My Gray Velvet Slipcover ...

I've been holding out pictures of my house lately. Truth is, I just haven't been very inspired. I've been moving stuff out, bringing stuff in ... trying to get a feeling on where my tastes are taking me. One thing I can always count on, though, is my Ikea Ektorp Loveseat and my slipcovers by ComfortWorks. If you remember, ComfortWorks made my linen slipcover as featured in the Buffalo Spree Home magazine:http://www.comfort-works.com/

They made that slipcover to custom fit the loveseat and shipped it to me quickly and beautifully, and it fit to a T! I blogged about my love for the slipcover and the transformation here. So naturally, when I wanted something new in the house, I went right back to my friends at ComfortWorks and told them what I was thinking. I wanted something velvet, a heavy enough weight for fall and winter, and I wanted it to be tailored in a fun way. Inspired by my musings and the cuff of a very expensive jacket, ComfortWorks rep. Rachel and I picked out what I found to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!! I hope you will to!

Room doesn't look the same with living room furniture in it, does it? That's right - this is my dining room - or at least what I used to use as the dining room. I thought I needed a change - and well - this was the easiest way to get it! Behind that big ole' chest is my Ikea Ektorp loveseat and the brilliant, cozy, and perfectly fitted Comfort-Works slipcover in Rouge Ash Gray Velvet.

It fits like a glove, just like the linen slipcover that I have from them, too! It's amazing the quality of the fabric, the sewing, the zippers, the piping. In the sewing world, at least as far as mine goes, I like to tell my fabricators to keep it all "tight", and you can tell that Comfort-Works expects nothing less than that from their fabricators.

The velvet was the perfect choice. I wanted something that would not only be cozy and warm in the winter, but would be equally as chic and cool in the summer. I also knew that I had to have gray, and the ash velvet gray is the most perfect color of gray. It's a little cool, but still sophisticated. Not that childs room blue-gray we all try to avoid! Take a look down at the bottom of the sofa! See those little cuffs? Those are the cuffs I was talking about! Aren't they perfect?

The Ikea slipcovers for Ektorp tend to bell out, and with a heavy fabric like this, even more so. So, the fine ingenious fabricators at Comfort-Works and I were able to come up with this alternative that I think looks so chic!

They snap onto snaps that mask seamlessly into the Ash Gray Velvet and are spaced just perfectly!

As I said before, ComfortWorks always does the best job of  fitting the cushions that come on the Ikea sofa. Anyone who has worked with velvet knows that it is notoriously difficult to work with. Check out how perfect those cushions look!

And there you have it. The change. There's even more ... coming soon. Need a slipcover for your Ikea sofa that has more style and sophistication than what you'll find in the store or on their site? Give ComfortWorks a try! They're fast, friendly, and absolutely the BEST in the biz!

Our Home Tour: The Living Room



Our living room at CDLV is small, and because we use our adjoining sunroom as a "family room" of sorts, the living room remains a formal space with casual decor. I'd like to tell you that I spend hours of my week lounging in one of these chairs with a French Martini (pineapple juice, vodka, and Chambord - it's delicious!) and my favorite book, or lazily sprawled on the sofa deep in thought ... but it's simply not true.

Nor do we live with fresh flowers everyday, (these are here because of the photoshoot), and most of the time you'll find a lazy black cat named Salem deep in thought on that sofa for me! Yes, this is quite possibly the least used of the rooms at CDLV.

The living room sits right smack dab in the middle of the dining room and sunroom, and opens up to the foyer and staircase. Because of my large brick fireplace, I have no wall space - which requires a floating seating arrangement, balanced by my Ikea Ektorp Loveseat, slipcovered in Linen by the amazing slipcover company Comfort Works.

I can't say enough good things about Comfort Works. I wasn't sure that I'd like the Ikea sofa, nor did I think that I'd keep it for longer than it took to come up with the money to upholster the much nicer knole sofa I had in the garage (now in the sunroom). But once I got this linen slipcover from Comfort Works, I fell in love with that Ikea sofa, and it's here to stay.

If you've ever thought about buying an Ikea Ektorp series piece, don't hesitate. Not only was it extremely easy for me to transport from Canada, and put together (alone), it is surprisingly sturdy, and very comfortable. And if some of Ikea's own Ektorp slips don't tickle your fancy, check out Comfort Works. They have so many choices, even leather - yes, REAL leather - and you can have a great sofa, at a fantastic sofa, be the perfect fit for any room.

Some of these pictures were taken with a tripod. I finally dug mine out of the pile in the basement, and I wonder if you can notice the difference? Let me know.

