Bye Bye Stripes

Many of you (well, probably ALL of you) have seen the pictures of the bedroom I designed for the apartment with the striped walls. The drama of creating that dramatic space was detailed in this post, and if you're looking for a good laugh (and a pretty good before and after story) click on over. 

44 yards of Valdese Weavers Mattress Ticking and countless bottles of wine and curse words later - I had what was probably the most positively responded to space in the whole apartment. People couldn't wait to ask questions about the process, and were shocked to hear that not only were the stripes fabric, that the stripes ran horizontally on the fabric and this stripe was the process of railroading and sewing two widths of the fabric together. Talk about a PITA! 

The space ended up being one that I enjoyed spending time in, and worked wonderfully with all of the other design in the apartment. The space is only about 900 square feet, and all of the rooms are partially open to one another and easily viewed from space to space. So when everything was delightfully neutral, this space was the crown jewel of the apartment.

After I had my mini-melt down earlier this year and was minutes (literally) from throwing shoes, clothes, and dogs in the back of a uHaul and heading to Florida, I liquidated a lot of this room. Art, design books, the big mirror, probably everything from this photo. The room had been pulled apart and was only a shell of what these pictures showed.

But I was too unsure of what my next steps were to do anything about it. I had no idea if I would stay or go, buy or continue to rent, it was a strange and awkward point of my life, and I started to cheat on interior design with fitness. I would spend hours a day at the gym, hired a trainer, was getting up at 5am to go exercise (and enjoying it) and at the end of the day I would come home to what was once beautiful and think to myself - "one day, one day you'll figure it out."

That day came months later, after I had gotten over my fitness obsession and again returned to design and donuts. That's not at all a joke. 

I met sweet, sweet Tyler, and started taking the steps at putting the apartment back together - deciding that I needed to stay put for a little while longer. 

And as the living room and dining rooms (the first on the list of things to finish) were getting pulled together, this beautiful striped box seemed less and less and less beautiful. It didn't flow with the rest of the design at all. The brown stripes were frankly becoming a bit depressing, and the question of "how clean is this fabric" started to pop up when I would peer closely at the dust forming on the walls. I loved the look, but the care and dedication to upholstered walls is real my friends. You have to invest in a screen for your vacuum cleaner that doesn't pull too hard at the fabric and if you don't film your windows you end up with fabric that is oddly faded.

At the end of the day, I realized that this was sort of like a good old fashioned white box challenge. I curated this beautiful space, long enough to enjoy and photograph the beauty of a fully styled space, and then I began to realize that I couldn't manage it.

Pair that with the fact that it didn't go at all with the new, more colorful look - and poof! Fabric gone! Bye Bye Stripes. 

What's going in it's place? Good question. Once I get the walls prepped, they'll be painted a gorgeous spring green color I had custom matched to a Laura and Kiran fabric that will be used for a great deal of the soft finishes in the room.

And while I have the fabric against the headboard here, I don't think that we will be covering the headboard in the fabric. I'm pretty sure that the headboard will be this beautiful velvet:

This lighting gives you a better idea of the colors of the fabrics. The patterned fabric will be curtains, roman shades, shams, and duvet for sure. It might even end up on lampshades - stay tuned there. The same gorgeous blue of my dining room and living room draperies will be used with some gorgeous trim I had to sell a kidney to buy. (Kidding, not kidding - anyone wanna buy it?)

Of course I have inspiration ... and I know you wanna see ... so here you go! Enjoy: 

Bailey Q. McCarthy 

Amanda Nisbet via

Mary McDonald

Phoebe Howard

Phoebe Howard 

(yes! that's the same fabric I'm using!)

Miles Redd

Mark D. Sikes

Don't worry though, there will be stripes in the room still. I haven't quite decided on the velvet. I know it'll be in the room somewhere. But where is still up in the air. Having a great love for how the blue and green have come together elsewhere in the apartment, I'm playing with options. Stay tuned for that ... and the full tour of the whole apartment in about a month. FINGERS CROSSED!