(You can read about the preliminary plans for this project a bit in this post.)

For the main set I was originally told to keep the red sofa and chair - a pretty bold statement to work around.  Thankfully they later asked for a chair that wasn’t so deep, so I was able to mix it up (and find this pretty chair at HomeSense).  

In a search for red sofa inspiration I found this picture:

It perfectly encapsulated the look I wanted: trendy, cool, eclectic…  (the previous set looked like a 70’s game show set, so I wanted this one to feel more relaxed and cool). I love the super traditional mouldings with the ethnic rug and midcentury chair.  This is where I was going.  I emulated the grey walls and mouldings (though mine were much simpler, as that’s what the contractor wanted to do.)

The rug was a great deal I found through Etsy, and the trunk was secondhand found through UsedRegina.  As you’ll see in the next shots I needed a ton of books, so I shopped Value Village out of as many good-looking hardcover, linen-bound books as I could.

I really love the lamps - particularly the ginger jar one with the brass base.  They’re both beautiful hefty vintage ones from Salvation Army that I spray painted to match (a nice sunny yellow against the grey walls!) and bought matching shades for.  The art in behind was a painting I completed early one morning last week before finishing up the project!

You may notice that some of the furniture placement is a little off-kilter -it has to be set up to look right on the main camera angles.  That was a challenge, decorating for TV.  I had to be careful about how I used white, metallics, mirrors, etc.  

This is the other half of the set - a more transitional space for doing different kinds of segments.  They can take those chairs and area rug out and move the island in and vice versa.

I love those chairs.  Over the months I seriously debated (encouraged by my husband, no less!) keeping them for myself.  But another suitable/affordable pair never came up, so they stuck with this set.  They’re real mid-century modern, American-made vintage chairs.  Here’s a before pic:

The lines were great, but the yucky brown vinyl and tweed had to go.  I got the pair for $100, I think, and the reupholstery (in a grey navy vinyl) was only $75 per chair.  I bought them off of a guy through UsedRegina.  He told me the chairs were worth WAY more (and he’s right), but since it’s Regina and most people don’t know or care about this kind of thing he was selling them for cheap.

Sorry the colour’s brutal in this shot, but it gives you an idea of the overall.  The bookshelves are a good ole’ IKEA Billy hack (trimming them together and painting the backs).  And the side tables are an IKEA hack too, with the Rast dresser. (See Lindsey’s post here on how to do it.)

The island was IKEA hack #3, completed with the help of my talented friend Krista (who is a carpenter).  We connected two Expedit bookcases, framed them in MDF, painted them, attached casters, and created a “barn board” top by staining some 2x10’s and bolting them to the top.  The cost for the size and style we got was awesome.  I’ve heard this is a favourite on the set.

In the end it was lots of fun to execute the design, but I did not love the delays, or the time the project took away from family, or having to work with other people’s needs.  (Hah.  That last point makes me sound like a real peach, eh?).  Plus I found buying stuff that I absolutely LOVED (like the midcentury chairs and the Turkish rug) and not being able to keep it (and know that other people may not love it in the same way) really hard.  Will I do more stuff like this in the future?  Hard to say.  Probably not TV sets.  And maybe not while my kids are little.  We’ll see!

Home of Andy and Kate Spade for Matchbook mag (via Marcus Design)

Home of Chris and Dave Plantan, photograph by Vickey Weiss (via Design*Sponge)

I love the leather on that sofa.

Last fall I wrote about my steal of a sofa I scored on UsedRegina.  It was vintage, electric blue velvet with an orangey wood frame. 

Seller’s photo on UsedRegina

But I envisioned it with a creamy white frame, a linen-y fabric, and modernized with one long seat cushion and no tufting.

I ended up working on it in my parent’s basement during the fall (space + free babysitting!)  It was a doozy.  It took time, sweat, and frustration.  And it’s done(ish).

I could try to give you the tutorial run-down and how-to… but honestly I was a little in over my head, so I forgot to take a lot of pictures of the process.  And how many of you are actually crazy enough to DIY a sofa?  (But in case you are, hopefully you can learn a bit from this post.)  Instead, I’m going to offer you a somewhat random assortment of reflections and tips from the process, and show you plenty of pretty pictures of the finished piece, OK? :)

So, in no particular order, here’s what I did/learned with some pictures interspersed:

DIY REUPHOLSTERY:

• Basically with every upholstery project I’ve learned: you take it apart and pay close attention to how they put it together.  Then you try to put it together in the same way.  And when you can’t, you improvise, experiment, google tutorials online etc. and take a break when you’re ready to toss the whole thing in a dumpster.
• One of the reasons I felt I could try and upholster this piece was because I understood how to do it - with the exposed frame I could staple the fabric to the frame then sew double welt cord to glue over it.  It’s a method I’m comfortable with (similar to my Louis chair and my barrel-back chairs).