Weighting either side of the sofa are the leather chairs we bought in Texas. We have 4 of them, and as I'm sure you've seen, they get moved around pretty frequently. I've thought several times that I would buy another Ektorp loveseat and flank the fireplace instead, but I don't have any storage space for these chairs - and it wouldn't go any further to our using the room any more frequently - so I'll save that money for now.

The coffee table is an old luggage cart from the Cincinnati Railroad. It's stamped 33 and has a great little tag on the left end that gives it even more charm.

I got the cart for free. A friend of ours had just bought a flower shop in Buffalo, and the adjoining building had tons of stuff that he allowed me to dig through. I found this cart, and a great ladder. For a while I left the cart as is - then Restoration Hardware, Ballard Designs, Wisteria, and several other catalog companies started selling them, and I moved ours to the basement. Then, when I was at the Philadelphia Restoration Hardware, I saw a great cart with a glass top instead of the wood plank, and it had me back here tearing the planks off of this bad boy.

The glass is from a coffee table that we didn't bring from Texas, although we did pack the glass. I don't know how that happened, but I'm sure it had something to do with space. All in all, I love the new look of the table, and I know from the reveal I did of the table here, that a lot of you do, too!

My large blue and white garden stool came from Phil Michael Trading Company. I love their stuff, and when I saw this beautiful stool, I had to have it. If you're looking for one - check them out. They also have very nice accessories for any room!

The zebra rug was an Ebay find. The listing did say that the rug had some small problems that would be easily fixed by someone with access to a taxidermy studio. I thought I'd give it a try, and won the bid at $300. When I got the rug, it had more than small problems. The tail had been torn off, the rug had a 3" L-shaped tear in the center, and the area near the missing tail needed to be mended and backed so that it would stop peeling off. Now, the rug is probably about 50 years old, and given that it's been a rug for 50 years you can't expect perfection.

I love the rug, and I know that some people hate them, and think it's terrible that they're so prevalent in interior design today ... I understand where you're coming from - I do. But, I love them.

Oh, P.S., can you spot Salem the Cat in the picture above?

One chair has a simple antique brass directoire table for the occasional drink during a party, and the other chair has this great stepping stool I got for free! I know you're thinking so much stuff I get for free! LOL! I wasn't sure at first what I was going to do with this stool - but being super sturdy, I couldn't pass it up. I brought it back here, and held onto it for a while, before deciding that it made a fabulous library ladder of sorts.

It's styled with tons of my favorite design books, my two favorite Chinese stone parrots, and an old bread bowl filled with mercury glass beads.

The coffee table is styled so simply. I used two books, flowers, and my Ethiopian prayer beads, along with this great salt lamp candle holder. I love these salt lamps, and I had been looking all over for one just like this, when low and behold, my local grocery store had them for the Holidays. A score at $7.99, don't you think?

I made the ottoman in front of the fireplace out of the same Calico Corners fabric that I slipcovered the secretary chair in. It's finished with a french welt, and makes another great curl up spot for the cat. The basket story has already been told, but many of you didn't know that along with the stripes I painted CDLV (Casa de la Vanderdogan - the name of our home) and 423 (our anniversary 4/23) to mimic the old laundry baskets that are oh so expensive.

I was so excited that we got this into the photo of the living room during the photo shoot. It's really one of my favorite pieces in this room. Another of my favoite pieces is the secretary I got at an auction for just $225.

The secretary is actually a secretaire, since it doesn't have storage above, and is English - carved in Oak, but stained with a Jacobean stain. It's been in our foyer, our dining room, on the Nate Berkus Show, and now our living room. The chair is an old dining room chair I slipcovered, and the whole corner is anchored by this giant pub sign from London that Scott bought for me in Ohio.

The secretaire is styled with the cross bottles I made, a small french mirror, and some old rusted metal door pulley wheels on top - and a host of other items in the cubby's below. The silver books you see are actually sterling silver bound Torah. I've got coral and antlers, tree moss from Austin, Texas, and our little Mexian santos that's been in every room of the house. I actually should post his journey around CDLV. It's quite humorous.

And a larger open view - looking into the dining room. We use both of these rooms in tandem. We serve cocktails in the living room, and have the hour d'ouvers there, and then have dinner in the dining room, and desert and coffee back in the living room. The flow is excellent, and though we've been looking for another place to call home - we can't find anything that flows as nicely.

