My IKEA Wish List

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Danielle

Last week, I went to IKEA to pick-up the wooden KNUFF organizers that I mentioned here. When I went, I promised myself I was only going for the one item. Get in, get out. I know how foolish that sounds to some of you, but I promise, I had good intentions. However, much like Target, IKEA has a way of sucking you in and you slowly find yourself wandering the aisles wondering if you need another pair of Swedish salad tongs.

So I started taking note of things that caught my eye to share with you here. A couple of items I purchased, but most of them are now on my IKEA Wish List.

Heart Shaped Ice Tray

My friend, Alex at Northstory does amazing things with shaped ice trays. Where I think “just add water”, she sees the possibilities of so much more. You can see some of her fun ideas here and here. For .99 cents, I knew it was time to take a page from Alex’s playbook pick up this little heart ice tray.

Cute Daisies

I mentioned in my Mother’s Day post that I love the simple elegance of daisies. I even keep some permanently in my workroom. However, these guys are the perfect size for a small vase and at $1.49, they make an easy home accent.

Springform Pan

This is one of the items I truly regret not getting. This springform pan has heart shape embellishments on the bottom and it has an insert to easily convert it into a bundt pan style. 2 for 1 and all my future Picaken problems would be solved.

Plants & Lace Pots

I passed these up the first time I saw them in the store, but when I hit the second display, I knew they would come home with me. There’s something about the lace like trim and the playful little leaves that I love. I’m not sure where in our home this set will end up, but everywhere I place it, it just makes me smile.

Bedspread & Cushion Covers

I love grey and red together so when I came across a display of this red bedspread set next to the same set in grey, they immediately caught my eye. If we were in the market to replace our summer coverlet in our Master Bedroom, I think this would be the perfect option. It’s understated by being just one color, but the decorative stitching keeps it from being boring.

Akerkulla Fabric

If I hadn’t already done Tessa’s desk chair in IKEA’s Janette fabric, Akerkulla would be my fabric of choice. I really like the playfulness of the pattern and the simple grey color allows the pattern to be the star of the show.

Leather Chair

I SO wanted this YSTAD chair to come home with me. It would be perfect for the family room. Not too big, not too small, just right! It was in their “As Is” section and marked down to $450.00. Someone in Portland has a great new chair.

Mini Globe Lights

This little impulse buy has left my family asking “what’s up with that?” I thought they’d be cute out on the patio table when we BBQ this summer. I picked up the aqua colored ones and they look like little eggs (or aliens… I can’t decide) next to our owl candle holder.

Have you had any success during a recent trip to IKEA? Do you get sucked in by the wonders of their store? See anything here that you would add to your IKEA wish list? Let me know which are your favorites or something that you might already own.

The Fine Print: This is NOT a sponsored post. I’m just a girl sharing her infatuation with swedish home furnishings.

Favorite Find Link Party – Mad Men Edition

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Danielle

Welcome to my first ever Link Party! Grab a drink and let’s mingle.

I’ve titled this the Mad Men Edition in honor of the season 6 premiere. Did you see it? Tyson and I are huge fans of the show, but we’ve been watching it all through Netflix. We got completely caught up Saturday night, just in time for the Sunday evening premiere. But to avoid any spoilers let’s keep moving along.

This post also comes with the special edition title, since the Link Party was inspired by my friend, Victoria. She has personal connections with Don Draper and friends through her brilliant use of photoshop. If you are a fan of the show you should check out her posts here and my personal favorite here. I think SCDP would be proud.

And finally, I’m giving a shout out to the retro show because of my Favorite Find. As much as I enjoy (most of) the characters and the interesting ad campaigns, I most watch because I LOVE the style and decor. I’ve shared openly that mid-century design is one of my favorites and the show is full of it. Some time during Season 2, I started yelling at the screen, “My chair! There’s my chair!” while we watched Betty Draper enjoy an afternoon bender.

Seriously, I sometimes pay more attention to the sets than the storyline.

