Sneak peek: Den Rug

Linky black links on a beige background. Soft and warm. Cat approved.

Keeping your friends

Interwebs regulars to this blog are aware that we lucked out when we signed up to take over The Cool House. Not only did we get a rock sold house in need of a little TLC and a piece of uniquely modern architectural history but we gained two of the best neighbors we could ever hope to have - the Awesome Designer and the Loyal Blog Reader. The former is the hands-on person in that partnership/ Furniture needs re-arranging? She'll move it fifty different ways until she gets the effect you're looking for (or the one she persuades you is best - trust her, it will be). Bulbs have to be planted? Give her a couple hundred and a dry weekend and the following Spring your garden will be carpeted with pretty flowers. Ask for a fabric swatch and she'll visit half a dozen showrooms and bring you swatches of undreamt deliciousness - and then spend hours pruning them until you have just the right palette to make your room perfect.

On the other hand, the Loyal Blog Reader is more cerebral and prefers to let the pros (like his wife) tackle things. Only rarely does he get roped into the renovation process, preferring to bask in the glory of the finished effect.


Which is why he is probably kicking himself this morning - or dreaming of kicking me maybe - when, after I plied him with wine and salumi, we persuaded him to take a hands-on role in the renovation and move a rug, or three, in and out of the car and up a flight of stairs - in the name of the beautification of The Cool House. To add to his nightmare I made him weigh in on the design discussion of some fifty pieces of fabric to determine the one that would epitomize our uniquely modern design aesthetic. So, I would like to heartily thank the Awesome Designer for all her help and hard work yesterday and to the Loyal Blog Reader I offer both my gratitude and profuse apologies. You can send the chiropractor's bill to me...

Big Blue Sectional Reveal

Ta-da! Drum roll please for the stunning reveal of the formerly pink super-sectional sofa


After: Original to the house 1968 Harvey Probber sectional re-upholstered with Kravetsmart in blue chenille by awesome designer Julie Napoleon Brown and her team.


New rug is Chinese Chippendale design by Windsor Smith, also through Kravet, a 9' x 9' square terracotta silk and wool blend with a gold design and border. It's amazing what an appropriately sized rug does for the scale of the room. The sectional floats on the rug just as if it were made to measure.


Before: The sectional in its original rose pink fabric, faded by 40 years of sun streaming through those huge windows (and a little pet-related wear and tear); the too-tiny 5' by 8' rug we'd placed in front of the sofa as a temporary solution five years before. The pillows were hiding a huge split in the seat cushion that had been there for longer than that, which we'd originally covered with reindeer hide! Just out of view is a pink throw covering another hole and more than a few cat claw marks


During the re-covering phase the rug became a patch of carpet cast adrift in a sea of parquet. At this point I knew I had to go rug shopping. I can't say enough good things about the whole rug shopping experience at Kravet - they also have a fun blog Inspired Talk that is, as the name suggests, full of designer tips, resources and drool-worthy photos.


My greatest thanks, however, go to designer Julie Napoleon Brown without whom the project would never have gotten started, let alone turned out so spectacularly. She spent time trying to make an off-center sofa fit more cohesively in a trapezoid room; here she is considering the configuration of the 12-piece sectional


and shown here pondering the choice of pillow fabrics.


She tolerated my control issues as I vetoed swatch after swatch and sample after sample, then had to repeat the process with The Guy, who doesn't respond well to imposed change (unless he is doing the imposing) but in the end, as you can see from the photo, is delighted with the redone great room.


As Julie says, it needs a punch of the orange on the pillows and a few well-chosen accessories, which will come eventually (I can generally sneak one thing past The Guy each quarter), but for the moment - and most importantly - it has been cat tested and fully approved.

More Great Room before and after photos here

Design Day

So you know how you start with one thing, say re-upholstering a distressed pink sofa, and then because you changed the colour you have to pick a new rug and pillow fabric and the next thing you know you've picked a wallpaper for the powder room and you're having a full-on argument with your other half about who has the better design ethics - in front of the professional with the credentials, taste level and portfolio to render any disagreement moot, the Awesome Designer for instance. You know that sort of a day? Well, that was my Monday.


The Awesome Designer, who does have a real name - Julie Napoleon Brown, and whose work you can see here, here and here - was devoting a few hours of her precious, much sought-after design time to take me rug shopping. Somehow that developed into a full-on entire day, including many hours spent pulling fabrics at Kravet's Long Island showroom.



Surprisingly, it was this square Chinese Chippendale carpet that made me gasp: coup de foudre, coup de coeur. It wasn't the colour we were looking for, nor the shape and certainly didn't read updated sixties chic -but it just leapt out at me and straight into my arms.


The Awesome Designer set to work pulling co-ordinating pillow fabrics like this Barclay Butera Chinese inspired print as well as more retro weaves and blocks of bright blues and greens and terracottas that would marry the cool blue of the sectional with the warm tones of the rug.


I got so carried away I suggested we look for a kick-ass wallpaper for the powder room and foyer - because you cannot expect that a newly-waxed floor in the great room onto which you've placed a sensual gold and terracotta rug surrounded by a freshly upholstered slate-blue sectional accented with one-of-kind cushions, will distract from the primer-over-wallpaper-base walls in the entrance hall, now can you? It would be more warthog with designer pearls than lipstick on a pig.


We hauled one rug home, plus two bags containing samples for a uniquely-coloured custom rug, fabrics for both options and a dozen or so wallpapers. Then we layed it all out in the great room to see what would work and what wouldn't. When we had it paired down to a cohesive design board we cracked open a bottle of white and awaited the arrival of The Guy who enthusiastically approved the rug and most of the pillow fabrics (including weirdly a zebra print we had put aside as a no-go) and out-right vetoed our paper choice (copper, black, gold and silver elms on a dark background that looks stunning in situ) saying he didn't want to feel like he was walking through a forest every time he went upstairs. Really interwebs, wouldn't you want to trip through the trees on your way to bed?


Anyway, another contender Grasses by Mulberry, and one that I really think would be more like weaving through a forest didn't make the cut either. The Guy's choice -walking through a town - is obviously not going to happen. We brought over The Loyal Blog Reader to mediate - but he wisely refused to get involved. Right now were are at an impasse on the foyer but, concentrating on the positive, we have a rug and pillow fabrics and the sectional will be back home next week. And, more importantly, I had a "girl in a sweet-shop" sort of day shopping with the best and most patient designer around.

We're softening up

I seem to have been a little remiss in keeping you up to date with the master bedroom decoration. (You thought I was going to say master bath remodel, didn't you? Now, we're just not going to mention that, ok?)


Some weeks ago on that pillow buying spree at the Pottery Barn outlet out east I picked up a huge bargain and casually tossed it into the cart. It was a super soft 5' x 8' wool rug that we thought could go in our room. As it was 40% off $199 I thought it was too good to miss. And when we got it home and actually walked on it in bare feet, it felt so luxurious that I knew I was going to have to go back and get the larger size to go under the bed.


So last Saturday before the unfortunate lobster incident we stripped the soft top off Beach Car and headed back to Tanger Outlets to get it. Can you imagine my joy when I found out that the 10' x 8' was the same price as the smaller rug we had purchased three weeks before? No, the price hadn't been reduced. They were selling both sizes for the same amount. I don't know why. I don't question the sale gods, I just thank them.
Lovely, silky 100% wool rug that will keep my toes warm when I step out of bed this winter, I love you. And for only $120. Thank you very much, it's perfect.