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!

Decorating the Girls Room

I have many posts to get to (Santa, the tree, etc.), but short on time. The girls stayed in Illinois with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days while Dave and I headed home to Minneapolis so Dave could work. Meanwhile, I got a few days to focus on decorating the girls room as a surprise for their return on Saturday.

I actually remembered to take a "before" picture of the completely un-decorated room.



The layout is actually pretty functional for now, so that won't really change. It's all about what's coming in. Remember the new campaign dresser? That's going in (the hardware is all cleaned up, making a huge difference). Plus the raspberry "velvet" that I ordered online and that turned out to be more of a microfiber or faux suede. Curtains are made, lamps have been found, progress, progress, progress.

Can't wait to share the "after"!

Happy Accidents

I've been slowly but surely thinking my way through design for the girls' room, and in the process I ordered a great looking and super inexpensive cotton pile rug from Overstock.com. I was inspired by this photo from Domino (We inherited a similar shade of blue on the walls and I already have raspberry microsuede for headboards and love the total effect)



as well as an outfit that Clio loves to wear which includes a white top with black stripes and a red sequined heart and a tiny floral print skirt (which in my mind translates to Liberty of London for Target bedding or accessories, though of course I missed my moment on that and would have to shell out for it on ebay one piece at a time. I never do things the easy way, do I?)




So I was really excited to find a 5x7 black and white bold striped rug for only $100.

Now, I was initially skeptical about ordering rugs online. You can't feel the pile, you can't really see the color, and the pattern could show up much more (or less) pronounced than it looks in photos. But I ordered one for the basement with great success, and found that I was hooked. There is just so much VARIETY on overstock, the prices are uniformly reasonable, shipping is fast and practically free, and you can search by size, color, pattern, style, material, and price point, which is really tremendous.

Well, fast forward to last week when my black and white striped rug arrived, only.... it was BROWN and IVORY. Damn internet. Seriously, under no circumstances could this rug be considered in the black family, and the color scheme just sort of felt muddy and, well, wrong in the girls room.

But guess what? Inspiration struck and I tried the rug in our bedroom, where I must say, it looks fabulous.


Don't you think? I have been using an old sheepskin rug in there, which I was kind of digging, but my grandmother's white upholstered boudoir chairs will migrate back into the bedroom when the living room loveseat arrives, and that will all be a bit monochromatic for me. The fun thing is that I NEVER would have thought to buy this rug for this room. So much brown. So much strong, graphic pattern. Just proves once again that more is more.

I won!

You know how people in design magazines (home or fashion) are always talking about finding the PERFECT authentic designer whatever on the curb and bringing it home to love? Kate Bosworth is on the cover of Lucky this month, and the story includes a photo of a vintage Michael Kors skirt that she got in Detroit (or somewhere random) for $15. And while I have to wonder just how vintage Michael Kors gets, I can relate to her sentiment that "they didn't even know what they were sitting on." One woman's trash is another woman's design magazine nonchalance.

Well. I'm coming to the end of my decorating budget, and I had JUST been complaining to Dave how I never fid what I am looking for for a steal, when I found exactly the right 70s campaign-style dresser on Craigslist for $75. Not super cheap, but also WAY cheaper than a new dresser or a great vintage dresser in a store. I immediately called the phone number only to be told that it was going up for AUCTION. The upside: I would probably get it "even cheaper." The downside: I would have to wait more than a week, and risk losing out on it altogether. As the week progressed, I was the only bidder, and the price was a cool two bucks. And I realized: they didn't even know what they were sitting on! There was some action in the middle there, but guess what? I won. Oh, yeah.

Final price: $35.
(plus tax and commission, making the actual out of pocket cost around $42. Oh, and bonus: its from the jobs foundation, which works to maintain living-wage jobs, so its almost like making a charitable donation, to boot.)

It will probably go in the girls' room (but it may end up in our room, who knows?) I'm thinking of painting it white, nicely offset by those brass corners and drawer pulls. Won't that be cute with pale blue walls and raspberry headboards?

Look at me, creating yet another project before I have completed the dining room curtains or even begun the headboards. But it feels like it might just be coming together.

Next up: hauling my butt out to Plymouth to pick up the dresser. I sure do hope they help load up the car.

Next up: Headboards

I can admit that I am better at starting projects than finishing them. Better yet at dreaming them up than actually starting them. Which is why Dave has told me in no uncertain terms that he will not help me cut the plywood for the girls' headboards until after I have sewn the dining room curtains. (12 yards of beautiful chartreuse silk has been hanging by clips for months now. In past rooms, I have pinned up curtain fabric and then never took the project further, but my sister-in-law, a designer and maker of beautiful curtains, has asked me to please not do that to this fabric.)