A while back, during some spring cleaning, Tyson made a run to donate some items to Goodwill. When he returned, he casually mentioned that he had seen a really cool chair that I would’ve loved. What do you mean “would’ve”? That is all it took for me to want ~~to check out~~ this chair for myself.

My man knows me so well. It is an amazing piece and had loads of potential. For a few bucks it came home with me and has been greatly enjoyed.

Now, I’m honestly not sure what period this chair is from. This isn’t exactly the chair that we saw on Mad Men, but it’s similar. The tag on it says that it is manufactured by Stanley Furniture and I’ve searched high and low to get more information on it. Regardless, it’s definitely unique and I’m so glad it’s ours.

One of my favorite things is the decorative iron detail on the sides.

I love the nailhead finish on the arms too.

One of my least favorite accessories was the kids bed pillow that was stuffed between the webbing and the cushion to keep the seat from falling in. Creepy. Needless to say… that was removed before the piece came into the studio.

Now, for this next part you need to know two things:

This chair is not a recent Favorite Find. We rescued it before I had a blog, but I’ve never shared the story before today. (The photos are pre-blog quality too.)
Had I been blogging, I would’ve known more people to talk to about updating it. Because folks… I painted this bad boy.

That’s right… The wood stained arms and legs got a coat of black paint.

As much as I love the look and continue to enjoy the choice that we made, I now wonder if I would’ve opted to re-stain these areas instead of using paint.

In overhauling the piece, I also gave the seat a new cushion, reinforced the seat and updated the fabric.

I picked a light blue and brown damask to go in our family room.

But the chair has made a permanent home in the studio lounge.

I replaced the nail head trim too. I went with a more decorative design that compliments the fabric.

There may or may not be a drill bit that snapped off and is permanently embedded in the arm. But just like Don Draper’s escapades, that’ll be our little secret.

So there it is… one of my all time Favorite Finds.

Now what about you? What have you found that you are eager to share? Here’s how to kick this party into high-gear:

Click on the InLinkz button below to get started.
Be sure to include a link to your Favorite Find post URL, not just the link to your blog.
Under “Name”, put the title of your blog post
Link back to me in your post so that all your friends now where the party is at.
Feel free to link-up and join the party at Victoria’s blog too.
Check out all the other Favorite Finds. Leave comments, make new friends, but above all else: HAVE FUN!

Also, if you are not a blogger, please feel free to join in on the fun by sharing your Favorite Find in the comment section below.

Now who is first in the conga line?

Furniture Shuffle – Part 2

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Danielle

Last night I dreamt about furniture. Specifically, I was helping a friend figure out how they were going to arrange 4 sofa sets in their home.

4 sets.

That’s a sofa with a love seat.

And in my sleep, I kept thinking, “if only they weren’t so ugly, this would be easier”. Because if you are trying to arrange 8 large pieces of furniture in a room, the obvious problem is the fabric, right? But in dreamland, my brain kept trying to work thru fabric choices that would be so much better. Then it all overflowed into fabric choices for the new chair in our family room.

This can only mean two things: 1) It’s time for me to put down the design magazines. 2) An updated post on our living room situation is seriously overdue.

For those that are new around here, last month I shared about our new sectional and our hopes for a new coffee table and overstuffed chair.

Last night, I was literally dreaming about this chair. But in blue.

Sadly, Tyson doesn’t love it for our space. So the hunt continues…

But let’s talk about what happened to our old red sofa.

A few of you mentioned what great condition it is in for being 16 years old and I totally agree. With our oldest wrapping up his junior year in high school, we know we want to hold onto it for a few more years instead of sending it to Goodwill or Craigslist-ing it. It’s a sofa sleeper and could be a good starter piece for someone’s new apartment…. someday… WAY down the road. But I digress.

Anyhow, we moved the red sofa to the “formal” living room and I’ve fallen in love with it all over again. The sofa is really comfortable and the larger piece invites more people into the area to just hang out.

However, we have an interesting problem. We can’t decide on the actual furniture placement for the room. Over the last month, we’ve lived with it in several variations and we are still undecided. If we were to remove everything and design the area with an unlimited budget, we know exactly what we would do. However, for one reason or another, all of the pieces need to stay in the space and that makes things tricky.

