Black and White in Summer

The dining room, the space I declared finished in January 2006 and that we decided to add to the kitchen renovation, finally got its new clothes thanks to some design help from the Awesome Designer and a shopping trip to Kravet's Bethpage, NY showroom one rainy day back in April.


The drapery fabric Solarte from Kravet Soleil, is a retro-vibe indoor/outdoor fabric that should stand up better to dog affection than the Dupioni silk that hung there before.


Although it looks black & white in the stock image, there is a lot of subtlety in the shading - ebony, stone, mocha and a silvery pewter.


The rug, Cap Ferrat, is, like the Chinese Chippendale now in the den, a design by Windor Smith for Kravet. The seafoam color marries well with the grey-green Benjamin Moore Titanium walls and the dark brown ovals are almost the exact shade of the beams and the mocha shading in the drapes. (Black, seafoam and the sun seem to have been a big part of this recent renovation. I think I'll have to invest in some black and white tea towels for the kitchen!).


All we need now are those pesky baseboards...

Pixillated

Suddenly they are everywhere, Pixel designs. But remember where you saw them first - master bedroom October 2004


The Pixel Couch. Designed by Cristian Zuzunaga for Kvadrat, July 2008


Pixel by Habitat bed cover, London, UK, NYT Spring 2008


Pixel by Habitat, UK curtains. Fall 2007.


And I am totally in love with these Tetris tiles, inspired by the video game. Custom made where? The UK of course.

Sale stuff, is it really saving?

I decided things needed sprucing up in a non-power tool, no drama way. So I went sale shopping and got a whole stack of cushion covers last week and all were under $16. Four of them were $5.97 and one was a super-steal $3.97 at Pottery Barn. Funnily enough the one I thought The Guy would really hate is the one he likes the most. Who knew he liked floral prints?


They give a different vibe to the pink sectional, plus they disguise the cat fur, too. Extra bonus - it's certainly cheaper than re-upholstering the whole thing. As I was on a roll I also got around to hemming the bedroom curtains, at last.
Although I'm very pleased with my mega bargains, if I actually dared to add up what I've spent since January on soft furnishings, drapes, pillows, bedding I could probably have afforded a trip to Maui, or at least a relaxing day at a spa somewhere...

An insight into our relationship

Some people have tons of patience and some like to poke and push to get results. Guess which one I am?
Modernemama: Honey, notice anything different?
The Guy: You cut your hair?
M: No


Thirty minutes later:
M: I bought another ball to go in the red bowl
TG: So that's what's new?
M: No. Can't you see it?
TG: I'll walk round the house.......

A few minutes later:
TG: Which room is it in?
M: This one.

Thirty minutes later:
TG: You vacuumed?
M: No
TG: Tell me...Please.

Thirty minutes later:
TG: I give in. Tell me
M: No
TG: I'm going to my computer.

The Guy thinks I will have blogged about the new addition to the den decor. The Guy underestimates my powers.

Next morning:
M: Worked it out yet?
TG: Back in a sec. .............

An hour later Polly needs to go outside and as he crosses the great room something catches his eye. I hear "Oh, wow". Apparently if he is staring straight at something it doesn't register but if he walks diagonally past it, it will jump out wrap itself round his consciousness. Whatever, he got it. Finally.


I got new silk drapes I like for the big window in the den, on sale at Pottery Barn. The color is "clay" and they are less bright than they look in the photo. I like them much better than the oatmeal ones from Crate and Barrel. They contrast with the onyx roman shades but not too much. It's amazing what a difference a couple of tones can make. The Guy, once he noticed, approved of the choice too.
So, which kind of person am I? If you guessed both with a side of torture, you win.

No-sew curtains

I took the porridge colored drapery panels back to Crate&Barrel and while I was in the store I had a look around to see what I could possibly buy to stop the sun shining through the windows at 5 AM.


I spied this greeny-silver from afar. It was pretty stiff and opaque so I wouldn't have to line it and it was already hemmed so there was no sewing involved. It's the right size and it doesn't matter to me that it's a Linden tablecloth. It's not the first time I've used a tablecloth as a drapery panel.



I bought two 60"x90" tablecloths at $39 each and spent $68 on hardware at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Not as cheap as chips but pretty close. The Guy attached the hardware and I attached the tablecloths to the rods with clips. Just one tiny design dilemma. That central support bracket meant we could only draw the curtains halfway. Oops.


I took the drapes down, cut each tablecloth in half and reattached them lengthwise, folding over the raw edge at the top. Luckily, there was still plenty of fabric. (Insert sigh of relief here).


