I need to do more research!).  It's a family piece that we picked up over Easter weekend.  I gave it a good dusting and polished up the finish a little bit.  The front now shines in the light from the window right next to it, which I really like!

For now we have it sitting in our living room, but if we ever finish a family music / TV room in the basement, I think it would we great there too!

The doors on the front cover a record player and radio.  How fun is the radio and dials??  This makes listening to the radio cool again!  I hope we can get the record player running again -- I think we need to buy a few pieces, but we do have the original records that came with it, so it would be a fun party trick to play those for company!

Solid evidence

This is our living room.  I like many things about it, such as the ability to flip a switch and enjoy a toasty fire.  I also like the coziness of the small room, the brown velvet curtains, the ample natural light, the comfy chair and ottoman, the lamps, and the bits of black and white.  But I feel like it is missing something.

Then I ran across this quotation by designer Michael S. Smith in a House Beautiful article on cozy decorating and realized what that something is: pattern.

Here's what he had to say:

"I think you can be comfortable in a room that has no pattern, but it requires more effort.  It's not as cozy or evocative.  You can't convey the idea of Java in a plain fabric.  There can be a simplicity in plain fabrics, which I love, but in a house you really want more of a narrative.  If you don't have strong architecture, you need something else to tell the story.  I think pattern is a shortcut to emotion.  It has all these memories, of a place or a period or a particular dress your mother wore.  It has tremendous power over us."

I know that it may seem really obvious by looking at the pictures above that I only have solid colors in the room, but when you live with something for a while, you get used to it and sometimes it's hard to evaluate it honestly.  There are a lot of textures in this room: the stuccoed walls, the leather furniture, the wool rug, the slate fireplace surround, etc.  But there is no pattern.

I will be trying to remedy this situation.  I already have a muted animal print waiting to be made into pillows, and I think I will be bringing in more green -- I was trying it out with the lone green pillow on the couch!  But this room is open to the foyer with its red and blue Persian runner and the breakfast room with its blue and white textiles, so I really need to tie all these colors together somehow in the living room.

Any suggestions?

House tour - blue and white special

Yesterday I had a mountain of papers to grade, which kept me busy all day.  Well, to be honest, watching a dog and a four-year-old boy kept me busy all day.  My schedule went something like this: grade a paper, make breakfast, build a train track, type up an assignment sheet, don a winter glove and child's baseball hat to play tee ball in the kitchen, forbid the playing of tee ball in the kitchen, make lunch, grade another paper, respond to some emails, take the dog out, do two loads of laundry, grade another paper, scold the dog, clean up the train tracks, etc. etc.

Anyway, by mid-afternoon I was exhausted, so I pulled out the French press and made a (full-caff!!) pot of Starbucks Tribute blend.  The baristas told me they loved it, and it's basically all dark roast beans, which are my favorite.  It was really good, I have to say!  I paired the coffee with a nutella sandwich (really, it's not even fit to be called a sandwich -- basically it's nutella on bread).  If you don't love nutella, you probably haven't tried it yet!  :)  I did not feel bad about eating this snack because 1) I just saw in Better Homes and Gardens that some study reported the benefits of an afternoon coffee and snack on something important like memory or attentiveness, and 2) I served it on my Blue Willow dishes so it didn't look quite so much like junk food.

This got me thinking about blue and white, and I realized I have quite a lot of this color combination in our house.  Here's a little photo tour:

Questions about sources?  Just send me an email or ask away in the comments section.