I'm in rehab and a teal couch may help with my recovery.

  Facing west. 
  Originally uploaded by GraceD

Today we will head up to San Francisco to take a look at furniture.  This will be an important excursion.

It's important for my well being and sanity. 

It's important because if I don't do it,  I will be consigned to a miserable life and a descent in a downward trajectory.

It's important because I am required to do this, just like how certain celebrity addicts should get their boozing and drugging asses over to Betty Ford for a two month stay where they must perform elementary and painful tasks.  Thinking right away about how the glamorous Elizabeth Taylor had to scrub the bathroom floors.

It's all important for I am in rehab, house rehabilitation, that is. 

My recovery goal is not unlike what Lindsay Lohan is presently trying to achieve - to break away from the destructive habits and behaviors that makes life a living hell.  This is why she has apparently fired her skanky mother as her manager and this is also why she should move to a quiet setting like Iowa City.

In my case, I need to let go of certain hellish (though not skanky) pieces of furniture and the boring manner in which I arrange our living spaces.  But, like the other rehab candidate Ms. Britney S., I have tended to resist any action to do something about it. 

My problem is that I hold on to furniture, appliances and other accessories of everyday living for years.  Ask our kids about the microwave that my hubs kept for nearly 20 years and recently just replaced it only because it started to spark.   When they would complain about it -  "Grace, Dad has had this since I was in first grade!" - I would snap back with a lecture on eco-consciousness and that we should not add to the landfill yet another toxin-leaking microwave. 

I'd like to think I'm not all that bad.  Being green is not a bad thing.  And I do pat myself on the back for making sensible choices in furniture, nothing trendy, always in basic lines and form.  Always sturdy stuff that will last a long time.

(At this point, I feel it's necessary to inform you that I do not have cinder block bookcases, at least not in the last 15 years.)

However, like a true addict, I have shrugged off any suggestion that I'm doing something fundamentally wrong by maintaining a butt-boring house.  So, like an addict, I employ the following tactics to justify these less-than-stylish conditions at Chez State of Grace:

Rationalizing and minimizing - oh, we'll be okay with the Pottery Barn couch and seat we've slobbered on for seven years!  We can just get someone to clean them again.  Anyway, those dog drool and wine stains are really not that bad.

Denial - oh, we're perfectly okay with the set-up of the living room! What's to fix?  And, it doesn't matter what kind of chairs and stuff we have because the view is what makes it in here.

Anger and despair - oh, everything's so expensive! And such a ripoff for what you get!  Fuck these furniture retailers/carpet installers/Home Depot/West Elm!  Fuck 'em all.

Note how I include "we" in my addict-speak.  We, as in my family, who suffer at my will.  They suffer not only because of items like the ancient microwave,  they also endure the near-shabby (not chic) and cheap (and not the chic kind of cheap) as in the plain, boring room you see above. 

(I understand that you may not wish to look at that room again.  You may  just as well just look at a blank wall or the fugly ceiling in a WalMart.)

But the worst of all of these issues is that I incur damage to the depths of my own soul.  I deserve to live in a pleasing environment, surrounded by beautiful and interesting, quality furnishings.  I need not have to live in a setting that I need to tolerate.  And, I've had to tolerate too much for one lifetime.

So, I've been making changes.  And, there is hope.  Let me tell you about a recent breakthrough:

My hubs, who is the style arbiter in the family, tries his best to lift me up from the savage vortex of the plain and boring.  Unfortunately, he has been on business trips at least two and a half weeks out of the month and has been unable to sit me down on our aging Pottery Barn couch and peruse a Roche-Bubois catalogue, much less click over to their splendidly designed website.   

But, then he unknowingly, perhaps even sub-consciously, made a clever move.

The hubs inquired in a charming, even seductive fashion if I could accompany him on a trip to an antique store. He wanted to look at old pocketwatches, his great love next to me, the kids and our dog.  As a general rule, I do not go into antique stores ("My God, why is this old hutch so expensive!")  But, once in the store, the hubs magically got me to not only agree on the purchase of a fine Morris chair, but also had me fall in love with it.  And, now I want more similarly handsome items for our home!

