Thrifty finds

A few weeks ago, I blogged about our search for the right side table here. The right options just weren't popping for me, and those that we did like were getting far to expensive. In a recent run of good luck, I trundled into our local home improvement store for a new broom and came out with this little lovely.


It's a cute option and adds a bit of glam with it's subtle green glass. The best part? It was $19. No joke. $19. Love it even that much more now!

Great neutral living rooms

No commentary needed.

Designed by Joe Serrins Studio

A stunning Stockholm apartment featured on Emmas Designblogg

Designed by LakeFlato Architects

Designed by LakeFlato Architects

Designed by 212box

Photographed by Steve Giralt

Lovely large artwork

Could you imagine crashing at the end of a long day, book in hand, in this beautiful room designed by Jiun Ho? If so, count me in as a like-minded friend.


Beautiful artwork. If it were only as easy as it looks.

Our great room

It might be time to put up a few more recent photos of our main living area. It's actually quite cozy at the moment. We've gotten it to a livable state (only took us 8 months...) where I'm not pining over new furniture. Yes, there will be a time when we get real side tables (instead of the outdoor teak table) and other items, but for now we're pretty good.

If you happen to call and I seem distant, I'm probably far too comfortable in one of the cream recliners watching an episode of Law and Order (Why do they have to have so many marathons? They kill my social life!). In fact if you look closely, you can see my Harmony remote right next to my preferred chair in the first photo. :)

And we were warned about this when we were designing the house, but changing that light bulb is going to be a real b***h.

(Sorry to our sweet followers in Calgary...don't tell your mom that I curse...or EVER let her see this post. If that doesn't deserve it, I don't know what does.) :)

Duh!

So this is how you are supposed to hide your television:

Photographed by Peter Margonelli

Retroactive inspiration

Yesterday was a big deadline day for me so hopefully the spare time is right around the corner...and I'll get time to share with everyone! In the meantime, in 5 minute daily flight through Desire to Inspire last week, this inspiration image tugged at me...and brought me back two days later. And yes, we may be a bit too far along for inspiration, but never too far along for appreciation.

Photo by Graham Aiken Hughes

How crazy is that light? I love it! It's sort of romatic, but sort of dilapidated all at the same time. And the monotone, textured pillows reminded me of these beauties that are currently in my etsy favorite folder from seller cushlab.


Actually, now that I look at the photo closer, it's very similar to a nook that I recently created in the great room. The only difference is that they've nailed it.


How dull does my space look? (The wire for our eventual speaker doesn't help much) I know, I know, lighting and photos can evoke more emotion than if you were actually in the space, but it's still a great reference point for me...on how much further I can push just this little area. And if nothing else, we've started on the right track! :)

Slowly coming together

Last weekend I was bit by the decorate bug. A few changes (hopefully enhancements) were made to the general living areas. A week has passed and they still feel right. There will be months and months of more changes to come, but here's a peek at our current arrangements.


The dark leather couch will be finding a new home once we have the drive to start looking for new couches. For now it works. I'm also looking for a slender side table for between the two linen chairs. We saw the perfect option at a gorgeous store in Healdsburg, California last October, but didn't ultimately decided not to take the plunge. Just goes to show that sometimes traveling treasures should be taken more seriously...


The first thing my talented mom imagined when she walked in our (still being built) home back in November was a little sitting area to the side of our big wall. She was completely right! Now we have a cozy little nook. In a fit of luck, she and I found this great Oly chair here on island. We had some time to kill due to a flight delay and stumbled across these charmers. We shopped at virtually every furniture store in Orlando and New York only to come back home and decide that these were at the top of our list. Score!

Our final countertops should be installed in the next two weeks. After that, the will tiles should follow very quickly. We're definitely eager to see the kitchen and mudrooms completed. The stools in the picture above will be outside eventually, but we really don't have a better place for them at the moment. And I'm still pining over the Kou chandelier, but that is at least another 1-3 years away. In the meantime, an inexpensive light from Bo Concepts is working fine to give us some ambiance.

