Inspiration

What I'm reading this week. 

(Note: Ralph looks insane on the cover of AD; reminiscent of Michael J. Fox in "Back to the Future")

Living Room - Coffee Table

Chances are if you have ever co-habitated or are currently co-habitating with someone, you have had this conversation:

Person 1: “We need a new [insert piece of furniture here].”

Person 2: “Why would we need a new [piece of furniture] when the one we have now is perfectly fine?”

If you or your co-habitator are fond of interior design, you have DEFINITELY had this conversation.  My spouse and I have had it MANY times, and I am always “Person 1” in the scenario.  The poor guy is left defending our current throw pillows while I present the case that they are drab and could use an update.  Unfortunately, unless your current [piece of furniture] is falling apart, “Person2” is right; you aren’t in need of something new, you just want it.  But that’s what interior design is about, wanting to beautify the space in which you live!  So, how does “Person 1” ever persuade “Person 2” to get on board with said new [piece of furniture]?  One word, “persistence”. 

Let’s apply this scenario to the new coffee table we “needed” for our living room.  We were originally working with something similar to this: 

Crate&Barrel Hunter II Trunk

My husband was right, there was absolutely nothing wrong with this table.  In fact, we both loved it and it had served us well over the last few years.  But now that we had moved into a new space, I was hoping to find something fresher, less bulky, and a bit more unique.  I spent many weeks searching for tables, filtered down options I believed to fit our taste, pulled together images, and sent an email presenting him with tables similar to these:

Wisteria Antiqued Art Deco Coffee Table

Crate&Barrel Frame Coffee Table

 

Restoration Hardware Brickmaker's Table

Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Vandyke Cocktail Table

 

I wish I had saved his response as it went something like this, “I don’t like mirrored coffee tables, the second one is too boring, the wood is too blonde on the third one, and I don’t like the gold on fourth one ”.  Whaaa??  Clearly this guy did NOT want a new coffee table and was going to make me work for it if I did.

I spent the next few weeks frequenting HD Buttercup.  For those of you living in San Francisco and LA, if you haven’t been to your local HD Buttercup, GO.  Immediately.  Giant warehouse full of designer furniture, accents, and soft goods.  New pieces come in daily.  You can buy off the floor or customize.  You can even memo pieces for a few days and return them if they don’t work in your space.  Discounted prices.  It’s amazing.  For those of you living elsewhere, you can now shop HD Buttercup online at www.hdbuttercup.com.  Enjoy!

As I was saying, I spent the next few weeks stalking their new arrivals and finally came across this table:

Teak Slabs with Iron Legs (One-Off Piece from HD Buttercup)

I decided to check it out on memo, bring it home, and present it to my “Person 2” in person.  He loved it, I loved it, we kept it, and the trunk table was listed and sold on Craigslist within 48 hours.  Success!
 

My Satisfaction Level: 9

Husband Satisfaction Level: 10
Collective Seacrest Satisfaction Level: 9.5

 

You Can Have Your Ping Pong Table and Eat Off it Too!

Apparently we aren't the only couple hotly debating "Ping Pong Table vs. Dining Table".  Thanks to Barcelona-based designer Antoni Palleja and Design Within Reach, you will soon be able to have both! 

Dining Chairs Revisited

A.K.A. “Consider yourself boycotted, Restoration Hardware”

Back in October we ordered a set of six Martine Upholstered Chairs from Restoration Hardware. 

 

 

Approximately six months later, the set was complete.  

 

We placed this order with such confidence and excitement.  In fact, before the dining chairs arrived, we were SO confident in this purchase that we averaged an 8.5 satisfaction level!  We were dealing with Restoration Hardware, a company that seemingly prides themselves on being high-quality, high-end, highly-designed, and yet accessible to your average consumer.  What could go wrong?  We had made a large purchase from them in the past – two English Roll Arm sofas in Army Duck “Fog”.  Granted, it took nearly eight months for them to arrive, with me having to follow up regularly with customer service as they could hardly keep the order straight.  But, the couches arrived, as did an $850 gift certificate for our troubles!  They say money can’t buy happiness, but this time folks, it did.  And it guaranteed our returned business.

With the $850 gift certificate in our pockets, two comfy sofas in our family room, and a desire for dining chairs, we felt this was a company we could get behind with confidence. 

So let’s get to the point of this post, let’s review these dining chairs!  Starting with…


The Positives:

-To anyone walking into the house they look elegant.  When we were thinking about selling our house, every stager that came in would complement us on them. 

-They are comfortable.

