Pendleton Slipper Chairs || 2018 Flip List Item No.3

First Flip List item of the year is a wrap!  Wait... what’s a Flip List you ask?  Well every year I set out to do seven new diy projects. Usually they’re a combination of things (both furniture and decor related) that scare me and things I’ve always wanted to try.

So this year’s list is as follows:

Now let’s meet the slipper chairs:

It was actually that citridelic yellow that drew me to them in the first place, but up-close, the fabric was sad and scratchy.  I loved the beautiful wood and cane frame so that had to stay, but the seat fabric was another animal.  I decided to do two things I’ve long wanted to do: 

1) Restore these beautiful chairs
2) Use a Pendleton Wool Blanket pattern to do it: 

Pendleton wool comes from a family owned company that's been weaving wool blankets for over 150 years.  They have a myriad of blanket patterns - mostly Native American inspired designs but they also produce a series of blankets unique to several National Parks.  It is these blankets that inspired my latest reupholstery project - specifically the Glacier National Park pattern.

Rainier National Park

Glacier National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Grand Canyon National Park

To me, the bright-colored stripes on the upholstery are a young twist on a classic design.  

To keep it fresh, I cut the patterns to be mirror images of each other instead of centering the design the keep it symmetrical.

I would have loved to use the real blanket on this project but they are admittedly priiiiiiiicey.  Plus let's be real... I don’t think I could bear to cut one up.  So instead I had a suede replica made by Spoonflower - something soft for the tushy (and less itchy than wool).  

The handy thing about the pattern was I could use the lines in the design to help create pleats at the corners. 

There is something somewhat traditional about cane-backed chairs.  So to me, pairing them with the primary colors of the classic Pendleton pattern makes them tres Ralph Lauren (as Chelsea puts it).

That gorgeous cane just needed a little oil to bring it back.

And this time, I moved the entire Matisse grid wall from our kitchen just to style this shoot.  

Pendleton Slipper Chairs
Now Available for Sale
$345 for the pair

If you are interested in this piece or a custom order like it, email me at cate@stylemutthome.com for availability or to ask about our third-party shipping policy.

One down, six to go.  Catch up on the 2018 Furniture Flip Bucket List:

Room Tour (Finally): McKenna's Bedroom

You guys know how it is... 

It is next to IMPOSSIBLE to decide when to shoot a space. I take one picture, and all I see are the five things I want to change about the room. I keep telling myself that I'll have our new Seattle rental (we moved here in July 2017... is it still new?!) photographed when it's "done." But let's be honest, that day will never come.

I'm lucky, then, that a breakthrough of sunlight - a welcome arrival during this gray and drizzly winter - made my decision for me. I finished work, snuck in a workout, and came home to the most breathtaking sunshine seeping through our windows. So today, Mutts, you can thank the anomaly that is the winter Seattle sunshine for this peek of our bedroom.

Exhibit A:

No, I did not add those light bubbles to these photos. That just HAPPENED. And I know they're not perfect, professional photos, but holy cow, I had to capture it. 

When we moved across the country from DC last summer, we literally brought clothing and kitchen supplies with us. The only pieces of furniture were a coffee table in our living room, and the two bedside tables you see above. Oh, and the painting - which is a Framebridge print of a photo I took in my soul city, Palm Springs, CA. The side table on the left is a table that my parents purchased and refinished at the start of their marriage in the 80s; the table on the right belonged to my fiance's grandmother. Both are precious to us and, luckily enough, majorly back in style. We saw exact lookalikes at a trendy vintage store in Seattle a few months ago. 

So that means that we had to purchase everything else. As someone who moved every 11 months for 5 years, this didn't phase me, but we took our time to make good decisions and find great deals. 

My proudest purchase is actually our bed. Even though it's a mass-produced item from Wayfair, we spent only $73 on it, and the quality has really surprised us! 

I hunted down this midcentury Tallboy on Craigslist. It's a tight squeeze in what is already a small room, but it gives me the storage I need. Now that I've accented it with some dried flowers from our local farmers market and a copy of our favorite engagement photo, I seriously love this little corner. 

