Posts Tagged "IKEA"

Feeling all floral (my new want: a big pink flowery sofa)

Posted by Joy on Jun 6, 2013 in Living Room | 3 comments

Call me crazy, but I sorta want a pretty floral sofa.  I’m blaming it on spring.

More precisely, I’d like a shiny new cover for our (currently white) Ikea Ektorp sofa.  The Byvik Multicolour cover would be lovely please.

The same Byvik Multicolour cover that Ikea no longer offers.  Of course.  At least here in Canada, and maybe in the U.S. too.  Although (after a quick consultation with my friends over at Google) it appears that they might still sell it overseas.  Am I the only person in North America who craves a little pink patterned prettiness?  It’s possible.

That said, Sweetie would likely disapprove of all this.  He has patiently accepted all of the pretty things I’ve brought (subtly) into our house to date.  A feminine print here.  An embroidered throw cushion there.  My tactic is to slowly introduce items – blend them in with the existing pieces, if you will – until they look natural and he slowly adapts and begins to believe that they’ve always been part of our decor.

It’s the interior design equivalent of the frog-in-the-hot-water-versus-the-frog-in-the-slowly-heated-water experiment, really.  Too much all at once and Sweetie would likely flee and run away to live in our garage.  But discreetly introduce all the prettiness over time and he’ll settle right in like a happy little floral-loving amphibian.

Sneaky, eh?

But a big pink flowery couch might be tricky to discreetly introduce.  Sweetie isn’t always particularly observant, but a brightly patterned sofa is kind of hard to ignore.

Then again, there’s always the “but patterns stay clean looking longer” justification, and he can’t deny me that.  Sweetie is a construction electrician, which means he comes home from work exceedingly dirty almost every night.  A patterned sofa cover would make any dirt far less noticeable.  And dirt is a topic that Sweetie can appreciate and understand (and it’s far more convincing than the “but it’s pretty and I like it” argument.)

Yeah.  Maybe I’ll lead with that.  :)

It’s always darkest before the dawn (a tour of our pretty painted/primped bedroom) (and an examination of my newly unemployed state)

Posted by Joy on Mar 21, 2013 in Bedroom | 0 comments

I’ve been a bit unintentionally MIA for the past couple of weeks.  In all honesty, the last-week-of-workness, trying-to-get-house-ready-to-list-ishness, OMG-need-to-find-another-job-soon-ness, and all of the related stress took its toll on me last week and I sorta just wanted to curl up in a corner and sleep for a bit.

But all that is over now.  Work is done, for better or for worse.  I’m applying for jobs like crazy and hoping that a promising phone call from some nice prospective employer-person (who thinks I’m awesome and wants to pay me loads of money to come work at their fine organization) comes soon.  We’re working on the house and have been in talks with our agent so we can list as soon as possible.  And we’re looking at other houses and trying to make smart and solid plans for what to do next.

But, in the midst of all this chaos, I realized that I never posted my “look-what-we-did!” big reveal on our bedroom makeover.  So I thought I’d take a bit of a timeout from everything else and indulge in a quick “tada!” moment.  :)

First, let’s take a looksee back on what the room looked like pre-painting/-primping/-improving, k?  Our room wasn’t terrible.  At all!  But I’m not a sage green kind of girl – I’d like to be, and I like it in other people’s homes, but it’s just not me.

A couple coats of BM Revere Pewter later (plus a pretty pendant light, a much-obsessed-about new duvet cover and some new curtains too) and here’s our lovely little bedroom now (on a mighty sunny day!)…

I’m particularly happy with our curtains (Matilda from the awesome curtain-making folk over in Ikea-land.)  Cheap and cheerful and sorta girly but simple.

And I’m also in love with our duvet cover.  Also cheap.  Also cheerful.  Also Ikea (Alvine Orter.)

For now I’ve tossed (er, lovingly and carefully placed) a random navy and red striped Roots blanket that I’ve had for eons at the foot of the bed.  Once spring hits (weather-wise at least!) I’ll likely swap the heavy blanket out for a lighter throw.  But for the time being, it works.  :)

And I’m ridiculously pleased by how nice our freshly painted walls look against our awesome black-brown Hemnes dressers.  I’ve been wanting to paint a room (a wall? A random piece of furniture? Anything!) Revere Pewter for years.  Mr. Benjamin Moore?  You did not disappoint!

So there’s your mini bedroom makeover update!  There are still a few additional plans in the works.  New colourful pillowcases, and maybe a few throw cushions too, to make the head of the bed a bit prettier.  Snazzy new bedside lamps perhaps.  Maybe even a new nighttable for Sweetie (since the nighttable cleverly and deliberately hidden on his side of the bed is archaic and rather awful looking.)  If you look really closely, the ugly nightstand (and ugly lamp and one uninspiringly beige pillow) sneakily snuck into the corner of this pic…

Silly photo-bombing pillow!  Updates on further updates to follow.  :)

But for now, Jacob is a really big fan of what we’ve accomplished to date.  So much so that he refused to leave the room (or, really, the bed) while I wandered around taking pics (hence some of the somewhat wonky angles in these images – I was working around a rather stubborn cat.)  But, really, how could I say no to this little orange face?

