DIY coffee table and living room refresh - Update!

We have a new coffee table! I mentioned here that we were going to DIY a coffee table. And we did it this weekend...

 

From my previous post, a lot of you liked the Peony fabric option - and I did too, but it would be much better in a room with lighter furniture. Since our floors are dark and our furniture is dark AND visually heavy, we really needed something to brighten the space.

This Centro Mist fabric from Tonic Living was the perfect solution. It's also an outdoor fabric so is a bit more stain resistant and durable for putting our feet up on the table (which we do all the time...)

We changed the pillows (thanks mom for sewing!) to give the whole room a bit of a refresh. The gray fabric is Cameron in Storm, and the toile is Neo Toile in Coral (I am in looovvveee with this fabric).

 

 What do you think?

Coffee table conundrum - SOLVED!

Exciting news, my friends. I FOUND a coffee table this weekend. One that will work and replace our old rickety one!

The funniest part of it is that I litterally found it...in my basement...

I've had it for the last couple of years (at least...) and when we originally got it I had planned to turn it into a bench for our guest room like the one I made for our master)...but then we redid our bathroom and stole 20" from the guest room...which wouldn't leave enough room for a bench. At the time I didn't think the table would work as a coffee table because it didn't have storage / a shelf. However...since Owen has started motoring around, pawing at everything, and deciding his favourite toy is anything that is NOT a toy, I've realized (and thanks to your comments on this post) that I won't be able to store things out in the open much longer anyways.

So, the plan is to get some foam, some batting, and some fabric and upholster it ASAP. A few comments said not to have an upholstered coffee table if we like putting our feet up on it...we do, but I'm not too worried about the fabric - if it gets grimy (which I'm sure it will with Owen pawing it every day), we can just recover it in a year.

I went to Tonic Living today and picked out some fabric samples - here are some contenders:

 

Secret Gate - Pewter from Tonic Living

A New Twist - Caviar from Tonic Living

Centro - Mist from Tonic Living

Leda Peony - Midnight from Tonic Living

Any favourites? I know which one is leading the way for me...

What's the most elusive item for your decor? Find out mine...

In my recent post I said we were looking for a coffee table and a rug. You wouldn't think this would be that hard - after all, I live in Toronto where home decor shops are abundant.

Well.

I have brought home 5 rugs, and have returned 5 rugs. They have come from Homesense, Ikea, a rug store, and Home Depot. With NO LUCK.

I've tried pattern, colour, neutral. And nada. We have a brown leather couch and mid-dark hardwood flooring and I'm having a hard time finding something that fits our room. I think a flat woven rug would be the right weight but I want it to be soft to the touch (for Owen's soft little knees!) and that is proving hard to find.

I would love to have a rug like this in my house:

via Erika Brechtel

But I can't find one. Believe me, I stalk ecarpetGallery like it's my job to see when they will get brighter rugs in the size I need (at least 6x9). Ideally I would love one with no red and more blues, teals, corals. Think I can find one? Nope....

The other option I like is the morrocan rug that is popping up everywhere...

This one is a deal and a half at costco.ca of all places

While I love the look of a Beni style rug, I think it's just too heavy for the furniture we have in the room.

I think what we need is a gray and cream rug in a flat weave that's soft. Budget friendly and Kid friendly, please. Is that too much to ask?? Where is your go-to for rugs? (I'm stalking Homesense as much as possible too)...

HI and...Where do you put your STUFF?!?!

Taking a quick break from the arrival of summer and the cutest guy on earth (who, PS is 8 MONTHS OLD NOW!!) to get back to my roots and post about decor..a dilemma really.

The Living Room has been on my to-do list for a loonnggg time (i.e. this post from a year and a half ago...woops). There were a lot of little bits completed here and there (gallery wall, map artwork, media stand, chair)…but the coffee table and an area rug are still the bane of my existence. The Mr. has given me a deadline of the end of my mat leave to GET.IT.DONE.

Maybe if I keep hemming and hawing I can extend my leave?!?! Kidding. 

Sort of.

First things first…the coffee table.

This is what we are living with…it came from my old apartment, to an apartment we shared, to our house. It’s beyond time to get rid of it. It’s IKEA and it’s been with us for over 7 years - definitely reaching the end of its lifespan. 