Still, it can't hurt to get a visual, right? Oddly enough, I'm no perfectionist when it comes to this kind of thing--I'm more of an eyeballer--it's more to get an idea of the right scale and shape.




Cute, right?

I'll use the raspberry "velvet" that I ordered online online to discover that it was more of a microsuede--not great for the living room chair for which it was intended, perfect for headboards in a little girls' room.

I'll share photos if the actual headboards ever make it to fruition.

In the meantime, enjoy these rare shots of Clio hamming it up.



An actress, perhaps? Believe me, her crocodile-tears performances are already Oscar-worthy.

A Trend

I have a post in the works, one in the What I Learned From Decorating a Rental series, that talks about using what you have. In it, I list some of the things I am drawn to over and over again: the color orange, shiny things, chinoiserie, campaign furniture, bird motifs, and so on.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to hunt down the perfect wallpaper for my dining room accent wall (tricky in part because the dining room is chartreuse, coral, and teal, and looks into the living room which is more or less orange and brown, but nicer than that sounds), and I found myself noticing this chrysanthemum in a bunch of supermarket flowers I used for a dinner party.


It kind of reminded me of the shape and texture of the chandelier.


And as I started looking at wallpapers with big, round, petally flowers (mums, peonies, magnolias), I started to notice a theme around the house.





It is likely no coincidence that I recently read an old post on Little Greene Notebook in which the designer is selling off her stock of fabric and mentions her love of stylized flowers. I did not at that moment go, wait a minute, I love stylized flowers! But I suppose it is no wonder that I love her blog when she loves stylized flowers, did an entire post on campaign-style dressers, and picked the very same Domino inspiration-photo of raspberry headboards in a pale blue room for a blog post that I singled out to guide the design of the girls' room.

At first I thought, the chandelier is new, the flower itself is new, all these wallpapers are things I am looking at right now: trend. But in fact, I have been digging stylized flowers for years now.

The tour:

A velvet pillow from Urban Outfitter, circa (approximately) 2000 and in and out of the living room since then.


Linen fabric purchased in 2000, used to reupholster a pair of vintage 50s cane-sided armchairs. The fabric left over is in consideration for use in the girls room (Oh my, it just came to me: Shower curtain!)

Chinoiserie headboard and armoire, purchased by my parents a long time ago, inherited by me in 1999.


Hand-blocked pillowcases from ABC carpet and home, purchased for said headboard around 2001 (I wanted an entire set, but the pillowcases were all I could afford! Now in the guest room but, sadly, disintegrating)


The Dwell Studio for Target bedding chosen to update said headboard, 2007 or 8 (I was so desperate for this bedding that, when it sold out immediately in Brooklyn, I had my mom pick it up in the Twin Cities and mail it to me. Don't I have an awesome mom?)


Anthropologie Eternal Blooms hand towels and vintage Magnolia prints in the girls' bathroom, purchased this year.


Isn't it funny when we have a thing but don't see it? Look around your house: any themes you weren't aware of?

I guess I better officially add stylized flowers to my list of love-it-forever decor.

Unless, of course, recognizing it is the first step in moving on. Hmmmm..... in tha case, what's next?

Buying Vintage

When we moved in to this house, I had visions for most of the rooms, and had a mental list of where we would need to invest in some new pieces and where we could use what we had.

I was wrong about almost all of it.

Take the dining room. Our dining room contains some of my absolute favorite pieces: a beautiful Chinese armoire, handed down from my parents, a beautiful solid cherry wood farm table, made by hand by my father-in-law, and a set of four Phillipe Starck Ghost Chairs, the only big furniture purchase Dave and I made together in the Brooklyn 30th street house, a splurge we saved for for a long time. Plus we had a decent neutral rug and plenty of art and accessories to choose from. I thought we were set. But I got it all in and realized something: the scale was all wrong. The table was too small. The rug was way too small. And now that we live where we know a lot more people, the number of chairs was too, too small.

Tackling the seating problem, I just couldn't make the room add up. I considered an upholstered banquette, a pair of wing chairs to anchor the table, a pair of upholstered chairs AND a long lacquered bench. But most of those scenarios still yielded 6-8 seats, and some STILL required the purchase of an additional Ghost Chair (or two). Did I mention the price has gone up on those things TWICE since we bought them?

Then, trolling craiglist for a dresser for the guest room, opportunity knocked. Someone in Wisconsin was selling a set of 8 original Herman Miller fiberglass shell chairs. They were teal. I got excited, then forgot about them. I really wanted to incorporate my Ghost chairs into the scheme, right? Later that night, looking for something online, I noticed the tab still open, and showed it to Dave.

"Okay, don't tell me I'm crazy, but what do you think about these?" I asked. "For the dining room."

