Charteuse and Pink

I recently got the new catalog from Hive modern. Hive is like DWR, only more so. More esoteric design, higher price tags, totally drool-worthy collections. The catalog is itself a thing of beauty, with a square format and heavy paper, and I have been poring over it for days (though not a one of the designs is within my reach.) Mostly the individual products are swoon-worthy, but this particular room makes my heart go pitter pat. The chartreuse and pink combination could not be more luminous.


Going through some old tearsheets, I happen to find another chartreuse and pink dining room, from the Cottage Living 2008 idea home.


I love the way both rooms are grounded with bold color--black and white or royal blue--and the way both use mixed metals to stunning effect. My dining room is chartreuse and teal, which I also love, but this shell pink is just so soothing, so feminine, so, so lovely.

Evolution of a hanging chair

When we were looking for a house in Minneapolis, our search was a bit of a mad dash (50 houses over two weekends), and we looked in many neighborhoods at many different styles of architecture. I wasn't expecting to fall in love with a new house, or a sort of California contemporary style, but I did, and here we are. The house has clean lines, maple floors and cabinetry, huge windows, and tons of natural light, making it feel, indeed, more like it belongs in California than in Minnesota. In keeping with this sense of California casual, one of the first thoughts I had when starting to conceive the decor was to find a wicker egg chair, like these.

[via House Beautiful]

[via Domino]

When you walk in our front door, you look down a long corridor right to the back of the house. That room is the living room, and it's slightly awkward because a chunk of the living space is exposed to that corridor, kind of like its tucked away and exposed at the same time. I loved the idea of making a statement and setting the tone by making the chair the first thing you see, while also dividing the space visually with the long chain, up to the ceiling.

Well, as with all classic design that came about midcentury and is still in production today, the wicker chair (designed by Nanna and Jorgen Ditzel in 1959) comes with a steep price tag: you can have an authentic one from Unica home for a mere $3,850.


Needless to say, that would have been the first and last decorating decision I made, and while it would have made a statement, we had many functional needs to eke out of our budget. Like a bed for the guest room, that kind of thing.

Several months later, just after complaining to Dave about never finding anything good on craigslist, I found this simpler version, listed for only $100 (retails for 2-4 times that).

I got super excited and emailed the poster immediately, only to realize, as I was supposed to go see it (and presumably buy it), that I could no longer hang it in the living room. First, other decisions had been made that didn't really work with the chair. Second, I had installed a completely ginormous chandelier in the neighboring dining room, and that would have been a lot of competition. Weeks later (sometimes I'm slow this way), I realized that it would be just the thing for the girls room, so I emailed the owner and was surprised to find that it was still available. I guess not just everyone is hanging a swing chair in their house (though I should mention that we already have this Ikea one in the basement!)




Added bonus? As it had been sitting unsold for all that time and wasn't in perfect condition, the owner let me have it for $50. I talked Dave into hanging it the other day, and while the location of the ceiling beam ultimately limited my placement options, I think it looks pretty good.


I love the way it plays up the beachy preppiness of the girls' curtain fabric and plaid blankets, and the way it gives a visual lightness to the room (while the girls still need their beds on the floor from a functional perspective, it can weigh the room down a bit.)

While I would probably still prefer the simple beauty of the Ditzel's original, I kind of like the way the rattan grid plays up the plaid and the diamond pattern in the rug. I was planning to make a cushion covered in that same curtain fabric (more on that misguided project in another post), but I find myself wondering if I should leave it bare, or make a thin little cushion out of some pink linen I have lying around. Or really trick it out with a sheepskin (my friend Sara just did this in her son's room, and I love the result) and a kicky throw pillow, like this:

[tonic home]

Of course, this shot also revives my interest in painting the thing.
What do you think?

Craigslist Find

I've been searching for a dresser for the guest room on a very tight budget, and when I stumbled upon this dresser and hutch combo for a mere $75, my jaw dropped for all of it's cuteness. The faux bamboo! The brass hardware! The little finials on the top of the hutch!


I mean, right? Makes me want to scrap the girls room and start over, building around this. I won't, but I'm tempted.

It reminded me of this awesome piece in designer Celerie Kemble's office.

