department of the interior: home decor

Have been repairing our couch over the past couple of days. Not sure how it's going to turn out
The couch is cheap, a few years old. It's a recliner, some parts leather, mostly vinyl (like I said, cheap). Anyway part of the vinyl on one of the footrests has worn down and has a tear in it about an inch long. I toyed with the idea of sewing it, but I'm not a great hand stitcher and it could end up looking like a horrific frankenstein scar so I went and googled around for repair kits instead. The one I got is for cars - it allows you to fill and paint the tear, rather than just patching over it.

You get backing fabric that you can poke inside the tear, then you apply adhesive to the backing and the tear and glue it all together. Then you fill whatever gaps with more adhesive, which dries hard and smooth. You can do that a few times til you've got it filled to your satisfaction, and then you paint it and then heat-cure it.

I'm still on the filling stage. A bit concerned about the heat-treating stage...some reviews say that part doesn't work right, that the tool they provide is garbage but we'll see.

Funniest thing to me is half the instructions are solely devoted to mixing colors ie "BLUE and YELLOW make GREEN, BLACK makes colors DARKER, WHITE will make colors LIGHTER'

luckily I don't have to go down that road, my couch is black :D

Feeling pretty pleased with the way the new living room is shaping up

http://i.imgur.com/1xQzP5t.jpg

Couch looks much nicer without sheet draped over it, but you know, toddlers.

neat! that looks really cozy!

i want to post pics of my living room - it's the most "nested" and content with a space that i've been. It's 99% there, just a little more art to hang, and one piece of furniture on the way. oh man, PLANTS - they've made a big difference. except i'm having trouble keeping some of them alive :/

I dislike when furniture is lined up against the walls and prefer conversational groupings that use more of the inner floor space, but again, toddlers.

I hear you. We tend to move things when we have people over.

I kind of like the way these modular orange shelves have become a mainstay for us, like we'll probably just keep reassembling them and shifting them around as needed and never throw them away (could eventually go in kids room e.g.).

The light coming in the window looks beautiful tho. Bright rooms speak to me.

All right I'm back!! I'm in a new space and I have to pull together a living room and a bedroom this time.

Both are currently dirty white, so they need repainting even if it's just "white" again.

What to do what to do.

I'm not really into the "purity IS my statement" of all-white, but the room faces north and there's a tall building across the st that blocks some light, so I want to keep it as airy as possible. It just seems like such a waste not to use ANY color. Maybe I can get a very vividly colored sofa/rugs later on?

it doesn't have to mean purity

How do you feel about more of a buttery kinda white/cream? Or gray?

That's what I'm thinking! I don't like warm/cream colors much, so it would have to be cool/blue without looking GREY. But the light in here already tends to be kind of grey, so maybe I should go with a "truer" white and let the light do the rest? I need I DIED.

I also have a coved ceiling and all this picture rail, so I have to decide where the dividing line is where the color stops and the flat white ceiling starts. Also there's a big arch that fades in the wall. Do I just break off the paint in a straight vertical line?? I guess I could run it under the arch and around the other side into the dressing area (to the left of the pic).

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/LimitedLiabilityGirl/CeilingProblem_zpsae4d6815.jpg

There's the problem spot.

I need ideas for two high-ceilinged reception rooms, separated by double doors which are usually open.
It's prob going to be some kind of grey but avoiding 'neutral' taupe kind of thing. 2 different shades or entirely different colours, perhaps.

All my cool wallpaper ideas have scared me off and I'm putting them into small rooms as I think it'll be crazy overwhelming in the big ones.

I am a big fan of crazy wallpaper in a small room. Not that I have managed to put up wallpaper in any room, large or small.

xp we have very similar archways in our place and we took the easy way out and just went all the same color on both sides/underneath the archway. Anything else seemed like it would be jarring, but maybe there's a solution I'm not thinking of.

I wish I knew what that kind of arch was called so I could google it.

IO, we had something like that in our old flat, but we made it a very definite divide between 3 different surfaces (also there was a door immediately one side of it). Can ilx-mail you pics if you want.
I tend to avoid absolute whites as they look prison-cell-like in shadowy places. But there are all kinds of off-whites that you can't even tell are off unless you put a brilliant white next to it.

Yeah, I feel the same way, Hurting. I'd actually like to stop the wall color at the picture rail and switch to the flat white above it, but then what to do on the arch wall?? Ugh.

gradient fade?