Here is this very fine chair, which replaced the spindly looking rocker seen above in the top right corner of the room:

Our Morris chair, circa late 19th century.  The leather is really that lustrous, no Photoshopping here.  It's outrageously comfortable, reclines and offers a fetching little foot rest that slides out from underneath.  To add to the good vibes of the buy, we purchased this from a charming lady who, two days later, sent us a delightful pumpkin pie scented candle in gratitude for our patronage.

That I said yes to the chair (albeit at a cost that made my inner penny pincher keel over from shock) is a good thing as it marks the start of my recovery. 

Another sign of good health is that I began to show up in more antique stores.  Making progress , I started strolling into furniture stores and did not exit immediately while muttering, "Everything's so motherfucking expensive!"  Instead, I stayed and looked and talked to the sales associates.  They gave me good information and one associate let me take home these swatch things:

Placed against our Persian rug (another tasteful purchase by the hubs), it appears that I may be going a little too brown-intensive.  But, hey, I'm trying!

Note that the rug has a bit of teal in the mix.  It would be a major advance in my healing if I choose a piece of furniture in such a blue-green tone.  Heck, I would be cured!

So, dollin reader, it's clear that I'm on a roll and that I should keep up the momentum.  Hence, the expedition to the city where we will visit Room and Board , EQ3 and the intimidating, almost museum-like  Limn.  I will do my best to keep my inner cheapskate cool, calm and collected while I remind her that the keel-over price of the couch, occasional table or upholstered chair is okay because "this is an investment."

I'm also going to capture images with my trusty camera phone.  I've been squirreling away the ideas on my flickr set, House Rehab.  If I have a flickr set for this, then you know I'm serious.

And, now, some questions for you, mah dollins.   You may answer all, a few, or just one.  But, I really want to know -

How did you acquire your furniture?  Hand-me downs?  Garage sales?  Fancy-pants stores like the scary Limn or Roche Bubois?  Or something in-between?

How do you decorate?  All at once?  Or, as time passes?

Do you have a particular style?  Bungalow (like our Morris chair), modern, retro, traditional?

What's your favorite piece of furniture? 

What's your color scheme?

Where do you go? What's your favorite store?  Do you shop online?

Teach me something.  Please.

Yours in dove tailed joints and pebble grained leather,
GraceD

 

Comments

[Average Jane]

Okay, I'll play!

How did you acquire your furniture? Our current living room furniture was all purchased new except for one artistically refinished antique and a coffee table that belonged to my grandparents.

How do you decorate? Our decorating style is so eclectic that it just develops over time. I think the boldest thing I've done in years was painting my living room a dark, Hershey-bar-wrapper color.

Do you have a particular style? Our style is: comfortable and resistant to cat damage.

What's your favorite piece of furniture? I love the artistically refinished antique wardrobe referenced above. It was the finishing touch for our living room decor at the time and I paid way too much for it, but it's beautiful and worth it.

What's your color scheme? We have a very Pottery Barn-esque color scheme going with dark purple, nutmeg, green and amber. There's a red brick fireplace in the room, too.

Where do you go? What's your favorite store? Do you shop online? We have a Nebraska Furniture Mart nearby, so it's hard to resist buying everything there now. I did get a side table from Half.com and I've bought a couple of pieces from the Signals catalog, if you can believe that.

[Suz]

Grace, go with whatever feels good. My fav chair is one that my very tall grandfather sat in. I rescued it from the house and it sat in the garage denuded of flea infested fabric and stuffing for about 10 years. Once I finally felt grown up enough to have something reupholstered, I had it redone and it's now my throne. As for microwaves, mine was a wedding present 21 years ago and still works fine and looks fairly brand new. It has been well used and cared for. It outlasted the marriage!

[Kathy]

I live in an apartment, so I'm pretty limited -- by a lack space and by what's already been provided for me. I like thrifted pieces, things that look a little different, nothing really "matchy." I do like oddball finds, though. Hmm..if I had a style I'd say comfortable and lived in. (Which sounds much better than old and held together with duct tape and safety pins.)