[via Domino]

Love the turquoise color. MN folks, someone should really, truly, snap this piece up!

Orange!

Orange is my favorite color. When I was 3 or so, my mom let me choose a new paint color for my room, and I chose orange, so it was also my earliest design decision. (Years later, I again had an orange bedroom in our row house in Brooklyn. After three tries, I still remember the name of the perfect orange shade: Benjamin Moore's Burnt Pumpkin.) Orange is also my husband's favorite color. My engagement ring? Yup, orange, a beautiful mandarin garnet. So it was exciting to hear that, according to Nate Berkus's show today (via my mom), the must-have color for 2011 is orange or rust. Check, and check.





The office chair, new vintage coasters (a birthday gift from my brother and sister in law), and living room rug were just the orange things I could see from my vantage point of the hallway between living room and office. For rust I would need to go down the hall to the lacquered tray in the kitchen, and then on to the rust flowers on the bedding in the master. I also happen to have a pair of rust ceramic lamps that I am selling right about now. Perhaps I should keep them.

Much has been made in the blogosphere about the pantone color choice for the year, which is hibiscus, a bright, cheerful pink. How will this play out in the home decor aisles of Target and Home Goods? Surely I will be tempted by hibiscus, which, for a couple of months, will seem fresh and new. But my heart belongs to orange, whether anyone else is with me, or not.

Let Them Eat Cake

I would love one of each of these delicious-looking cake editions by Martha Rich for the girls room, maybe for over their beds. I love that they are a pair without being identical (or even particularly "matchy") and that they would pick up on the two dominant shades of pink in the color scheme.

Do you all know about 20x200, where these prints are from? It's an amazing curatorial project that offers limited editions at 4 price points and 4 corresponding sizes. My parents got me this print (the 11x14 was $50) for my birthday.

It's a Christmas tree lot in Vegas, and I just love the weird juxtaposition of pine trees in the desert, and those strung lights against the western sunset. If you'e in the market for art, check it out. You can browse by artist, subject matter, etc., or you can sign up for their newsletter to get weekly recommendations and information about new pieces and artists. That's how I found, and fell in love with, these cakes.

Yummy!

The girls' room: After

Well, it's not quite finished, there are lots of little finishing touches, but I figure the longer this gets drawn out the higher the expectation is (read: the more perfect I think the room needs to be to share.)

Remember the room before? Not much to it.


Here's the decorated room.


The silhouettes are placeholders--I'll probably do an asymmetrical arrangement over the beds to break up the symmetry. Just need to figure out what that is! Also need to decide on book storage for the foot of Clio's bed--small shelf, book bins, other?

And there's the rattan hanging chair. Needs to be hung (though Dave and I both had second thoughts when we saw the size of the screw that goes into the ceiling), and the cushion cover needs to be made.

It's hilarious to me that I had the balls to post before pictures just after Christmas, thinking I would be finished before we headed back to Illinois for New Year's. But that's the way these things go: projects take forever.

This is the only room in the house that I got to design completely from scratch--every other room had something to build around, whether the rug, or bedding, or another major piece. (Actually, untrue: the basement living room was from the ground up. That one came together quick and easy--I'll share sometime). Originally, I thought I would build the room around a pair of quilts the girls inherited from their great-grandmother, but then I learned that she made them herself in the 1930s, and the first time I narrowly averted something bad from interacting with the fabric (poop, marker), I made the suddenly not-so-tough decision to put them away until the girls are older. Let heirlooms be heirlooms.

I bought the raspberry fabric (prematurely) for a chair in the living room, but realized the quality and weight was really better suited to headboards, so started there. That awesome fabric for the curtains came next. I spotted it at SR Harris, the amazing discount fabric warehouse (literally 30,000 sf) that I am so happy to live near again. $8/ yard!

I think the thing I am most proud of in this room is the budget. Allow me:

Dresser: $42 at auction. Bar Keeper's Friend and a ton of elbow grease to clean the hardware.

