Today is a house day. I've let the laundry pile up to unacceptable levels, but I'm going to have to deal with washing machine problem first. There's a puddle of water in front of the washing machine. Some tube must be diconnected. That's my technical assessment. It's a tube problem.
My in-laws are coming at the end of the month, so I need to buy a daybed today. I need curtains of the office/guest room. Lots of chores. So, I will only talk about house and home crap today.
I have a love-hate relationship with house stuff. I'll binge on home improvements for a month, but then feel shallow and can't think about it for another six months. Then I'll buy a house porn magazine, start dreaming about paint colors, and become obsessed with home decor all over again. It's a healthy cycle of self-hatred!
Here's what our living room looked like before we moved in.
Lots of furniture. A striped awning in front of the house, which made the room very shady and was bizarre on a split level. Low hanging art work, which made the room look very short.
The finish on the floors had turned orange and was full of scratches.
Flowered wallpaper in the entrance way.
After the people moved out, we had the floors redone.
Later, I pulled that valence off the window. It looked like a big eye lid.
I bought curtains.
I put some random stuff on the mantel of the fireplace.
We haven't bought any new furniture. Just arranged what we had already. I would like a new coffee table to replace the IKEA cardboard thing. We painted the walls of the living room White Dove and carried that color throughout the downstairs. The entrance way is a blue and the door is a forest green.
By putting the sofa like this, we maximized the view from the picture window and created a larger entrance area.
This wall needs large art. My dream for this room is push up the ceiling through the attic and create a paneled, angled ceiling.
Apt. 11d 
“By putting the sofa like this, we maximized the view from the picture window and created a larger entrance area.”
I like this a lot, especially since I have an entrance area that makes me want to cry. However, looking at that bench behind the sofa, all I can think is how much E (my E) would enjoy launching himself over the sofa using the bench as a launching pad. I am assuming that in 9 years or so, he will stop doing stuff like that, but till then….
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Check out Canvas on Demand for large wall art. It’s a fairly inexpensive way to get something interesting in that space that’s special to you (i.e. you can use pictures of your kids or your own artwork, or your kid’s artwork). Then you can wait for the money that justifies buying a 5K+ piece of original art that you’d like as much.
I think one of Ian’s pieces — I personally like the one that was an assignment of some sort w/ fill in the blank pictures that he filled in in intersting ways could easily be converted into a piece of large wall art and printed to canvas.
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I’m impressed that you were able to see the house it could be through that living room.
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Nesting is fun – and you know, I wouldn’t feel guilty about it. Thinking the big intellectual thoughts isn’t negated by also enjoying making a home.
Check out http://www.jealouscurator.com. Also buysomedamnart.com. Both review contemporary artists, some more affordable than others.
From the photos the room might be large enough to move the two chairs closer to the couch and then have a chaise or a bench or two poufs in front of the fireplace for additional seating.
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The decor of the previous owners is not to my taste, but at the same time it has that kind of layered, lived in look at can be very comfortable and gives a very clear idea of the taste the previous owner had. It is cohesive without being at all matchy-matchy.
Getting that feeling, of a real living space that does embody the aesthetic of the owner is the hardest part of decorating. It is very easy to fill spaces. To make a space feel lived in and not “decorated” is the hard part.
At 7 years into the current house, I have only just begun to really feel like a couple of rooms here are finally ‘done’. I’ve gone through the mistake pieces in those rooms and the rearrangement of furniture to finally have rooms that I am not always futzing with. Now, I just need to complete the other 6 rooms in the house. Though I am starting to get to the point where I want to replace certain items in those ‘done’ rooms with the grown up version (throw pillows, the nicer couch of the same type, etc).
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“The decor of the previous owners is not to my taste, but at the same time it has that kind of layered, lived in look at can be very comfortable and gives a very clear idea of the taste the previous owner had. It is cohesive without being at all matchy-matchy.”
The old look does look comfy. It’s got too many patterns going on for me, but I think even just swapping out the striped sofa for a plain brown leather sofa and getting a more interesting lamp would have made a considerable improvement.
I have no idea what direction Laura’s living room ought to go. The current furniture looks a bit lonely and there’s an awful lot of white and brown. I wonder if the right shade of blue paint might make a big difference–maybe a shade pulled out of the rug? The blue-brown thing has been done a lot lately, but I think the right shade of blue might perk up those browns.
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I love big empty spaces. I once read an architect’s article commenting on how he hated surfaces, because people inevitably put stuff on them and then everything was cluttered. He then devised a fantasy table surface that would retract into the wall on command.
I do not live this way (in fact, it might be impossible, and it is certainly impossible with children, and, probably with my life partner as well, who I am not willing to trade for big open spaces), but I love art gallery like loft spaces (hence the fact that the living room pre-laura makes me squirm).
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“I once read an architect’s article commenting on how he hated surfaces, because people inevitably put stuff on them and then everything was cluttered.”
I’d love to see his office (although maybe he has solved the problem).
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