CURATED NEST: cozy knits

If you don't live in Southern California, then let me just tell you this weekend was really HOT. Where I live, in Sherman Oaks, it reached 108! So, as you can image I'm dreaming and wishing for the cool temps of Fall to arrive. I love this long sweater look on top of pleather leggings with some white kicks. So cool, yet so casual. It inspired a little searching for knits...   Pretzel Baby Rattle / BlaBla Kids Beanie / Topshop Cardigan / Uniqlo Tube Scarf / H&M Throw / Crate & Barrel Oversized Sweater / La Garconne Pillow / One Kings Lane Uggs / Nordstrom Pouf / World Market Inspiration image via Mute Fashion   - Cori

DESIGN BLUEPRINT: Rowhouse inspired

I usually enjoy talking about interior spaces and how to achieve a similar look. But something I have loved doing since I was a kid is checking out the exterior of homes, different architectural designs, and then imagining how I would style the interior.

I love this adorably blue town home found on My Design Chic and can only dream of how I would design the inside. 

Here's how I would start....

DESIGN BLUEPRINT

Framed Artwork / ZGallerie

Wall Sconce / Schoolhouse Electric

Dinnerware / Bloomingdales

Arm Chair / Schoolhouse Electric

Side Table / 1st Dibs

Pendant Light / Schoolhouse Electric

Area Rug / Loom

Basket / Crate & Barell

Bedding / Schoolhouse Electric

Table Lamp / Lawson Fenning

Candles / Haus Interior

 

- Cori

The Curated Nest: Simple Silhouettes

There's a few home decor shops where just purchasing one thing can step up your home decor. Ferm Living is one of those... You can find something for the living room, kitchen and even kid's room.

They have a simple, modern aesthetic with geometric patterns and a minimal color palette. These are a few of their best pieces in my opinion, but they have a new collection that you should check out.

Cutting Board

Paper Towel Holder

Triangle Pillow

Striped Pillow

Blanket

Bowl

 

- Cori

Client Project Completed - Part 3

Last week and earlier this week I showed you all a recent living and dining room renovation I completed. Well the final part of the project was my client's daughters room. Her daughter transitioned from being a kid to "tweendom" recently and she wanted a room that was more mature and that would also grow with her into her teens.  The room itself isn't large, but we needed space for the bed, obviously, as well as study space, lounge space and extra clothing storage (especially to accommodate the growing wardrobe of a teen girl).  Here is what the room looked like initially.  Definitely a "little girl" vibe.

We wanted the room to be fresh and bright and we solved the storage, study, and lounging problem in one fell swoop by creating a built-in that includes a desk, a window seat and a mirrored armoire.  While we didn't repurpose as many items as we did in the living and dining room we did keep the chandelier and dresser and we actually re-used the sconces from my client's dining room as bed-side sconces that I trimmed with a fun coordinating grosgrain ribbon. 

Chair DIY Update

Last week I shared my recent purchases and some thoughts on how I plan to update those items. Well, I've made some paint color choices on the step stool and hope to get that knocked out in the next week or two. The chair I've been going back and forth on. I had two large fabric swatches that I found in my files that would work perfectly for this small reuphostery project (yay for free fabric!).  The first is this Dwell Studio marbelized black and white pattern. I like that it is dark (don't want a light seat cushion) and organic. I envision it with a sort of forest or kelly green paint on the chair.

 The second is this Beacon Hill fabric which I fell in love with recently.  The chair could be done in a turquoise / teal color.

At first I was leaning toward the latter but now I'm thinking I prefer the green and the more neutral fabric so I'm not as locked into a color scheme as with the other. I also am in love with this Christopher Farr Cloth textile which I think would work really nicely with it (perhaps as a window treatment or large pin-up board?  I'd actually found a comparable fabric by Sarah Campbell for West Elm a while back but they seemed to stop making it (boo! considering the price on the Christopher Farr option).

Which chair option do you prefer? And what are your thoughts on the West Elm vs. Christopher Farr fabric (I love the pricey option, but is it worth it?)

