Thursday, February 07, 2008

Living Room Magic Carpet


Biscuit test-driving new magic carpet
Last week, David and I purchased this sample rug for our living room and have decided that we love it. It wasn't available in our required size, so we've ordered a larger one from a different store (Kensington Carpet One), which should arrive within 10 days. I'm a little nervous since our design consultant, Danah, advised us that different dye lots may have slightly different colours. I love the muted colours of the sample rug and hope the new one isn't too much darker (newer).
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If you can't tell, the rug is a creamy sage colour in the middle, with an ivory border. The main accent colour is a darker sage green and there are slate blue highlights, and pink highlights.
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This rug has answered all my prayers! And it's finally given me direction for the living-dining room. The rooms are open-plan and have a lot of different colours already and I wanted to re-use as many of the existing features as possible.
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For example, I have a sage green sofa and chair in the living room, so the rug really needed to work with them! We also have custom floral draperies in both rooms (panels and valance) left by the previous owner. These are green chintz, with large white, blue, and pink flowers, and gold trim! I really hope to re-use these for a while to save money (although they are not to my taste, they are traditional and suit the room just fine). We also have dark antique furniture.
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The main problem, though, was the dining room rug (below). It's a dark rose with ivory and taupe, and has small blue and green accents. Although the sofa creates a divider between the two rooms, I still wanted to rugs to be similar (e.g. both traditional, similar palate).
So, I really had a lot of things to coordinate with this magical rug!
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And did I mention our chartreuse (yellow-green) walls? They are very pretty and look gorgeous in the evening light. The chartreuse (painted by the previous owner) has grown on me, but I decided there was simply too much colour and I would sacrifice these walls if the new rug palate demanded it.
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And to top it off, I really wanted as much blue accent as possible in both rooms since my tableware is mostly white and blue! What a conundrum. I almost called a decorator about 40 times in the past few months.
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But the new rug makes everything obvious. It coordinates beautifully with the sofa and chair (sage) and works reasonably well with the rose rug in the dining room (much better than the various contemporary rugs I brought home to try). The new rug even looks good with the draperies. But the chartreuse walls don't work and need to be neutralized!
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I'm happy to change the wall colour, but it does open a whole can of worms. You see, the living-dining room walls extend into the front hall, which entend into two stairwells, which extend into upstairs and downstairs hallways! For coherence, I'd like to carry a single colour throughout (currently there are 3 different greens!).
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The downstairs has a lot of browns, with a brown brick fireplace in the family room (still undecorated except for an inexpensive cream rug and old oatmeal-coloured furniture) and brown flooring in the hall.
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So I've decided to paint the whole thing in a warm off-white or very pale brown. I haven't decided on my colour yet, but I like Benjamin Moore's Creamy White (light beige) and White Down (ivory). I'm sure this decision will take weeks, and another few months to get all the painting done!
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I will post pictures when it all starts coming together!

11 comments:

  1. How wonderful that a decorating dilemma is solved even if it is going to require painting. (I was about to ask if you paint, but I already know the answer...the image of your painting hovers before my eyes.) Hope that your beloved paints, too!

    That carpet has a beautiful palette. You may find this amusing as I was just remembering what I told Penny at Lavender Hill Studio about her photo today. I told her that an entire room could be built around those colors and would you believe that the colors in your carpet are incredibly similar? (I think that this is the second time that I've attempted to send you off to Penny's. ;>)

    You've had your cold that long? Ackkkkk!

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  2. Ooooh nice rug! Decorating is enough to drive someone to drink! Heavily! I wish I had the resources to just start over! I know how these decisions can become all-consuming. Paint selection---don't even get me going!

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  3. HI Terri
    I wil have a great 4 days in our nice capital Stockholm with friends. Will be nice live at hotel and just be. Walk town and not have snow around u :-D

    Take much care
    Hugs
    katarina

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  4. Love the new carpet! I know the problem of rooms running into each other and once you plan to paint one...well it runs into the next room which then has to be painted and so on. Your colour scheme is lovely. I particularily love the choice of kitty on the new carpet! I notice the carpet on our stairwell has already been somewhat clawed to pieces by our one cat who has claws....

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  5. The magic carpet is gorgeous! Have fun choosing wall colors. I can't wait to see the pictures of this latest project!

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  6. Hey Terri, Congratulations on the beautiful perfect new carpet. It's so rewarding when you wait and find just the right piece for your home.
    I absolutely love the photograph with your sweet little cat in the corner. It's a beautiful shot. All your home pics with your cat are but I really like this one a lot. I hope that you'll frame it!

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  7. I am so glad Vee (THANKS VEE!!!)sent you over to my blog! It gave me a chance to come here and find you. I love your new rug! It is just so perfect. I need to come back and take more time to look around. Please stop in and visit me again when you have time.
    Penny

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  8. Wow, you have a lot going on in that space. Sounds like it is coming together nicely. I like the new rug and don't worry too much about the one you actually get being too different in hue. If you were paring it up against something bright than I'd worry, but sitting on the ground against the hardwoods and being further enough away form the other color elements, you should be fine. Plus, things tend to fade :-)

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  9. Lovely. You take great photo of your rooms. Something I need to learn. Everyone needs a Magic Carpet and I'm glad you founds yours!

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  10. Love the soft colors in that rug--so peaceful!

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  11. Hi Terri! Your new rug is gorgeous, I am sure the new size will be perfect. A slight color variation won't matter much with all the colors you have to work with. It will pull everything together and help make sense of what direction to go! You'll know what can stay and what must leave. It is wonderful to have somewhere to focus.

    Hooray!

    xo
    Melissa

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