What a nice feeling to have a livable house!

Inspriation vs Reality: Stone wall

The single largest inspiration image in our planning process has been this one with the large stone wall. We loved how it used the space and created a focal point in the great room.


We originally picked a stone in a similar color palette and anxiously awaited it's arrival. Unfortunately, we were ultimately told that it was not available any longer. We had to make a last minute decision and ended up choosing a darker stone. For ages the new stone sat on site and I worried (and worried and worried) that it was going to be way too dark. Well, it has now been installed.



The bottom of the wall will be completed once our audio-visual equipment is installed. In the meantime, Mr. Big is officially excited yet again....he loves the darker wall (to be honest, it is a bit more masculine than the lighter option). And the best of all (for me anyway) is that I completely concur with him. It is nice to have another significant fixture in the house other than the kitchen that is a bit darker.

In hindsight, I realize that it would likely be attractive whether in light or dark stone, so all of my worrying was for not. It's really nice to have a unique feature in the house. So as for the inspiration image, I'm really pleased that it was put to use.

Cabinets have arrived

They went through months of excruciating deliberation, weeks of production, surely a bumpy ride on their voyage from Canada, and have now finally arrived on island...early! Love that. Actually, they aren't on site yet, but they will be this afternoon. We met with the installer over the weekend and he will be starting on Thursday. Exciting! Things are really starting to take shape.

A happy, happy couple :)

The floor is almost completely down on the first floor. We really were hoping to get a natural, relaxed feel from the tile and it has been perfect so far. Over the weekend, the lead tiler convinced us to fill in the cracks and groves in the middles of the tiles to help keep the floor cleaner in the future. It shouldn't make much of a difference, but Mr. Big seems a tad hesitant that this will impact his rustic floors. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll be happy with the decision.

The concrete board has been fastened to the feature wall in the great room. With this now completed, the drywall crew has left the site. Mr. Big and I are in complete agreement that they did a phenomenal job. The house looks great.

It will be really interesting to see how the tilers fasten stone to this wall. They discussed it with us briefly this weekend and the stone will be laid in such a way that every third vertical row will be individually braced. I wasn't nervous until they told me that this is done so that the entire wall doesn't come crashing down. Ugh...not a pretty thought. We're a few weeks off from receiving the materials for this install, but it will be great to see the wall finished.

Well, there's a bit of an update. Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Moving forward, but behind

So the good news is that more and more of the house is taking shape. The entire second floor has been sheetrocked, although the mudding and detail has not started yet. And yes, I may be going back on my promise not to post pics of every room.

The upstairs gallery

Jack-and-Jill bathroom and bedroom

The stairwell

The Great Room has also been sheetrocked downstairs and it is really taking shape nicely.


Some of the ceilings in the downstairs have been completed, but there is still quite a bit left to do. This is where things get a little tricky because the schedule was to have all of the sheetrock, mud and detail done by today. Obviously our builder is running a bit behind.

In fact, the schedule calls for the floors to be installed this week. Instead, we found out on Tuesday that the wood floor for the upstairs hasn't even been ordered yet. (Yikes!) So we are at least a few weeks behind. We're not sure how this will translate to our move-in timetable, but hopefully we'll find out this week. Wish us luck!

Furniture already?

The bones, brain, and arteries of the house are substantially done (being the blockwork, electrical and plumbing). We've really focused to this point on the actual structure as opposed to what furniture we would be putting in it.

Last weekend, we were out on a lovely Saturday stroll and I suggested that we stop in a new shop in Cayman to run a few ideas by Mr. Big. By the time that we left the store 45 minutes later, we had a few new pieces of furniture to our name. Huh? What happened in there?

To be fair, I shouldn't trivialize this as we have searched and searched for a sofa for quite some time that fit Mr. Big and my decor ideas. You see, Mr. Big is on the rather tall side, so the low-to-the ground sleek sofas that I love just don't cut it. Low and behold a little shop here in Cayman had this baby beckoning for us to flounce into it.

