Our retro FAIL living room

I have a confession.

But first, I wanted to thank you all so much for your delightful comments on my Knit it in Flag colors pullover! I was really tickled. I think it's going to be really great this autumn, and I think it needs a nice pair of wide-legged trousers to wear with it! Hopefully this autumn I'll be back in sewing mode, but right now I'm in knitting and decorating mode. :)

Now, onto the confession. You're dying to know, right?

Readers, our living room is one big, huge, FAIL. There, I said it.

As I've mentioned, we're only just starting now, after five months in the Golly Ranch House, to really think about painting and decorating. We've made a few furniture purchases since we've moved that we thought would work out, and we've been trying to make our previous furnishings work since of course we can't go out and buy all new (or old) stuff.

Our living room is long, and much more sizeable than the living room in our condo was. When we moved in, it was a catch-all room for things that didn't fit elsewhere. We setup our television in the den, and first talked about doing a more "formal" sitting room for the living room with no television.

Five months in, we realized this was a stupid idea. This was not us. We can only comfortably sit three adults in the den. So friends over for a movie? Difficult. Not to mention it's a small room, so setting up our Wii (which we don't use a ton, but we'd like to be able to when we do want to) or our turntable isn't possible. Dumb.

We considered swapping the t.v. into the living room, but the fact remains that it's the coldest room in the house (a fact that will not change, though will hopefully eventually be improved by lined pinch pleat drapes). In winter I want the option to be able to cozy up in the warm den to watch a movie. This meant a new t.v. for the living room. We struggled for a bit with being a two television household but whatever. We got over it.

But something else was bugging us about the living room, other than the lack of a t.v. and inability to play any music whatsoever, since of course we didn't bother setting up music in a room we never seemed to use. We were trying to cobble together too many things that didn't work. For awhile, we thought "oh no, art and color on the walls will perk it up". That wasn't it.

Eventually, we faced the fact: our living room is a retro fail. So here I am, airing my dirty retro decorating laundry. This is the living room that we hate.

Incidentally, this week I learned there is actually a time of day I can take semi-decent photos in this room, yahoo!

It's not horrifying, no. Sure, any of the pieces on their own are pretty fabulous. But all together? It doesn't work for us. It's awkward and uncomfortable. It doesn't make us want to hang out in it. Here's why.

• The vintage two-piece sofa. It's a great (dare I say downright stunning) shape, but needs to be reupholstered as the color is faded and gross (a fact that wasn't apparent of course until it was bought and put in the living room). We could get it reupholstered for this room, but it won't change the fact that it's just not the comfy couch we really craved in the living room. We want to love it in our living room... and we don't.
• A rug that doesn't work. It's a lovely rug, but not our style. Let's call it a family heirloom (so it's not going anywhere), but it just doesn't work in this room, so it needs to go elsewhere. (Sorry it's rumpled in this photo, you can tell by that and the painter's tape, tape measure, IKEA catalog and laptop what we've been doing in this room lately.)
• Floral Danish modern chair. I love this chair, but hate the upholstery. It seems to bring everything down around it and doesn't match anything we have possibly come up with for ideas, plus the fabric is not in very good shape in the first place and already worn through in one corner. We bought it this summer with the idea to eventually get it reupholstered. Eventually is now.

And the other half:

The awkwardness continues:

• Red/green chair we've had forever. It's comfy, but could also stand to be reupholstered, and having had this chair for at least 12 years, I'm just sick of the fabric.
• Mirrored walls. Okay, this is easy to resolve. We actually like these gold-flecked mirrored wall panels that came with the house, but it's another awkward spot right now for sure. The length of them makes designing around them weird.

(And in fairness, the chartreuse Eames repro chair is only next to the other chair for color inspiration purposes, so it looks awkward where I put it but it's not an actual design issue in the room.)

Like I said, we thought getting some paint up on the walls would help, so we diligently went through two rounds of paint samples, initially staying with lighter greens because of all the green we already have in the furniture and our two lamps, and then trying some darker greens and greys in a second round.

But wait, that photo needs a caption.

Yeah. Yesterday, I came to terms with the fact that I don't want another green living room. I don't want the green lamps in the living room. I don't want the green pillows in the living room. I don't want green walls in the living room. And Mel was in complete agreement.

We did that in the condo, why do we have to do that in the house?!

But if not green, what? How do we incorporate the furniture and decor we own and mix in new things? What needs to get reupholstered, and what just needs to leave the room already?