Rug: $162 from Overstock.com (it's Safavieh and actually really well made. It is not as described in the posting online, but it works)

Headboards (plywood, foam, batting, and fabric): about $50 each

Fabric for curtains, cornice, bolsters, and blankets: about $100

Lumber and hardware for cornice: about $30

Bedding: white duvet sets on special for $16 each from Target (their RE brand). Quilted shams $12 each from TJ Maxx.
The bedding was my biggest sacrifice. Originally I wanted this set from PB Teen, with a graphic border around the edges in brown. In the end, I think that may have been too strong, but I liked two options from the regular Pottery Barn: this hotel-style bedding and this whimsical version with embroidered dots. Both would have brought things up a notch, but even on special the duvets were $59 each and shams were $19 each. I think I did better than that! I considered using up my vintage green grosgrain ribbon to make a similar border, but my sewing isn't that good. As it is turning out plain white bedding is more forgiving: you can't tell if it's on straight or not. A good thing for a 4 and 2 year old!

Awesome yellow artichoke Lamps: $29 each from Home Goods

Rattan Chair: $50 from craigslist

We already had the white Ikea table and stools, the twin beds, and the current art.

TOTAL: $598

Now, some people will think that's still a lot to spend on a little girls' room (my husband may be among them), but buying just the headboards (instead of making them) would have cost about that much, so I'll go ahead and pat myself on the back.

As i figure out the last bits and pieces, I may put some options to a vote. I've been looking at this for too long, I may need a fresh opinion!

Thanks for looking.

Progress

Okay, I didn't mean for that to be such a tease. When I posted the "before" pictures, I thought the "after" was imminent. I was wrong. A couple of projects had all kinds of setbacks, but progress is being made, and there's only one major thing left for me to do in there before I can reveal the room, which is looking quite adorable if I do say so myself.

Here's a sneak peek of some of the things I've been working on.

I just made these bolsters for the beds.


I love moire fabric--reminds me of my grandmother and covered the tables at our wedding--and there's just something about a chartreuse moire bolster that makes me weak in the knees. This is a pretty simple project--you basically sew a tube and then put a casing on either end--but I decided to find directions online instead of trying to do the math myself. I liked the way they explained it over at Canadian Living, but I misunderstood the folding directions for the casings and ended up with these long poochy ends.

Solution: a little pleat at the end of the bolster, which gives a more finished, tailored look anyway and highlights the puckered ends.


To make the pleat ,I just measured the radius of the circle at the bolster end, then measured in the same distance on each of the ends of the fabric tube, folded it under, and used about a 1/4 inch seam allowance to stitch all the way around. I didn't even have to pin it, which was awesome.

I also had a remnant of a super cute plaid that I found in my fabric box that I bought about 10 years ago for who knows what project that never got finished. (Or started.) The colors pick up on the scheme in the curtain fabric, and I like that it feels young and sort of preppy. I considered it for the bolsters (the only thing cuter than a moire bolster is a plaid one), but I wanted a larger dose of it in the room, so I decided to make little throws for the ends of the beds. Since I only had 1 1/2 yards, I ended up making what is apparently called a "bed scarf": a throw that drapes over the ends of the bed and comes up about 1/4 to a 1/3 of the way. The woman in the fabric store told me hotels started making them a few years back to save on fabric.


I bought some ivory fleece for backing (on sale for $3.99 a yard!) and picked up some Wright's blanket edging to finish it off. I followed the directions here on the wright's website (though they don't tell you how to do the final corner, so I just made it up). My corners aren't exactly perfect, but I'm mostly happy with the result--sort of baby blanket like.

It occurred to me as I made the second one that I could have just sewed the plaid and the fleece together inside out and ended up with a finished throw without a binding which may have been a little more sophisticated. If I was doing it over again, I would probably consider piping the edges instead of a blanket binding--I'm not sure I love that satin. But hey, the girls are only 2 and 4, and I'm guessing these will be used largely as blankets for their dolls.

Lastly, I FINALLY tracked down this chair on craiglist, which I was originally supposed to go see just before Thanksgiving.


I know, what am I thinking, right? A rattan swing chair plus plaid blankets plus chartreuse moire? The curtains pull it all together, I promise. I'm sort of tempted to paint the chair since it's not in the greatest shape, but I think I'll make a new cushion in cute fabric and get it up in the room before I decide.

The rug arrives tonight, I think I can build the cornice tomorrow, and then.... voila.

It has been so much fun pulling all of this together, though I'm not sure I've ever done quite so much sewing in my life!