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Rachel Bauer Design: Family Room Week #2: Throwing Shade(s)

orcIt’s the second week of this One Room Challenge.  This time around, I’m redoing my Family Room.  Here’s my post from last week.  This week I’m focusing on window treatments for the space.  I’ve already added London shades in the Breakfast area that I made from Kravet’s Bristow Sand fabric, which is a pretty, neutral ikat that works well with our wall color.

Breakfast Area.

Breakfast Area.

Those were a priority because the sun sets right where the lone window on the left wall is.  We couldn’t comfortably eat dinner in this area until I added those shades.  That one window’s shade is lower than the others because of the setting sun.  Depending on the season, it moves up or down to keep us from being blinded.

This whole area got a mini ORC when I added the shades.  This is how it looked when we bought the home 2 1/2 years ago:

Family Room & Breakfast Area when we bought the house.

Family Room & Breakfast Area when we bought the house.

We originally had our black farmhouse table and Ikea Henriksdal slipcovered chairs in this space, but we moved them to our townhouse when we furnished it to be rented out as a furnished short-term rental.

Townhouse Dining Room.

Townhouse Dining Room with farmhouse table and Ikea slipcovered chairs.

In their place, I added an octagonal table, and these chairs I found at our local thrift store:

Chairs before.

Chairs before.

There were just three of them, but that was fine with me because I was planning on adding a bench/window seat for one side of the table.  Underneath the 80’s tapestry fabric, by the way, was a cool orange flame stitch fabric from the 70’s (I think.)  I toyed with the idea of leaving it, but this space is so open to the Family Room and even the Dining Room and Foyer, so I didn’t think I could pull it off.  I painted the chairs turquoise and had them reupholstered in an ivory vinyl with a turquoise and ivory geometric print on the backs.  The bench/window seat was once in my daughter’s plant ledge/office part of her room:

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When we redid that space in my last ORC, the window seat was moved downstairs and I took out the middle section and added a new cushion.  The red pagoda chandelier in the Breakfast area is from Arteriors.

I need window treatments for the Family Room.  No house has been built behind us yet, but there will be one there someday.  When I was working on our townhouse, my original window treatment idea for the Living Room there was coral and white striped panels.  These were my inspirations:

Janie Molster Designs

Janie Molster Designs

Coral and white striped window treatments.

Coral and white striped window treatments.

Once I started making the panels for the townhouse, I loved them so much and thought they looked so great with my Family Room rug, that I changed my plans and decided to use them in my Family Room.  The townhouse Living Room got turquoise and tan striped curtains instead:

Townhouse with striped panels.

Townhouse with striped panels.

Unfortunately, the coral striped panels that I originally started for the townhouse are still in their very unfinished state.  Here’s a picture of the only one that’s even started with the Trend fabric I picked for Roman shades in the Family Room and the Kravet fabric for the existing Breakfast area London shades (and my sweet Meredith:)

The coral and ivory striped silks are for the Family ROom panels with the trellis fabric for the Family Room Roman shades and the ikat is the Breakfast Room London shades. The kitten loves it when I sew!

The coral and ivory striped silks are for the Family Room panels with the trellis fabric for the Family Room Roman shades and the ikat is the Breakfast Room London shades. The kitten loves it when I sew!

You can see the Family Room rug underneath all the fabrics.  I’ve had it for 12+ years, and it’s been in the Living Room of our five previous homes.  This home doesn’t have a Living Room, so it ended up in the Family Room.  Because of that, this Family Room has a more formal feel than in our other homes.  But I love the rug and love that it’s now in a space we use daily, rather than the Living Rooms we rarely used.

Okay, I have one more window to address in this ORC.  My kitchen has a small window that looks out on the side of our house.  It doesn’t really need a treatment for privacy or sunlight purposes, but it looks a little unfinished to me:

Small window in Kitchen.

Small window in Kitchen.

This is where I display my Leaning Tower of Pisa’s and below it is where we stash all the junk mail, bills, etc. that pile up and where we charge our many devices.  I’d like to jazz up this area a bit.  I went through my many, many fabrics that I have from past projects and impetuous purchases, and I found the perfect fabric for this window.  It’s a giant memo sample of Scalamandre’s Dragons and Dogs, which was discontinued around 1992.

Scalamandre's Dragons and Dogs.

Scalamandre’s Dragons and Dogs.

I happened to be in college and working part time as a design assistant for a furniture store in San Antonio at that time.  We would toss all the discontinued memos, but sometimes I couldn’t bear to do that and I would take them home.  I’ve had this memo sample for over 20 years and moved it a jillion times (I know, I have a problem.)  However, I’m so excited to finally be using it for a Roman shade for my Kitchen window.  And the icing on the cake is that I’m going to have a pagoda cornice made to go above it.  I have always lusted after pagoda cornices:

pagoda-cornice-1

pagoda-cornice-2

pagoda-cornice-3

pagoda-cornice-4

 

I’m having one made to top my Dragons and Dogs Roman shade.  The two fabrics shown in the above picture with the Dragons and Dogs are what  I chose for the cornice.  Sigh.  So happy.   Fingers crossed I get it in time for the reveal!  Next week I’m going to talk about (and hopefully start implementing) my plan to redo the biggest eyesore in my Family Room–the fireplace:

Yuck! Sorry I'm blurry, but I actually look better this way!

Yuck! Sorry I’m blurry, but I actually look better this way!

Check out the ORC participants and other guest participants!  Hope you all have a wonderful week,

Rachel

 

 

 

 

 

 
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4 Comments  comments 

4 Responses

  1. Barbara

    I personally would love a pagoda cornice also!

    How sheik and very oriental!! Cannot wait to see it!!

  2. Nam Kaur

    Love the fabrics you’ve selected and the pagoda idea! please sign me up for your emails so I can easily follow along your ORC
    thank you

  3. Rachel Bauer

    Thank you Barabara!

  4. Rachel Bauer

    Thank you Nam!

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