This has been our struggle for the last few days. And finally, we hit on it. I'm not going to go into details yet, but we're comforted in seeing some examples after countless hours of trolling the Internet for images and ideas to prove that our ideas aren't completely crazy, nor completely out of touch for our modest vintage ranch.

All I'll say now is we're going to mix a bit of contemporary with a bit of vintage. We're going to breathe new life into our older comfy sofa (the green one above) in three ways, and get the Danish modern (don't know if it's exactly Danish modern) chair reupholstered in a nice, bright color. Actually the shape is so cool, it's worth a closer look...

We now know the piece of furniture (once we find one) that will make the mirrored wall work, and how we'll use it to make a second focal point in the room, instead of the strange space it is now. My dad will be in town briefly over Labor Day weekend, so we're enlisting him in installing our new t.v. on the paint samples wall and fleshing out the idea we have for an entertainment center, inspired by a suggestion he made.

In the end, you can see the only things that will actually remain in the room from the two photos I showed above.

Newly purchased plants will get vintage planters. The Danish modern chair will get reupholstered. The Eames repro rocker will stay. My grandpa's painting that's between the mirrored panels (it's only up there currently so it's not sitting on the floor) will be reframed. The bamboo end table and coffee table set will stay for some months most likely, eventually to be sent to their original intended location in the basement (where they will hang with the pink sofa), to be replaced by other solid wood vintage pieces. Everything else shown will get re-purposed in other rooms.

After weeks and months of having no idea what to do with this room, we finally have a shared goal in sight. We have struggled and struggled in this room. Seriously, dear readers, I was growing to hate my own living room! Not now. I can envision almost every single thing I want to happen in this room. I'm so excited, I'm about ready to pop. (I promise I won't.) Slowly over time, I'll share our plans as they develop.

First up? Painting next week. A color I would never in a thousand years have thought I'd paint on the walls in my home, until we made a joke in the paint department of Home Depot and realized we may actually have hit on a good idea: grey. It'll be our neutral palette to bounce off of. Somehow freeing ourselves of color on the walls opened up a world of possibilities for us (who knew?). It'll work, it'll rock with our other colorful plans, it'll be awesome.

And when we're done with it all, hopefully we'll have transformed this retro fail into a retro win. Stay tuned to find out if we can pull it off. I have plans to share every step along the way!

Starting to style our den

How it is that I thought once we moved, things would calm down and I'd have more time for blogging?! Well, we're getting there, but not yet. I don't even have a place to setup my 'blogging computer' (i.e. the computer that has Photoshop), so I had to temporarily set it up on the dining room table. Ugh!

But here I am with my first mid-century decorating post! Most of our free time that hasn't been devoted to unpacking and settling into the new house has been devoted to thinking about and hunting for furniture. I've been a woman possessed. We were volunteered (or as I jokingly say, 'voluntold') to host Mother's Day for Mel's family, so we're trying our best to have things at least halfway decent around here before mid-May.

The first piece of furniture that actually allows us to start the decorating ball rolling is the mid-century daybed we purchased for our den. It's the smallest bedroom, at the back of the house off our kitchen and dining area, where we put our television and where I'll have a desk for days I work from home (if it fits—that will partially depend on the size of credenza we find with for the TV). It will be our hang out, casual room.

We were having a frustrating time deciding what direction we wanted to go in for this space. Part of that is dictated by trying to cobble together furniture and accessories of course, and last weekend we seriously struck out in the sofa department. Then Monday night I had a brainstorm... wouldn't a plaid sofa be fun? Because it wasn't difficult enough looking for a 1950s sofa, now I had to look for a 1950s plaid sofa? Right.

And then I saw this online, the same night. Here's the original picture from the shop:

Source: An Orange Moon, Chicago

A vintage daybed, similar in style to the case study daybeds, but about a third of what the repro ones go for and in great condition. It also fit the hard-to-fill bill of no arm rests for our cat to scratch and ruin. It was in a shop in Chicago, An Orange Moon. The next morning I called up and sight unseen, I purchased it and arranged for delivery (the same day, how awesome is that). Even though 20th Century Fox had wanted it for some project, it was ours. Ours! That was surely the Vintage Sofa Gods working for us.

So now I have to style our den around this most awesomely wonderful plaid daybed. Right now, the den is kind of a yucky mustard yellow in desperate need of painting. (And semi-gloss. The entire house is painted in semi-gloss. Why oh why? Our friends' Sears kit house in Chicago was also painted all semi-gloss.) And there's no floor covering for the cold ceramic tile (not original to the house, the previous owners probably put it in in the 90s).

