the one who writes

We finally finished painting the den. We used no VOC paint from Home Depot, it only costs a little more and doesn’t make me sick like regular paint does. Anyway, here’s how the den looked when we bought the house:

And here’s how it looks now:

I want this chair like damn and whoa. Do I want it enough to pay $1300 for it? Uh, that would be no, but wouldn’t it be spectacular in my guest bedroom which I’m doing in taupe, white and black? This would be just the pop of color it needs, along with some coral throw pillows on the bed. Taupe and coral are just so fresh. The shape of the chair is perfect for a bedroom as well. In fact, everything about this chair is perfect, except, of course, the price.

astrid chair, naive tropical - Anthropologie.com.

After a great deal of sturm und drang I finally let the charcoal cabinets go. So now we’re back to our original idea. Cream with chocolate glaze. I’m thinking it’ll look somewhat like this:

Oddly enough for a kitchen that’s 8′ x 25′ we don’t have all that many cabinets. I want to put some stock cabinets on the wall now where we have the armoire since this kitchen doesn’t have a pantry. So we’ll get these and paint them to match the rest. They’re solid oak and only cost $200 a piece.

Also found a really cool fabric that I actually like better than my original bird fabric:

Going with a pale buttery yellow on the walls, but I won’t be able to start on that wallpaper until this fall. I refuse to deal with stripping wallpaper with a steamer when humidity is 90% outside.

Some of you may well recall that my kitchen looks like this:

Your eyes don’t deceive you, it’s battleship gray with old white painted cabinets and a very worn vinyl floor. Ideally we’d gut and replace with lovely natural maple cabinets, soapstone countertops and hardwoods to match the rest of the house. However, in the real world we need to pretty it up for now while we save for what we want to do. To my mind the worst part of all this is that the previous owner painted over old wallpaper. It makes wallpaper removal twice as difficult and of course, in the humidity of Atlanta I don’t dare put another coat over it.

That being the case we’re going to paint the cabinets, put down some new vinyl on the floor and add some stock cabinets at the end of this 8′ x 25′ bowling alley of a kitchen. (Yes, we’ve been asked why we don’t just put some pins at the end and charge admission.) I’ve hemmed and hawed over this forever, (Mainly because I don’t want to strip that bloody wallpaper) but I’ve more or less settled on yellow and charcoal gray. Found this lovely fabric for curtains:

Obviously all this fabric isn’t going in the kitchen, the birds are going on the kitchen window. I think the gray tone-on-tone will go on the dining room windows and I’ll probably cover my dining room chairs in the floral and the bee fabric, but I’m not sure yet.

If you look closely at my cabinets you’ll see that they have funky little lines carved in the doors. I hate that. I think it makes it look country. I think if I paint them a dark color, like charcoal, and put on some modern hardware it will update it nicely. But if I go with a dark color on the cabinet then I have to have light-colored countertops and I really hate that idea. I have my heart set on this countertop:

I don’t think I can have that with the charcoal gray cabinets, even with a yellow room.

So I might have to go with something like this, which is a limestone look:

Or maybe this:

Interestingly enough, despite having two large windows, the kitchen is still fairly dark, so I don’t know if cabinets that dark will bring it down or not. Of course, I could paint the cabinets yellow (white is out of the question), but I’m not sure. What do you think?

And in case you’re wondering we’re putting down this vinyl plank flooring by Novalis, believe it or not, it’s peel-and-stick:

Yes, I know I should be writing, but I’m waiting for edits and I’m distracting myself at the moment. I need a couple of ottomans for my den. I plan to set them in front of my fireplace as alternative seating. Saw these in Ikea forever ago and thought they were hella cool. However, I didn’t check the price. Hey, it’s Ikea, how pricey can it be? Well hello, the darned things are $279…A PIECE!!! I have to be the only person on the planet who can go to IKEA and find overpriced stuff. I adore the funky shape and the palomino print. (Hey, it’s a Little Joe Cartwright thing, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.) They do have the plain footstools for $129, but I’m thinking that once I buy the fabric and make the cover, I’ll probably still be in the $500 range. Champagne tastes…

It’s funny how things have a way of coming together serendipitously. I didn’t start out decorating my guest bedroom, yet that’s the room that’s come together first. I had thought about making some type of coverlet, but while wandering around Target today, I found the perfect black and taupe bedspread. On clearance no less! The room will be a rich taupe, with white trim. The curtains will be the black and white floral print, with the second bold floral on a boudoir chair in the room. The other fabrics will be accents. I’d also like to do some pillows similar to these.

Having come to my senses and realized that a flokati would never work in my bedroom, I think the guest bedroom is low-traffic enough that it might actually survive intact sans cat hair.

All these choices met with the approval of my mother-in-law. Given that she will be the primary occupant of our guest bedroom and is a woman of impeccable taste I was delighted with her response. Of course, all these choices are subject to change based on my tastes and the budget.

As for my room, I’m mad for the chocolate, pear and spa blue combination so prevalent right now, but I fear that it will become the apricot and sea foam green of this millennium so I’m forced to seek another direction. Typically I shop for a bargain, and limit myself to fabric stores that sell fabric that is below $10 a yard. That doesn’t keep me from exploring the pricey places for inspiration however. Tonight I spied this beauty:

I adore the way this fabric reflects the light and looks like a watercolor. I fear however that it would be overwhelming as drapes, and I’d tire of it. I’d probably use it on the boudoir chair and accent pillows. And when you look at it with the two fabrics I’ve already chosen for the room, it looks like I might have a winner. What do y’all think?

It’s been a long time since I’ve done home decor and I’d forgotten what a long process finding the right fabric can be. I need to do window treatments for four rooms. One is a no-brainer, roman shades for the den. I’ll pick a nice neutral and have at it. The two bedrooms, especially the master is a totally different story. Usually I’m led by the fabric. I find something I have to have and that’s all she wrote. In a way that’s what’s happened here. I actually found the fabric I love fairly early in the process.

I adore the floral print on the left, it’s absolutely gorgeous. And miracle of miracles I actually like the coordinating stripe as well. Here’s the problem. About the only color I can paint a room with those curtains is taupe, and a deep taupe at that. My guest bedroom is really, really dark, though my first inclination is to put it in there because it’s also a pricier fabric and I’d only need five yards for that room as opposed to the twenty-five I need for the master bedroom. (Don’t ask. Due to the ridiculously placed windows in that room I’ve got to drape and entire wall.)

The more I look at it though I might not have to go as dark with the taupe as I initially thought. I am thinking that the stripe is too heavy, even for a chair and throw pillows. I think I like the idea of keeping it very light in this room, as it tends to get very warm because it faces west and gets afternoon sun. Okay, guest bedroom it is. One room out of four, not bad.

I’ve been getting quotes on upholstering the love of my life: this sofa. I know, it’s dog ugly right now, but I can assure you the bones are fabulous. It’s about fifty years old, the frame and springs are solid and extremely high quality. I especially love the flat arms, it’s a great napping sofa, and I’ve never seen one like it. Buying such a sofa new is well out of our price range, better yet, this one was free. I’ve had it for about fifteen years now, and I want to have it re-done. Unfortunately, the price is well out of our range, so I’m thinking about doing it myself. I’ve done some simple upholstery, chairs and the like, but I’ve never done a sofa. I’m fairly confident about everything but the tufting in the back, it’s not diamond tufting, so that’s okay, but I don’t know. We’ll see how it works out.