More upholstery inspiration

I'm sad today - the NYC trip has been postponed because of a Nor'easter that is headed this way. March and its lion tendencies!

Here are some pretty pictures to serve as a distraction.

Striped chair on its own:

Striped chair in a room:

No stripes here, but I love the details on this settee:

Striped upholstery and issues of symmetry

Choosing fabric for chairs is a tad overwhelming. Solids or patterns? And if patterned, what kind? Florals? Zig zag? This pair makes a pretty good case for colorful stripes.

Same photo, different topic: The chairs are the only symmetrical items in this room, which is interesting. The yellow pillow is balanced by the yellow lamp, and if it weren't for that, I think the room would be way off kilter. The more I look at it, the more wacky I feel. I guess I like symmetry.

Located: This lamp

In January, I posted this picture and asked if anyone knew where to find the lamp.

Yesterday, Jennifer at The Newlywed Diaries was my Hero of the Day when she revealed the lamp's source: John Darien. Oh, what a bittersweet moment to find the one you love, only to learn that it is beyond your means.

Also shocking: Decopauged items cost that much?

New chair

Hey, did you know it's a good idea to start a new project when you haven't finished the ten other projects you've already started? It's true. Nothing gets the creative juices flowing like a little procrastination.

Here's a peek at a project I started yesterday:

It's a Craigslist find that less than 24 hours ago, looked like this:

I'm thinking the tufting will have to go. I like the blue and white stripes, but I'll cover the cushions in a more neutral fabric. The stripes will still play a role, though. You'll see.

I also want to find a colorful fabric to use in another spot. Something with poppies, perhaps? I like this fabric from a bedroom designed by Sara Gilbane.

(Sara Gilbane)

And on another note, I'm planning a trip to NYC next weekend/early next week. I'm trying to expand my horizons and go places I've never been before. The ABC Carpet and Home outlet is one of them. Let me know if you have any other suggestions!

Four bathrooms

I don't put a lot of consideration into bathrooms during my Internet and magazine browsing, but sometimes I'm compelled to save an image. Like this rustic yet elegant bathroom

(Marie Claire Maison)

or this sweet pink and red combination (not to be confused with the same color scheme from a different decade).

Other bathrooms are really, really nice and of course I pause to admire them. 

But I'm also honest with myself - bathrooms like the one above are a big dream. And then there are other bathrooms that are just ...

(Marie Claire Masion)

big. Whoa. Try brushing your teeth in the shadow of a child sumo wrestler!

Bed vs. commute

Perfection in the form of white down.

Someday I will look back at these posts and wonder, "why are there so many pictures of beds?"

Then I will look at this picture and remember that soft, fluffly beds are hard to get out of your mind when the reality is a slushy, cold commute.

It is pretty, though. The view is of Central Square in Cambridge, with a straight shot down Massachusetts Avenue toward Boston. You can even see my favorite building off in the distance - the John Hancock Tower (an I.M. Pei creation).

Steven Sclaroff - colorful upholstery, Kate's apartment and vintage finds

I want to find some cheap chairs and learn how to make them look like this:

Why stop at fabric? When you know how to upholster chairs this well, you can use leather too.

These pictures are all from the website of Steven Sclaroff, who helped design Kate and Andy Spade's apartment (which I love because it's what life would look like if we lived inside a lollipop.)

See?

In addition to making me want to upholster things, looking at Steven Sclaroff's website also makes me want to go back to Cambridge Antinque Market and scour for cool vintage items like this chair

and this umbrella stand.

My new month resolution will be to find an umbrella stand like this one for $25 or less. If it's not red, I will paint it. Come on, March, make it happen. Just in time for April showers.

Sorority life

This is a picture of the room I lived in my sophomore year of college. It was too small to fit two twin beds on the floor, so my roommate and I had no choice but to stack 'em.

She liked blue, and I liked red. We both liked the way the two colors look together. What you can't see is the giant flotaki rug that is covering the commercial-grade carpeting in the room. His name was Dimitri, and he stayed with us for three years. A white rug in college! Not bad at all.

Also: I have no idea how many episodes of Trading Spaces were watched in this room, but I am going to guess that we never missed an episode. 

Another also: The lower left drawer was filled with fruit snacks and Capri Sun.

I had a ball at the antique mall

I was looking for something fun to do on Saturday while Marc was working. I was looking for the kind of place that you can just wander around and look at things, preferably of the non-generic variety. Google can be your friend in times like these. After just one search, I had my destination. And it was just a little more than a mile away.

The Cambridge Antique Market is five floors of ... stuff. As in, every single floor of the building pictured above is filled with oldness. Some was old and gross. Some was old and awesome. It was a standard New England antique mall, and it was exactly what I needed to pass the hours on a cold February day.

I love walking around and looking at things. It's fun to imagine what people will do -- or once did -- with all of the stuff, and it also makes for some truly great people watching. I got this picture from the Cambridge Antique Market's Facebook page. It's kind of blurry, but it shows the volume of objects in the store.

I did end up taking home a few treasures. Like this bronze horse

and these shiny green and white lacquered dishes from Austria.

The undersides of these dishes are shiny red. I love them! I think they'll be great to hold paperclips and other small desktop items.

I also got this scarf for $1. I'm thinking I'll eventually frame it, because I've had a thing for framed textiles lately.

And here's my big ticket item. I saw it within 2 minutes of entering the store, and I really think we were meant to be together.

You see, I have his cousin waiting at home:

I got the first block print at an antique print store on Charles Street in Beacon Hill. Thomas Jefferson has never looked so good in all his graphic, antique glory. I love the yellow border on the black and white print, and the way the gold frame I ended up choosing echoes the yellow rectangle in the print.

