Rescue Me

The living room and dining room are coming together nicely, but I will wait to show them to you since they are close, but no cigar as the saying goes.

Not much has really changed in the living room, it really is the dining room that has undergone the most change, but there is still more to do.

I have this annoying habit of envisioning a room before it's actually completed sometimes.  It's not so much the exact details that I have in my head, but an overall feel for a room that I'm after.  And sometimes that can be a real pain in the you know what because that means that you will hunt and search and spend hours hoping from store to store or internet site to internet site looking for just the right piece.

I'm currently on the hunt for an unusual piece to go next to my new cabinet, and who knew it would be so hard to find an old blanket chest for my bedroom to store my bed linens when they are not in use?!  

Yesterday I visited a few local places looking for said storage item and although I did find a few steamer trunks and a really pretty vintage wicker chest, they just didn't meet with my vision...sigh.

At least one thing has worked out nicely and that is my pretty new life ring that now hangs on the wall near my slipcovered chair in the living room.  I have been searching for a vintage life preserver ring for over a year now, but I could never find one that was the size and color I was after.  Then, a few months ago I saw that Caroline of Ekster had some.  I didn't get one when she first had them for sale, but when I ordered my cabinet I asked if she still had some and she sent a few down for me to look at when her husband Jon-Paul delivered our cabinet.  Voila, it was the perfect color, aged beautifully and big enough to fill the space where I wanted to hang it...everything I had imagined it would be...in my vision of course!

Sometimes I think I need more than a vintage life ring to rescue me from my design visions.  Some days I would love to be vision free and just go pick something up that would make do instead of spending hours hunting for just the right piece.  But then again what would I do with all of that free time I would suddenly have?!

And to the people who were totally freaked out by the rat photo in my last post, I apologize.  I know that we each have things that kind of make us feel whirly inside, even if those things can seem cute to the rest of the world.  For me that thing would be bats.  Even if there was someone out there who had trained a bat to hold a cute teddy bear and then managed to snap a photo of it, well it still wouldn't be cute to me...so I get it.  Note to self, no rat, snake, spider, bat, or other photos on the blog...well unless they are exceedingly cute, because cuteness knows no bounds! ;-)

Sitting Pretty

Phew we had quite the day here in Maryland!  Tornadoes, flooding, and high winds...it was crazy and a little frightening to boot!  Our son wasn't able to make it back home from running with our local rescue squad overnight until this afternoon because some of the roads had been flooded and they needed every available person to help out so he stayed on past his shift.

I kept myself busy finishing up a story for Romantic Country Magazine, and hoped that no big tree limbs would come down or that the water would get too high.  Luckily we only had a few limbs fall and the water didn't get precariously high.  Thankfully, I think most people made it through the storm fairly well.

After I finished my story I decided it was time to take a few pictures of my latest project.  A little change up in the living room!

I've been wanting to update our living room for a while now.  Most of the upholstered pieces in this room are almost 15 years old...sheesh I can hardly believe that little factoid!  And although it's in wonderful shape because it hardly saw any use in our last house and rarely gets used in this house, it was time for a change.

The deep jewel tone green of the sectional sofa (now divided into a couch and loveseat) was fine in our last home which was a colonial and had a much more formal feel and not nearly as much natural light as the new house.  I haven't decided what I want to do with it yet, and waver back and forth between slipcovering it in a nice neutral linen, to getting rid of it completely and starting from scratch.

Instead of jumping in with both feet when I really wasn't sure what look I wanted for this room, I decided to start with baby steps.

I knew I wanted something completely different, but because that crazy thing called money always seems to rear its ugly head every time you want to completely change out a room, I decided to try recovering the dark wing chair in the corner that I still liked, except for its dark fabric.

So off I went to see my friend Sheryl of Slipcover Cottage, and seamstress extraordinaire!  She gave me swatches of fabrics to take home and mull over in all sorts of different lighting.

I'm a pretty decisive person, and normally have an image of exactly what I want even before I start looking for fabric, but this time I really hemmed and hawed over what look I was trying to achieve.  I knew I needed something that would still go with my green sofa, but I wanted something a little funky and unexpected.

In the end I chose a fabric in a color way that I would normally walk right past.  Orange mixed with magenta is not something I usually gravitate toward, so I shocked even myself when I picked the fabric above to use for my new slipcover!

And because this chair is has an unusual shape for a wing chair, there is no separate seat cushion and the arms have a strange build to them as well, I wondered just how easy it would be for Sheryl to create something that would stay put and look good!

But I should have known better, her work is always fabulous and once again she came through with flying colors!!!

And speaking of colors, I am loving this new bold print and the bright color combo, it completely changed the whole look of the room!  I love it when a small change has a huge impact!

So instead of boring, tired, and drab...

I am enjoying a little cool, funky, and fab!!  Hmm now all I need is a new seagrass rug, and some Ikea Ektorp sofas...now where are my car keys and GPS....Mr. Tide?!

I don't get compensated for telling you how great Sheryl's work is, but if you're in the market for new slipcovers I can't recommend her highly enough!

To see more transformations head over to Metamorphosis Monday over at Between Naps on the Porch!

and

Be sure to stop by Show and Tell Friday over at My Romantic Home

A Dog's Life

I often wonder if people decorate around their pets. I know cat lovers often have massive towers covered in carpet to entertain their cats, or the efficient doggie doors you can install to give your pooch the freedom to come and go as he or she pleases, but that's not what I mean.

I find that our dogs, an English Shepherd named Quinn and a Border Collie named Kylee, have influenced our decorating in a way that I find has made us more relaxed. We've owned other wonderful dogs, a German Shepherd that had the disposition of an angel and an Aussie that was smarter than me I think, but aside from picking flooring that would hide their ubiquitous shedding, we really didn't change much about our style to accommodate them.

Maybe it's because I'm older, or that our children are all grown up *sigh*, but I find that I'm drawn to things that the dogs will like along with things I know we will like. Now before you think I'm turning into a crazy cat lady, I just find that having slipcovers that allow the dogs to curl up on a favorite chair or a owning a duvet that can stand to be de-furred periodically makes good sense! The dogs agree and Quinn is particularly fond of the duvet idea since he takes up 50% of the bed each night!!!

I even purchased two pencil drawings on clearance from Ballard Designs that look remarkably like our devilish duo and have them in our family room for all the world to see! I haven't begun removing the children's portraits to replace them with pet pictures so never fear, but I feel that these furry beings have taken on an even more important role in our lives than any of our past dogs, and that's saying a whole lot since they were card carrying members of our family as well.

But just look at those faces...who wouldn't be smitten?! Have you found yourself drawn to different decorating styles because of your pets?