Aloha, and The Look For Less

Aloha, and hello from Hawaii!

I just wanted to remind everyone that you can follow along with all the things going on while we are on this trip by hopping over and following my instagram page. I can't wait to work with Artsy Couture again with a book like the one I made for my Peru trip when I get back! Right now they're offering 30% off of all of their books, so it's great timing!

I'm still using my trust Canon Powershot Camera while I'm here, along with my iPhone, so I'm getting plenty of pictures to share!

Once I get back, I'll put them all together in a much longer post all about my trip and what we were able to do here. So far, we've planned a 7-hour snorkel and sail cruise around the Niihau and Na Pali Coast tour and Scuba Scooters in Oahu, and a flight over the island of Kauai that I haven't gotten confirmation on yet, but looks gorgeous. 

Before I left, I got a request for a look for less post on a living room in the home of Bunny Williams and Jonn Roselli in another beautiful tropical locale, Punta Cana. 

Firstly, let me say that you can get a lot of sage wisdom from Bunny Williams in all of her books. If you love this house, you really need to pick up this one: 

A House by the Sea is a book dedicated to the house she shares with her husband John in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. In the book, she gives many ideas for how to create a laid back and comfortable island look. As with most Look For Less posts, I have to preface all of this by saying that this is a million dollar home, and likely a room that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to replicate exactly. The pieces I link below are visually similar to pieces seen in the photos, but will likely be of less quality. 

Now, the good stuff! 

Building a collection of antique blue and white porcelain can be expensive, and frankly impossible. Thankfully there are some amazing and quality reproductions available that make it easy and affordable.

Most of us don't have the luxury of a huge space like this one. However, the rug linked here is a large rug for most living rooms, and comes in a variety of other sizes. It's also very similar to the one the Bunny used: cotton flat weave, and a cream and taupe stripe. Alternatively, you could layer a smaller rug like this one (less expensive) over an existing natural carpet, something in seagrass or jute, which can be far less expensive when searching for a rug to cover a larger area:

A big part of this space is the furniture, which Bunny had slipcovered and upholstered in robins egg blue cotton/linen blend. Because it's custom tailored, and a color that is taste specific, finding it for less is not easy. As always, I urge you to look at FabricGuru for inexpensive designer fabrics. Canvas and duckcloth can be purchased at a bulk discount through many online wholesale and retail outlets. I recommend Big Duck Canvas. 

For this look for less post, I'm going to focus on neutral fabrics and pieces that are easy to recover and slipcover on your own, like the French style bench above. You'll also see that I have chosen plenty of wicker, which I think would go well with this look. 

One of the things that you can do to your existing furniture, or to any of the pieces linked above to get more of the Bunny Williams look is to put beautiful textiles over the backs of your pieces. 

A few other pieces that you could pull together in a room like this for some additional beauty: 

And finally, a little drawing of what using some of these things might look like in a space: 

Not featured above but used in this sketch: 

Hope you enjoyed this installment of the Look for Less! And don't forget to follow along with me on the trip via instagram, here.