Yup.  Jacob knows exactly how to get his way with his cat-loving fur-friendly mom.  Smart boy.

Change is good (an exercise in the art of keeping calm and carrying on)

Posted by Joy on Mar 7, 2013 in Bedroom | 1 comment

So we’ve switched gears a little.  I had alllll these fantastic plans for ways I was going to update the house that I discussed here and here and here.  There were big furniture slipcover replacement plans in the works.  There was a kitchen revitalization strategy being tossed about.  I had lofty goals for our cute little 1940s home.

And then, late last week, I got laid off.  And poof!  Our plans have suddenly changed.  We’re now no longer concerned with making the house pretty.  Instead we’re focused on making the house sell-able.  And doing so as inexpensively as possible.

Because, truth be told, we moved to this house and relocated from our original area (about an hour away) specifically for this particular job that I was taking (this same job that I’m now losing.)  And despite that we’ve been here for over two years now, our current city doesn’t necessarily feel like our home (even though I absolutely adore our cute little house in our pretty mature-tree-filled neighbourhood), and we haven’t yet made a swarm of new friends in our new city, or truly put down roots here.

So, depending on where I find employment next (and I’m applying for jobs like a little job-finding-fiend over here right now – unemployment, and the accompanying lack of income, is an absolutely terrifying prospect) a move may very well be on our horizon.

So, we’ve given up on decorating.

Instead, we’ve started staging.

And, in the name of Staging: Phase One, I finally made that Ikea trip I’ve been talking about for several weeks now.  However, contrary to my original plan, this was a trip with a cheap and cheerful mission.  My main focus – finish dressing the bedroom.

As you likely know (since I obsess quite openly) I’ve lusted over bedroom textiles and curtain choices for a few weeks now.  I really really wanted the Alvine Ljuv duvet cover from Ikea.

Sigh.  She’s pretty.  And I love her.  But, at $54, she’s quite pricey as far as Ikea duvet covers go.  So, being all (rather annoyingly) sensible (given my new unemployed state) I purchased the more reasonably priced Alvine Orter set instead.

Almost the same, pattern-wise.  A definite difference from a quality perspective (Alvine Orter has a noticeably cheaper feel.)  But at $19 (versus $54) Orter seemed like a much wiser investment for the time being.  And for resale?  Either will do.

The same is true for curtains.  I had big curtain-swapping and new-curtain-buying plans.  Instead, I purchased the simple (and inexpensive) Matilda curtains from Ikea.  They’re a little girlier than Sweetie would like, but I’m not thinking about Sweetie’s tastes.  (Not that he really has much say in our window-dressing choices anyway.)  I’m thinking of future home seekers who are going to tour our little bedroom and decide that it’s lovely (and subsequently buy our house.)  (For full asking price, of course!)

During my Ikea tour, I bravely walked past new throws.  And I stoically sauntered by new cushions.  This Ikea trip was only for the must-haves (despite previous pre-unemployed plans to the contrary.)  And I was rather proud of myself when I strolled up to the checkout line, with only a couple very well-thought-out items in hand.

So there.  That’s what I’ve been up to all week – finishing up our bedroom on a budget.  It’s not entirely what I had planned, but it’ll have to suffice.

And, regardless of its cost, Jacob is quite happy with the new duvet cover – he’s a big fan of florals.

Next in store: staging the rest of the house.  The decluttering and cleaning and purging all begins this weekend.  Because if we do have to sell this spring (and, according to our agent, house-listing season begins as soon as the snow melts), I want to be ready.

And change is good, right?

The curtains I will not buy (a post about stuff I like but, sadly, have absolutely no place for)

Posted by Joy on Mar 4, 2013 in Ramblings... | 0 comments

Remember the Sears Christmas Wishbook?  I LOVED that thing.  It was like Christmas before Christmas when it arrived in the mail, wrapped in heavy protective plastic (heaven forbid the pages should get soggy en route!)  My brother and I would slowly flip through the toy section, page by page, in wonderment.  We would reference that catalogue like it was a leading authority on toys.  “Did you see page 297?”  “Yes!  And page 304?”  “I hope Santa brings me that!”

Ah.  Simpler times.  :)

The Ikea catalogue is like my grown-up Christmas Wishbook.  I excitedly wait for it to appear in my mailbox each summer.  And by fall, my copy of the catalogue is rather raggedy-looking from relentless page flipping and admiring and earmarking.