Here is the sofa, flanked by lamps that won't stay in this room (and don't even have actual lampshades yet... we stole those off our bedroom lamps since we haven't had a chance to order two matching ones from Moon Shine). The vintage laminate end tables we've been meaning to re-purpose elsewhere (likely the basement), though they work pretty well with this daybed for now.

(You can see there's a little patching to do on the wall behind the sofa.)

Here's a closeup of the awesome, slightly nubby fabric. In this photo you get a better shot of the lamp that won't stay, but more importantly, it kind of shows me that I'm not sure I love light green with this, either.You can also see that the closet doors and trim are honey-colored wood.

What color do we paint this room?!

Now, in spite of the fact that we bought essentially a brown sofa, brown and earth tones are not my favorite colors at all. And if we're not careful this room will veer into 60s/70s territory when I'd like it to stay more 50s. My mom and I were discussing a light buttery yellow for the walls, but I worry the sofa won't pop as an accent piece and it might not be enough color. Also, I can almost guarantee that whatever lamps we have will have fiberglass shades which warm up the room and it might just be too warm with light yellow walls. That being said, we do want to stick with something that's not too bright. We had so many bright bright bright colors in the condo we're ready for a change.

Mel says I'm on a blue kick, which I know is true, as I plan to paint our bathroom a light blue and our kitchen/dining area aqua. But I did see this one similar daybed styled against a turquoise wall...

Source: Vintage Ground / plaid mcm sofa

And I do kind of like that... hm. How many blue-based rooms is one allowed in a small ranch? But it got me to thinking, it could be a great Southwestern-inspired 50s den.

The room also has 2 corner windows, which will make window treatments somewhat of a challenge. Because the placement of the sofa can't change and the cushions have to butt up against the wall, I think sill-length drapes of some kind will be in order, possibly with a cornice or valance shaped around the corner. And we'll also keep blinds (those these ones will eventually go as they're in bad condition), because the windows look out to the alley. I know drapes with blinds were a perfectly appropriate combo in the 50s.

With blinds I'm not sure if the drapes need to close (I believe those are called 'draw drapes'). I'd love to go with vintage pinch pleat drapes but all the ones I see are too narrow at the top to close, so they'd just have to hang along the sides. I'm not sure that would look good with the blinds unless there was something covering the blinds hardware, in which case I'd want it to match. I suppose I could buy 2 vintage panels that wouldn't draw close, and cut some of the length off to make a matching fabric-covered cornice.

Does that sound crazy? Even though I know it was sometimes done, I can't wrap my mind around drapes that don't actually close, though. Let me tell you, drapery has been giving me lots of headaches lately!

Are we a bit crazy to try and hone a 1950s Southwestern vibe in this room? I did get the idea from Mel's grandmother's home decorating book from 1951 (oh boy, I have to share some things from this book soon!!). It mentioned a Najavo rug and that got me to thinking... Mel and I do love the Southwest. The room would definitely have to retain a vintage vibe, and not be all Kokopelli-ed modern and cheesy (50s kitschy, of course is a different story). I could incorporate my grandfather's art, and the plaid daybed would fit right in. Great ceramic or wood lamps... perhaps souvenir pillows from states in the Southwest... It would give us a fun but relatively narrow scope to focus on for this cozy space.

Decisions, decisions. What do you guys think? Any suggestions for wall color, or accent colors in general? Drapery ideas? What would you do with a sofa like this?

More sewing with pets

Okay, what are my pets trying to tell me this week?! First it was Pia and the muslin, now it's Dinah and the sewing machine.

Apparently she, too, is eager to find out how the collar will work out on my muslin (see previous post). I just sat down to work on it and suddenly there she was.

You can just get a little glimpse of one of my prized possessions in the background, which I hope to photograph in detail sometime when the sun comes back (I'm thinking that'll be about April). It's a vintage hutch that we got last Fall from one of my favorite antique malls in Chicago. In the meantime it'll have to remain a bit of a mystery, but you can just make out some of my collections... jadite plates, my snappy snail Enesco teapot, salt and pepper shakers and sugar bowl, my primrose Fire King and several pieces of green depression glass that I've inherited from my step-grandmother. (Can you inherit something when someone is still alive? That sounded awkward. She gave them to me. There, that's better!)

I can't wait until it's the season when it's daylight when I get home from work again. I sure hate never being able to take any decent photos! Okay, the Artic weather isn't so great, either...