Tommy Smythe And I Cried

So at the beginning of the year, our Master Bedroom was put on my goals list to get done. You know my whole goals for 2011, thing. {Throat clearing} Please don't remind me that it's the end of July and 2011 is rolling on by......

The room itself has been on the back burner for years, I piddle in there from time to time, a project HERE, a project THERE, but finalized? Nope. Which is why it made it onto the goals list in the first place. Get.it.done.Michelle.

Thanks to the wonder that is Pinterest, I have been pinning all sorts of inspiration pictures (wanna see? Click HERE). I am a big fan of Tommy Smythe's work so it was no surprise that I loved this room he did. This is a guest room in his home, I think I read that somewhere, you can correct me if I'm wrong....

I love the grass cloth walls, the mix of furnishings (and wood tones), the super big lamps, the touch of orange, cause you know I love orange, and the pillow with the pom-pom fringe. Yes, the pillow. I zeroed right in on it. Floral without being too girly, perfect colors, I needed black, orange and browns too, and who doesn't love pom-poms? To me, it is the perfect pillow oh, and Justin liked it too. I fell deeply in love with the fabric and I went to town tracking it down.

This is opposite the bed...

I did tons of googling, tons of reading, finally found out it was from Schumacher. So I spend a good healthy chunk of my life searching on their website for the fabric Tommy used. I couldn't find it anywhere. All I needed was a name, for crying out loud. Nothing. Out of desperation, I emailed Kirsten. I didn't think Tommy would answer my email(s). :) Thank the Lord she recognized it and sent me the link (thank you Kirsten!). I couldn't believe it, finally, my search was over. I promptly sat down, slapped my hands together, warmed them up, giggled a little, getting ready to write an email to Schumacher. I had it all planned out: I needed to inquire about the cost of the fabric and if I could pre-order.....I've got a doctors appointment in St. Louis in August and they have a showroom there, I thought I could just pick it up then. I was on the ball with this and really excited! This fabric was going to be the thread that tied everything in the room together for me. We are talking pom-poms here people! I was on top of the proverbial fabric world!

Well, I'm not a very patient girl when it comes to these sorts of things. I had emailed Schumacher over the weekend and I just didn't want to wait for a reply......I started thinking, since I have the name, color and sku number now, maybe I could find a source online and just have it shipped to me and won't have to wait till the middle of August.... man, I'm smart.

Just look at it, isn't it beautiful?

So I googled the name and color, got hits right away. Bingo! Click on first link.

I'm excited! I'm so....Wait a minute.

That says $151.20. Blink. Blink. Blink.

That can't be per yard, can it? Blink.

That can't be right, let me read the description.

Yes, here we go....100% Linen, Yes. 58" wide, nice. Unit of measure? Yard.

Yes. That's per yard.

Oh.

I was heart broken. I just hung my head and cried. The PMS wasn't helping, but I still think I would have cried either way.

Reality check. There goes my champagne taste on a beer budget again! All that work for nothing. I definitely got my hopes up a little too high and came crashing down. I'm pretty much over it now.... Although I whined to my MIL and even called my sister to share the news of the "fabric that got away". So what have I learned? Keep your options open!! :) I have found some other Tommy-esque fabric and even some coordinating....all in my price range and budget, but I'll never forget my first love. :) Oh, and Shumacher if you're reading, don't bother answering my email, I got my answer.

So do you have any stories about something you just loved, but it got away? Do share.

Images via Pinterest

Progress on New Chairs

Remember the chairs I scored a couple of weekends ago?

I have been missing in action for days, so I thought I would take a minute to share some of what I've been up to. All of it's good, don't worry. Not only have I been working on the new chairs, but the master bedroom is in the works too, Lord help me. I'll probably show you that progress on the bedroom soon too, and hopefully a reveal not too long after that. But anyway, I'm talking chairs tonight. I finally narrowed down my fabric choices.....and they finally arrived yesterday (I ordered online). This linen in oatmeal was in the running along with a turquoise linen. Then I found this green and it finally hit me what I wanted to do.

The chairs are all primed and ready to be painted. I hope to paint tomorrow, and these beauties will be a glossy white. Even in the primed state I was happy with my decision to go white. The existing foam is in great condition, but I wanted to beef it up a bit, I found the beefy foam at Hobby Lobby. Oh, and I took off the metal doo-dads and instantly knew they are not going back on...filled the little nail holes, and it's as if they never happened!

I wanted the chairs to be very tailored. They are a little fancy (for me), so I wanted the fabric to be fairly modern and fresh looking. I didn't want them to lean on the french side either, that's definitely not my style. So instead of rushing into anything, I took some time to find exactly what I wanted. So here is my idea, use the oatmeal linen and then some how trim it out with the green. Remember now, that I am not a seamstress, so I had to figure it out. It's taken all evening to figure it out, but I finally did.



I recovered the seat in the linen.




It looked pretty good, especially with the added foam.




Then I made the green fabric into trim/piping...I cut it on the bias and everything, although I had to look up how to do that! :) I used the cotton filler cording from Wrights. I think it's generally used for pillows, but it worked like a charm for this too.

Finally, I stapled it all around, right along with the linen, flipped it over and it looked great. Surprisingly, what was in my head actually came out. So I've done the first one and now I have five more to do. I've got to get some additional fabric on order (since I finally made a decision) and then I will be all finished with my Goodwill chairs. I'm so excited! I have one other little idea about painting, I'll be doing a test on that tomorrow!

Thanks for sticking around and reading, I know my postings have been erratic. I hope you'll come back and see how these turn out!
On a side note, did you watch the first episode of Design Star? Luckily the full episode is on the HGTV website so I am able to watch.....That's the only thing I miss about not having cable, HGTV! I think the designers will give us something to watch this season!