Unveiling the Living Room - Part 1

The stage is set for the Living Room Redo. The walls are painted Benjamin Moore's Brandon Beige (#977) and the light sconces have*been updated.

Built ins are designed and the order will be placed tomorrow. They will flank each side of a french door to the deck.

Next in line is the furniture order. I am selling our camelback sofa and wingback chairs that have been in the living room. These pieces were never as comfortable as I would have liked. I would love to use the living room as an adult space and not just for entertaining.

We are going to order the below sofa sans the casters. Our family hasn't had much luck with casters. We have 2 chairs from Ethan Allen with casters and one of the casters broke. Ethan Allen has been very difficult to work with when trying to get a replacement caster for the one that broke. Their name is all over the chair and they don't seem to be willing to replace the broken parts. Needless to say, I am not shopping at Ethan Allen for our new furniture.

The sofa is 72" in length and I love the tufted back, smaller arms and single seat cushion. We are ordering this in a cream linen with a soft chenille feel.

Across from the sofa will be 2 of these chairs with similar arm and fixed back. The chairs will have a skirt and swivel. They will also be in a cream fabric with small taupe pattern.

You may remember my posts about these chairs. They haunted me and HBO was the ultimate buyer.

I found the chairs below for $165 each and decided they were close enough to the red beauties. I will reupholster the seats and arms in either the inspiration linen (stay tuned tomorrow) or a large houndstooth. The houndstooth is hard to come by so I am thinking I will end up using the inspiration linen. I plan to paint the wood in a grey tone to match the fabric.

I would love for the paint finish on the chairs to resemble a lacquer finish. Do I dare attempt them myself or should I find a professional sprayer? Anyone know how to get a lacquer finish?

Sample Sale

Obviously I am back from Colorado and hit the ground running with holiday shopping and festivities. I finally hit the couch for a few hours yesterday as it all caught up with me!

Friday was two holiday parties. It's always so much fun to catch up with friends! Saturday morning my elves and I sent off our Christmas cards. I really couldn't have done it without my elves. Card stuffing and addressing was followed quickly by major house clean up as we hosted dinner for The Dog"s Church Youth Group progressive dinner Saturday night. I was so proud of myself for taking the easy way out on the dinner - Stouffer's prepared the most delicious lasagna for our festivities. Pepperidge Farm was the bread of choice and I slaved over a ceasar salad with Brianna's dressing. All in all very unusual for me, the one who likes to do all my own cooking, but such a relief to just have it done. I knew our teens weren't here for the food!

In between card writing and house clean up, my hubby and I finally put down the carpet we purchased for the living room. As with most things I buy, there's a story. Bear with me a minute as I jump around and back to the 1st weekend in December when I visited the Galbraith & Paul Sample Sale.

Piles of Pillows from website

iphone photo at the sale

Until 6 months ago I didn't know much about Galbraith & Paul. I first heard about them here when Erika mentioned their fabrics on her blog, Urban Grace. I loved the Sweet Pea pattern she showed in that post. Fast forward a year or two and a decorator mentions them again. I knew their name rang a bell but had no idea it was a local company or that they host a fabulous Sample Sale in December that is open to the public - wahoo! I sometimes think I live in the warehouse sale capitol. Not complaining. Just stating an observation.

remnants by the pound

iphone photo of the pile

As you might know by now, I don't like to miss a good sale. And since I am up to my eyeballs in redecorating the timing was perfect. I very much enjoyed their sale - piles of pillows, perfect pendants, mounds of fabric remnants by the pound and just a few rugs. Their fabrics are hand printed and beautifully crafted. They also sell ready made pillows through Room and Board.

A sampling of pendants

Their patterns can be printed on velvet, linen or silk. I picked up two of these rectangular donut pillows to rest in the back of the infamous cane back chairs.

I also bought 4.5 pounds of fabric pieces to use for pillows. It was very fun mixing and matching. After waiting in a very long line to check out I was about to blow right by the rugs that were in a side office as I was leaving. Curiosity got the best of me and I had to stop and see what it was about. They only had about 6 rugs but I thought I should see what they had just to educate myself a bit more.

Guess what....I found something! The rug is above with the sample of the Living Room inspiration fabric. Their rugs are wool and silk and retail for est $11,000. My price for this 9 x 12 beauty was $900. You read it right... $900. I couldn't pass it up. It had been in a showroom and had a couple of tiny spots on it. Truly makes it easier for me to have in my house because I am always a nervous wreck with truly new (read perfect) items as they are sure to be damaged in this zoo. I was told a famous tennis player who was once married to Tatum has this exact rug in his Dining Room!

We love it and can't wait for the furniture and curtains to arrive! I promise to share when it's all done....just takes me a long time to get anything finished.

Do you like the rug? Have you ever heard of Galbraith & Paul? Do you like their fabrics?

Courtney....the monogram store is Threadwell in Chestnut Hill. Happy Shopping! They will monogram on their product or yours.

Unveling the Living Room - Part 2

Living Room Stage 2 - inspirations and possibilities.

I fell in love with this large scale linen blend fabric. It was the inspiration for the entire Living Room scheme. I really wanted a calm color palette and this does the trick for me. We aren't going to use a lot of it. Just enough on pillows or on the seat of the french styled arm chairs.

The fabric above has been the jumping off point for the rest of the fabric and furniture in the living room. Below is a sampling of possibilities....

I am truly in love with this plain large scale woven linen for curtain panels. Good thing the linen is only $12 a yard because the trim, shall we say, isn't. Unfortunately, the trim will make the entire scheme come together and I am completely in love with it. Might have to hide that line item from my husband!

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