[e]

i furnished the house over about a decade of antique store crawls. these weren't antique store antique stores, they were the kind that sell, or sold, the furniture everbody was selling off as the 20th century generation died out; my living room actually is the "set" my own aunt bought when she married in 1940. i am totally eclectic, but i have my rules.

a. only buy real

1. never buy anything made after 1960. it's crap and the real stuff it's copied from is available at the same price if not less, so why? look on ebay, where i bought a lot of non-furniture stuff 10 years ago but hasn't got a lot of bargains now. it did kill off all those antiques stolls, though--they're all gone. but ebay can be a big catalog to show you -ossibilities. there are antique websites, too. here's a link to a place i got the majority of my stuff, mostly brought in from england. you should be able to find comparable stores there, it's california, for god's sake!

http://www.othersideantiques.com/

2. if you find something like an actual morris chair, buy it. immediately. good call.

the couches in my lving room i got from a department store clearance sale i was lucky to walk in on and found soft leather catcher's mitt types for about 75% off. those stores you mention and they're ilk? pffft! why? you can do better or at least pay less.

bookshelves? lots of english armoires, which he ships in for about $500. more or less, and puts shelves in them for me. then they match and they have doors that close. i'll upload some pics on my flicker for you. really, this "antique" is the way to go.

[Amy]

I adore the chair. *sigh* I have chair envy.

[Vanda]

Greetings from across the pond.

Sighhhh, I have no sense of style and at age 59 that's a sad sad thing to behold. We moved back home from the USA in 2000 and ended up with all second hand furniture.

We've gradully replaced a lot of the stuff and all I need now is a wall unit for the living room and a couple of wordrobes. And if I can tear that blasted scondhand coffee talble away from my hubby I'll replace that.

Our living room is only 10'x 13 and it's so damn small it's hard to find a wall unit that doesn't over whelm it. Ikea here I come, well after I've taken driving lessons enxt year but that's another story.

Have fun shopping!

[margalit]

Best decorating advice I've ever gotten is to buy a neutral colored sofa and dress it up with different accent pillows to change the look of your room. So we have a dark taupe sofa with a lot of red accents, a red and navy rug that I got in Afghanistan years ago, a chair and a half covered in a forest and pale green print with red accent pillows (waverly fabrics, which I happen to love) and then various accent pieces in brass, black, and wood.

I did it gradually, first picking out the sofa, then finding the chair, and then doing the accents. Much of the accents are things I either inherited or bought years and years ago when I had money to collect antiques.

The sofa is from a local store here, and is a two cushion, which I like MUCH better than a 3-cushion for comfort.

I read a lot of design magazines (our library has a magazine exchange and I get AMAZING mags for free) and my favorite right now is Elle Decor. It has rooms that really match my taste and a lot of great information. I also get Antiques Magazine which helps with accents a lot. I think the best way to decorate is to find pictures of stuff you like, and put them together into scrapbooks that you can take with you to stores.

I grew up in a family that revered GOOD furniture, mostly hand made, and so I'd rather do without than buy cheap. I'm SO not an ikea person. What I have might be old, stained and tattered, but it's all got good bones, can be reupholstered and refurbished, and won't fall apart.

My style is sort of eclectic comfortable. I mix and match various periods. Our sofa is contemporary with wooden feet, out coffee table is hand made of tiger maple with a very modern top that is asymetrical (got that in Los Altos in that store by Draegers that sells used furniture from staged houses...GREAT buys for brand new and interesting stuff), our big chair is a club chair with a giant rolled arm, the rug is an antique flat weave, the side tables are both antiques, a piecrust table and square spice cabinet. Most of the accessories are antiques or very modern ceramics and glass. Our dining room is the same, an old classic sideboard, a modern table and chairs, a modern bookcase, and antique accents.

I like a room that has a lot of personal objects in it. I love BOOKS and want to see them in every room. To me, they add so much warmth. I like photos in nice silver frames, or unusual modern frames.

