Outdoor Styling

This past few weeks has been a period of major accomplishments around the Koch household.  Jady passed scary oral exams and defended his thesis to finish his PhD... and I led a women's retreat!  Ok, so I realize it's not exactly on the same scale of magnitude, but I have never really done any public speaking, and I had certainly never been THE speaker at an entire weekend-long retreat.  As in, I'm IT for three hours of talking.  Yikes.  

It turned out to be a wonderful experience, particularly because the group of sweet ladies I was speaking to were super encouraging, non-critical and easygoing-- thank goodness.  No tomatoes thrown, so I consider it to be a major victory:)

Since I needed to prepare for the retreat, I wouldn't let myself work on any major house or yard work until I got home on Sunday.  So now it's been over a month since I've done a project, and I'm full of pent-up energy and need to reign in the spastic, ADD excitement and decide where to focus next.  

I'm thinking it might be time to revisit our deck decor, especially as summer has arrived and we're spending more time than ever lounging in our outdoor furniture.  I'm still enjoying our old Goodwill sofa that got a makeover with its new white cushions, but the whole simple, black and white palette of the outdoor space could use a little boost.  I love the black and white, so whether we keep the clean, graphic look or go bold with pops of color, we need some throw pillows for comfort, pattern and added visual interest.  

(Sorry, these are old pictures from back before I finished the deck railing, but it's all I could find.  I think it's time to snap a few updated ones.)

These black and white oversized Greek key print pillows from Overstock would tie in the black frames and the white couch cushions and help make the whole look more intentional and tied together.  Plus I love a Greek key pattern.  These would be great either in an all black and white look or paired with other colorful pillows.  

Overstock

Also from Overstock, I'm liking this blue ikat pillow with a little yellow detail.  The more organic shapes of an ethnic print pair up so nicely with linear, graphic fabrics; the juxtaposition keeps things interesting.  

Overstock

One Kings Lane has some great looking outdoor pillows right now-- I want them all!-- but at around $50-80 each, you're paying for all that style.

One Kings Lane

One Kings Lane

One Kings Lane

Etsy has some fun, different outdoor pillow covers out there, and the prices are often less than other big retailers, so it's worth digging through the website to find what you're looking for.

Etsy

Or there's also always the option of a monogrammed pillow.  

Etsy

If I decide that none of these outdoor pillows are exactly what I want, I can always find some outdoor fabric and sew my own pillow cases (like I did with these for the side screened porch).  Right now, JoAnn's Fabrics has a huge selection online of outdoor fabric, and at the moment they're offering a huge sale.  All of these patterns are only $9.99 a yard right now!  Which means, even including buying the pillow insert, sewing my own would 

make this outdoor upgrade super affordable.

I love the pool-blue color of this fun Better Homes and Gardens pattern.

This outdoor canvas in Baja Fret would be perfect for a gray and yellow or gray and lilac color combination.

Waverly's Centro Mimosa pattern... I LOVE hot pink and orange together.  This one's tempting.

Solarium in navy

Creme de la Creme in Fresco Teal (don't you love some of these names?  How do they come up with this stuff?)

 If we only had a beach house... HGTV's Sea Legs Equator fabric is adorable.

xo

Liza

Risky Business: Going Bold with Upholstery

Over the past year and a half, we have spent countless hours and tons of elbow grease making this house our own, and we truly love it here.  Part of settling into any new space is tweaking or creating your style of decor by choosing, buying or redoing furniture, art, colors and accessories in your home.  Our decorating style has always been constrained by a pretty tight budget, which I think can lead to some pretty creative solutions involving eBay, Craigslist, hand-me-downs and Goodwill stores.  Keeping costs down usually means working with what we already have or what I can manage to dig up for a deal at a second hand source.  

Partly because I know how much work it takes to reupholster furniture now, and how expensive it can be to pay a professional to recover larger items, we have stayed pretty neutral when it comes to our furniture choices.  Sticking with simple, neutral fabrics, especially on larger chairs and sofas, gives you lots of flexibility for changing up your style and color scheme over the years by switching out less expensive accessories and paint colors.  Whether you're in the mood for an all beige look or you're going through a wilder phase, you can pull off most any style working around neutral furniture, so it's a smart choice.

