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Sunday, September 18, 2016

New Drapery in the Living Room

Can this weather be any more gorgeous, considering we are well into September? I am not the only one trying to cling onto the last days of summer. With regular watering, the heatwaves have actually been good to all the plants around the house. 

The same DIY Petunia Lantana Million Bell flower basket from August is still unstoppable. 

Inside the house, I've been on the hunt for a console table for our kitchen dinning room. I had a minimalist glass and metal number in mind, like this. However, I really didn't want to fork out that much for a piece of accent furniture that I wasn't sure 1) if it was going to look good in that nook; 2) if I actually needed it there. And then I came across a lookalike, the Ikea Vittsjo laptop table for $40. Though the fixed shelf annoyed the heck out of me, the size of the table is perfect and it gives me an idea of what the real deal would look like, and it costs close to nothing. 

Picture below: the Ikea Vittsjo laptop table as a console table in my kitchen dining room. These vintage blush pink Luminarc stemware are my Kryptonite. 

The shot below captured a few of my favourite things in my house: the vintage Dedalo Murano Spiral Torciglione glass chandelier, the antique shield-back dining chairs, and Egon Schiele's self portrait poster which was given to me by the generous Prague National Gallery at the Fair Trade Palace. 

Now on to the new drapery in my living room. It was on my 2016 project list to replace these blue drapes. I still love them except that as a dominant color, blue makes it so much harder to layer in other colour accents than white or different shades of blue and grey. I fantasized having a moody floral fabric like Schumacher's Pyne Hollyhock but eventually decided to go with a more neutral and versatile option.  

So here they are, my new living room drapery made of pure Dupioni silk in a creamy white shade. I had them custom made by a local seamstress. They are double width (104") and pinch pleated. You can find similar ones (without pinch pleats) at Pottery Barn

I freaked out a little as they were being installed yesterday. It was a cloudy day so the drapery appeared in a much darker shade. My eyes were used to those blue ones so the different shades of white in a room would take some getting used to. I was also concerned these new drapes would take the room from "blue" to "blah". And then when I woke up this morning to the glorious sunshine filtering through the new silk drapes which cast a soft glow on the entire room, all my worries and doubt went away. 


This is what I wanted, a neutral palette for me to switch in different colour accents at will. Now I just need my coffee table to complete the transformation of this room.