The problem?  There is so much awesomeness contained in that pretty little catalogue, but very few rooms in our tiny post-war house.  Which, inevitably, leads to my dilemma – stuff I love, but have no use for or place for in my home.

Take these curtains (Lappljung), for example…

I absolutely adore these and have been lusting after them since first finding them in the catalogue last summer.  Alas, my windows here are all dressed now.  And my house is pretty much a red-free zone (not deliberately, mind you.  I’m just more of a neutral/grays/blues kinda girl.)

Dear Ikea folk: if you could please make these for me in a navy or a gray, perhaps, that’d be swell.  :)

Other Ikea stuff I adore (but have absolutely no need for?)

There are these beautiful Benzy curtains (I’m guessing I may have a bit of a curtain fetish btw)…

They’re very den-ish and sorta make me want to curl up with a good book in a big brown leather club chair.  Sadly, we don’t have a den.  Or a leather club chair.  And I’m not much of a reader.  But I do love these curtains!

Or, what about this Billy bookcase with its fanned-pages background…

Do I have any real need for it?  No.  Do I really really want it?  YES!!!

I could go on and on and on…  There are lots of items I absolutely adore courtesy of my good Swedish friends.

Oh, Ikea people, why do you taunt me so?

Dear Santa: if you’re listening, please bring me any or all of the above.  And a den.  And maybe a kitten too.  :)

The living room revisited (my plan of attack for creating a cozier, less anemic space)

Posted by Joy on Feb 25, 2013 in Living Room | 0 comments

Ok, I’m just going to come right out and say it…

There’s too much white going on in our living room.

There.  It’s out.  I’ve said it and I feel much better now.  Thank you!

Please don’t get me wrong – I adore my white Ektorp sofa.  It’s been insanely easy to keep clean given that I have an electrician hubby who comes home rather dirty from construction-ish job sites each day.  And it’s valiantly held its own against our fur family of three who shed uncontrollably and occasionally decide that the sofa is an appropriate place to drop the odd hairball (despite that I’ve asked them several times to head toward the ugly kitchen linoleum whenever they feel queasy.)  (Unfortunately cats don’t seem to understand the washability factor of solid surfaces vs fabric.)

But yes, my living room needs a little ooomph.  A little less shabby, a little less chic, if you will, with a little more cozy and a lot more colour blended in.  Because right now we’re hanging out in blahs-ville.  And we’re looking a little anemic.  And I’m in need of a big ol’ change.

I should have seen this coming.  My absolute favourite Ikea living room set up is this one (which doesn’t have a source attached to it, but given that absolutely EVERYTHING in this room appears to be from Ikea, I’m pretty sure this is an image courtesy of the good folk under the big blue and yellow sign…)

There’s still a lot of white happening in that room, but the white is so nicely balanced by the darker elements (the black and white cushions, darker drapes, the black side table and bookcase) plus a little colour too.  :)

Contrast all that with my current living room…

(Insert sad muted trombone womp-womp here.)  White sofa, white chairs, white fireplace, white drapes, white coffeetable, greige walls, beige lamps, light-coloured cushions…  Yawn.  I’m bored.  You?

So, with our Ikea trip for bedroom textiles still looming, here’s what I have planned….

1.  We’re going to swap out the curtains.  I need new curtains for the bedroom, so the white curtains currently decorating our living room will be heading upstairs to their new bedroom-y home and I’m hoping to find nice gray replacement curtains for down here.  Maybe even another pair of Ikea Ritva curtains (but this time in gray):

2.  I may do the unthinkable and get black slipcovers for our two white Ikea Tullsta chairs.  Maybe.  I’m not 100% sold on this idea yet (black seems so… dark), but those two little Tullsta chairs seem to get furrier and dirtier than our couch (despite that we sit on them far less) and I’ve never been a huge fan of white on those two chairs anyway.  They look… cheap or something to me.  (I’m not sure why.)  And plus, I found this image of a sweet little black Tullsta chair from site House to Home and realized that black might be a nice change…

Truth be told, I’d rather slipcover them in gray than black, but the Tullsta slipcover options are a wee bit limited (so black it might be!)

3.  Last, but not least, I’d really like new pillows and throws in various grays to match our area rug, since nothing actually matches our area rug right now – a fact that I didn’t realize until I read this rather brilliant post about choosing cushions for your sofa from Centsational Girl (thank you Centsational Girl!)  Here’s an example I found from Varrell Home Designs that demonstrates CG’s theory that your cushions should match your rug to some extent – they have a navy rug, and they’ve incorporated navy and blue in some of the cushions.  And, as a result, it all looks rather lovely together!

So those are my goals for now.  New drapes, possibly new Tullsta slipcovers, and definitely a few new cushions.  It’s my plan of attack.  And I’m quite excited to start attacking.

And, afterwards, I’m pretty sure I’ll wonder why I didn’t think of this earlier.