I tend to choose classic color schemes. Taupe and red isn't unique by any means, but it's warm. The accent pillows we have are all interesting, including a couple of really nice persian pillows that are portions of rugs with a tree of life theme.

I go for comfort in furniture, because you do sit in it, right? I never buy matching anything. Ever. I don't like matching. If I had money, I'd buy all hand made stuff. The only furniture is really long for is a george nakashima dining room table like my aunt elly's. Oh, that is one gorgeous piece of wood!

[Lin]

I take questions like yours most seriously, dear Grace. I'm also a fan of classic, simple, clean but not chilly modern furniture.

How did you acquire your furniture? Hand-me downs? Garage sales? Fancy-pants stores like the scary Limn or Roche Bubois? Or something in-between?
Miz Grace, it was acquired in the same way I balance a checkbook...with little forethought but just gut reaction. A couple of pieces are from my mother. Nothing from Roche Dubois except one of their catalogues with my drool on it. Bits and pieces from PB and C&B and Restoration Hardware. Some bits from estate sales and antique stores and good rugs. Today I bought a couch and a chair and a half (it's what they call it) at C&B with custom fabrics at their annual custom fabric sale.

How do you decorate? All at once? Or, as time passes?
Never all at once, but I'm bold with color choices

Do you have a particular style? Bungalow (like our Morris chair), modern, retro, traditional?
Primarily comfortable modern with some old crap thrown in to mix it up.

What's your favorite piece of furniture?
My kitchen/dining room table. Nothing special. I have always had more formal dining rooms but this house just has a kitchen, albeit a big one. It's from Restoration Hdw, but I love the fact that it's made from the floor of a Scottish malthouse (or so they told me) but more than that, I love the fact that it's not mahogany, it's not fancy and it's something that little kids can color on and big kids can spill their red wine on and it matters not one whit.

What's your color scheme?
In which room? They do vary quite a bit. Everything from periwinkle and cream in one bedroom to khakis and tans in another. Random walls (not in those rooms but all over the house) are punched up with a shot of rich pumpkin color.

Where do you go? What's your favorite store? Do you shop online?
I love wandering around the furniture stores on Melrose and La Brea Ave in L.A. It's my daughter's neighborhood so I get to do that pretty frequently. I pick up odd pieces from one off shops. Big pieces I tend to get from the middle of the road stores since they're generally well made, I get enormous choice of fabrics and a good return policy. As I said earlier, Roche Dubois is too rarified for me but Limn looks very cool, but too hip for me. Rarely do I order anything big online unless I've test driven it in the shop, first.

[Bonnie]

You have been to my house dear Grace & realize it is a reflection of me & that I like to decorate. My advise is to start with 1 item & build around it. Matching colors, styles, memories & just plain ole things you like. However, colors do have to blend as do prints. Not match, blend. Heck I could help you anytime you wish....xoxoBon

[carrien]

All of it was free. The nice stuff was inherited from a dear ol great uncle who was gay and spent his life in San Fransicsco, and then Palm Springs collecting antiques. From him I have my lovely cream leather swivel chair with brass nails a cute endtable and many pictures and lamps and an adorable hutch in the bedroom that holds our linens. We have a red couch that was given by my dh's granmother in exchange for the uncle's antique one which was too big for our apartment, and that she wanted. It's a hide abed too so it works out well for us.

My DH made the beds. I made the table out of salvage wood from an old playground, and my desk is an IKEA storage shelf that I screwed a pullout keyboard tray to. HOw cheap is that.

I constantly shop thrift stores and garage sales for stuff, because I don't have the budget for anything else. And my hubby is all, I could build that better for cheaper and it would last longer. Of course he never does, "carpenter's wife never has funriture, sigh..."

I think your room looks pretty though.

[Stan]

Decorate? I presume you've seen our new leopard carpet...

[cursingmama]

I must confess, I am a decorator at heart. I love to dream about the colors, the textures, the walls that should come down. I also have significant budgetary constraints so there are rules.