 (this is a photo before the floors were done...but sadly aside from the addition of curtains, a few playmats and a LOT of toys, the room hasn't changed)

The coffee table shelf doesn’t realllyyy stay up all the time (and it’s terrifying when it slams down)…with Owen pawing everything it’s really not safe to keep it, and it’s not right for the space. BUT it provides storage (obviously we have stuff all over the top of it too in real life).

I get that we probably won’t want open storage in a month or so when Owen is really on the move. We also need something that is friendly to his adventurous self, probably something round or an upholstered table so he doesn’t bonk his head a million times on sharp corners.

via Alanna Cavanagh (via Globe and Mail)

via Real Simple

But here's the question: If you don’t have storage in your coffee table where do you put your STUFF?? 

Where do you put mail? Bills? Things that need your attention but you’re too lazy to get to it right now? Paper and pens for writing out to do lists or sketching basement reno’s?

Where do you put all the STUFF??

Flooring is IN!

Wednesday was flooring install day - and it all got installed!

Woot!

Pretttaay exciting.

The first and last photos are most true to the colour...having them installed make all the work associated with demo disappear (we still have to clean up the basement though...) Now that the floor is in, we have to put in baseboards, do tiling for the kitchen and closet, and drywall / casing for our newly opened up hallway, but we're getting there. We will hire someone for the remainder of the work because the tiling will be finicky due to the radiators, and we want the baseboards and casing / drywall done right...now just to find said handy-person who can be available, at a reasonable cost, and done in early September...

Progress: Project Flooring

Another month, another blog post. I thought that I would have an easier time blogging of late, but life is just very busy. I'm working away at my day job and unfortunately that means that "free time" at night is spent on projects for the house, regular day to day chores, and sleeping. Oh, and some planning for the little human that will be joining us in the coming months. Until then....

Things are happening on the flooring front!! As part of our 2013 goals one of the longshots was re-doing flooring at least on the main floor. Why not do it when I'm 8 months pregnant? ;) Better than post baby, that I know FOR SURE. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you know some of the progress that was made this weekend (if you don't follow me, then you should, I am able to update those easier than updating the ol blog!).

All weekend the Mr worked away on the project (help from friends for demo day was greatly appreciated). My specialty was doing puzzles with plywood  measurements to ensure we got the most our of each sheet!

Here is the demo:

The living room and dining room demo was "easy" according to the guys - the trouble came in the hallway where there was hardwood on top of linoleum on top of plywood on top of another linoleum on top of plywood on top of floor planks. Yikes (they didn't get a chance to take a photo of that beauty).

The second demo photo shows some of the debris and mess caused by demo...which all fell through the floor plank cracks into our basement onto this:

Thank god I had some foresight and threw plastic over the china/crystal and a drop cloth over the dining chairs on Saturday morning before demo started. We still have a hell of a mess to clean up in and over other things, but at least some of it was spared and I don't think there is any damage (fingers crossed....). The day didn't finish without any damage though...the Mr. had to get a couple of stitches after getting caught in the face with a plank / nail during demo! He's OK and stitched up following a 3 hour wait at the hospital on Saturday night (I plucked some of the many many nails from the floor while he was getting stitched up...he pushed through the rest of the day so he could finish the demo before going to the hospital!).

Day 2 was picking up the plywood from our friends at Home Depot:

 Yes, I did get to drive that puppy around and it was great. The rest of the day was the Mr. and I pulling out some more nails, measuring, cutting, and laying plywood.

Monday was spent screwing in the plywood and doing some final measurements and cuts. It's amazing how much better it looks already!

If you have seen my house tour, you know that on our main floor we had the hallway blocked off with drywall and beatiful 80's glass blocks. We covered up this side of it with a dresser and mirror, and while that was nice for extra storage we are liking the airy feel of the house opened up, so I think we're going to keep the hallway!

Hardwood installers come later this week...can't wait to see it all done! We will be tiling the entry way and the kitchen with a dark gray tile...more on that to come (anyone know a good tiler / baseboard installer who isn't crazy busy into September??)

