Furniture Frenzy!

On a whim this week, I told the Dread Reverend we ought to stop in a few furniture stores. We have no living room furniture at all, it's just a big empty room right now (well, except for the things that are still stashed in there because they haven't found a home yet), but living room furniture shopping hadn't been high on our list of priorities with all the other things there were to do. Yet it's been a constant small niggle in the back of my head, that I'd really like to get that room fixed up.

Since we were on vacation, I thought it would be a good time to stop in a couple local stores and check out what's available. I didn't anticipate finding anything right away. We have a very, very clear and distinct theme in mind for our living room, which is a bit quirky - so finding the right pieces (at a price we can justify paying) was, I figured, going to be tricky.

So we stopped in a couple today, and ... well. At the first store we found something we thought might do, but we decided to think about it first. So we stopped at a second place. Initially we found something we liked better than at Store A, but the upholstery was rather hideous, and the salesman told us it couldn't be ordered with other upholstery. We asked him if he had anything else in that style, and initially he said no. But about 5 minutes later he called us over to a dark, back corner of the showroom where he said he remembered something else that might be kind of what we had in mind.

I walked over to it, gasped, clapped my hand to my mouth, bounced up and down a little bit, and said to the Dread Reverend, "That's IT!" Then I backpedaled little, thinking, well, it's only the second place we looked, maybe we shouldn't be hasty, etc. etc., yada yada.

Nope. That was it. It's just about exactly what we were looking for, what we had envisioned without even knowing whether what we envisoned actually existed. And the price was good. We hunted around a little more and found the perfect side chair to complement it.

But since I almost never make snap decisions (depsite the initial reaction), I wanted to sleep on it overnight, so we put a deposit on it but will have to return tomorrow to finalize the sale if we still want it.

I think we're still going to want it. I'm so terribly excited about it I can't stand it. I didn't have my camera with me (of course - who takes a camera furniture shopping? although in retrospect it'd actually be a good idea), but I was able to find the pieces online, so here are a couple pictures.
The Sofa:



The Chair (of which we ordered a matching set):



I know ... it looks a little opulent and fussy. But you have to understand the theme we're going for in the living room: 18th century sea captain's home. That's it, in a nutshell. A wealthy seafarer's home on the coast - which will, eventully, include beautiful nautical accent pieces.

After my initial reaction to the sofa, my next thought was, "Oh, I don't know ... it looks too fancy for us." But then I remembered what we were trying to accomplish, and realized, no - there's no such thing as "over the top" when you're trying to create the look we are. And this is great for it.

Granted, that sofa isn't particularly "authentic period" ... but we weren't trying to pass an inspection, or even to impress anyone else. What was important to us is that it conveyed to us the feel we were looking for. And this set does it.

It's not just for show, though - of course it's useable furniture, and we well intend to use it. Neither of us are the type of people to have a 'show living room' that you can't use. Ha. We sat on it, flopped around on it, it's comfy! The only upholstered bits on the sofa are the main seat cushions and the back cushions - which means, easily 're-done' if we get tired of the current upholstery, or manage somehow to ruin it. I can make different covers for the back cushions to add some color and personal flair to the decor. It's great. And having the back being cushions (as opposed to solid upholstery like most couches) does tone it down a bit, dramatically speaking - it adds a little casualness to the formality.

A side note - the picture doesn't do the couch justice. It looks pretty 'blah' in that picture, but it looked grand and beautiful live and in person - and that was in a back, dark corner of the show room. We even had to carry one of the cushions up front to a window to see the colors clearly enough to compare them to the upholstery of the side chair, that's how dark the corner it was in was. But even with that, it looked so cool. I think the problem with the picture is it doesn't convey the colors - there are actually a multitude of colors in the upholstery pattern on the sofa, including a very pretty burgundy-orange as a great accent. You just can't see it in the photo.

I dearly love decorating, and have always wanted to be able to "do up" a room, or heck, a whole house, beautifully decorated. To date I've failed, in part because of lack of funds, and sometimes due to lack of anything to work with (a la the old house). This house has the presence and style to be worthy of nice decorating, where it will actually work - where the rooms respond to the colors and styles you dress them with, and actually look like something - where you can actually achieve "a look" if you do it right. I'm hoping I can do it right. I was very excited because although the upholstery on the sofa and the chairs was entirely different, it seemed to complement beautifully. The sofa has a broad, paisley-ish style to it, with - as I mentioned - quite a few subtle colors woven through t, while the chair has a smaller diamond pattern with only two colors - but they both share those two exact colors, two shades of greenish-gold and gold - so they go together beautifully.

The only thing I've been concerned about is that the chairs seem more fragile and delicate than the big, heavy, massive sofa. I'm not sure if it will make the living room look "off-balance." But my instinct (if it's any good) tells me it can work, it will just have to be slightly finessed.

And I'm okay with that. My decorating 'style' (such as it is) isn't very pristine. It's more of an eclectic mix-and-match kind of thing. And if I have the eye for it that I hope I do, my mixing and matching of pattern, color and scale will give us a living room worthy of the best 'decorating magazines.' Well, for what that matters - actually, it all comes down to personal taste. I've seen rooms in those magazines that were hailed as masterpieces that I thought were hideous. How you put your home together really is, ultimately, all a product of your own personal taste, not what some magazine says you should do.

Anyway - I'm so freaking excited I can't stand it. Unfortunately it'll take 3 weeks to get it, which means we won't have it for the housewarming party next weekend. And there's still other stuff to get ... a coffee table, a side table or two (we opted out of getting the matching tables that 'go with' the sofa, because (a) we didn't care for them as much, and (b) we aren't trying to have a 'cookie cutter' living room where every single piece matches exactly; we have other ideas in mind for the tables). We have to re-do the window treatments. And lose the wallpaper at some point, and paint the walls; and maybe get a nice decorative rug for the 'seating area.' And some lamps.

Well ... you know how decking out a living room goes. Mushroom city. (You start with one small thing, and then it just grows and grows from there). But that's why we wanted to start soon ... to get that "look" we're going for, it could take a long time, finding just the right piece here, another there. We lucked out (I think) in finding the perfect foundation pieces so quickly, and adding the accents will be a fun treasure hunt.

On another side note, this furniture store had the perfect Imaginarium chair! Remember when I was going on about the round chair? They had it! It was $500. That sounds steep, but considering the only ones I could find online were, like, $1800, that's a pretty decent price. I really liked it, and I'm still debating on whether to splurge and get it. A couple things are holding me back. I didn't care so much for the upholstery (and didn't ask if it could be ordered with different; seemed nothing in this store we did ask about could), and ... I'm waffling. I have a nice chair and table arrangement in the Imaginarium now. I'm not sure whether a $500 round chair 'just for fun' is something I should be considering just now. So I'll have to think on that some more.

Well, that's the news for today. I got my project table set up, so I think I'm going to go work on some calligraphy.