living room rug

Here are the window treatments we're thinking for our family room (from Ballard Designs). I really like the grosgrain ribbon detail. Though I hope to make some of the other window treatments for the house, there are certain rooms where we need something up immediately for privacy. I'm happy with these for the family room.
We're leaning towards these slipper chairs (also from Ballard) in the family room to provide additional seating. We can order it in a cream color sunbrella fabric which is extremely stain resistant.

Here's the accent chair we've already purchased.

Today we took a rug sample (from Crate and barrel) to the store to try to see if it might work with the sofa and accent chair fabric. While the colors are complementary, we ultimately decided that it was just too much blue and too busy.

We're now leaning towards this area rug for the family room. It's less expensive and fully reversible. I think it will be beautiful with the pieces we've already purchased.. thoughts?

Powder room vanity

Here it is for real. We had to stop at the cabinet place to confirm the hall bath vanity and I was able to stap a photo of our exact vanity (they sold us the floor model at a discount!).

Here's a close up of the countertop.

Here you can see the farmhouse sink.

So it's all in one place- these are the sconces that will go on either side of the mirror.

And here are the shades that will go on each of the sconces.

Bedroom setee

We just purchased this settee for our bedroom! Two chairs were just going to be too big and neither one of us loved the idea of doing a desk there. We found this a couple of weeks ago, hugely marked down and it's been in our minds ever since. When it was still there today and the measurements worked, we took it as a sign and bought it!

Many thanks to our dear friends who will store it in their home for us until our move in date. It's pretty funny how many pieces of furniture we have scattered around-- a farmhouse table on a friend's sunporch, the dining chairs being delivered to my inlaws, a rug in M.'s choir room.... It will be a fun day running around collecting it all.

I'm thinking I can sew some pretty throw pillows to break up the monochrome a bit....

interior, exterior updates

Lots of updates to share!

Here you can see the lath(?) that the mason has attached to the outside of the masonry walls. It's this metal mesh stuff that's bolted into the wall. The stucco will be attached to this. I joked to M that it looks like our house has armor!

Here's our giant gas meter. We'll have to figure out some creative landscaping to cover this guy. That said, we're thrilled that the gas company finished their work and tomorrow the heat will be turned on! This feels like a real turning point... it means that the interior work will be able to really start up.

Here's our electric meter. M. wanted me to get a photo of it reading zero since tomorrow the electric will also be put to work.

Here's our garage door- newly installed!

... and we bought the sofa... plus the accent chair and the lovely accent pillows! We flew into the store fifteen minutes before the closed, I had M. sit on the options and I checked to see if the accent pillows could work on the tan sofa. We are thrilled to have gone through a local store especially with the current economy. We're also so happy with the price we got- and they have no problem holding the items for us until we move in. I'm really happy to have one more (large) thing down. It's a funny thing, I didn't even realize how much stress I was holding until it starts to diminish with each decision made.... with every little step I have reassurance that we're going to be okay, that we're going to be back home. I'm really happy with the sofa and accent chair; I feel like our living room is really coming together!

futher (sofa) thoughts and building updates

....I think I dreamt about sofas last night. Is that normal? I did have a thought around 3am though-- I want to go back to the store and take the gorgeous blue pillows from the blue sofa and see what they look like on the tan sofa. That would mean tan sofa plus blue accent chair. Is there a chance this might work? I worry that we may need to lighten it up the sofa even more with some more light-toned pillows or even a cream colored throw. It's highly likely this won't work at all, but it's worth a shot, right? Stay tuned....

In the meantime here are some photos taken over the weekend- in day light! It makes such a difference taking photos without having to balance the flashlight.
View from the kitchen into the dining room and then the living room.

View from the dining room into the family room where the sofa will go in front of the box bay windows.

Similar view into the family room with a view of the fireplace.

Also I just spoke with our builders. Our garage door was delivered today and the stucco work on the outside has started. Please send us warm thoughts that the heat will get turned on this week (we've been waiting on gas and electric for what feels like eons!) because then they will be able to start taping/mudding the drywall. There's a good chance we'll meet with the painters this weekend so they can price out what we're thinking. All good updates. Admittedly I'm getting a bit impatient. Actually M put his finger on it exactly-- the interior, especially the second floor looks and feels eerily like our old house. I think I'm anxious to have it trimmed out so that it feels a little more different somehow and cozier. I'm eager to move in and put photos and artwork on the walls and cook dinners and make music and have a home again...