They go fine with the checkered Pixel drapes on the other window, but eventually I will hem the top, making a pole pocket while I'm about it. I think it will look neater than the clips.
I just need to find the iron so I can stick the Stich Witchey to the fabric. I know we put the iron away when we demo'd the laundry room in December '06, I just can't remember where....

Friday Night Fun

Because we'd taken advantage of the fabulous weather on Thursday evening and taken guests to Prime Restaurant for a sunset seafood and fish dinner on the deck overlooking Huntington Harbor we forwent (really, forwent? went without? denied ourselves? Whatever) our usual Friday night booze fest Martini and meal in town and made this vegetable thin crust pizza (recipe over here) instead. OK I had a Martini and some olives to start but it was basically a low-calorie supper.


Then because it was still early I had a crazy desire to get a jump start on the weekend by putting up the curtain rods for the drapery panels I bought.


Of course the previous sentence makes it sound as if I was actually wielding the drill when we know my role is to take photographs and alert The Guy to the fact that the middle bracket is 1/4" off center.


You'd hardly think from his smiling face that he had a drill in his hand and it was menacingly close to my eye, would you? Still, in the end it all went off quite smoothly. I believe the drink before dinner helped, and the pizza, of course. There's nothing worse than tackling projects with a rumbling stomach, is there?


There was only one teensy-weensy little problem. When the curtains went up. I HATED THEM. They're definitely oatmeal not pearl and I hate oatmeal. What was I thinking?


I couldn't bring myself to fess up to The Guy that I thought they were a mistake, especially as he didn't want drapes in the first place, so I lived with them until Sunday afternoon but in the end they had to go. We tried them in the our bedroom but they were still oatmeal. Not every plan is a good plan and I'm admitting this was not my best but at least we know what won't work in both the den and the master.

Curtains

Or how I tried to decorate the master bedroom and ended up back in the den.
In the package of pillows I received from Crate & Barrel last week were two Taylor Panels in Pearl that I thought would be a good replacement for the non-functioning roller blinds in our bedroom. Damn inaccurate computer monitors! They were more oatmeal than pearl. I was going to return them when I remembered we had never come up with a solution for the large window in the den that looks out on the back terrace. We wanted something that would co-ordinate with the roman shades without being too matchy-matchy. So I held them up against the window and whadya know? They look awesome. I even got a clothes hanger, draped the panel over it and and hung it on the built-ins so I could see the effect from the other side of the room. Inventive, no?
Of course I now needed to get a curtain rod and the ones we bought in 2005 have been discontinued, but with the aid of the internets I tracked down the last Pegoda rods at sears.com.

If The Guy will help on Saturday I'll attach the hardware and hang the drapes and take photos. Until then there's a polyvore mock-up above.
The Crate and Barrel curtains are really nice quality (and in the Outlet section) so it would have been a pity not to use them but I still have to find something for the master bedroom so I can open the windows without a roller blind falling on my head.

We pronounce it done

Finally put the curtains up in the dining room this morning. We had ordered roman blinds in October but when they arrived they had bleached out splodges on each of them so we sent them back. It took until January 11 for smithandnoble to tell us that this was normal on silk dupioni and we could either have them remade or choose a new fabric. Huh!
I've seen silk dupioni samples and fabric bolts from many sources and never seen a splodge on any of them, this looked like a bad dye job to me. Anyway, would you trust them to make up a new batch? I thought not. No explanation for the six dressmaker pins left in the fabric either.
So I gave up on the idea of shades and after three weeks of looking I found these red silk dupioni panels and while they are more formal than I wanted, the colour is great - better than the shades, in fact and the best is that there are no weird marks on them. Ha!
Anyone need a reminder of what the dining room looked like eighteen months ago, before the new windows, furniture, paint and curtains? This is it Finally put the curtains up in the dining room this morning. We had ordered roman blinds in October but when they arrived they had bleached out splodges on each of them so we sent them back. It took until January 11 for smithandnoble to tell us that this was normal on silk dupioni and we could either have them remade or choose a new fabric. Huh!

I've seen silk dupioni samples and fabric bolts from many sources and never seen a splodge on any of them, this looked like a bad dye job to me. Anyway, would you trust them to make up a new batch? I thought not. No explanation for the six dressmaker pins left in the fabric either.

So I gave up on the idea of shades and after three weeks of looking I found these red silk dupioni panels and while they are more formal than I wanted, the colour is great - better than the shades, in fact and the best is that there are no weird marks on them. Ha!

Anyone need a reminder of what the dining room looked like eighteen months ago, before the new windows, furniture, paint and curtains? This is it.