Pillow patterns

Ok...I have seen a bunch of pillow posts lately. Which kind of makes me feel mega-late on my pillow ideas / living room facelift. I've come to the conclusion that the green is out, and navy will be in. I want to do a mix of grey and navy, and then hopefully if the pillow gods are in my favor, this puppy for our gorgeously re-upholstered gray herringbone chair:

via Chapters Indigo, brought to my attenion by the lovely Sundeep at DesignWali

 

Here's a reminder of my sofa and living room:

 

Yep, I'm so over the green and brown ikat, and green pillows (I have 2 of the same on the other side of the sofa).

I've got 4 pillows to re-do (2 16" and 2 18"), and am thinking of navy and gray. ahhhh I LOVE navy right now (well pretty much always...but especially right now, and especially in my living room).  Here are some of my options:

Cameron Storm, via TonicLiving

Small ikat dot navy (also in gray) via Tonic Living

Zia birch navy (also available in charcoal), via TonicLiving

Right now I'm thinking 2 of the gray ones in 18" and one of each (16") of the navy ones. 

Please excuse (aka stop laughing) at my lame-o attempt at a rendering. Oh, and our ghetto coffee table (still on the lookout...anyone know places in Toronto that will sell slabs of wood?)

What do you think? More navy, less grey? All 4 differernt (e.g. maybe one of the big ones in a gray version of one of the navys?)

Living room chair - after!

I hope you all had a great weekend...mine was pretty relaxing with a big highlight: we picked up our re-upholstered chair this weekend...and it looks AMAZING! I wanted to wait to post it until I had the right pillow for it (remember I posted this gorgeous one? Yah, still can't justify that cost), but I just can't wait to post it. It is gorgeous.

If you remember, we nabbed this chair off Craigslist:

 

I commissioned the lovely Lindsey from Recreated to re-do the chair for me. She moonlights in reupholstery at Re:Style Studio and did a wonderful job on our chair...here's the finished product:

Fabulous, non?

Here are some more shots of the details:

That double piping around the foot is perfection...

 more amazing double piping details...so nice...

Isn't it handsome?

Sources:

Chair: craigslist

Re-Upholstery: Lindsey from Recreated

Fabric: Eurofab

Friday faves

It's Friday....it never fails to come again but sometimes I wish it could come so much sooner!

I came across this beautiful pillow earlier this week and thought it would look amazing on my to-be-upholstered chair:

via Anthorpologie

Pretty, right? $128 pretty? hmm...meanwhile I'm trying to find a christmas party dress for under $150. ha...pillow? dress? pillow? dress?

Life is all about tough choices people.

Happy Friday!

Living room - chair and coffee table

TGIT...didn't you know Thursdays are the new Fridays? {I wish}. How was your Halloween? Ours was pretty good - good "traffic" from 6:30-8ish...and then nothing! I was surprised, we started being stingy with the candy around 7:30 but now we just have some leftover (maybe that was all part of the master plan...mwahaha). I noticed from twitter and facebook that a LOT of people out there count exact numbers of trick or treaters! I just toss candy out but don't keep stats. You?

Soooo our living room is starting to come together, especially with the addition of the drapes I mentioned on Monday. A couple of weeks ago in this post I wrote about what to do with my living room, the consensus was to get a lighter coffee table, since our new sectional is quite solid. I agree 100% with this advice...but haven't had any luck finding a "light" coffee table! I'm contemplating building an upholstered one (but with light upholstery, it will get dirty...and I'm not sure i'm OK with that). I don't want a glass table (safety first!), so that knocks out most automatic "light" options. I came across this one on the weekend at GH Johnson:

It's not light in colour...but it is not as solid as my current coffee table. I would love to find a round version of this exact table...but haven't had any luck (even the maufacturer of this one doesn't make a round version). This table is the sister table to my side tables (too matchy - matchy)? What do you think?

I stumbled across a few other fun things at GH Johnson:

rugs

These soft baskets are perfect laundry hampers (or stylish storage)

The other thing I've been focused on this week is finding fabric to re-upholster our chair. I have my head set on a gray-on-gray herringbone right now, but am having a hard time finding it. I found a nice fabric at Designer Fabrics, but it reads as solid from far away. I saw this other one when I was there again this weekend, but it's a bit too creamy for my tastes:

I want subtle, but not too subtle. Is that too much to ask? Any suggestions as to where I can go (Toronto) for fabric (besides Designer Fabrics and FabricLand), or where I can look online (besides Tonic Living)?