I love the way the two prints are so very different, yet share many of the same elements. Sure, they are from different eras. The dealer at CAM told me Johann was made by mid-century artist Mervin Jules. The print of Thomas is from a book from the 1800s. And in real life, the two men actually only overlapped for 7 years -- Jefferson was born in 1743, and Bach died in 1750.

But I don't care. I look at the two prints together, and I love the way they complement one another. The Bach picture on its own has the potential to be very poppy (as in pop art, not the flower), which is a look I'm not crazy about. So I know I need to choose the frame and the room it hangs in carefully. Good thing I have plenty of time! I see more tips to the Cambridge Antique Market in my future ...

Sundays of Yore: 1952 Bathroom

This post could also be called "Trendy today, ugly tomorrow."

Think about it. In 1952, a home editor at a women's magazine picked this bathroom to feature because it looked good. It was what the readers wanted to see. If there were blogs back then, this bathroom would have made the cut and people would have commented that they love the wallpaper, and that pink and red are so fresh together. And that pink sink! LOVE. Maybe someone would have shown how to get the look for less.

Ugh. I can't help but wonder: which of today's trends will be tomorrow's ugly?

Wallpaper en Francais

White Eames chairs and creamy flowered wallpaper look pretty and good together.

(Marie Claire Maison)

I love the stacks of pillows along the wall. Since I can't get in close to see the fabrics, I'll just have to imagine that the pillows look like this:

(Les Indiennes)

I think the home office below is from the same house as the dining room, but I'm not sure because I pulled these pictures from Marie Claire Maison and my francais is not what it used to be. C'est la vie. I'll just have to make it up.

(Marie Claire Maison)

I love the toile lamp in this room. 

The question I really do want an answer to is, "what are those wall panels?" They're in both rooms, and the wallpapers seems to be layered underneath them. Is it something many French homes have, or is it something that one designer contrived and that's why this house is featured in Marie Claire? So many questions, so many answers in a foreign language.

I guess if you turn around and look out the office door, this is what you see.

Je n'aime pas the black rug, but I do like everything else!

Two bedrooms: a poem

Light blue and pink ...

or pink and light blue.

(Sara Gilbane in Lonny Issue 3)

I like them both.
What about you?

Roman shades in the kitchen

A lot of the kitchens in pictures I save on my computer have roman shades on the windows. I like the look of fabric in kitchens -- especially kitchens with a lot of white -- because it softens the room, and is a quick and easy way to add color.

Here's a picture from my parents' house. My mom made the curtain, and I think it looks great.

It's hard to see what the fabric and trim detail look like, so I zoomed in:

My mom specializes in pleats and ruffles - you can see her handiwork in my slipcovered armchairs from an earlier post. The quality of both pictures is not that great because I grabbed the stills from a Flip video, but you get the idea.

I've used this next picture before (in my round-up about red), but it fits in this post too, so here it is again.

Now I'm looking at the floors, too. Do you think they're painted wood? It's kind of hard to tell.

And finally, roman shades don't have to be in a colorful fabric to soften a room.

It's not really a fabric, and there are no colors in sight. But there's already a lot going on with this kitchen (in a good way), so I think the simple, natural texture works.

I love the picture of the kitchen below, but after noticing all the pretty roman shades, I can't help but imagine this window with a pretty dress on.

Happy Wednesday!

Pops of yellow in every room of the house

The thing is, I don't even like yellow that much. But I guess there's something to be said for things that are the color of the sun. Especially when it's freeeezing cold out side.

It helps if the yellow object in question is in the form of a blanket draped across an elegant Parisian bed

(Marie Claire Maison)

(While you're looking at that room, please note the way the purple rugs are layered. Not sure if I could take that seriously if I saw it in a real house, but it's kind of fun to look at in a picture, don't you think?).

What about sunny yellow lampshades? Why sure.

(Domino)

Red and yellow usually remind me of Wendy's, but this room somehow evades that connotation. 

Since the first portion of this post is shaping up to be all about yellow in the bedroom, here's a dash of Rubie Green 

(Domino)

and a sprinkle of lemon yellow sheets from Anthropologie, too.

(Anthropologie)

Mmmm, I guess I like yellow more than I thought. Since it's such a summery color, I'll include one room that definitely has a beach house vibe to it. Yellow and white stripes + blue = total cabana vibe, but that's A-OK with me. 

(It's mid-February in Boston, people. If you asked me in July what I thought of this room, I would probably say I liked it but that it reminded me of Zach and Kelly's summer job. One last fling at the Malibu Sands Beach Club before graduating from Bayside High. But seriously, right now I am so deep in the winter doldrums that I just don't even care. If this were my room, Zach and Kelly could spend the night and we'd all have a cookout on the beach and race ATVs on the sand.)

Let's move on. More yellow in the living room ...

so fresh and crisp with white pleats and pom pom detailing on pillows. I love the way the poms echo the round shapes of the lamp.

Wallpaper is a bit permanent, so here's something a little more flexible ... a throw blanket and a couple of pillows. Don't forget the flowers.

Yellow works in the kitchen, too. I love the pale color of this roman shade, and the even paler yellow of the cushions on the stools.

Does that little girl have ice cream? Oh, I want ice cream. In fifty degrees Farenheit more, I will indulge.

As lovely as this all is, I still would never be able to commit. But the good news is, lots and lots of flowers are yellow.

This arrangement in particular catches my eye.

One flower per vase? I could handle that.

What about you? Are you a true-blue fan of yellow, or do you only turn to it when the weather is frigid and you're in need of warmth?