So, there you have it! The living room, and the way it relates to the rest of the rooms in the house. Up next, the foyer - and if you're interested in some of my cross bottles for your home, check out the website here:

Click on the photo to be automatically redirected

Comfort Works Slipcover Review, and a Coupon Code

I searched high and low for a sofa for CDLV after kicking big green to the curb, figuratively, of course. I tested more than 20, with random, yet supervised visits from both kind and annoyed store employees from Pottery Barn to Restoration Hardware, and even had friends in Dallas give me butt feedback on sofas offered by Wisteria. In the end, I chose to spend the money on what I thought would be a temporary solution at Ikea.

I chose the traditional frame of the Ikea Ektorp loveseat. It's beautiful apartment size scale is perfect for the small rooms of our home, (70.5" wide) and I've been pleasantly surprised at the comfort, and construction of the piece. What started out as an inexpensive temporary solution, turned out to be the perfect fit, and though the colored and patterned slipcovers Ikea offers for the Ektorp loveseat range in price from $200 - $400, the white canvas was an incredibly reasonable $11 at the time, and I purchased 5 in the event an accident soiled 1 or 4, as I'm sure we're likely to do.

But I didn't have to worry about those plain white slips for too long, because I found an amazing source for affordable, custom fabric slipcovers made for the Ektorp and several other Ikea lines. Comfort Works, an Australia based company has slipcovers for all of these Ikea covers. From Karlstad to Klippen, and they offer slipcover fabric choices from more than 60 prints, solids, velvets, linens, even leather!! - you name it, you can find it at Comfort Works.

Actually, Comfort Works specializes in leather covers for the Ikea frames! Yes, LEATHER! I was shocked and intrigued, but in the end I chose the Linen Blend, Lino Brushed, for the slipcover on our sofa. I couldn't help but fall in love with the description of the fabric from their website: Premium Linen upholstery which stays cool in summer and warm in winter. This timeless linen fabric is undyed and will grace your space with a soft and clean warmth of elegance. Lino Broadweave is 360gr/sqm. Warmth of Elegance? YES, PLEASE!
 

But because I wanted to make absolutely sure that the fabric would work in the room, and not compete with the sandy hues of the seagrass, I requested a FREE sample pack from Comfort Works, which they sent out right away. After I made sure it'd work - and oh did it ever work - I ordered the slipcover! They got right to work on the cover (and a custom cushion cover - as I just had to have the full length lumbar pillow ala Restoration Hardware) and before you knew it ... it was here!!

It fits like a dream, in many ways better than the original white ones that I bought at the store! The linen blend is soft and - true to their promise - brings the warmth of elegance to the room! The zippers are heavy duty, and the sewing is impeccable!

I worried about the whole ordeal, but when it got here, safe, sound, and PERFECT, I realized that I spent all that time worrying for nothing! In fact, I started to give thought to some other options for additional slips. After all, they're incredibly reasonable - and don't you think that these would work in my room, too?

Or I could go velvet ...

So many beautiful options! But thankfully, with the amazing construction of the linen slip I just got - I can wait a while before I make a decision!

You however, have a wonderful opportunity that I think you should JUMP at right away!

That's right! If you order from October 21st (TOMORROW) to the 23rd, you'll get FREE shipping. FREE! And you'll most likely have your slipcover for the holidays! No measurements to send, no strangers coming to the house to measure, no hoops to jump through - just pick your sofa, pick your fabric, and enjoy free shipping, and an AMAZING slipcover for an even more amazing price!

I love mine, and I know you'll love yours, too! Now head over to http://www.comfort-works.com/ now and take advantage of their great offer! Remember, enter ILOVECW at checkout!

Creative Slump

I'm in a creative downward spiral that, for the last week or so, I haven't been able to turn around. It's odd for me, as usually, I am full of ideas. In fact, that's sometimes where the downward spiral stems from. But this time, it's different - it's not too many ideas - it's none at all.

I was shocked that over the last couple of weeks, I've had 50+ emails asking me if I was going to be featured in a BHG publication, as it seems so many bloggers have these past few months, after I teased that I couldn't quite share what big news we had, and that it had something to do with the house. So, instead of teasing, I figure why not spill the beans, right? And in order to protect the innocent, I'll leave names eschew.

Two years ago, our house was published in a local newspaper, or I should say, THE local newspaper and called "Home of the Month". It was a rewarding article, with about 5 pictures of the house all set up for summer. You might recall some of the photos here on the blog.

The living room then. You've probably all heard me lament over buying these chairs a thousand times. I bought them in Texas before moving to this house - and they're simply too large to arrange (as a group) in the living room. The walls were still Behr Promenade Green, and the rest of the flat spaces a cluttered mess of who knows what. Looking back at this photo, there is so much that I would have changed.