I Swear I'm Done With Roman Shades

But there was one final thing in the bathroom.  When I did those roman shades I had mentioned adding a contrasting band to tie in with the shower curtain on the opposite side. Well, while I was in the city selecting my awesome minty trim for the chair reupholstery project I picked up a nice charcoal flat trim for the shades. After doing the living room shades, I knew not to use too much glue - even though Fabritac is my new best friend.  So on this shade I actually glued the trim on with the shade hanging in place (since it was already installed). I only glued in a few key places to tack it down and allow it to fold better.  And used some paper clips to hold it up to dry. Here it is in progress.

I think it looks pretty nice for a 15 minute job!  Really makes it look more tailored and gives it a pop.

Weekend Reupholstery Project

I've been thinking about reupholstering my cane back chairs pretty much since I got them back at the Pasadena Antiques Mall. Of course, the pink sort of worked with the color scheme in our LA living room, but here in NJ they were just popping in the wrong way.  After spending hours perusing Spoonflower I found this fabulous fabric (sort of an abstracted quartz pattern) that I thought was the perfect scale for these chairs. I got this amazing fabric for the wing chair so there will be a nice contrast.  I'd primed my dining room table on Saturday but Sunday was just too wet and humid to do any painting.  So it seemed like the perfect time to get out the staple gun and fabric.  I followed Jenny from LGN's DIY turtorial for reupholstering a chair and I have to say it was SO much easier than the roman shade project.  Here I am all set up (including the requisite coffee) on the porch.

I started by pulling off the old self-welt. 

Then I removed the fabric and staples and used the original fabric as a guide for cutting.

Per Jenny's instructions I started stapling the hardest parts first which for me were around the arms.  I used a hammer to make sure the staples were in securely. I also found that a light duty staple gun worked better than a heavy duty gun with longer staples.

Once all the stapling and tacking was complete I trimmed my fabric and used a single staple and then fabritac to glue on the trim starting on the arms and then going around the base from the back.  

I love how this minty trim dresses up the abstract fabric and also ties into the mint touches now appearing throughout the living room.  I also love how the new Kelly Wearstler Pillow from Spark Modern works on the chair.

Living Room Roman Shades Complete

I swear this is my last roman shade DIY post.  I still want to romans one day in my office but I'm taking a serious hiatus from all this sewing and gluing.  We have a big deadline coming up for the house (more on that later), so I've been rushing to complete all my projects. This was one that I've been working on in stages for a while. I found a great grey linen at Gray Line Linens and then an awesome trim at M and J Trimming in the city.  Did the same DIY from Little Green Notebook as before but this time knew to do a few things different.  I made the shades slightly wider than the measured opening since the outside edges of the shade pull in and the mounting bracket sticks out a bit further than the narrowest part of the window opening.  I also tried my hand at creating a Greek Key trim.  Here is the before.

Here we are in progress.  For those of you who want to attempt this, it was fairly easy.  A little bit of math involved and some strategic folding and pressing but it was all glued down with Fabritac.  One piece of advice - put something under your fabric. You will be using enough glue that it will go through and glue your fabric to the floor.

And here is it installed finally.  I sort of fudged this a little.  The glue and trim really caused the sides to buckle in in a bad way so I used some large paper clips to clip the folds to the wood dowel in the hopes that they will create a crease and I can take the clip off in the future. Or I'll just leave it on since these will only be lowered for winter afternoon TV viewing which is not something that happens often in our house.  Regardless, the final product is something I'm pretty happy with.  Yay, one project down - 3 more to go!!!

Adding a little spark to the living room

If you've been following along with my blog since I lived in Los Angeles you know that the pillows most recently on my living room sofa have traveled with me for a while. In fact, some of you may even know that they were throw pillows I got in college that I recovered with large fabric memo samples I received while I was working in New York.  They are nice pillows and they have certainly served me well, but it was time to retire them to the breakfast window seat and do something fresh in the living room.  Over the years I've favorited a number of etsy shops that make pillows from cool fabrics that are mostly available to the trade.  I'm in love with Kelly Wearstler's line of fabrics for Groundworks.  Originally I'd wanted to do dining room drapes in one of her textiles but at prices upwards of $150 a yard it wasn't even something I wanted to splurge on.  Enter Etsy Shop Spark Modern. They have a great array of throw pillows from the ever popular Chiang Mai Dragon to several of Kelly Wearstler's fabrics.  Now a half yard for a throw pillow is definitely more in line with my budget.  The overall color scheme of our living and rooms is grey, black and white and a dash of orange and mint/teal.  I decided that since the artwork already has orange in it and the pillows on the side chairs have a little goldenrod going, that I would add more contrast with the pillows on the sofa and window seat and also insert a dash of minty freshness. The mother daughter team at Spark Modern created a custom package of pillows for me in sizes I wanted and at a great price point.  I'm so happy with the result.   They add a pop of color and an extra dose of sophistication to the room.  And you lucky readers get an extra 15% off with coupon code "nesteaglerock". 