House Beautiful

More after the jump!

Picking a Trim

In our bedroom a while back I threw together a bedskirt as quickly as humanly possible to hide the stacks of under bed storage bins full of off season clothes, but in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to go back later and add some decorative tape.  I'm thinking the right trim would help integrate the green-gray of the bedskirt in with the rest of the room and give the whole thing a more finished, custom feel.   (For some reason I can't get the real color of the fabric to show through right in photos, and here it looks much darker and honestly uglier than it does in person.  I promise! :))

I would also love to make my own pelmets for the windows in this room and use the same trim.  I love how crisp and handsome pelmets look, and what a fun DIY project?  That's definitely on my to do list.

Now I just have to track down just the right trim... 

I automatically love anything in Robin's egg blue! Since we have an overall blue-green feel in this room I think it would work with the dust ruffle.  And it's cheap-- always a plus:)

This pretty tape would tie in the red dresser in our room perfectly.

I love the scrollwork on this trim, but the color may be just too similar to the main fabric.  I'm thinking we need some contrast.  Still, it's tempting.

Check out what I think might be my current frontrunner.  Even if not for this project, this guy is going somewhere in our house.  I love that little bit of lavender!  

Any suggestions?  

xo

Liza

Sewing a Box Pleated Bedskirt

As we have been working on clearing out our middle room upstairs, it has again become clear that we need to come up with some new ways of finding extra storage space.  With no accesible attic space and only a tiny cellar, storing off season clothes and less used items  poses a bit of a challenge-- and up to this point we have just been stacking unsightly plastic bins in corners all over the upstairs.  

We decided our best option would be to raise up our bed and pack every square inch underneath with boxes.  I picked up these plastic risers from Walmart, which give us an extra six inches of height and another layer of under bed storage bins.  Functional, for sure, but without an extra long bedskirt to hide our new system, our bedroom was feeling a bit too much like a college dorm.

I happened to find a bolt of sale fabric a while back that would work in our room, a soft green, knobby weave, so I started googling instructions on how to sew your own bedskirt.  To be sure I wouldn't be short on material, I looked up how much fabric I would need using J&O's yardage chart:

As the base for the bedskirt I used an old fitted sheet around the box springs.  Then I measured the height of the drop, the length and width of the mattress and calculated the extra fabric for each pleat. After researching several other DIYers, I ended up using this description of how to measure and sew, modified slightly.  

These are the best under bed storage boxes I have found, by the way, since the dimensions are just right for fitting the maximum amount under a queen sized bed-- and they also make them for twin/king beds.  

Thankfully now you can no longer see that we have eight of these guys stored under there!  

Happy Monday!

Liza

Dying Curtains

I have been thinking for a while that our dining room could really use some drapes to perk things up a bit and to make the room feel finished.  Pretty much the whole house is begging for some window treatments, but I think the dining room might need it the most.  

The walls are painted a pale, yellowy neutral, the surrounding rooms (which you can see easily, because of the open floor plan) are light blues, and the dining room rug is a big pink oriental we found in Vienna and brought home with us.

I have mentioned before that what I would really love to have is gorgeous billowy silk curtains in there, but the ceilings are so high that to get the length I would just cost more than we're willing to cough up at the moment.  So my big idea is to use drop cloths (the cheapest fabric around!) and maybe dye them to a custom color.  

I'm thinking a blue of some kind would tie in nicely with the surrounding rooms as well as the framed travel scenes on the wall. 

On their website RIT has an extensive dying guide, with tons of example shades and the formulas you use to achieve them- so helpful!  But which shade to choose...

xo 

Liza

Anthropologie Pillow Knock Off?

I enjoyed the quick pillow sewing project for the guest room so much that I have been thinking of doing one for our room, too- something with some fun color and pattern to tie in the pale, minty green walls and the bright red chest of drawers.  When walking through Anthropologie the last couple of times, this fun pillow has caught my eye...  I love the colors, the bird print, the fact that the two sides are different, and that it's huge.

My only problem with it is the price ($118!), which I just can't justify at the moment.  So now I'm thinking maybe I'll try to copy the look myself for a fraction of the price?  Here are some ideas (all from JoAnn's):

For the front:

For the back:

Have a great weekend!

Liza