Sofa sale

Just when I thought I was narrowing it down, I drove by one of my favorite stores "J&M" (which I think is also fun because its the initials of dear husband and my first names!) and they are having a big sofa sale. Here are a few that caught my eye as serious contenders.... even though they don't have the fully stain treated fabric, the lower price point is very appealing (they are reduced further than the prices on the tags) and they are lovely pieces.

The fabric on these pillows is just gorgeous. The blue/gray sofa is also beautiful; I really like the welting. For my notes this sofa measures 82L 38D 37H. Even though it really changes my original vision for the room, I am seriously swayed. Even more so by the fact that with this sale we could probably also swing this gorgeous matching accent chair/ottoman.

I love, love, love this chair. The blues would still work with the wall color and the fabric I was thinking for the window treatments in the adjoining dining room. I think it would also work with the armoire and coffee table. The trick would be figuring out a rug to go with these. We've gone back and forth between a natural fiber rug and something persian. I think we'd probably want to go with the former if we turned blue with the upholstery. Oh dear, I am so easily influenced! The two big negatives are that the sofa has "feet" and even though it looks like it has a loose back, the back cushions are actually attached. This is not ideal for us at all.

Here's another option that is more in keeping with the original color scheme of creams/blacks and tans. This sofa is also a bit more comfortable somehow than the blue one. I also really like the skirt on this sofa. No gorgeous accent chair in the show room with this one, but perhaps in the future we could do one with fabric of our choosing... and though it looks a bit drab compared directly to the lovely fabric above, one could add some great accent pillows to dress it up. Sofa dimensions are 84L 40D 36H (maybe it's the increased seat depth that makes it more comfortable....)

I also really loved this sofa. (77L 36D 37H) It's slipcovered which initially I wasn't considering because it sometimes looks too informal to me, but this cover fits so cleanly that it has the relaxed slipcover look without looking sloppy. The slipcover is also appealing because it can be removed to clean. That said, I'd still be really nervous to go this light-colored without any stain resistance on the fabric.... (I don't love the idea of cleaning the slip cover constantly). Also even though this is a cream colored sofa like my initial vision, it's got blue and green grey stripes. Really pretty, but majorly changes the whole idea of the room in a way that I haven't wrapped my head around yet.... That said, the style of the sofa is so close to what we've been aiming for and dear husband says of the bunch this would probably be his first choice.

Here's the accent chair they have it paired with in the show room. I think it's very pretty but it doesn't really speak to me like that blue fabric above....

Well I have some thinking and some number crunching to do tonight....

getting some perspective

I'm trying to teach myself how to draw interior spaces in order to imagine what rooms will actually look/feel like. Having read up on vanishing points and all that, I gave our family room a try last night on the train-- let me tell you, the hour commute flew by, and I'm kind of proud of how it turned out. (I may, just may scan it to post here if everyone promises to be kind! ;) I've never drawn a sofa before, much less a sofa in perspective-- the whole exercise was kind of a cool blend or artistic experimentation (I tried a wreath over the mantle and M. agrees that might be a cool way to go!) and a way-more-challenging-than-sudoko puzzle.
But I'm also writing that I think I've gotten a little perspective having priced out a glider chair at the design store which came out way more than I thought it would. What's a bother is that the fabric I chose is inexpensive at about $18/yard-- it's the actual chair that is $$$ than I had anticipated. So now I'm thinking to go Crate and Barrel on this one. I'm bummed because I really, really liked the fabric and the color and had even picked an inexpensive trim for right above the skirt. I don't know... I have a dangerous way of justifying the expense of things when it comes to rebuilding/refunishing our home-- but I think this may be a place where I have to deny myself the "splurge". I wish I could show you what a gorgeous green/grey fabric I had chosen. It even had a great name: "Willow" and the thought would be it could be in the back bedroom until it was outgrown and then either move to our bedroom or even the living room.... but here's the Crate and Barrel alternative.

Which it's fine. It's more than fine. Honestly it's still a little splurge in and of itself..... Well, we'll see.

sigh... sofas....

