Fill it Up!

So I've had this post scheduled for a long time and never got around to posting it.  Seems like a good segway now what with the recent before and afters.

My interior design philosophy to date has been based soley around making the pieces I've been handed down work.  Luckily my mother, to be hence force known as Kath, is quite the interior diva with impeccable taste and quite the history of home relocations (for Big T's job) and redecorating projects.  Big T being my father - for those who know him- his personality couldn't be described as anything other than Big.

It's interesting visiting all 3 (myself included) of Big T and Kath's kids' homes now as you can clearly see the influence of all the places we've lived to date.  I currently have the big red couches that graced our home in Lawrence, Kansas, made their way to my second college apartment and now my first home. My sisters have some of the Kansas furniture, a few pieces from our Texas home and some black buffalo check club chairs from their current house in Tennesee.  Sprinkled throughout there's dishes and silverware from Baltimore, New Jersey and I even their first crock pot they got as a wedding gift in Milwaukee.

Given the choice, I don't think red couches would be my personal first pick, nor would buffalo check top A & M's lists, but they've served us well and best of all - they were free!

Given that the new place is roughly 2.5x the size of our old rental home, we've got a lot of rooms to fill.  The red couches will make their way to our Den but we've already ordered some fun new furniture for the living room that I'm excited to share.  Whereas we were much more in the French Countryish camp, the look of the new house is much cleaner, more modern and more us.

Red Couches in their new home in the den.  Don't judge the floppy cushions and lack of coffee table.  On the replacement list already.

Building on the Silver Tinsel paint color and awesome new wood floors we restained we wanted to keep the more "transitional" flow rolling with some new furniture.  Enter my favorite furniture store EVER: Arhaus.  If you have not been to an Arhaus store or checked out their online store front, let me share the greatness!  http://www.arhaus.com/

We are always on the look out for beautiful pieces from this store but they can be quite pricey so you have to wait for a good sale.  We'd been watching this piece for a long time. The Holden Console Table.  It's also available at Crate and Barrel but a bit more expensive.

We knew we wanted this piece the second we saw it.  It's got a nice rusticy look but none of that weird fall-apart-on-you wood that you see in a lot of today's "reclaimed" pieces.  I don't know about you but I'm not into bugs and dust. And it's topped with a beautiful piece of bluish-greyish soapstone that ties in well with the paint color.

We ended up finding this exact piece for a little less at a local furniture store that had purchased a small "lot" of these tables - woowhoo!  We were actually there, looking for a new sofa and possible some arm chairs for the same room.

Phillips Furniture has been GREAT to work with and super affordable. Highy recommend a trip if you're in STL. We ended up getting a custom sofa in Porpoise (cue my excitement about picking a dolphin-esque color - we can discuss that obsession later) that's kind of a muddy grey/taupe color.  Much prettier than it sounds. 

Porpoise

It's kind of exciting because they let you choose the arms, cushion type (T shaped or straight) and skirt (or lack there of)  We went with straight arms, T shaped cushions and no skirt but no wood liner either, you'll just see 4 little wooden feet at the bottom.

We also picked  up two chairs that you can only describe as the tiniest seafoam lepoard print design. Yes, it sounds heinous but thankfully I, and the very few others that I've actually allowed in the still barren house, seem to like them.  Pictures of these bad boys to come. We're also keeping our glass and limewood coffee table for now, but may swap it out for something more fitting in the future.

Still need:

- shutters - I want big white ones for those 11 feet of windows!

- some sort of curtain, more likely as an accent on the sides than functional, given the shutters and maybe with some sort of complementary color that hasn't been used, thinking mustardy yellow or coral?

- huge rug - using the old one now, preferably graphic

- need some new lamps - something with color to spice up the space, and tie into the curtains?

-bookcases - I'd LOVE custom built in's much like Miss. Lindsey's over at fificheeck but we'll have to see what D says.  I'd also take two of these puppies from Arhaus in a heartbeat (it comes in a super light, almost limewood finish) right now we've got some older black ones that I'm repurposing

That's all I've got today from Canada.  More tomorrow on some bookcases in the living room, and the first phase of zhushing.

xoxo,

KC