The sunroom then. That giant green sofa (now at a new hopefully loving home) and the old luggage cart piled high with cheap blue and white pottery I bought at TjMaxx. Again - what I would have done differently if I had only knew then what I know now. The dash and albert rug made an impromptu throw for the glaring stain on the arm of the sofa, and the buddha head lamp in the corner (my favorite piece - now broken in a million pieces) contributed to the weighted collapse of the table in the corner the night after this picture was taken. (At least it held out that long!) Looking around the room, it's good to know that in a house with no central air-conditioning, in the middle of July, you could curl up with not 1, not 2, but 3 throw blankets! To be fair, it did look better when photographed from this angle:

Now, I know I'm being hard on myself. This room, and the others featured in the article, got great reviews. In fact, it spurred the interest of a local magazine all about interior design, and now, (after giving the newspaper article room to breathe) they want to feature our home in the Spring 2012 issue. Excitement ensues, right? Not so much.

You see, a couple of months ago, I went into an all out frenzy changing paint colors in the house. The green had bothered me long enough - so I chose a more neutral, and uber trendy gray from Restoration Hardware. It was supposed to look like this:

Restoration Hardware's graphite gray, a warm sorta brown/gray combo that I thought surely would look great with all the leather and wood - after all, isn't that what RH is all about? But when I got it home (a mere $192 later) and painted the walls with it, it looked like this:

And though I loved it when it went up - in fact, loved it in the daylight, usually - the room looked more blue than gray, and everything else started to look cheap. Not a good word in my book. So, I fell into a rut then, and decided to go over to the dark side and get rid of all color. New seagrass rugs, white slip covered furniture, even some fancy schmancy DIY trumeau mirror:

Wow, you've never seen this picture before? Well, it's because from any other angle you could see the piles of stuff that littered the house during my mad-max decorating explosion! Here, the walls are now a soft taupey-griege from Martha Stewart Living called Ashbark. It reads differently here, against the grain of the natural woodwork than for those of you who might have picked it for your home with white wood. It's softer, less saturated, but still with great hue so that sometimes it looks honey, sometimes it looks gray, sometimes it looks beige - it's like having the onset of color-blindness around here! 

And while I admit, that I still love that mirror, and didn't hate the idea of the white slipcovered furniture - it still didn't look right in this house. Now, some of you are saying paint the woodwork, and while that certainly would change the feeling of the room and give great ease to my decorating woes, it's not an option. No use in arguing over it - it'll just make things worse. (Trust me, I know from experience!) Of course, since money was apparently growing on tree's this summer (note the sarcasm) I also moved my way into the dining room:

I've painted everything on the ground floor, with the exception of the kitchen, this color - and I really do love it. It took forever to get it all done, in fact - I think there are still areas of the foyer that need my attention - but it's (almost) done. I spent a fortune on a pair of luxurious gray/blue silk 108" drapes for the lone window in my dining room, and then went about sewing 4 of these tabbed slipcovers in white, and ballet tie chair pads in natural linen over the newly reupholstered (burlap) dining room chairs. Yes - I was trying real hard! But although it made for a pretty picture, it wasn't right.

I decided that the overall feel was going too feminine. Having that vibe in the house was like putting a football player in a dress. It was fun to look at, but only for a few minutes, before you started to notice that it was completely ill-fitting.

So I started playing musical chairs - buying, this time a little more thoughtfully, and getting some great bargains from my awesome sponsors!

Here's a few snapshots of the living room today, completely a work in progress:

Alright, so, what do you think? Honestly? Remember - this is for a magazine shoot for Spring 2012. I decided to keep some of the white, introduce taupe linen, and firewood in the fireplace. Not quite done there - and  though they're not here now - there will be plenty of fresh flowers in this room when they come to take pictures on the 26th.

These pictures are large, I know, but I wanted to give you a good view of all the things I'm pointing to ... metaphorically. The sofa (Ikea Ektorp) once draped in their white slipcover, is now sitting even prettier thanks to my Comfort-Works linen slipcover custom made to fit it perfectly! More about them, and their amazing company later! The zebra (which has seen better days and needs to be backed) I bought on ebay for less than $300 a couple of years ago is still layered over the seagrass. Here you can tell how beautifully muted the color of the walls are - I love how they just stand back, out of the way - letting everything else shine.