I spent basically all day at the decorating/fabric store-- my new favorite place... and I'm learning alot and think (maybe?) coming down the home stretch on deciding on a sofa. The things I knew already- we want three cushions, it needs to be 84" - 86" width. We're leaning towards a box cushion (but we could be swayed on this one). One thing I learned is that we do want to go with a skirted sofa after all. It makes sense-- since we'll have a coffee table and accent chairs and even the armoire now on "feet" we need something to ground the room. Otherwise as the owner, L., put it, it would look like those Disney movies when the furniture gets up and just walks away! I'm also slowing learning the different names of arms... most of which I've already forgotten but here goes:

This is a basic sock arm. Fine. It's classic. But the longer I look at it the more it looks a little cartoonish. This is also skirted sofa but I think it will look better if the skirt started up a little higher; it being so low kind of contributes to the chunkiness of this sofa. This sofa has box cushions (I think that is what it's called). Basically the seat cushions are completely boxed in by the arms. So honestly all in all, this is a very classic, nice looking sofa-- the problem is that I've been looking at sofas for weeks (okay months) so now my taste has become more... refined?

Moving on, here you have a skirted sofa with a rolled (?) arm. This is not a box cushion (see how the ends kind of wrap around. The skirt on this sofa also looks a little short or something to me.

Here's a sofa with an English(?) arm (maybe this is even a saddle arm?). The one accent chair we think we're going to do in this room has a similar arm to it, so I think we're leaning towards a rolled arm for the sofa (don't need to be too matchy-matchy on arms, right?). Something about this particular pictured sofa I really, really like. Maybe it's the mildly contrasted welting. I also like the way the skirt is a bit higher... and even that the back cushions are a little lower and I think the way they are constructed is different. Note this does not have boxed seat cushions though.

Here's another rolled arm sofa (ignore the fabric) which I like though the skirt starts too low and it seems a little.... too upright? or something? I'd want to sit on this one. I don't know the depth measurements on this, but it looks like it might be not deep enough for dear 6'1 husband.

And another English arm sofa... which i do really like.... hmmmm.

family room

It's really rewarding to see a vision of a room slowly take shape. I'm feeling that way about our master bedroom, our music room (though I haven't yet posted on that) and starting to feel it about our living room. We're planning to keep a neutral color scheme here. The walls will likely be benjamin moore "alpaca" or "fairmount oaks". This room is right off of the dining room which is right off of the kitchen-- all an open floor plan... but the room has some added interest in that the rest of the house has 8ft ceilings, but this room is a vaulted 11 ft ceiling. The room gets great light from the box bay window that will be behind the sofa and the fireplace (gas!!) will add some coziness to it. Anyway here are some inspiration photos:

I was drawn to the check upholstery in this photo, the bookcases and all the light streaming from the windows. I'm tempted by the natural fiber rug, but I think we want something that is softer, more family (and bare feet) friendly, the kind of area rug that you want to sit on to play scrabble. Back to the upholstery, I was warned that doing a check fabric, particularly a large check fabric means that you get 'waves' when someone sits on it... good point and not one I'd thought of. In any case, I think we're leaning towards doing a plain cream colored sofa and save the checks for an accent chair and/or throw pillows. (I'm sorry I don't have a photo credit for this, I have so many pictures I collected before I started blogging... if anyone knows, please chime in!)

Here's another neutral color scheme-- where you can see how lovely the light colored sofas look especially with the interest of a couple throw pillows. I imagine our coffee table will be kind of similar to the one pictured here, only less distressed and with a more sturdy leg. More on our coffee table below... I really like this room, but it's more austere than what we'd really be comfortable in. (again have to apologize that I don't know where I found this photo....)Here's the chair (from ballarddesigns) I promised dear husband after he finished his master's degree. He was lobbying strongly for a leather sofa... for multiple reasons (not the least of which- I'm a vegetarian) I just couldn't go there. This is a compromise. I'm also not a fan of recliners at all, but this really looks fine when it's folded up. Anyway I think a leather accent chair might actually look really great with our overall scheme... and I know he will love stretching out there for an afternoon baseball game or when he goes back for another degree and needs a chair to do his reading in. ....still have to measure carefully to make sure it will fit.

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with my lack of vocabulary when it comes to furniture and fabric. I think I'm going to have to get "Furniture for Dummies" (...actually, do they make that? hmm might check out the library.) Anyway, the point of posting this chair is for the fabric. Is this called a buffalo plaid? (if so, I think that's kind of unfortunate) I think I'd want a chair that structurally has more contrast to the "man chair" above but I really like the back and arms of this chair and the shape of the cushion on the seat. Also I'm not so wild about the casters(?) aka the wheely things on the legs.