And then we splurged on a few things: our Parachute Home bedding; our plug-in West Elm sconces; and our stunning and soft West Elm rug. I waited for sales and have no regrets about these purchases. In fact, we've registered for many more Parachute Home items for our upcoming wedding. They're worth it!

I love the way the small but sufficient bedroom has come together. Of course, there are things I'd change if I had a limitless budget, but it's a space that I genuinely love at the end of the day. There is no better feeling than lighting a candle, diffusing some essential oils, and nestling into bed with a good book. 

I am so excited to share the rest of our home with you all soon; in the meantime, have a great weekend, Mutts!

Living Room for Life's Next Chapter

Hi Friends! Jumping on today to share a bit of transformation in our home, and in my heart. When we moved into this, (our first), house, Colin and Shire we're 10 months old and according to BabyCenter.com Mason was the size of a kumquat, whatever that is. I had one main objective - to prove that it's okay to not surrender your home just because you have children. If I'm being honest, that's really what was on my heart. Just being real here!

In the name of proving a point and being brave, I opted for white slipcovered furniture. White appealed for so many reasons - aesthetically it felt calming and airy to me, and I figured I could always use bleach when running them through the wash. So for the better part of a decade that's what we've had as our babes have grown into active big kids, now 8, 8, and almost 7. White stopped working for us over the last year or so; I'm sorry to say this if your kids are younger than ours, but big kids sweat! And then they start getting kinda stinky. And they flop their sweaty stinky bodies on the sofas when they come in tired from hours of outdoor play. And sure, if the sofas are slipcovered there's no permanent damage, but here's the thing: If you are in a stage of life where you need slipcovered furniture, chances are YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO WASH THEM. At least, that's been my perspective. So I had a decision to make - either forbid my precious family whom I share this house with to not sit on the furniture unless they're cleaned up, or find furniture that can be more easily cleaned.

Living Room one year ago

So despite my love for the white sofas and having a home that isn't just for the kids, I felt ready to jump in and embrace this new stage of life with older, sweatier, dirtier kids who are juuuuust starting to give off the first whiffs of BO. To be clear, I made this decision because I knew there was no way I could fully enjoy this new stage of life or my home with white sofas. That's me and my uptightness. Every person/family is different and there are certainly loads of people with white slipcovered sofas and kids and they're happy as clams because they're so laid back it's annoying. I wish that was me, but it's not. I've been ready to throw in the towel and tap out.

When I decided to part ways with slipcovered furniture I wanted something I could wipe clean, (leather), would get better with use, (leather), and had great reviews from others with a lot of activity in their home: This lead us to Article, and specifically, the Sven sofa!

This is not a 'which design is better' thing and I'm not making any case over visual appeal here. For us this is about maximum function in a house full of kids, many of which wander in from the neighborhood.

While we've only had the Sven sofa for a few weeks and I can't speak to the long-term quality just yet, (though the reviews were fantastic), we have been impressed with the comfort and durability thus far as our family has piled, (literally), on the piece numerous times since we unpacked it. I've already seen my kids fall asleep on it during our pre-bed reading time together and it's the first place they come in the morning to transition from sleep to awake.

A few more shots of the space show nothing else has changed. The ivory shag rug was an inexpensive Amazon find from Safavieh that has spoiled our feet all Winter long! It's SO thick and soft and when our new sofa is crowded, no one minds moving to the floor.

Even our chair is stain/smudge proof! That one wasn't intentional, though. After our very grown-up sofa purchase we didn't want to spend money on a new chair and this had been in the boys room for several years, (a $10 thrift store find that I got for free with customer loyalty points).

When I committed to embracing this next stage of life, I meant ALL. IN. We've got one learning how to play guitar, and we realized when it was in it's case put away he wasn't practicing much. The only solution I could think of was to get it out and seen; well guess what sound we wake up to now on Saturdays? All in.

Oh yea! Our new art :) After 15 Valentines Day's together, I think I got this year right; a canvas + a sharpie + my husband's favorite Philadelphia Eagles' trick play from the Super Bowl, the Philly Special. He's been running this play with the kids on the daily right here in the living room, so getting the play up on the wall just seemed right!

Thank you so much for coming by today! We sure appreciate you.