Living room update {curtains}

How do Mondays come up so quickly?? I had a great weekend, but spent a lot of it running around the city (depsite the rain). Oh, and last week I noticed that my rainboots have a leak! Help! Frankenstorm (Hurricane Sandy) is coming up the NE coast of the US and I have leaky rainboots...what's a girl to do? I slapped on some crazy glue to the small slit I could see on the bottom of my boot...think it will hold? Let's hope so...from what they are saying we might have to swim to work tomorrow.

Anyhoo...despite the rain I am happy to report progress on my living room! A couple of weeks ago I bought these curtains / drapes from West Elm:

Scribble Lattice - by West Elm

They are a good weight, have hidden tabs, and are ridiculously reasonably priced ($44 per panel...for $88 + tax (less the $20 gift card I had!) I couldn't have even bought fabric to make them).

Then came the curtain rod search - THIS proved to be difficult. We did the easy thing and picked up a rod at Homesense, but it was cheap and way too thin (and black...which was too stark against the curtains and our wall). Then I went to Designer Fabrics to look at their options - they have the most customizable options, but obviously that comes at a bit of a cost. Then we even considered making our own rod out of electrical conduit (bloggers never fail to amaze me with their resourcefulness!). We went as far as being in the electrical aisle of Home Depot, looking at conduit, and then me being worried that the rod would be too heavy (heavy wall hangings + plaster walls = potential disaster). So we wandered over to the home decor section and low and behold, they had a rod. A rod that I actually *liked*. It's antique-brass looking, with large glass (acrylic) ball finials. For $40. Sold. Although the Mr. was a bit upset at not being able to do this DIY, it was a pretty easy decision to pick it up (and finally get these curtains hung!). 

There they are! I still have to hem them and adjust them a bit on the rod. You can't see the finials in this photo, but they are there. Warning to others considering acrylic finials - they do tend to fade into the background in dark conditions. (Speaking of...all the rain this weekend made photos in my house with my point and shoot next to impossible. Time to start thinking of a fancy camera!).

As a reminder - the pillows and coffee table (and very eventually the flooring) will be changing in this room.

We found a chair!

And I do mean found...craigslist style...woot!

First things first...how was your weekend? Ours flew by AS USUAL. Seriously, what is up with that?

Friday night we went to Lahore Tikka House for dinner...this place is..."rustic" but the food is GOOD! If you're in Toronto and not super picky about restaurant decor, go there.

Saturday we ran all over town - first to pick up the chair in the east end, then to the west end for an appointment and a trip to Designer Fabrics, then to Costco (yes, we survived). Saturday night we had a wonderful dinner with a friend, and then Sunday we did a bit more running around (Rogers finally cooperated so I could get my new iPhone5...wooooooooooo! It is such a novelty to have a phone that does what I ask it to...on the first try...without a hissy fit. Amazing, my friends), had a great workout and made a delicious dinner. Oh yah...and hung a curtain rod in the living room only to discover I didn't like it up. Right..sometimes you don't know until you see it drilled into the wall! Busy but lots and lots of fun.

Ok...onto the chair.

If you remember my post about re-doing my living room, a chair was on my wish list. Last weekend we went to no less than 10 furniture stores and we didn't find anything we liked. If we did see something that we liked aesthetically, it felt wobbly and cheap when we sat in it. So, the hunt was on for a used chair to re-upholster. I had been looking on and off but hadn't seen anything that I liked. Then I saw this...for cheapsies ($25) so we picked it up less than 24 hours after it was posted.

(Sorry for the bad light)

I like the classic shape of the char, curvey arms, and not-too-deep wing back. I think it's a classic that we will keep for a long time.

I am crossing my fingers that my friend Lindsey from Recreated will work her re-upholstery magic on this piece :)

I'm thinking a classic fabric, and then I'll liven up the whole space with fun pillows that I can change at will. Here's a nice herringbone I found:

Bertrand from DesignerFabrics

I love the gray on gray herringbone as opposed to white and black, but am thinking I need it in a bigger scale. Anyone have any good fabric sources for upholstery projects?

Hope you all had a great weekend, and a good start to the week...tomorrow's Wednesday, let's hope the rest of the week speeds by!