Well, not ALL of it, Gentle Readers. Just the stripey loveseat and two chairs.
It kind of started with my mother-in-law’s house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where John and I are trying to spend more time. Some of the furniture in that midcentury gem is fantastic and appropriate (like the leather Swedish safari chairs John and I contributed, and the 2-piece sofa that belonged to John’s grandparents — authentically midcentury!).
Some of the furniture, however, is just…old. I’ve been angling to get rid of the uncomfortable chairs in front of the fireplace, and the chairs in our DC living room happen to be very comfortable. Hmmm.
After Christmas in DC last year, when tree placement screws everything up anyway, we tried putting the loveseat in the window and separating the chairs.
It was crowded next to the window, because the white chairs are kind of big. And the shelter arms on the loveseat make it feel really blocky and larger than it is, It’s only 54″W but looks weighty. But we liked the idea.
I gained confidence via my friend Sarah’s living room up the street. (Our block is a row of Wardman row houses, so while details differ, the houses’ layouts are basically the same.) Sarah has *two* sofas in her living room, and it works beautifully! One is against the back wall like mine (that they’re both green velvet is a coincidence!),
and the other sofa has its back to the front windows.
Huh!!! So I basically decided to copy her ;) I’d do a settee against the window, squeeze in a small but comfortable chair next to it, near the foyer doorway, and then I’d just do one comfy chair (for blog-writing) with its back to the dining room.
For the settee, I used a custom furniture company in NC that I use for clients all the time. I wanted to get exactly the right width so I could still squeeze in a chair.
The settee just arrived! So here’s where we are now:
The heavy linen upholstery fabric is by a company called Fermoie, and it’s called Wicker:
A client used this fabric once upon a time, and I just fell in love with it. I even had a few pillows made in this orange colorway, so the fabric already had been test-driven in this room.
THEN, for the space between the settee and the foyer,
I had a chair in mind. I saw it at High Point two years ago, and despite its diminuitive size, it’s shockingly comfortable! (A client recently exclaimed, “It looks like a child’s chair!” And not in a good way, until we found the right spot for it right next to her sofa. Now it’s amazing.)
It’s the Cambridge Leather Chair by Phillips Scott.
You can’t get a sense of the chair’s scale from this picture, but it’s pretty tiny: 27″ square by 29.5″H. It will fit into that corner perfectly.
Anyway, rumor has it that the Cambridge Chair is en route!
THEN, for the comfy (blog-writing) chair with its back to the dining room,
I’m going with another custom piece from the same NC company that made the settee. (I swapped the legs for straight, though.)
For upholstery, I’m going with one I’ve had my eye on for a long time: Luberon Plaid from Schumacher:
I LOVE plaid and am waging a one-woman campaign to put it in every house on the planet. Plaid and wallpaper, of course! Or plaid wallpaper!
Stay tuned, Gentle Readers. With any luck, the living room will look a bit different by Christmas.
Annie Elliott Design is expanding its horizons: if you live in New York and are ready for a color, pattern, and gin-infused update, we’re standing by.
No matter where you live, you can pick up a few pillow-shopping tips from my recent segment on NBC4.