First - most of my furniture consists of things that we have purchased ourselves at any number of mid-priced furniture stores - plus HD, Lowes, & Ikea. With the kids & pets I don't want to suck my breath in anytime someone sits on something so I keep the prices reasonable and the wear factor in mind.

It often takes me a long time to find just the right piece at just the right price. I've been looking for the right buffet for about a year - and I won't move on to something else until the buffet has been found. I'm a little OCD with the buffet right now.

I'm not sure what my "style" is - I would classify it as eclectic traditional homey - but a professional would probably have a more technical term. I like to avoid trend, and I like my house to feel warm. Sometimes I think of Napa when I shop.

Favorite piece of furniture - my dining room table. I spotted it at a Home & Garden show & knew instantly that it was right.

color scheme - I like color, we have some pumpkin, gold, aubergine, rich beiges... I would classify most everything rich fall colors.

I shop online, in magazines, in person - all sorts of places. I look at pottery barn & restoration hardware for inspiration - Love Ballard designs, architecture digest for leads...all sorts of crazy places. But I should admit I am an avid watcher of the HGTV.

[Ms. Jane]

I like to pretend that I live in Mexico, so my little bungalow is bedecked in oodles of art, warm wall colors, and chaotic coziness. It's the greatest place in the world, crows the happy Cancer.

Furniture finds me when I need it, rather than the other way around. I'm also a firm believer in reupholstering and buying handcrafted goods. I like to see the hand of the maker.

My home's color scheme is yellow, green, red, and orange. It's yummy!

[Amanda]

Hey Grace! I've been up to my ears in decorating lately, but thought I'd pipe up to say: Macy's. They have good deals on pretty stylish stuff and they often have great sales. We've had tons of luck with the quality as well.

Good luck. It seems silly but these decorating decisions feel REALLY important as you're making them, probably because furniture is so expensive and you want it to last you a long time.

XO

[sharon]

I just bought a new small couch and a 1 1/2 size chair. The couch is a very delicate green and white stripe with one of those slipcover type coverings. The chair is cream upholstery with a swirl embossing.

These two pieces I found after looking through just about every internet furniture resource and furniture store in town.

They were at an Arhaus clearance center and I saved quite a bit (about 50%) by purchasing there.

Just picked up a white wicker side table at a resale shop and am looking for a celery green shag rug and a dresser type of thingy to put the tv on.

The kids are grown and moved out. No pets, just me and the quiet and the books and AHHHH!

Good luck.

[heather white]

i also have chair envy. that chair is gorgeous. sigh.

our furniture is mostly hand-me downs. money is tight, so we make due with what we have. i also have three children under eight, one of them having adhd, so my furniture takes a lot of abuse. having something that cost real money would make me crazy trying to keep it nice. my kids won't be young forever, and i'd rather spend my time wrestling with them on the couch than having fits if they want to sit on it. it might not be fancy, but slip covers are wonderful with small children.

i decorate in bits and pieces. i like to live with a room before i add or take away.

the hubs and i have different style preferences. i do try to combine them, but i like bungalow and he likes ultra modern, so it's not always possible. maybe i'm selfish, but i'm the one who cleans and cooks, etc, so my style takes preference. plus, he's critical, but doesn't actually buy anything or pick colors, so neener neener on him. i pick.

since all of my furniture is cheap junk, i don't really have a favorite piece. i have collections, though, and those always make me smile.

my color scheme is mostly pale, sunny yellows and cobalt blue. throw in some burgundy reds and pale reddish browns.

i wish i could "shop". we're just too poor now. hopefully that won't last forever. we just bought our first house and are having fun planning.

[meeta]

I'll play only because I've been gone so long (what do you mean you didn't notice!!!) ;)

1) Acquiring of furniture- Much of it I bought at Bombay with money left over from putting a down payment of my house, and the rest was hand me downs from my parents (i'm a poor grad student!)

2) If I have a certain sense that I want a room a certain way- I buy in pieces.

3) I think the style depends on the room- I like cherry woods and things with clean lines, but I also like some modern things (Crate & Barrel, IKEA).

