Moving is about as dull as it is stressful. You realise how much stuff you’ve accumulated, how little you actually care about most of said stuff. You also realise how much you spent on furniture that was so easily replaceable. So easy to part with. Some pieces don’t fall in either categories, because perhaps they hold a specific meaning or memory, perhaps they are priceless family heirlooms, perhaps they were the first piece of “proper” furniture you bought with your own, hard-earned cash. When I left London I learned the hard way… And when I arrived in Los Angeles, I happily lived with next to no furniture for almost three months until my container arrived.
In life, I am rather impulsive and want everything to always be done yesterday, the same applies to my attitude to home decor and furnishing a house. In our Notting Hill apartment, I was already decorating the rooms and unpacking boxes when the movers hadn’t even finished bringing everything in. It would have been the same story in Los Angeles had I not been impeached by freight delays. Turns out it was a good thing as it gave me time to think about my new space a little more, and slowly gather enough to make my nest. I used my Pinterest board for reference throughout and designed a few room mock-ups on Photoshop before I took the plunge with anything. Actually, I will give you a proper tour of my apartment in due time and you will be able to see for yourselves!
Right now, I wanted to show you my first step towards a slower paced home decor process… A few weeks ago, I discovered a cool Chicago based semi-custom sofas site called Interior Define. The concept is quite similar to Everlane’s, but for sofas. Basically by cutting out the middle-man and the cost of a physical retail space, I/D manages to offer high-quality furniture at a reasonable price. Each item is customisable and they offer a wide choice of fabrics and trimmings for both their sofas and armchairs. I already have a sofa that I love and one side chair that works nicely in my space, but I needed more seating options in the living-room, so I took the plunge and decided to design/customise an armchair from I/D.
For the shape, I picked the Caitlin. Colour and texture wise, I wasn’t totally sure what to do as I have a navy blue velvet sofa, a mustard yellow knitted ottoman and a shaggy cream moroccan rug. Add to this some colourful (and fluffy) throw pillows and you have a room that’s already pretty ripe with texture and colour pops. I ordered some swatches from I/D to try out different textures, colours and fabrics. After playing around with them, I discarded the most obviously wrong one (the Citrine Velvet, despite being gorgeous, simply did not work in my space). I was left with five more, including three neutrals. In the end, I opted for one of the “safe” options, which is one of the three neutrals. To check it was the right decision, I went back to the site and used their simulator – so far, so good.
I ordered the chair a week or so ago, I won’t tell you the colour I picked, you can take a guess… And I will show you how it looks in my living room once it arrives in 5 to 6 weeks, so keep an eye out for the follow up post!