"Hm. I like them," He said. (You have no idea: normally I research for days, sit him down and show him a bunch of tabs, and he rejects everything.)

The next day we drove to Stillwater and just over the bridge to Wisconsin where we met Ron, a 3-decades employee of 3M who bought a palette of these chairs when the company was selling them off. They've been in the garage for years, but now he's selling his mother's house. So.

Normally, I think it's great to see a thing in your house before you have to commit to it. Color can be deceiving, and scale, especially if you're looking at a piece of furniture in a vast warehouse or flea market or a small dark garage where your point of reference is way off from your reality at home. Generally, with vintage, you have to decide on the spot.

We bought the chairs, but on our way home with the first half of them in the car, Dave wondered aloud: "Did we just repeat the yellow chairs?" The yellow chairs being a set of four mid-century leather and chrome chairs that we bought when we first moved in together. Dave was obsessed with them, I was fine with them, they were all piled onto a table in a cramped antique shop on Atlantic Avenue and after we bought them we discovered that the legs were a bit warped, the seats a bit scratched, and Dave was pissed off every time he sat in one of them. We had them just under a year and then sold them at a loss when we moved to the house on 30th street.

As it is turning out, I'm loving the Eames chairs in the dining room, and any fears that we overpaid are quelled by a quick search of ebay, where the chairs start high and then skyrocket, and where sets of 8 are exceedingly rare. There are some scratches that we'll have to learn not to see, and we'll spend a little money replacing some of the feet, but I think we still got a good deal, and the seller got a fair price. This is one of the goals in buying vintage.

It could have worked out differently, though. The teal could have been hideous in context, the feet exorbitantly expensive, the scale all wrong for the room, etc. Then we would have had an expensive mistake on our hands, and we would have been on ebay trying to sell them off again. So I thought I would share some tips on buying vintage. Consider these the Lessons I Refuse to Learn.

1. Do your research. While it can feel like there is the pressure of losing out on a purchase if you wait, you usually have time to do a little research. In our case, before heading out to see the chairs we should have checked out the going rate on ebay (although I had a sense of it from looking for one of these chairs in Boulder), as well as looked into the price of replacement parts so I would know what I was dealing with. If we had know that replacement feet cost $25/set of 4, we could have negotiated a better price on the chairs. The more you know, the more you will feel confident in your offer, and the less regrets you'll have later, whether you ultimately get the piece or not.

2. With small items (small price tag and physically small), buy what you love. You'll find a place for it.

3. Take a picture. This serves two purposes: it allows you to see the piece from a different perspective, and it allows you to sit on it and "bring it home" if you can't physically bring it home.

4. Ask to take it home. You likely can't do this with anything particularly large, but it's worth asking. I recently brought home two 1960s painted portraits on 24-hour approval. It took the pressure off the purchase and allowed me to decide if I really loved them or if I just felt I had to because now they were mine. (I kept them)

5. Even in an antique store, ask if the price is firm. There's often room to negotiate, but be reasonable. You want everyone to walk away happy.

6. Don't carry a lot of cash. If you love a piece, you can ask the seller to hold it while you get money. This cuts down on impulse purchases and allows you to walk away and consider.

7. Inspect the piece carefully before handing over the money. I've made this mistake more than once, either because I didn't want to hurt the seller's feelings or because I got nervous in the negotiation or because the piece was against a wall/on a table/in the dark. Take your time!

- Check the BACKS of things (I once bought a dresser that turned out to be water stained on the back)
- Check the legs, which can be chipped or broken (I recently bought a small side table that turned out to have a chunk of wood missing on one leg)
- Check the UNDERSIDES for rust or water damage (okay, this one has never happened to me, but it sure could)
- Sit in chairs, and put them on the flattest surface you can find to make sure they are level (a la the yellow chairs)

If a dealer isn't willing to let you pull out, sit in, or turn upside down a piece of furniture, walk away.

7. Make an offer, then don't nickel and dime. Once, in a Paris flea market, I forgot the conversion rate (approximately five francs to one dollar at the time), haggled mercilessly, then walked away. In retrospect, it turned out I was fighting over a dollar. This is a waste of everyone's time and energy.

8. Stick to your guns. If you have a bottom dollar, hold steady. The seller may be willing to meet you, or you may walk away, but you'll know you did the right thing.

You can see the new chairs in the background of this photo (with the added bonus of adorable Eleri). They made me reconsider certain things about the room, in a good way. I'm working on curtains and wallpaper and the chandelier, and will post the big reveal when it's all done.

Scenes from a Marriage: Object Lessons

Dave and I have been married 4 years today.

