Here's my living room in its current state. The furniture does coordinate with each other reasonably well, but it really is just the left over pieces that didn't fit in the rest of the rooms in this house. I made the drapes especially for this house, so I would eventually like to find furniture that coordinates with the feel and color of these.
I want to keep this red chair and ottoman, but cover them with some new fabric. Something more light and airy to match the rest of our home. I had bought all this furniture when we lived in Wisconsin, so I chose warm toasty colors to help cheer up my house during the long cold winters. The painting above the chair has definitely got to go too. It's one I did last summer that I am not crazy about at all. So why did I hang it up? Good question. I guess it matched better than any of my other unsold paintings.
The first stop on our mission for new chairs was A. Smart Fabrics (located on Poinsett Hwy. just north of Lowe's in Greenville, SC.) I need to find fabric that matches the drapes I made for our living room since I still really like those and they are basically brand new. (The swatch with the peacocks shows my drapery fabric.)
My living room currently contains all the furniture we didn’t have a place for when we moved into this house. It looks fine, but the chairs were all chosen to match the decor of my living room back in 2001.
This week my sister-in-law Hope was visiting, so I asked her what she thought I needed to do with the room. She suggested I needed to replace two of the three unmatched chairs in the room, with two matching smaller scale chairs to put in front of the windows. Then move the piano to the wall with the large paintings.
Well, that was all I needed to hear to get it into my mind that the pursuit for two new chairs was ON.
Actually not NEW chairs, but rather OLD chairs that were cute, but cheap; chairs I could re-cover with new fabric to give the room a fresh look. Too bad I’ve never done any furniture upholstery in my life. But I figured that if I could make all the window treatments in this entire house, I’m probably capable of figuring out how to recover a “simple” chair. The biggest thing I have going for me is motivation. Once I get a decorating idea in my head, I’m usually pretty obsessed with making it happen.
So just one day after her “I think you need two small matching chairs” comment, Hope and I set off to see what we could find in the way of used furniture, and even more importantly — the perfect fabric.
Here’s some photos from our girls’ only shopping trip…
I loved how vibrant these fabrics are, but I think they are too graphic for the drapes in my living room, which I still love, and definitely want to keep.
My sister-in-law Hope has excellent taste. She has decorated her home so beautifully that it looks like the pages from a magazine. She finds all of her favorite treasures at the same places I like to shop: TJ Maxx and Marshall's!
Here's a print that would look great at Hope's house, which is much more modern than mine.
We both really loved these two fabrics--especially the one on the bottom. I already have a green chair in my living room, so I think I just want something with a completely different color and feel -- like this large cream print with a more modern interpretation of a floral design.
We also thought this blue fabric was really pretty. I'm not sure if it quite goes with my living room drapes. But Hope liked that it was the color of all the skies in my paintings. She thought it would add a great pop of color to the room, sitting in front of the yellow walls.
I think FOR NOW, I'm diggin' the small blue print for the two new chairs. But we'll have to see what we find in the way of furniture. I also LOVE the floral below for an ottoman or accent pillow, along with the stripes at the top for accent pillows. (I also really like the funky bird print for my guest room. Maybe I could make a duvet cover with that fabric??)
NEXT STOP: Greenville Furniture Exchange! I pass this store every time I go downtown but I've never been inside. There always seems to be something interesting in the windows, so this seemed like a good place to start my hunt for 2 matching chairs.
I did like this chair, but there was only one. Plus, the curved lines and buttons seemed a little complicated for a beginner.
What about this one? It offers plenty of seating... 🙂
Here's a pair of chairs that literally cracked us up. (This is definitely NOT the look I'm going for.)
We both thought these two would be perfect! Especially after seeing the price. I put them on hold so that I could think about it for a few days.
NEXT STOP: TJ Maxx. We found all kinds of cute things to think about, but in the end I walked away with a turquoise and white floral Clearance Rack table-cloth that matches my kitchen/family room perfectly. There were also 4 napkins in the same print, so I got those too. I might make them into pillows for the family room.
There were lots of cute lamps to choose from...
I liked the blue one too!
Here are the fabric swatches I'm considering for my new chairs. I think I'll need to narrow them down to one or two choices, and then bring the whole bolt of fabric home. It's too hard to tell from just a little piece. But I'm thinking about the small blue/teal geometric pattern for the two small chairs, and the cream-colored fabric (shwon next to it) for my red chair (both fabrics are shown larger in two photos above.) OR, maybe I'll go back to the fabric store again and find something I love even more. This is just a starting point. I probably won't work on the chairs until the fall, so I have plenty of time to think about it.
I did finally go back on Monday and purchase the chairs, which I think will be adorable when they are covered with new fabric! My plan is to keep them in the attic until the fall when school starts up again when I have more time (and money for fabric.) Maybe by then I'll have my fabric selections made, and more importantly have figured out how to re-upholster a chair. 🙂
Oh my gosh… is that Grammercy thing a quilt? I just bought it from TJ Maxx! I planned to put it in my spare room but it makes me smile so I’m trying to figure out a way to put it in my room!
IT IS a quilt!! 🙂 And it IS for my guest room too. I guess great minds think alike. I bought a different one over the weekend, but may go back and get this one just to make sure that it doesn’t match even better than then the new one I bought.
Maybe you need to re-do your entire bedroom to match that cool photo you took of the beach in Naples. 🙂 (and then you could get the new quilt in there too…)