My New Slipcovers!!!!!

Hi everyone!!!!!

have you missed me?????

Well, first excuse.....I am trying to finish my #$% fabric line for a spring launch.

(I am now working on the last pattern.....lets keep our fingers crossed......)

my other excuse is I've been sick.

BUT I'M BETTER!!!!!

So, now I can write this blog!!!!!

For those of you who have been reading this pathetic attempt at prose for the past couple of years, you may remember me waxing poetic about the wall paper in my kitchen and family room.

It's a Lee Jofa print named: Althea.

It is one of the most beautiful traditional floral prints in the whole wide universe!!!!!

soooooo.......

one day I was sitting on my rump on my sofa in my family room trying to decide what I should do to redo the room as it was getting a little faded and pathetic and sad.....

I had tried to drink the Kool aid, and gotten a chair from Pottery Barn in  a white slip cover.

This is my TV chair, (and where I eat my dinner.....) so it gets a lot of use.

The seat cushion didn't hold up, and stopped supporting my flat old ass after a while.

The slip cover was really, really, really hard to get back on, so I didn't wash it that much and it started looking a little stained.......not the best look.....

Besides, 

I am 

really, really, really sick of white slip covers.

SO OVER THEM.

Stick a fork in this look.

It's very, very, very not cozy in New England in the winter.

Soooooooo.....

It was time to change the chair.

I bought one from O Henry House, which is available to the trade.

Well, I am in the trade!!!!!

If you have a designer, you can buy O'Henry House from Studio 534 in the Boston Design Center.

I chose a chair that is the same as the pair I have in Florida.

I bought both a new chair and a new sofa, as my old couch was 29 years old. It was well made, but had loose back cushions, and with my aging back, I needed more support.

So I bought a tight back O' Henry House sofa too.

I had them upholstered in a simple soft green ticking stripe that would look OK when the slip covers were off being cleaned.

(in my special washing machine, that is my normal washing machine, that is the only washing machine I have, so that makes it special.....)

Then the question was what to make the slip cover out of.....

Krissa Rossbund, my buddy who is the decorating editor at Traditional Home Magazine, told me that she is tired of the look of everything in the room being in the same print.

So I fought the idea of slipcovering the furniture in the same pattern as the wallpaper.

I fought it and

I fought it and

I fought it.....

and I lost the fight.

Soooooo.....

One day as I was deliberating about 

what to do....

what to do....

I realized that the decision might have been made for me, as the fabric may have been discontinued,

 since I had been struggling with this dilemma for over 10 years.

So, I called Lee Jofa to check, 

AND IT HAD BEEN DISCONTINUED in the cotton.

It was still available in the linen, but I didn't want the linen,

I WANTED COTTON SLIP COVERS #$%%!!!!

however!!!!!

there were 64 yards left.

There would be no more after that.

NO MORE.

NO MORE.

NO MORE.

So, I bought all 64 yards, in a panic.

I was too freaked out to find out how much I would actually need.

Besides, what if I needed more in the future?

THERE WOULD BE  NO MORE TO GET!!!!!

I had the two chairs, ottoman and sofa all slip covered in the Althea fabric, with pretty soft gathered skirts. 

And then I took pictures to share with the class.

Isn't it pretty against the wallpaper???????

I decided against a contrast welt, which I almost always use, but in this case I just felt that I didn't want to outline the shapes.

Below is a shot of my chair in it's old slipcover that was used in my previous home.

It went fine with the room, and I loved the bobble fringe at the top of the skirt.

But it was very faded.

Here are the new slipcovers with the soft gathered skirts.

I don't like a full gathered skirt, I feel its too much fabric.

I also changed the rug to a simple wool stripe.

I had it made from a Stark Carpet broadloom that looked like a sisal, but has the warmth of wool.

Below is the room with the old sofa and the old plaid rug.

That's my kitchen countertop in the foreground, in case you can't figure out what the #$% you're looking at.....

And here it is today.

This look is so much my look that I can't believe it took me this long to do it.

The up side is that the slipcovers are brand new!!!!!

Below is my new TV, eating dinner chair.

Below is another one of my brilliant side by side comparison collages!!!

The slip covered look is OK, not as much pattern, probably lots of folks prefer that.

But for me, the extra pattern feels more like my home.

I had trouble taking the shot below as the light was so bright in the morning, but I was too lazy to retake this in the afternoon.

This room needs a wide angle lens.

I have a wide angle lens.

I was too lazy to use that too.

Aren't I a great blogger?????

On that note,

since I'm now back down in Fleirda.

Later, Gator