Here's the rug we're thinking- which ties the whole color scheme of the room together. I'm increasingly nervous because it just went on sale at Pottery Barn meaning that the stock is probably limited. We started brainstorming last night about what other easy-going friends with storage (basements/garages) we might be able to lean on.... we have no place to store anything right now, but it would be really sad to have this rug go out of stock on us before we're able to buy it....

I'm nervous but also excited about our decision to do a black distressed wood on the entertainment armoire. I've always been a standard stained wood person, so this is a jump out of my comfort zone... but the above inspiration photo (from katemadison.com) helps me envision the potential. We met last night with the guy who's going to build our piece. M. found him online and even though he usually only works with interior decorators/architects or boutique stores, given the economy he was willing to work directly with us! He builds all his pieces from reclaimed wood-- usually barns, but sometimes houses. It was amazing to sit with him and actually design our piece. It will be similar to the inspiration photo above, but with bifold doors on the armoire part, and two small drawers on the armoire below the tv cabinet part and above the storage cabinet. The side bookcases will be symmetrical, both with doors. Even though it's a bit of a splurge for us, buying a similar piece from a regular retail store would be comparable but not one-of-a-kind or with so much character. Especially in this economy, I'm really happy to work with someone directly-- to have a quality piece of furniture that was not shipped over by some big company from china-- but one that was hand crafted by someone we've met. He will also be building a coffee table for us. The coffee table will be a distressed white painted bottom, with a stained top. The legs of the table are old barn posts!

Farmhouse table is ours!!!

Here's M, measuring to make sure we could fit a 84" x 48" table... and here is our beautiful farmhouse table (only 36" across)-- safe and sound on a good friend's sun porch until we can move it in. It is gorgeous-- the photo does it no justice. Also, it has quite a story, which I'll post later. I'm thrilled with the find, though. Just picture six black windsor chairs around it.... it's perfect and was such a steal to boot!

farmhouse tables on craigslist

We had a field trip into NYC tomorrow to go check out this guy Tony who makes tables from salvaged barnwood.... BUT then I just found these babies (two different listings) on craigslist for what, in comparison, is a real steal. We're taking a look at the one with the chairs tomorrow. My most wonderfulest husband even found a friend to loan us a pickup truck should we like it. Now, the real conundrum is we literally have no place to store it for the next- uh- three months. But first we'll see if we even like it as much in person. Stay tuned.....

back to stools

I'm still sold on my choice, but this photo makes me feel a little better about dear husband's option.... except that it's not the backs of the stools that bother me, it's those legs tilting inwards on those stool. Also, notice that the countertops in this kitchen are white marble which allows the chairs to 'pop' a bit more. In our kitchen with the soapstone, I think we're better off going with the wood stained ones. (specifically the ones from Ballard ;)

entertainment armoire

This is gorgeous. From katemadison.com

kitchen seating

As I've posted before, I increasingly have my heart set on this counter stool from Ballard Design (but in stained wood color) and they happen to have a sale going on right now... so I brought it up with dear husband. First off he thinks the chairs should be black. I have to completely disagree with that because of the black soapstone countertops. I think the stained wood is definitely the way to go. Secondly he seems partial to these chairs from Sturbridgeyankee. While I think that it's cool that they swivel and the backs do have a french country feel to them I do not think they seem as sturdy and what really peeves me is the way the legs angle together at the top. It makes it look tippy and cafeteria like. I really like the turned legs on my counterstool also because it would coordinate with the vinnata faucet (see the round shapes? subtle, but nice, eh?)

That said i guess i could really go either way.... I just reeeeeeaaaally think I prefer the first ones (from Ballard).... hm.

real life inspiration

media armoire

Here's the media armoire we're thinking about. My requirement I want something that has doors over the television. This comes in different stains, colors. We might price out the possibility that someone might be able to build something similar for a lower price point. (for my reference the dimentions are: Overall System: 83.5” w x 27” d x 76” h which includes the side cabs)

table

I found a website a number of months ago when hunting for a dining table made of salvaged wood. A few months ago, my mom mentioned a site she found, "some place in maine" and we laughed when we realized that it was the same place. Then last night, M. said that he found some really great looking tables on some website "country maine or something".... It seems so serendipidous that we've all stumbled upon the same site but I guess it's the marvels of google. In any case, here are a couple of photos of their gorgeous tables. They completely customize them, so you can choose everything from the style of leg (or trestle) to the stain/paint and all the dimentions. Might be worth a trip to maine this winter. We'll bring our snowshoes ;)

oh and here's the site http://www.cottagehomemaine.com/