I have a lot of interior design ideas that I would like to do in my house. A lot of them include adding wallpaper or tile to different rooms and I have always been too scared to fully commit. My 10 years of moving apartments every 3-9 months gave me serious interior design commitment issues. I always have a feeling I won't be staying in one place too long and shouldn't invest too much money in changing things. You would think actually buying a house would change that, but nope!
In 2021 I finally set my fears aside and contacted an interior designer to help make my dreams a reality. I chose an out of state designer who had designed one of my friends homes and it looked like a magazine. Even though she is based in Arizona, she flys all over the country for projects. I contacted her in August, I sent over my Pinterest board of ideas, took measurements of each room, sent in current photos of each room and explained my vision. My designer said she would visit at the beginning of our project and at the very end to finish all the decorative details. She created a vision board for each room and we met over zoom to go over the details, since she never ended up making it out to see the space in person. I loved a lot of what she had come up with but had a few things I wanted to tweak. We emailed back and forth and eventually got to a place where we were actually ordering items! It was exciting!
Then it came time to find a contractor, we had made plans to completely redo my entire master bathroom as well as refloor the carpeted area on the main floor and add wall paper in two rooms and paint the office. Not a ton of construction work, but still a fairly long list. I had interviewed three contractors when I got an email from my designer saying she no longer wanted to work on the project. She said I had a pretty specific idea of what I wanted and that I could take it from here. What?! I have never worked with a contractor before and I surely didn't want to without the help of a professional designer. I was super bummed and frustrated. So, I decided to put all the construction type updates on hold and just move forward with updating some of my furniture. While my designer did help me reign in all my design ideas, I was the one who actually found most of the furniture and wallpapers. Maybe my eclectic whimsical yet elegant style was too hard for her to understand? We'll never know. She helped me order some of the things, while other things she told me just to order on my own, which also felt weird to me but I just went with it.
I am THRILLED with how everything turned out. It is amazing how switching out some furniture and adding some rugs can really change a space and make it feel like a whole new house. It took 13 months from beginning to end, it was a little bit of a journey, but I love the destination.
Living Room
Here are the before photos of the living room. This couch had served me well for 10 years, but it was from IKEA and I wast starting to feel the frame through the cushions. Getting a super comfortable couch was the main purpose for the whole update. I figured if I was going to get a new couch, then I should redo the floors, and if I was going to redo the floors then I should wallpaper while I had a contractor .... it was a whole, "if you give a mouse a cookie" situation. Getting the comfortable couch of my dreams turned out to be a process....
I got rid of my old couch to make way for the couch my designer picked out. I told her several times, the main purpose of this entire project was to get a super comfortable, deep, squishy couch....
The couch she ordered was absolutely gorgeous! I was ecstatic when it got delivered. I waited for the delivery people to leave so I could have a huge sink into the couch and reveal in it's perfectness moment...
That moment didn't go as planned. I fell back onto the couch for my first sit and was severely disappointed. The couch was SO uncomfortable. The seat wasn't any deeper than my previous couch even though it was supposed to be "extra deep", the fabric felt like sunbrella fabric for patio furniture, and the bench cushions, while looking so beautiful at first, wrinkled unevenly and totally told the world where your favorite spot to sit was.
I went to read the reviews on the company website of where the couch had been ordered from, and there were tons of reviews talking about how uncomfortable this couch is. I was so frustrated, I thought my designer had vetted this couch before suggesting it to me but it seemed as if she didn't. That will be the last time I order any furniture without sitting on it first. Luckily, the company offers full refunds, even on custom pieces, I was so relieved. The very next day I contacted them to start the refund process.
I got to keep the couch for about a month before they were able to come and pick it up. I was sad it didn't work out because it was so gorgeous and it fit the space so perfectly. But every time I sat on it, I felt sad and angry and that's no way to live.
I had gone to Ethan Allen to pick out a new couch and had one on the way when the old couch was picked up. We had about two months were we didn't have a couch at all so I set up a little bohemian, floor sitting area to try and fill the space.
My experience at Ethan Allen was outstanding. The designer that met me at the door showed me several models after I explained what I was looking for. Then she left me to sit and ponder on each model and sent me home with info sheets on all of them. Then she actually came to my home to see the space. I still had the pretty but uncomfortable couch so she got to understand my issues with it first hand. She helped me pick the model that would look the best in my space and then helped me customize it so it would be perfect.
We choose the extra deep seats, the extra soft cushions, light wood feet to match my new table, and an indoor/outdoor material that is velvety soft and won't fade from the sunlight from my large windows. It is a little shorter on one side than the other couch so it doesn't fit the space as well. However, when I sat on this couch for the first time, I got to have that moment of pure happiness at how comfortable it is. This couch brings me so much joy every single time I sit on it. I practically live on this couch now, it is literally everything I have ever wanted in a couch. So even though it doesn't quite fit the space and it was a journey to get it, it was all worth it.
We also added a rug in this room and it adds so much character and color, I love it.
Dining Room
This space has always felt a little unbalanced and like it wasn't living up to it's potential. The main thing I wanted to change out was the table. This table had been wonderful but to be honest wasn't ever my true style, I was trying to be like someone else when I bought it. Also, I didn't think about this when I got it but it has grooves on the top, which look pretty but attracted crumbs like crazy, and there was no way of getting them out. When I had toured through this house before buying it, the previous owners had a light wood table and I have wanted one ever since.
I sold this table to a young family with lots of kids, so it will be well loved and I'm happy about that.
I got the table from West Elm and she is so pretty! She totally lightens up this entire corner. My designer ordered dining room chairs from another company and it would take us months to get them.
The table looked small without the chairs, so when the dining room rug and painting got delivered it helped fill in the space. I loved how it was all coming together.
The dining room chairs were one of the last things to be delivered. When I saw the delivery guys unboxing them in my driveway I got super nervous because I forgot they were made of a darker wood and started to panic that they would clash with the table. I was overjoyed when they actually looked amazing with the table! This little nook is now one of my favorite places in the whole house, I just find it so pleasing and peaceful to look at.
I also updated my sofa back from a desk I used in collage to this gorgeous piece I found at Anthropology. I am also ecstatic that it also creates more storage! I love storage.
Office
As mentioned earlier, I had bigger plans for the office. I wanted to paint it a deep teal since I love a dark and moody moment, and I love teal. But it ended up just getting a rug and new chair instead. I love both of them so much.
How perfect is that burnt orange, velvet office chair??
Bedroom
Not wallpapering my bedroom is probably the thing I am saddest about, that was totally going to elevate the space to another level. I had found the most gorgeous mural type wallpaper of clouds. I'm still holding on to that idea and want to make it happen in the future. For now I am loving the new rug and the new dresser that adds some nice color (it was picked out to match the cloud wallpaper) and fits the space to much better than my pervious dresser.
Deck
As a spontaneous bonus, I also updated my deck furniture. These chairs were interesting, I got them because they were rockers, but they rocked in kind of an unsettling way and it was impossible to just sit in them normally. My guests never liked them and my cats wouldn't go anywhere near them. I also was trying to be practical and got a dark colored fabric even though what I really wanted was light colored fabric. So this past October, when all the outdoor furniture was on sale, I finally switched them out for this lovely love seat from Walmart. It's bigger than it appears in the photos. Now my kitties will sit outside with me!
Also, side note, how crazy it is that my area has completely changed since I moved in 5 years ago? In the above photos there wasn't a single house behind me, now there's an entire neighborhood!
No comments:
Post a Comment