-The fabric we selected (Perennials Textured Linen Weave in "Fog") seems to be sturdy and hides any potential stains.  We are both also pleased with the color of the fabric.

-The nailhead detail adds a bit of pizzaz.


The Negatives:

-The first set of chairs arrived with the wrong finish on the legs and all had to be sent back.

-The second set of chairs arrived about 60 days later with the correct finish on the legs but with “unfinished” welting around the bottom of the upholstery.

 
 

Customer service sent over an upholsterer to see if he could repair the welting.  He could, but RH refused to cover the cost, told me to select the best chairs, and exchange the unacceptable chairs for new ones. 

-60 days after THAT, the third and final set of chairs arrived with more “unfinished” welting and with tufting buttons hanging loosely by threads.  (How were these things making it passed inspection??)

At this point I was told to either select the “best” chairs and complete my set or return all of them and move on.  They were no longer willing to exchange chairs for me. 

After conferring with my husband, we decided to complete the set, use them for a few years, and then go “Office Space – Printer Beat Down” on them!  Had we paid fully out of pocket, we would have sent them back after the second set arrived and taken our business elsewhere, which we will do in the future.  Sorry, Resto, you’ve lost our confidence and our business.

 

My Satisfaction Level: 5

Husband Satisfaction Level: 7

Collective Seacrest Satisfaction Level: 6

A Blog-and-Run

To the readers of my one lonely blog post, I want to apologize for blogging-and-running.  I had every intention of having you follow along step-by-step as my husband and I worked together to find “OUR” sense of style and decorate our home in a way that reflects who we are as a couple.  However, since last October, many things happened to detour that mission.  Before I get back to the regularly scheduled programming, I would like to share them with you:

1) Lack of inspiration – I had put so much thought into this blog that the first post came as a cinch!  “This blogging thing is going to be a piece of cake!” thought I.  Not true.  I hadn’t realized that writing actually requires some inspiration and time.  This lead to:

2) Procrastination – Why not put off today what you can do tomorrow??

3) We found out I was pregnant!! – I can think of no better news to share with you, dear readers.  With two days left of 2012, I sent my husband in to gather the results of the test I had just taken.  “Pregnant” was all it said.  After many hugs and tears, we started this wonderfully exciting and scary journey to become parents. 

“Why would this hinder your blogging?”, you wonder.  I am so glad you asked.  You see, strange and unexpected things happen to you when you’re pregnant.  For instance, I had not expected to develop a complete disinterest, or rather, distaste for all-things-interior-design during my first trimester.  I am one who will spend hours, sometimes entire days, obsessing over, researching, and planning what I can do to make my house more visually inviting and physically comfortable.  Yet, I suddenly I found myself saying to my husband, “Let’s just hire a designer…I don’t want to have to think about this anymore.  I’m just not feeling creative or inspired and we HAVE to have the house done before the baby arrives!”  He would give me a concerned look and say, “But YOU are a designer!”, and then pretend to somewhat humor my demand.  I couldn’t even bring myself to read design publications.  My Architectural Digests would arrive and I would tuck them away in my desk, plastic sleeves still on, pretending they didn’t exist.  Needless to say, the first four and a half months of my pregnancy were a dark and strange time thanks to pregnancy hormones! 

4) We decided to sell our house – You will often hear that pregnancy causes couples to make crazy and hasty decisions.  Suddenly our house wasn’t good enough, it was going to require too much work to make it good enough, and it was just 20 minutes too far from my husband’s office.  We started meeting with our real estate agent and were lining up stagers.  We made an offer on a house.  Fortunately, another offer was accepted.  At that moment we stopped to catch our breath and realized, “Maybe we CAN turn our house into something great without too much work, let’s try it!”. 

Note: During this time, I deleted all of the “Before” pictures I had taken for this blog as I thought they would now be rendered moot.  That was a crazy and hasty decision!  You will now have to trust me when I say that each room of our house was blah, mismatched, and covered in yellow wall paint! 

5) We decided not to sell our house / I came out of the first trimester blues / The redesign was ON! - My interest in interior design came back with a vengeance, the Architectural Digests were taken out of their plastic sleeves, I started putting together inspiration boards and presenting them to my husband, I nearly completed the redesign of our house in the span of four months, and the thought of picking up the blog began to sound more appealing. 

6) More procrastination – I now have a greater respect for people who have chosen to write as a profession.  I just don’t understand how you people force yourselves to get the words out every day, inspired or not! 

7) I’m back! – This brings us to today.  Five weeks out from bringing a little man into this world and we have so much catching up to do.  Let’s do this!