This is an end table to a set that Scott bought long before I met him. The coffee table was left (accidentally) in Texas. We had been using it in the basement for storage, but I liked the lines of it, and how it brought the umber tones of the woodwork into the room and off the walls. In the background, my large brass framed museum prints of Picasso's Don Quixote take the place of that old door that had been there for years. I quite like this look, do you? I removed the Restoration Hardware sconce from the wall - something Scott now says he had wished I would eventually tire of. I have to admit that it was a bit awkward.

On top of the table an Asian bowl  - this time not the cheap stuff from TJMaxx, some design books, Silver Ethiopian prayer beads, and a really fun calligraphy brush I bought during our trip to Texas last week. I got it at a great store called Wildflower Organics on S. Lamar in Austin. They have a great store (lots of bedding options) and beautiful vignettes and displays. This was one of two, and I thought it was so unique I had to have it. I thought it had been the only one I'd ever seen - besides of course the other one at the store, but I found one exactly like it used in a Jeffrey Bilhuber room while flipping through 'Defining Luxury' yesterday.

Opposite side of the room, and yes, that pillow (made from a luxurious but cost friendly cotton velvet from Calico Corners called Velluto Espresso that I can't get enough of - and used in several other places in the house) has the karate chop. BUT, I did go gentle on it - in case it ever decides to go back to the land of nod, I don't want it saying nasty things about me! (If this doesn't make sense - read this funny blog post here!)

A closer look at the corner behind the couch. The lamp is from Target, ridiculously cheap for a pharmacy lamp, and I moved the secretary (initially in the foyer as seen on the Nate Berkus Show!) from the dining room to the living room - and have yet to style it as a working desk. Whether or not it'll stay there remains to be seen - but for the photoshoot - I think it's nice. I have dressed it with an antique brass wine bucket filled with hydrangeas (drying) from my garden and the cross bottles I make, which are consequently for sale! Email me.

This garden stool, again - not the cheap TJMaxx version - actually came from one of my new sponsors and one of my favorite stores Phil Michael Trading Company. They carry great garden stools at really reasonable prices - and are having a sale right now to welcome Fall. This garden stool is the perfect sidetable here on to the right of the sofa, and I think I like the way it's styled with a great brass bowl I paid a dollar for at an antique shop 10 years ago, and more hydrangea. I just love that soft green.

Here, a closer view of the secretary now being use as such in the living room. The chair slip will change. Still white to keep it "Spring 2012" but different, and the cushion on the top will change too. My sad attempt is not photo-ready.  That book is a collection of sheet-music by Sullivan&Gilbert, how appropriate right? It has the Pirates of Penzance, all sorts of things - and great art, too! I don't know how I'll style this - it's another thing that has me all "slumped" ... any ideas?

If you scroll back up to the picture with the pubsign behind the slipped chair, you'll see that there's actually quite a bit of orange in it. To pull that in, I brought up this old primitive step ladder and styled it as a library ladder and side table. What do you think? An old wooden hand-forged bowl is filled with beautiful mercury glass beads, and my antique Chinese parrot is wondering where his mate is ... and so am I!

And because I know you'll be asking ... the trumeau mirror I made after being so inspired by Sally Wheat's family room featured in Houston House & Home. I made every single part of this mirror, and I'm really proud of it. I'm not sure how much Sally paid for hers, and I'd never ask - but I think the $75 I spent to make this one was a good trade, don't you?

Painting this thing required a lot of patience, and a ton of paint. Thankfully, I had about 10 different shades of gray in the basement from when I was trying to find a color to work in the living room. Oh how sometimes it all works out for the best, right? You can tell (from the candle sconce) that there's some gilded surfaces in there, too, and some old crusty white gesso style finish in the creases - which I accomplished by using paintable caulk. The appliques were cheap, from Lowes, about $4.00, the rest of it (sans the sconces which were a little more difficult to make) is just layering onto plywood. All in all - it's a project that will take you a good weekend to complete - but if I can do it, so can you!

And a quick peak at the foyer table and chair. I finally fixed this table (the one that had broken from the weight of the crap on top of it from the newspaper shoot) and styled it with this super heavy antique brass charger, vintage Asian porcelain, and a small bed lamp with a silicone tipped bulb! My favorite! The chair, an old captain chair to our dining room set, now looks a little french bergere don't you think? With arm pads made from a great paisley fabric from Calico Corners and a small chocolate and cream check. The axis hide pillow was an obvious perfect fit! This is a little less "Spring 2012" but, I do love it!

So, there you have it. It's not finished - it's nowhere near perfect, and I doubt that it'll ever make it into a national publication - but it's gonna be good enough for Buffalo - one way or the other! Please, let me know what you think - your feedback is so very valuable!