CUSHIONS AND FOAM

• I originally planned on buying a new cushion for the seat (since I wanted one long cushion instead of three separate ones), however when I went to the only store (that I know of) in the city that sells upholstery foam they informed me that they didn’t have foam long enough (I needed 7 feet, they had 6), so they’d have to glue together two pieces.  Hm.  For that much money I’ll glue my own cushions together, thanks.  I briefly considered having two cushions (which is also a really popular look right now) but that crack in the middle just creates awkward seating situations, and I figured this would just end up being one huge love seat that only seats two people.  So I used the existing cushions and glued them together with spray adhesive myself.  Then I found a small (and cheap) duvet on clearance at Walmart and wrapped it around the cushions before upholstering them into the seat.  The result?  I have mixed feelings.  It works.  But you can still see the indents between cushions a bit.  However, the original foam is also super amazing and nice to lay on.  And this was way cheaper.  So… take that for what it’s worth.
• I actually originally tried to sew a cushion cover for all three cushions wrapped in the duvet.  It was… bad.  It was all saggy and wrinkly and looked like a futon from some guy’s college apartment.  So I ended up scrapping that and upholstering the seat into the couch (secured with staples).  It means now I can’t take it off an wash it.  (However, though I could throw the old one in the wash, it’s indoor-outdoor fabric that’s not meant to be thrown in the washing machine anyways, so it didn’t hold up well.)  So no more jam fingers near this couch.  I just have to stay on top of spot cleaning a bit more.  And most days I throw a quilt over the seat while the kids and I are playing in the living room which catches the mess, can be thrown in the wash, and makes for easy snuggling or tent-building. :)  One piece of advice I’ve heard is to upholster the piece yourself, but take the seat cushion(s) to a professional.  That’s something I’m definitely going to consider (and save my pennies for) on future projects.

Before Christmas I was really craving another colour in our living room area.  Our walls are painted Woodlawn Blue by Benjamin Moore - and I really like it for a wall colour.  It’s very warm and dynamic - changing its look throughout the day.

Beyond that everything was pretty much blue or cream/beige/ivory.  I considered adding apple green (I have accents in my adjacent kitchen) but wanted something decidedly warm.  I love the blue/orange complementary scheme, so I decided to play with it a bit by adding hits of orange:

The easiest way to do that is obviously with throw pillows, so I found some great ikat and Greek key fabrics in a dark orange.

And some art prints with orange, too:

My Cheapy McCheaperson tip of the day: these are cut out of an old day planner I had with Group of Seven artwork in it (I love me some Group of Seven.  I’d seriously like the real paintings… if I had zillions of dollars).

And this isn’t orange, but it’s warm: I’m loving the hit of brass on my $15 marble-topped UsedRegina finds:

I was a teensy bit worried these side tables would be too “Granny”, but I love them.  And they work perfectly (because of their diminutive size) with our vintage sofa which is both extremely long and low.

By the way, that vintage sofa is the hold-up on my showing you the entire living room.  We’ve been sitting on it for a few months now (Sean is stoked, because it’s a great napping couch - the seat cushion is 7 feet long!)  But I’ve decided to change course with a couple of things.  I want to upholster the seat into the couch (instead of removable cushions/seat cover) because it’s looking too saggy and wrinkly for my liking.  Like a bad college apartment futon.  Then I will Scotchguard the snot out of it.  Then I can finish the piping cord.  THEN I’ll show you my living room.  (And remember this will be done on Baby L’s schedule, not my own, so it won’t happen all that soon.)

Also warming up around here?  The weather!!  We built this guy a week ago:

(Don’t you love his “crazy hair”?  Little M was pretty excited about it.)

And now this little snowman, and all his snow particle friends, are merely a distant memory.  I’m so thankful for an early spring!  (Not that we won’t get more snow.  But c’mon, in Saskatchewan an April blizzard is pretty much part of spring anyways.)

Design by Orlando Dumond Soria

Design by Emily & Todd, Photograph by JJ Horton Photography, via Little Green Notebook

heartbeatoz:

(via French Mademoiselle)

crushculdesac:

kyle dillion via casa tres chic