Stay tuned for more living room transformations including some Spoonflower reupholstery projects and yet more roman shades.

Roman Shade Fix

Sorry for the blog silence recently. We went on vacation (more on that later) and am now trying to play catch up.  After doing Bryan's roman shades and realizing that sewing a straight line over multiple layers of fabric is much harder than one thinks, I had to come up with a creative solution to make his shades look less janky.  I'd followed Jenny's DIY from Little Green Notebook on how to make a roman shade.  Her instructions show you how to create a shade that has a flap at the bottom that remains stationery (doesn't fold under) as you pull the shade up. This is a nice look for shades with banding and trim at the bottom. This worked well for our bathroom shade where I plan to add a border later on.  I'm not doing that on Bryan's though so I came up with a quick fix that took advantage of the extra flap at the bottom. I'd made my shades extra long, so using fabritac glue I pulled the bottom flap up and glued it to the dowel / wood piece on the back of the shade. This gives it a more relaxed feel as if the shade is being pulled up from the very bottom hem and also makes the unsightly wavy hemline go away.  Hurrah.  Here is what it looked like before.

And here is what it looks like after.

Much cleaner and tailored looking right?

More Roman Shades

After the success of the bathroom roman shade experiment I decided to try my hand at doing a set of 3 roman shades for Bryan's room.  Again, I love romans for kids rooms because they free up space under the windows for furniture and as long as you keep your cords controlled with a cleat, there is no worrying about climbing, pulling down etc.  Here is what the room looked like before with its temporary paper shades.  There are the romans getting ready to go on the floor. Note to self: temporary shades are called temporary for a reason - if you leave them on your windows for 7 months, they WILL take paint off with them). 

Because this project was a bedroom, I decided to line my shades with a privacy room darkening lining - I figured if Jenny from Little Green Notebook could do it, then so could I.  I thought that since the pattern had a clear horizontal and vertical it would make it easier to cut and measure - you know, like that wrapping paper with the grid lines on the back.  The issue though was that this linen was particularly "shifty" so to speak and didn't want to be ironed or sewn straight.  Add to that an extra layer with the lining and things got a little wonky.  You can see that at the bottom of the new shades there is some waviness.

Luckily I have a fix for the bottom. I made these shades according to Jenny's tutorial and there is a flat panel at the bottom below the wooden slat.  And the shades are also longer than the windows. My plan is to fold up the bottom hem and glue it to the back of the slat making it more of a relaxed roman like what we had in our Brooklyn apartment.  More on that when I'm done.  In the meantime, I've totally happy with the results. They keep the light out and Bryan slept for a whole hour longer this morning than he normally does. Hurrah!

Kitchen Nook Cushion

So I received my dacron wrapped foam cushion for the breakfast nook the other day.  I ordered it from Foam Factory online where I had ordered the foam for our outdoor cushions in LA.  It's such a great resource. Then, I randomly had our old shower curtain out because I had used it as a makeshift picnic blanket over the weekend and instead of putting it away I decided to wrap the cushion temporarily with the shower curtain to see how it looked. I actually like the ikat (not so much with the rust and pink ikat pillows), but I like the monochrome look with the grey floor.  Better yet, the shower curtain is something I already own (free!) and just the right size I think I will try my hand at sewing a cushion cover.  Excited I found this option and didn't have to pay for fabric! Shower curtains are a great place to look for fabric for small projects. They are generally well priced and there are so many fun options out there. I might need to do some shower curtain shopping for my next reupholstery project.