It's 39 inches deep and 34 inches tall, which fits my friend perfectly. We'll forgo the dress kick and get a stacked-tailored finish similar to the sofa below.

Before we had the time to leave the shop, Mr. Big plopped himself down into a highback chair that he proclaimed to be the perfect size for him. It was a light linen version of the following and absolutely beautiful (somewhere out there my mother is laughing..."wait until she sees what happens to light linen chairs"...)

The deal was sealed when the saleslady informed him that it was actually a recliner. I tried to hide in the corner (pretending to look at rugs or fake plants or anything else), but ultimately the rings of praise and twinkly eyes were two much. Mr. Big's recliners have finally found a place in the house.

So the sofa has been identified and the recliners purchased. I guess that the next thing to do might be to get the windows on the house. :) Yes, we were ahead of ourselves last weekend, but as Mr. Big says, "when it's right, it's just right."

Leaning wall pieces

Large leaning wall pieces always seem to catch my eye. A quick scroll through Desire to Inspire had me drooling over the following inspiration images today. I've got other similar photos that I've torn from various magazines that I'll someday post here as well, but this will have to suffice for the moment.

From Maxima Interiors

From Shoot Factory

This is an interesting, subtle effect of decorating second floors in open spaces. It would seem very easy to to do-it-yourself, especially in colors just slightly off from the wall colors. I say that, but imagine that my end result would look nothing like this...

From Irwin Weiner Interiors

This is the first update in quite a while as Mr. Big and I just returned from a bit of vacation (ahhh...). It was fantastic, refreshing, and restful all at the same time. Hooray! I also spent a bit of time in Frankfurt and Stockholm for work. And of course, I powered through as many European design shops as possible. Don't worry...I've got a few fun bits coming shortly. :)

Desire to Inspire

Mmmm...I just can't take my eyes off of it. From the mixture of clean lines and rustic elements to the artwork hanging in the kitchen, it does exactly that...inspire. It's not clear how livable a space like this would be, but it sure is beautiful.

Rather than another stainless appliance, building the up draft in the kitchen out of dry wall adds visual interest, especially with the simple ledge.

Images from Carr Design via Desire to Inspire

Desire to Inspire is a great site for my latest hobby...browsing through photo collections of beautiful homes. That link is worth a click, but beware that you may be there for a while.

Oh to dream...

Wow. Love the fireplace, roof beams, uplighting on the stone, all against a very neutral palette. Wow. (From Metropolitan Home, 2001)

Inspirations: the great room

It has been my intention for weeks to share "inspiration images" that have helped to guide our building process. (Who am I kidding? You're entirely right, they have nothing to do with building.) Instead, they give me guidance on the overall feel for the decor of the house...once it has been built. Of course, the images are always shared with Mr. Big, who usually doesn't have a strong opinion. Either he trusts me or he isn't too bothered. I like to think that it's the former, but the realist in me begs to differ.

We'll start this little journey with images of general living areas. Apparently many of these rooms are called "great rooms" today. When I was a wee one, I believe that they were family rooms. The purpose of the areas haven't changed so much...just a new catchphrase to entice 30-something year old suckers (like us!).

The great room will be two stories high in our house. The question of what to do with the second story can be tricky, so we're planning a psuedo-chimney effect. The television will be where the fireplace would normally go and the chimney will be covered in stone (similar to the image above). Hopefully this will draw your eye up to the second floor and fill the empty space.

I love the second, more modern image, but Mr. Big would never let me go this contemporary. The first image probably is most representative of the overall inspiration for the house, (although it is four times the scale of our home!)

Do you see a common theme here at all? It was lost on me until a friendly face pointed out that all of the images have neutral walls with dark accents. I seem to love this effect, but, I can hear the concern in others voices....kids...even though it's a ways off. Something tells me that this blog won't make it far enough for me to journal about crayon-covered walls, but I'm sure that everyone would get a good laugh out of it.

So there you have it...the inspiration photos for the great room. Our room won't be one-tenth of those above, but hey, everyone needs to start somewhere.