Scribble-Scrabble

I hope you had a lovely holiday weekend! Despite clear skies, friendly temps and a ton of yard work that needed to be done, we deliberately set a slower pace this weekend and it felt good. For a couple of hours we forgot about to-do lists (or at least we tried to 🙂 ) and hunkered down in front of the fireplace. Instead of fussing around the house like we always do, we spent Saturday afternoon like never before, watching a movie and serving copious amounts of apple cider and apple pie. Unholy amounts!

We watched Miracle – an inspirational movie about the late Herb Brooks who coached the US ice hockey team that won the gold-medal in the 1980 olympics in Lake Placid. The game with the Soviet team (a team of seasoned players that went undefeated for twelve consecutive years) came to be known as the “miracle on ice”. All in all, it is a beautiful story of hard work and resilience, I highly recommend it to kids and parents alike! Telly watching aside… late last month we opened up the living room to the adjacent bedroom and that tiny, unused (until now that is) room has become our favorite place to cocoon. I have a feeling that having that cozy space available has put a dent in our productivity but it has also made living easier and more fun. It’s hard to imagine that a pair of French doors can do that, but it has!

The past week has been a very busy one for us, on many fronts, and one of the highlights has been a fabulous Craigslist score – two Restoration Hardware tufted chairs on casters with a large, matching, ottoman – all three pieces in excellent condition! I do intend to reupholster the chairs further down the line and have the ottoman slip-covered but in the meantime I am doing a little happy dance and am pinching myself for the deal we’ve gotten for these babies. Sorry I don’t have a photo of them tonight! (If I told you how much (or little) they cost, you would cry!)

In terms of creativity I’ve been feeling a little stuck lately, and am dragging my feet a little bit longer than usual in deciding over one design scenario or the other. I blame Pinterest and Instagram, as well as my own perfectionism. It’s a curse, really, to want to do it all and do it well, and with the avalanche of inspiration the internet is sending our way, it is hard to keep ideas from changing. Add to that time-pressure (we’re sooo excited to have my brother and sister-in-law as house guests this Thanksgiving ) as well as budget constraints and you get a very panic-stricken, crabby decorator whose house looks like a war-zone LOL! So much so that my latest decorating stunt made my husband question my sanity… I had some greige paint at hand and painted wainscoting on our living room walls trying to figure out scale and pattern. Unfortunately I gave Ivan no warning and he arrived while Isabella and I were away… Anyway, it’s impossible to imagine his surprise at finding our living room walls filled with ’’scribble -scrabble” ! (He calls it scribble-scrabble, I call it creative experimentation 🙂 )

Because of all the electrical work we had done last month, the room needs to be repainted anyway so no harm done 🙂 What I’m really trying to figure out right now before the sconces are chosen, ordered and installed (all of which must happen during the next couple of weeks) is the type of wall treatment we’re going with. Initially I thought about vertical tongue-and-groove paneling but a closer look at costs and skill prerequisites prompted me to look elsewhere. I did come across a few wainscoting styles that are less intricate and give a more relaxed, cottage-y vibe and I wanted to share with you the room that has me inspired right now. I’ve posted about it in the past but I have gathered additional images to justify my showing it to you again. It’s the London bedroom of Ben Pentreath and Charlie McCormick. By the way, I have recently gotten Pentreath’s book Get Your House Right and it has been eye-opening. Do you know it? I was looking for appropriate fireplace surrounds for colonial style homes (style, proportion, types of molding – that sort of thing) and one link led to another which then referenced Pentreath’s book. I like it it, I think it’s a great read if you’re a designer, architect or homeowner with renovation plans on the brain. Anywho, it feels like I’m starting to ramble so it’s time to show you the pretties!

And here is the same room with a less dramatic wall color. If I were to chose one or the other, I’d go with the white walls but the green walls are just as stunning and contrast beautifully with the pretty pink slipcover on the sofa. But what really caught my eye was the subtle paneling on the walls. It is elegant enough that it looks pretty yet simple enough that the room feels casual, almost cottage-y.

I think I’m getting closer to making a decision. I still need a trip to Home Depot to get actual molding measurements and then draw everything to scale. I’ll be back with updates 🙂

Thanks for stopping by and listening! The images in today’s post were borrowed from Ben Pentreath’s Instagram – a must-follow if you don’t do so already. Have a wonderfully productive week!