New Year, New Projects

Hi all!  Still traveling, so not much to report in the way of actual progress.  But I thought I'd make a little list of things I want to do to our little abode in 2013.  House resolutions, if you will:

1.  Trim the hearth.  

We laid the slate on the hearth before we left on our whirlwind US tour in early December.  We'd decided not to grout since we couldn't find any small containers of premixed dark gray grout, and I kind of wanted the seamless look of one big slab 'o' slate rather than four individual tiles.  Nobody told me that the purpose of grout is to hide one's less-than-perfect joints, and I kind of wish I'd thought of that because there's one place where a wee bit of thinset oozed up between two of the tiles and-- since there's no grout to cover it-- there's a milimeter-wide white stripe there.  We tried to pick up the tile and replace it as soon as we noticed, but it was already too late.  I was so disappointed in my tile-laying skillz that I cried hysterically for what may or may not have been several hours-- I reallyreallyreally wanted it to be perfect.

I'm not sure if this is something anyone else would notice.  Here's a photo, and you can tell me if you see it:

In any case, I guess this one comes with a bonus personal resolution: try not to become entirely distraught when things don't go exactly, perfectly, 100% according to plan.*

Anyhow, now it's just waiting for us to stain some quarter-round and attach it.  Then we can move on to other posts not related to the fireplace and the bathroom.  Yay!

2.  Invest in an awesome sofa.

This, I think, in slate-gray velvet:

There are a lot of reasons to love this baby from clubfurniture.com:  

First, it's so pretty.  Clean midcentury lines, low skinny arms, nice slim legs, button-tufted back-- please stop, you're KILLING me!  

Second, that chaise is REVERSIBLE.  Yes.  That's what I said.  You can SWITCH it from one side to the other because this baby is actually two separate pieces of furniture-- a sofa and an ottoman-- and it comes with a separate ottoman cushion and separate sofa cushion so you can use it as a plain ol' sofa + ottoman combo.  And they also give you the chaise cushion so you can use it as a sectional.  This basically solves every problem I've ever had in my entire life.  Okay, not really, but kind of.

Third, I would feel weird about buying a sofa from the internet, but my mom's sofas came from clubfurniture.com and they are probably the most comfortable couches EVER.  I literally cannot sit down on them without falling asleep.  Who'd have thought my mom would be on the vanguard of ordering furniture from the internet like ten years ago?  

Fourth, our old sofa is gross and it just needs to get out of my life immediately. I'm guessing it was actually manufactured in the sixties and I inherited it from a family friend when I was in college.  For a hand-me-down it's served me well-- usually when people inherit sofas they're overstuffed and upholstered in green Naugahyde.  But anyway, it's falling all to pieces, and it's too small for us and our gigantic living room, and it's brown.  I'm so over brown. 

3.  And a new chair (or learn to reupholster the one I've got).

Love the West Elm Everett chair in this stripe:

And I think it plays well with my sofa in both scale and general aesthetics.  But I may wind up attempting to re-cover my own.  This all depends on how ambitious I can force myself to be while suffering through another gray rainy Oregon winter.  And I'd love to be the kind of girl who finds some amazing Eames / Mies van der Rohe / Saarinen type of chair in a thrift store and reupholsters it like all those obnoxiously cool people on design*sponge but I also think it's also important to be honest with yourself and realize that that's just not who you are.  You know?

4.  Make some throw pillows.

My mom is the queen of this.  I mean DAMN she is good.  She's going to teach me how to make self-cording tomorrow.  Is it sad that I'm thirty-one and don't know how to make self-cording?  Maybe.  Anyhow, here's some fabric I bought:

It's cream, orange, and cornflower blue on a pale-gray background; the colors didn't quite come out right in this iPad photo.  Anyhow, I'm hoping to also find some solid orange or some navy-and-teal patterned something or other to use too.  It's going to be bad-ass with my rug, right?  

5.  Take some risks.

This seems like a good place to admit that I have major design fear.  I love looking at slightly kooky spaces in shelter magazines and on design blogs, yet my own house is just a sad cycle of gray-beige-greige-gray-beige-greige.  I love bright colors, but I can't commit to them.  So 2013 will be the Year of Living Colorfully, in which I will force myself to buy / make / RIT dye all those crazy things I'm so jealous of in other people's houses.  I'm just going to go for it.  And if my house winds up looking like a crazy person decorated it, well, I have plenty of neutrals to fall back on.

Some of these sub-projects include (but are not limited to):

a. find / make incredible Hermes-orange patterned shower curtain and find fun complimentary fabric for dummy Roman shade in bathroom

b. paint guest room some color that is not greige, or, if greige, at least a sort of BOLD greige

c. stencil enormous jute rug (see the Young House Love book for more on this, and more on all things awesome) that I bought and was then forever stuck with so I can use it as my "summer" rug and not have wasted $165 on something I hate, hate, hate.

4.  Find out who you people are, because I love you for reading about my house.

Leave me a comment and let me know all about you!

Happy New Year y'all!




*impossible.