Here’s what we are looking at:

Option 1: Open Layout

We can place the sofa along the wall and have an open sitting area. This layout allows you to be see everything in the house and feels very open and inviting. It also feels like everything is jammed up against the wall.

Option 2: T Layout

We’ve also considered floating the sofa, T-ing it out from the wall. It creates two distinct areas (a living room and a dining room) and provides an intimate sitting space to enjoy. It also feels like the room is more cut-off, but it’s nice not having everything up against the walls.

So there you have it. The set-up for my very first poll. Help a sister out and vote because we could seriously use your input. We want to know which is YOUR favorite layout!

[poll id="2"]

If you have additional comments or suggestions, I seriously want to hear those too.

How do you handle weird decorating dilemma’s? Do you drag your family and friends into the fray? Do you have odd dreams or get your husband to move furniture all over the house until you reach a resolution? My guy is the best!

Furniture Shuffle – Part 1

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Danielle

While I was having the most adrenaline fueled day of my life, Tyson was running home after dropping me at the airport so that he could greet the latest addition to our family:

Yes… we picked the Pearce Sectional by Pottery Barn and scored a smoking hot deal on this bad boy.

And because it would be two weeks before my tush could test run our newest lounge spot, Tyson sent me photos of the sectional in it’s new home.

Have I mentioned how much I love that my man gets just as excited about this kind of stuff as I do? It was so fun to get photos of his perspective on the new piece.

But before I introduce you to the new sectional, let me back up and give you a little “before”. Our red sofa has served us faithfully for 16 years and was ready for a new location. After all that time, I still think the color is awesome, but not in this space.

The bookcase my crew gave me for Mother’s Day a few years ago and we weren’t sure if we would leave it on the blue wall or switch it over to the dark brown.

Luckily, we knew about the delivery ahead of time and cleared out the room the night before. It’s nice having a son old enough to help move the heavy stuff.

So want to see what I was seeing 1200 miles away? Some of these are iPhone photos that Tyson texted to me so please forgive the quality.

It’s huge! This made me a little nervous. I was shooting messages back asking “Do you like it? Did we make a mistake?”

Our red sofa we had floating off the wall which I loved. However, because of the scale of the sectional, Tyson pushed it back to the wall.

He also brought in an end table and lamp from another area of the house and the room started to take a little more shape.

And of course the boys took a look at the new sectional and decided it was missing something. Dog schmootz. They remedied that within the first two minutes of the piece’s arrival.

Anticipating their antics, we chose Pottery Barn’s washable suede and this cleaned up easily. The boys are now trying to convince me that it needs dog hair on it too. I think not.

The sectional is incredibly comfy and much deeper than our last one. It’s pretty much the perfect spot for TV watching.

Tyson also opted to leave the bookcase on the blue wall and we are living with it that way for now. I’m not sure if it will remain this way, but it’s nice to have someone else define the space and then we can tweak things as we go.

We have a lot of beige going on and between the family-room and the kitchen, I’m really having to remind myself that we’re in transition with the fun, colorful part just around the corner.

The ottoman is getting returned to a friend and we are looking forward to having a new coffee table down the road. Not sure what it will be, but it will definitely have a different texture to mix things up.

The arm chair will need an update too. It’s currently slip-covered and the fabric is too matchy-matchy with the sectional for my taste. We’re considering reupholstering, giving it a new slip-cover or replacing it all together. But for now it stays as-is in the land of beige.

Our red sofa has been relocated to another spot in the house, but since this is getting so long, you’ll have to wait for Part 2. Let’s just say we’re still in negotiations on what is going on with that.

Have you recently purchased any large furniture items? Do you have any tricks or rules of thumb for determining furniture placement? Ever been far from home while big changes are a foot? It’s equal parts terrifying and freeing. I highly recommend it.

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Category Archives: furniture

My IKEA Wish List

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Favorite Find Link Party – Mad Men Edition

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Furniture Shuffle – Part 2

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Furniture Shuffle – Part 1

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