Living Room: Furniture Shopping

We've started to furniture shop for the living room.

The living room takes precedent in both of our minds. We made these decisions independently: Furniture shopping starts with the living room. Maybe it's because we spend the most time there. Maybe it's because that's what our guests will see. Maybe it's because we're ready to move the hand-me-down couch downstairs once and for all. [Without a rug underneath it, the unanchored "L" slides on the hardwood floor every time someone sits in it.]

We went to two furniture stores last night looking for a sofa. Sale prices were pretty good, but one salesperson told us to wait for the weekend to get a better deal if we don't want to long-term finance, which we don't. Our goal is to pay a couple of installments until he makes a big bonus, then pay the stuff off.

Photo credit: CSN Sofas.com

The chain store was disappointing. Lots of ugly, overstuffed couches with no personality. They all looked the same. We want a sofa-slash-chaise. They only had one, and it was the exact color of our walls - "comfortable." The color, not the sofa.

We're looking for rich browns and varying shades of blue. Or, he is looking for rich browns, and I'm looking for the whole smorgasbord of colors. Creams would work as an accent, but not a[nother] feature.

Our front-runner right now is this sofa-plus-cuddler. Oooh, cuddler, I love how that sounds. We would also get the ottoman with it, but I really don't want to get the entire set [it also has an available chair, and the store put it with a lovely coffee table and end tables]. I'm not a matchy-matchy kind of girl, and none of those really terrific design shows on HGTV feature the host purchasing all of the furniture from the same collection.

We're eclectic. He just doesn't realize it yet.

Other than the cuddler, I love how this chair has two finishes: the bottom in chocolate leather [pleather?] and the top a rich microsuede. It's quite luxurious to the touch.

He also likes that the back pillows stay in place. Our couch right now is much less structured, and it is driving him nuts.

So, of course, after having found nothing in the way of acceptable chairs in either store to mix with this beauty, I hopped onto Overstock. I love Overstock. And, lo and behold, we have a contender.

Photo credit: Overstock.com

I love it. It has the blue. And the great geometric designs. All things kind of keeping with a modern-eclectic-transitional feel. Dark legs match with our love of dark wood finishes. And how can you beat the price? Even if we get two, it's well worth it.

Now I am frantically looking for throw pillows in all shades of brown, blue, and cream. Etsy, here I come. And I think I would like to turn our wedding altar fabric into sheers for this room [three windows and a windowed door].

Living room stripes

We aren't taupe. Well, I'm sure my husband would love to be, but he also loves when I take him out of his comfort zone. We got married on the beach in front of 10 people. We bought an older home with character instead of an '80s style pre-fab. Ipso facto, we aren't taupe.

Living room stripes
Originally uploaded by Lang_Ston

So our taupe needed a little...pizazz. Tone-on-tone stripes. My mother-in-law was pushing me pretty hard to do a faux finish somewhere in the house [she's a studied proficient at wall fauxs]. However, I still didn't know exactly how our decorating would look and our tastes can run pretty divergent. But tone-on-tone stripes I really -- REALLY -- dig.

Sure, it's a lot of work for a subtle effect, but every time I look at them I have a smug satisfaction that what we accomplished was pretty great.

It took an entire evening and the next morning to get that sucker taped off. We only striped two walls, a compromise between what my husband wanted [one] and what I wanted [all four], but it ended up being the perfect amount. Using our laser level, we taped off the horizontal stripes: two 3", two 12", and one 6" in the middle. The exterior back wall was so cold, though, that the painters tape wouldn't stay up.

Stripes are drying
Originally uploaded by Lang_Ston

That morning, we took our high-gloss rollers to the flat eggshell paint. In hindsight [after watching loads of HGTV], we should have sealed the tape by painting the eggshell over the seams before we started the high-gloss, but we managed without. Paint. Start to pull the tape so the new paint doesn't get stuck and dry underneath. He followed behind me with a spackle trowel covered in a damp cloth, making sure the vertical drips were wiped up in a timely fashion, maintaining the integrity of our horizontal lines.

Back wall of the living room
Originally uploaded by Lang_Ston

Once it dried, we could barely see the difference when looking at it head-on. But at an angle, with the light shining in the right direction, our stripes look marvelous. The tape wasn't perfectly straight down the lines. The drips caused a bit of trouble on the back end of the project. But now that it's dry, you can't notice the problems that plagued us during the process.

This picture is the back wall stripes. They continue on the inside wall. That's my parents' old couch [more on that soon], and one of our first big purchases: Sloane leaning bookshelves from Crate + Barrel.

The Process: Living Room

Primer.

That was the big question for the living room, whether to use primer. What about paint with primer in it? Or just painting two coats might achieve the same final product?



We chose to prime. It was necessary to cover that blasted PenDOT orange.

Wall color selection for the living room was difficult, not because we are indecisive [we are], but because we didn't have the furnishings for the room decided. Our couch was a hand-me-down from my parents' house and had seen a decade and a half of tough love: tweeners jumping all over it, teenagers abusing it, snags, cuts, cigarette burns. It wasn't even my parents' dream couch to begin with. We wanted to start afresh.

Living room in process
Originally uploaded by Lang_Ston

But, financially, it was impossible -- and would have been downright irresponsible -- to replace the couch when we moved. So we needed to paint the living room a color that would transition from old couch to new couch, would complement but not overpower either of those choices. We went beige. Literally, taupe. The color name was "comfortable," and I'm sure it was named by a man since usually beige is all the color men are comfortable with.

The Beginning: Living room

Living room
Originally uploaded by Lang_Ston

This was the living room as it started, on the day of our home inspection. The three exterior walls were painted in a sickening peach color [which carried all through the dining room], and the interior wall was a bright hunting orange [a wonderful continuation of the foyer, pictured].

Now, we can handle some bold color choices, my husband and I, but this was ridiculous. Since closing on our house, the wall colors necessitated us to allot the first three weeks of home ownership for painting and updating.

Garish. Just absolutely garish.

Our Cape Cod

Front right
Originally uploaded by Lang_Ston

...and our piece of the world.

I love this photograph because there's so much pride I feel when I look at it. At the same time, there's so much I want to change.

Right now the whole lot is covered in 5" of snow. The Christmas lights are gone. The whole scene is idyllic and romantic.

Inside, all of the [original] [1950] windows are sweating. Beads of condensation are forming inside the plastic window lining, pooling on the stone sills, and dripping down the plaster onto the hardwood floors. Blegh.

Windows will be our first huge project. $8,000 tax credit say whaaaaat?

It all started with a house...

And a what beautiful house it is. A 1950 three-bedroom-plus-den, two-and-a-half-bath Cape Cod masterpiece. Blonde hardwood floors, moderately updated kitchen, large side porch. Just inside the city limits with a big backyard. The perfect comprimise between our two styles: his classic and traditional, mine retro contemporary. His suburban, my urban.

Coming from an 855 sq. ft. apartment, we have minimal furnishings. Mostly hand-me-downs, garage sale finds. Coming from our medium-sized wedding, we have very few splurges and are still re-learning how to spend money. Our instint is ingrained in our psyches: save, save, SAVE.

So I am finding it difficult to decorate this house, to turn it into our home. So many ideas to keep track of, let alone remember to share with him. So many rooms to look for; not all at once, but inspiration doesn't limit itself to only the task at hand.

My intention is to use this tool to keep my ideas catalogued and my outlook sanguine. Historically I am rubbish at maintaining the tools that I create; let's hope this proves to be the exception to the rule.