A House Is Not A Home (Part 2 of 3)

Here goeth the second piece of Big Allbritton News: We are selling the house. There are a number of small fixes and replacements that we need to make before we put the "For Sale" sign in the front yard, but within the next month, we should be trying to move it.

I am sadder about this and have shed more tears over this house. I am ashamed to admit neither. I AM the brown house with the blue door. It is MY blue door and no one who comes after me will appreciate it as I do, if they keep it at all. Gasp. This house gave my boys somewhere to stick to when we were living in a tornado. We made ourselves a family here to wait for their dad to come home. But, it's time for us to move along on our next adventure.



The giant upside to this is that I get to decorate something new. Instead of spending hours in my bed, unable to sleep and worrying through the night, I lay there and decorate my future home, even though I do not know what it will look like. I know that we are going into a part of town where the houses are older and have more character, so my visions are based on original wood floors, old windows, large moulding, small tiles and neutral colors. I want to live with less, so we'll be putting what we do not need in storage to downsize and simplify in a smaller space for the next couple years.  

I am sharing with you what has been determined for the living room. Some pieces are already mine. As of now, I am not planning to purchase any furniture for this room, just changing some colors and some upholstery. I am a subscriber to the accumulate-good-pieces-that-have-meaning-and-reuse-them-in-your-home-for-the-duration approach to decorating. It makes your home a liveable and useful catalog of the places and times you want to remember (or do not) and keeps things from being too matchy-matchy. I feel confined with too much matching. Limit things in pairs when possible.

I have the Cottage Stripe Sleeper Sofa and used it until the kids and the dogs turned it gray and it faded from many unsuccessful attempts to wash grime from the pillow covers. I donated it to Little Seester when I bought my current sofa, but I am reclaiming this one. I like the style, size, and cushions better. The foam is in good condition in the seat cushions, just needing some new batting. As the condition of the upholstery is shameful and unsanitary, reclaiming it has led me to explore the idea of custom slipcovers.

The idea of getting bogged down in more tan/beige depressed me, but my design guru, soon-to-be-a-realtor beastie suggested greige or gray. This gray large swatch is Richloom Indoor/Outdoor Rave Graphite. The requirement for choosing a slipcover fabric is that it must be something thick and durable that can stand up to multiple washings. Even better, the one we like best is an indoor/outdoor fabric, unique in that it has texture without being stiff or scratchy. And instead of removing the whole thing and putting it in the washer when a dog piddles on it, boy dirt rubs off on it, or I spill a little vino, it need only be wiped with a wet rag. The most extreme messes may require a dousing with the water hose. That's right. The water hose.

Coral is the new accent color I am moving to in this new living space. The first two swatches - Robert Allen Terbellum Deep Coral and Schumacher Hot House Flowers will be throw pillows. The third, Cloud Pagoda Coral Reverse from Spoonflower, is an IF. I like the color and the pattern, but will start with the first two and wait to see if there is room for the third. One yard of the Schumacher fabric equals my grocery bill for one week, but there are several sellers on Etsy with throw pillows already made in that fabric at less cost. The print is big - that swatch is one yard - so only two or three flowers will fit on the front of the pillow, and they will be the coral and blue flowers.

I have made no secret of my divine addiction to blue and white porcelain. While I will likely use less of it in the next home, some staples will remain. I've included a couple pieces from Wisteria in this board so that all the shades of blue present in the room will be represented. Two lamps stay, as will a couple of useful bowls and boxes.

I have a table like this Stephen Shell Parker Console Table that I use for my television. Mine was picked up at close-out cost from a treasure in the Ozarks called Oops, which I toted home from a pilgrimage to visit one of the Emilies.

The true treasure are my blue and white porcelain monkeys. It took several people searching several states for three years to find me my own. Finding a picture is difficult. Finding them online is impossible. I have expanded the monkey collection to three soapdishes, a candleholder, some bookends and a large monkey holding a bowl in my kitchen. This set of blue and white porcelain monkeys has green in it, whereas mine are all blue, but they are prominently displayed on the lower shelf of my console table, and I may be buried with them.

We're told that every room should have something organic in it. However, I kill everything that is not able to tell me how hungry or thirsty it is, so my organic comes in the form of coral (not just the color) in my living spaces. This Blue Coral hook pillow is the inspiration for the new colors in the room.

I have been lounging in this IKEA Ektorp Chair and Ottoman in Blekinge White for ten years. Other than how regularly the white slipcovers need to be laundered (my own fault), this chair has held up nicely, and there is no need to replace it.

On that same pilgrimage to the Ozarks, I was gifted an antique Round Side Pedestal Table, similar to this one, but taller with a drawer. Another antique end table of the same color allows the warmth of wood into all this linen and painted furniture.

Now, my rug. This is the Capel Sahara Rug in Navy. It is here to represent my living room rug, an inefficient and ostentatious purchase I made before we moved in the house, while I was in Buyer High. Mine is lighter blue, woven cotton, but like those potholders we used to make when we were little. It's impractical. It will stay put on NO rug pad. The furniture moves and makes hills. You cannot vacuum it because the vacuum eats the strips. I will need this rug for several more years in order to get the value of what I paid out of it, but the good news is that it works with almost everything, and it shows no filth.

You may be looking at this board and wondering how in the hell all this mess is going to come together in a polished, un-chaotic look in a small living room. Because, it is. Like when my dad and I did not understand how my mother was going to make terracotta floors, yellow walls, gray marble counters and watermelon furniture work, and we stood corrected. I'm really just substituting "coral" for where "red" is now, and going gray instead of tan. But the whole thing will be fresh, and unique to the new living space.

I am also working up a board like this for the bedrooms, which I will do one in the next week and one after Easter. The new blog design should be live before Easter, and part three of three will be posted soon thereafter. We bring up the curtain on a whole new shitshow circus, and the goal is to represent the Allbrittons' new chapter staying true to our wit, tears and good spirits. And wine. Today is the first day of Spring, which makes it officially rosè season. Salut!