Our Home | Updates

It feels like a long time since I shared an update on our home… I mentioned before that a we’re in the process of buying a house and, if all goes well, we’ll be closing end of June, around the same time our current lease expires. Eeeek!!! I’m so excited I can hardly think about anything else! My head is spinning with ideas and improvements and I’m daydreaming more than usual. It doesn’t  help that our lives have been hectic over the last couple months. As first time home-buyers in the states we’re learning so much about the process, the different aspects and the people involved and I’m aching to show you images of “our new home” but will have to wait until we know for sure that stars and people have aligned and the purchase is a “go”. Inspections went well and we’re contingent on getting the mortgage approval on time. Fingers crossed! 

In the meantime, I want to share with you some updates to our apartment living room. They all happened before we decided to buy but I had not found the time to photograph and write about them. A couple of things are different. First, I decided to go with my instincts and cover the walls with a dozen or so Olof Rudbeck bird prints. I took down the etchings and an early 19th-century Joseph Greenleaf portrait I had found at a local antique shop. I will keep them and they’ll come with us to our new home but somehow they did not feel right for the space. They were a great space-holder but they created a mood that wasn’t really “us”, they didn’t feel completely authentic to who we really are.

We’re very serious when it comes to work and family but we do have a playful side and the etchings and the antique oil painting felt too grown-up for us. It’s hard to explain…Anyway, I fell in love with Rudbeck’s series of water fowl ever since I first saw them in Tom Scheerer’s East Hampton home many years ago. Some might argue that they have been over-used by designers lately but for the time being I don’t mind.  They make us smile every time we walk through the door and have gotten quite a few odd looks and giggles from friends and family. And that’s exactly how we like it 🙂  Another reason for going for such a display en masse is that there’s power in numbers. I think these bird prints look at their best when grouped with others from the same series. And finally, when we first moved in, we did not know we’ll be staying in Amherst long-term so we did not invest in expensive furnishings that might have had to be transported overseas. So everything we own right now is a melange of antiques and lucky finds and I wanted the large collection of similar prints to be a unifying element in the midst of items that have been thrown together by chance. I call it “thoughtful eclecticism” because every item, however small and random, has been hand-picked and hunted for, but there’s that flea-market feeling that I wanted to straighten out a bit.

Another thing that’s changed and that’s made a huge difference is that our finished drapes went up. It took a long time to find someone local to have them done but it was worth the wait because they changed the entire look and feel of the room. Bye-bye Ikea faux-linen sheers!!

And lastly, my sconces have pretty new skirts!! I’ve decided on most of the textiles right after we moved in but wasn’t sure about the lampshades. I love them with the natural linen but the light is so much prettier filtered through the new skirted shades.

Remember those dried hydrangeas? They inspired the living room wall color but had to pitch them around Christmastime, they were turning to dust…

And remember the two armchairs by the bookshelves? I’ve decided to have them slipcovered like many of you suggested, instead of reupholstered. That way I can prolong the life of existing upholstery and still have something different to switch-out with the seasons. The two brown chairs on either side of the coffee table are getting new slipcovers as well, a dusty blue duck canvas. I’ve until tomorrow to decide on the welting – contrasting or not.

And that’s about it! I feel like I’m oversharing our living room when nice things have happened with our other rooms as well… I promise to make time and photograph those soon. Hope you have a great weekend! (Will be back next week with some fun home tours!)