Friday, February 18, 2011

A Quick Facelift

As you many of you know, Nate and I moved into our home at the end of May.  In the nine months since then we have almost completely remodeled our entire first floor (hence this blog).  Well, it is time to start making some changes already.  Can you imagine?!  Why can't we just be satisfied with the things that we have already done?  Actually, this change was quick, inexpensive, and pretty darn easy.
If you remember our den remodel, you will remember the two white bookshelves on either side of the fireplace.  As a reminder, here is a lovely photo for you.

ORIGINAL BUILT-INS
Being huge fans of another home design blog (www.younghouselove.com), I came across this photo and was inspired by what they did to their built-ins.
YOUNG HOUSE LOVE BUILT-INS
You can see that they chose to paint the back of their built-ins a very bold and saturated color.  The walls in our den are already a pretty bold color, but I loved the idea of doing a different color back.  I chose a color that complemented the gray-blue of our den walls and the color of our stone fireplace. It was off to Home Depot to have them color match me a sample container of Benjamin Moore's Graystone.
BENJAMIN MOORE GRAYSTONE
Nate remembered that we he had used a similar color in our townhouse and that we still had some of that color left.  We mixed our small sample color with our leftovers (Behr Ashwood) and created a custom color that we both really liked.  So, on a Tuesday evening I removed everything from the built-ins to begin the project.  I made sure to keep all of the things that I took down from each shelf together so that I could easily pack the shelves the same way that they were before.
CUSTOM COLOR (WE CALL IT ASH GRAY STONE WOOD)

SHELVES ROW BY ROW
I put two coats of paint of the Ash Gray Stone Wood  on each built-in and let the paint dry overnight before reinstalling the bookshelves and all of the stuff that goes onto them.  (Actually, Nate was nice enough to have all of the shelves put back by the time I arrived home from work on Wednesday).
ONE SIDE COMPLETE, ONE MORE TO GO!

ALL PAINTED

FINISHED!
READING FOR ITS CLOSE UP

We both really like the way that the subtle color ties the fireplace into everything.  The color helps the fireplace look larger, and helps the built-ins not dominate the wall so much, letting the fireplace become the star of the show.  The color sample was $2.84 and we already had the color that we mixed it with, so this entire project cost us under $3.00 and took us a total of 1 1/2 evenings.  Not bad!
It should also be noted that we consider this our comfy, cozy, hang out in, and watch TV room so we are OK with darker colors in this room.  It makes it feel like our very own cozy cocoon!













Monday, February 14, 2011

The Search for a Sectional

So, if you remember correctly, we were lucky (please note the sarcasm) enough to inherit a lovely set of Italian leather sofas from Nate's family friend.  The are very comfortable, they were free, but they are UGLY!  They have served us well over the years, but it is time that they are retired to the basement.  So, we were on the search for something to replace them.
The layout of our den is a tricky one.  It has a 6' opening to the kitchen on one wall, a set of sliding glass doors on another wall, and the fireplace with built-ins on a third wall. 
THIS IS THE ENTIRE DEN.  SEE OUR LOVELY LEATHER COUCHES?
CURRENT LAYOUT
So it was off to all of the furniture stores in our area to find something that we liked.  Nate started at Belfort Furniture, a local HUGE furniture showroom not far from where he works.  He found two sectionals that he really liked.  They are made by Rowe.
THE SULLIVAN by ROWE
THE TOWNSEND by ROWE
So we sat on them and they were pretty comfortable so we took home the measurements and.... they were a NO GO.  They were way too big for our space.  Every sectional comes with a number of sizes and configurations for you to piece together in the configuration that will work for you.  Well, when we pieced together the available sizes, they were just too darn big!  Moving on...

A few months later we ran over to the mall on another errand and came across a furniture store called Arhaus.  We immediately loved the style of furniture and accessories that they had so we decided to pop in.  That is where we found it.  The most comfortable couch in the whole world!  It was called the Midtown Grande and it was amazing!  We were in love, this was going to be our sectional.  Done Deal.
ARHAUS MIDTOWN GRANDE
We picked out some fabric samples, batted our eyes at the sales woman, got some dimensions, and flew home to see if it would work.  Lo and behold...it didn't. :(  It was too big.  Can you believe it?  Sheer and utter disappointment.  It wasn't going to work.  Unbelievable.  I called Arhaus and asked if they made a smaller section with a chaise lounge on it...no dice.  Could they custom make something?  No dice.  Uggh...the fabric samples were returned and we sat (on our ugly couches) dejected.
What we loved about the Midtown was how deep the seating was.  Nate is 6' tall and therefore has really long legs.  He needs a deeper cushion in order to feel comfortable.  The problem is, on a sectional, the deeper the cushion, the longer one of the sides of sectional becomes.  There had to be something that would work.
Now that we were in the sectional mindset again, we visited Ethan Allen.  We found one sectional that we liked, it was comfortable, and it would fit, but the price tag was a little lot more than what we were hoping to spend.  Moving on, again.
So we headed back to Belfort Furniture.  We sat on the two original sofas that Nate liked and realized they just weren't as comfortable as we had originally thought (it was hard to compete with the Midtown Grande).  While walking through the showroom, Nate spotted a couch that he really liked.  We sat on it, and it was comfortable (still not the Midtown, but comfy nonetheless).  Nate went to ask if it came in a sectional..guess what?...it did!  We asked for the dimensions...guess what?...it would fit!  We were not able to fit in a chaise on one end but we figured if we got an ottoman we could push it up against the sectional to make our own chaise.  It wasn't as deep as we had hoped (we were hoping for 40" but ended up with 35") but that was the only way to actually fit a sectional in this room.  We took some fabric samples home and measured one last time.  This is how the layout will work.
LAYOUT WITH FUTURE SECTIONAL
We are planning to use the upholstered ottoman as a chaise and to add a round wood coffee table (hopefully with storage) in the middle as shown.
We went back the next day and purchased our first sectional...YAY!!!  We have to wait 6-12 weeks for it to be made, but I will post pics of it when it is in its new home!