Possibly! Seriously!

Kinder, in your sitch with two rooms that have some separation but need to flow, I would think about, when you're standing at one end of the sight line, where are you moving, and what will make you want to go there? Like is the travel through both rooms in a straight line? Or is your most common path through a side door to a kitchen or etc? Examine your common pathways and then think about what kind of light or warmth or visual interest would draw you through them.

I like the idea of having one wall painted in a color or wallpapered in something strong but put it in a place where it's a focal point through the french doors, in one direction or the other. Gives the gaze something to fasten on and pulls you through.

Am interested in your pics btw! My ilx mail is my normal email so I should get it just fine. :D

Common wisdom for a north-facing room is a warm beige/light yellow, like quincie said. These shades all feel more traditional/conservative to me than the cool greys and blues do, but I only want to do this paint thing ONCE so I guess beige it is. (I don't want to get a grey paint up and then realize that it's all wrong.)

I'm not actually painting NOW, I'm not doing that until our lease is signed, so in a few weeks. But I need CURTAINS and I can't buy them until I know what color the walls will be!

just hang up a sheet in the meantime
(or hang up a sheet and leave it up there for as long as you live there, like i did)

Haha.

Does anyone have a UK bookcase recommendation? If all goes well with the new house i'd probably aim to turn one of the bedrooms into a library so i'd be looking for about 3m of continuous bookcases along one wall and maybe 2m along another. A modular system like the Ikea Billy one might be a good idea but it looks a little flimsy for heavier books. The cheap Argos one i have at the moment has stood up to a certain a amount of abuse (for example)

http://i.imgur.com/QY4OtzT.jpg?1

but it would be good to get something better, and maybe taller, if possible. Custom-built is likely to be excessively expensive.

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/j_bdules/media/Picture004.jpg.html

we had 2 Ikea Billy bookcases at my old place--they were fine. my roommate bought both used on craigslist several years prior. (one's the LH bookcase, other not pictured, but was similarly loaded)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/j_bdules/Picture004.jpg

i use billy bookcases with the extra shelves on top and the corner wedge bookcase thing, all bolted together. the shape gives it more stability (i hope) and it looks kinda classy.

ikea sells a set of little v-shaped brackets that you use to keep it together

Excellent. Thanks both.

Does anyone have any positive / negative experience of Colortrend, Zoffany or Little Greene paints?

no negative. i recently put up a image of Binoche in Bleu and a white print of forest snow side by side, square. i like them. in my living room.

<3 that Binoche poster. I used to have all three of the colours in my room at university.

I am trying one of the "premium Giclee prints" from Art.com for the first time. If the quality is good I might get more.

http://i.imgur.com/hvAuNKf.jpg

yeah i like that site. that's pretty. i cropped the Binoche so it's just her head, it's square. i'm p proud of it. that and my framed shot of Britney shaving her head are my babies.

A+++ for Judith and Holofernes!

I've always had a bit of a crush on that Judith, which probably is something a therapist would like to hear more about

http://www.anothermag.com/design-living/7696/the-conversation-pit

big fan of the conversation pit
my dad owned well-thumbed copy of terence conran's the house book from the 70s
which for some reason i was fascinated with as a child, one of the picture books i'd pore over, over & over
prob permanently imprinted my interior design aesthetic

(or imprinted something or other)

also a big fan of the pit

i am moving into a new place in a few weeks, thinkin baout interior design

I've been in one of those conversation pits. It's in this Dublin hotel (although I don't think it was a hotel when it was designed)

http://www.number31.ie/gallery/

Houee I grew up in had a conversation pit, though nowhere near as nice as the ones in the above links. Also it had a railing around the seating areas which spoiled the effect some and made it look more like a mere sunken living room. I still loved everything about it except the scant headroom in the room below. Would really like one in the home I live in now.

I so love The House Book.

I've always had a bit of a crush on that Judith, which probably is something a therapist would like to hear more about

iirc, Holofernes is a self-portrait of Cristofano Allori, Judith is his mistress and her servant is his mother - which is probably something a therapist would have been interested in discussing with him as well.

Going with this ludicrous wallpaper, I think. In moderation, though.

http://i.imgur.com/idc6I90.jpg

is that the Cole & Sons? I think I posted somewhere I wanted to cover bookcases (with doors) in that. Never did it. Still might! It'd go in a grey room.