4) my favorite piece? Has to be my four poster cherry wood bed. I saved up for that thing!

5) My color scheme depends on the room you're in. The home office is about to get a do-over, my bedroom has a golden yellow hue on the walls, the accents are a deep maroon which goes with the cherry wood furniture and the bedding and other things are white.

6) I like Bombay's stuff...but I also like Crate and Barrel. Maybe one day I shall afford more expensive stuff.

[meeta]

btw, new site-

superchai.blogspot.com

[ozma]

How did you acquire your furniture? Hand-me downs? Garage sales? Fancy-pants stores like the scary Limn or Roche Bubois? Or something in-between?

CRAIGSLIST AND EBAY.

How do you decorate? All at once? Or, as time passes?

OVER THE COURSE OF A TERRIFYING YEAR-LONG OBSESSION WITH CRAIGSLIST.

Do you have a particular style? Bungalow (like our Morris chair), modern, retro, traditional?

MID CENTURY AND DANISH MODERN

What's your favorite piece of furniture?

This is a hard one!!! I LOVE my Swedish mid-century cabinet that I got for $25 but this is also where I got the obsession to beat out everyone else in the craigslist fervor to get authentic Danish modern pieces for $100 or less and almost ruined my life in the process.

What's your color scheme?

Browns, oranges, crazy op art curtains.

Where do you go? What's your favorite store? Do you shop online?

I never, ever buy anything new. Because to me, everything that is good is old. But this way of life is not for everyone.

[ozma]

Crud. What just happened? I tried to hit 'back' and somehow posted the same comment a jillion times.

I'm really sorry Grace. That was really weird though. I didn't post a bunch of times or anything. I just hit the back button twice, and it didn't go back but got stuck on your site and for some bizarre reason my comment multiply posted. (I think that's what happened.)

[maggie]

Oh dear. My house is sort of okay in the bedrooms and dining room. But the living rooms - oy. Two matching couches, covered in a lemon yellow Palm Beach chintz (yuck) that I received as hand-me-downs from my ex-stepmother. And a chair covered in a leopard skin velvet (double yuck) from the same ex-stepmother. They're nice pieces of furniture, but the upholstery! And I desperately need bookcases.

[suzie-q]

How I find it: My taste exceeds my pocketbook, so I do the Craigslist thing. Not Ebay so much with furniture because the shipping will generally kill you, although I do have a drop-dead gorgeous originally VERY EXPENSIVE very modern buffet (mirrored sides, top, brushed aluminum doors), that turned out to be no more than 5 minutes from me. However, that's not usually the case. But here's what I've found on Craig's list so far - 2 perfect condition Italian leather couches, a 48" round glass and airy metal base dining room table from the Bombay Company (still had the store tag on it!), 6 perfect Parsons chairs, a 5' X 3' mirror with wood supported back, a 6 panel wooden Oriental screen with brass hardware. Grand total for ALL that stuff - $650 - try to do that in any store! Granted, there's a lot of Ikea and outrageously priced stuff to sort through, but it's worth it when you come across the occasional gem.

It's more interesting to have different pieces, so I usually decorate a piece here, a piece there.

My style is a mixture of Oriental and contemporary - the type of contemporary that will still be current 50 years from now that is - prefer wood to chrome.

My favorite piece of furniture is actually my rug - a Momeni abstract in tones of black, charcoal, beige, rust, goldy yellow.

I like to keep walls, windows and the bigger pieces of furniture in the neutral palette (anywhere from cream to black) so I won't be limited with colors for all the rest of the decor - pillows, carpets, decorative items - that are easier to change.

Although I am a fan of Craigslist, sometimes there are things you just can't find there and I've found the designs I like just aren't carried in the stores, so at some point I'm sure I'll be faced with ordering online, but if I can find a store where I can actually physically check out the stuff first, I'd feel better about it.

[GraceD]

Fuggin-A, everyone! So much excellent stuff to work with here! I appreciate it more than you'd ever know.

Keep it comin', Internets!

Thank yew, thank yew, thank yew!

xoxoxo