When we moved into this little house in Boulder, we packed our formal china, stemware, silver, platters, and other fine things off to storage; apart from cramming snacks onto regular plates for a neighborhood party last weekend, we haven't missed any of it. I find myself thinking about the antiquated tradition of the registry: these days, as people get married older, they tend to have all of the household basics (often his- and hers-sets, in fact), so the focus seems to be on higher-quality replacements (and we do love our all-clad pots and pans and our 400-thread count sheets) or the formal stuff; however, most couples I know either live away from family and/or live in small spaces where a second set of anything is not really practical. In the Mad Men era, couples actually used their china on a regular basis, or, at the very least, knew that their future held family events and other entertaining that called for both red and white wine glasses, not to mention champagne flutes and crystal water glasses. This is no longer the case: for many of us, we can't predict what kind of domestic future our lives hold; we are just as likely to stay on in tiny apartments or, quite the opposite, to travel the world or retreat to a rural setting and try our hand at artisenal cheese-making or organic farming. So why do we hold fast to the tradition of a formal registry?

Four years on, I have moments where I wonder why we did not ask our friends and families to contribute to college funds or pitch in on larger purchases, like a new couch. Oh, right: we didn't yet have children and our couch was not yet destroyed by their spills and spit up. Maybe, at the moment of anticipating our futures together, we aren't ready to be so practical, no matter what our views on marriage and commitment. Maybe we hope for some bygone era that represents a glamor we may attribute to our grandparents. Maybe we just don't know what we will truly need, or don't like the shape that conversation takes.

In this moment, as we are object-rich but cash-poor, I find myself thinking back on our wedding with this same questioning eye. Was it really necessary to scour the internet for the perfect 1940s porcelein cake topper? Was it so important to rent the more-expensive green-moire tablecloths just because the entry-level white ones felt a little stark in the space? Was it worth going over-budget on the favors in order to have the vintage-style bird ornaments with real tail feathers? In setting out to write this post, my answer to these, and similar questions, was: no. None of these things matter. A wedding is about the people, the vows, the committment two people make to each other and the people they choose to witness it.

But when I went back through photos from that day, I found myself changing my mind. A wedding IS, most importantly, about the vows. But it is also a celebration of two individuals, and the object choices we make represent us on the day that is, arguably, the most about us. I recently took one of those facebook personality quizzes that plots you on various continuums; on the one about form versus function, I was all "aesthete", literally 100%; I don't even know what the other choice was called. So it makes sense that these details mattered to me.






In looking at the pictures, I realize that many of my choices were also about that same sense of nostalgia that a formal registry might be: that cake topper literally comes from another era; the green moire tablecloths and the bird ornaments were chosen not just for aesthetic reasons, but because they reminded me of my grandmother, a woman who forever imprinted herself on my being not just by who she was and the glamor with which I associate her, but also for leaving the world when I was at the very impressionable age of 15, making her forever an unanswerable question. I was married in her pearl necklace, which now belongs to my aunt Molly: something old; something borrowed.


I realize, too, that some of my choices might have something to do with my parents' wedding: my mother was six month's pregnant with my brother Brian; the ceremony was very small, the party basically non-existent; the bride wore an orange maternity gown designed and sewn by a friend. Because I love the idea of the heirloom so much, and because there was no way I was wearing orange (it's my favorite color, but there are limits), I was married in a dress--something new--that both reflects an earlier era, as if my grandmother might have worn it, and eschewed the trends of the day, making it possible to translate, I hope, to a future era. I have two daughters, after all.


I will mention here that I spent as much time, if not more, thinking about the vows, the readings, the music, the dancing, and my future husband. But the funny thing about objects is that they do last; they become keepsakes. I kept all of the reply cards that people wrote notes on; if we ever have a Christmas tree again, it will bear these bird ornaments. But even better than that, those birds became a reason to play at the wedding: corsages, barettes, dance partners, and even better than having them on my own christmas tree is the idea that friends and family will have them on their own.

Dave's wedding tie is still my favorite, and every time he wears it I think of how nervous I was to look at him as I came down the aisle; how thrilled. I hope our dads and brothers wear theirs; like corsages, these cheerful polka-dot ties let people know that these men were important to us, members of our wedding party, but unlike corsages, they are gifts that last. Seeing any of them wear them again reminds me of my wedding day, and how glad I was to have them be an important part of it. I suppose this is the power of objects.


And the cake topper? It reminds me of one of our few truly private moments in the course of the night. Everyone had been seated for dinner and, before making our entrance into the ballroom, we stopped to cut the cake so it would be ready for dessert. The timing was awkward--I had wanted this to be a public moment--but in hindsight I can appreciate the privacy of the moment, the humor, the chance to catch our breaths, alone together, before re-entering the fray.


And I love, looking back, realizing something I didn't see at the time: that at our wedding, we ate dessert first.