Hello chic friends! I am excited to show you our most recent home decor projects, all in my favoured 'Ralph Lauren (on a budget)' style. You can click on any of the photos to see them bigger :)
This is our entrance way which we recently had wallpapered in charcoal and off-white stripes. I have always loved the luxe look of wide stripes so we borrowed my interior designer friend Davina's confidence that it would look amazing and went for it!
The coat hooks below are a new addition too. I love hooks, and especially in an entrance way. They look good and are so useful. Above the hooks is my family tartan (I'm a Macdonald).
In the living room below, you can see the stripes through the double doors into the hall. The denim cushion on our tartan wing chair is new. I made two of them from denim scraps I have been collecting for years and love how they rough up the look of our decor so it isn't too staid. And I love denim to death anyway. Dress in denim, decorate in denim. You can never have enough in my opinion.
And this is my new cushion arrangement for our sofas, all on a budget - of course!
Cushions from left to right:
Actual real 'Ralph Lauren Home' fabric that my sister found
a remnant of inexpensively and thought of me. I made the piece into two cushion covers (with the backs in a similarly coloured patterned velvet).
Then, gold and black sequined K-Mart $12 beauties (where you
can rub the sequins both ways so it can be all black, all gold or any design
you care to create in-between).
Then, leopard print cushion covers I made myself. This was with about $20 of fabric from a
crafter's heaven called Spotlight here in New Zealand. Davina quoted me a price
for two 'Pierre Frey - Panthere' cushions... $475, which included my 10%
discount on fabric... OMG,
I almost fell
over when I saw the quote, so I hotfooted it to Spotlight and made my
own. She saw my budget covers when she last visited and said 'I still
want you to get the real ones'. Hehe, well it will have to wait until
we have NO PETS (which will never happen), because Daphne chews the
corners of cushions. Of course she does. And I would cry a lot if she
chewed expensive French cushions.
Lastly the denim cushion is one of a pair that I made my dad for
his birthday last year and recently brought them back to live with me. Thought bubble -
'Can you ever have too many denim cushions in a living room?' (The answer is no, in case you are wondering.)
And the sofa opposite this one has the same arrangement.
Here's Daphne below, photo-bombing the corner with our metal
sideboard. Please note real 'Ralph Lauren
Home' leather on the side of the wing chairs :) I can't remember if I've already told you the story about the leather... A company here in Napier supplies a certain style/colour of leather to Ralph Lauren in the US and Davina ordered the exact same leather directly from the tanner.
So this, along with the cushion fabric means I do have a few authentic pieces of Ralph in my home!
Do you like my picture wall curving around the gilt mirror? I have so much confidence in hanging pictures now. Davina came around one day and showed me how
she just starts banging hooks in walls and goes by eye rather than laying out a
pattern on the floor. It's a strategy
that has worked well for me so far!
On the other side of this L-shaped room is our dining area, below,
and I love it. I swapped the sitting
area and dining area over a few months back and it works so much better. There is plenty of room to move around even
if ten are dining, and the sofas in the window nook make a cozy conversation
area.
It was Davina's idea to put the rug under the table - it defines the dining space nicely in a large room. It's a $40 rug from the auction that cost $110 to clean! It was pretty filthy, and now I have a gorgeous rug for.
I hope you enjoyed my latest home decor photos! I'd love to know what you would term your decor style (like my 'Ralph Lauren on a budget'). Can you put it in one phrase or sentence? Now there's a challenge for you; the more creative the better!
~Fiona~
PS. If you are new to my blog, you may not have heard my interview with the gorgeous Shannon Ables from The Simply Luxurious Life. I had such a great time talking with her; she is a fantastic interviewer. Shannon is in Bend, Oregon, and I am in New Zealand. How cool is that? We had such fun - Shannon is the nicest person ever.
You can listen to (or download) the interview here, and it's also available on iTunes and Stitcher. I'm sure you will enjoy, as I did, Shannon's generosity of spirit and genuine friendliness (I was a little bit nervous before the interview!)
I hope you enjoy listening to Shannon and I chat - I so wish we could have met in person!
~~