Sunday, November 28, 2010

The Den

The downstairs den is one of the rooms we spend the most time in but sadly it's one of the only rooms to not be fixed up well. Lately we have been trying to change that. Some new furniture and a little paint has helped a lot.

The biggest and most noticeable new piece is the sofa. I had seen this sofa from Macy's on numerous blogs before. We loved the look of it so my parents were kind enough to buy us one for our first anniversary. Thanks Mom and Dad!







This corner table was the first piece of furniture we actually purchased for the den. When we bought it we did not know who it was made by. Then one day when I was browsing blogs I saw that these guys had posted about some tables they had found at a thrift store (lucky!). So thanks to them I knew it was made by American of Martinsville and we were able to search for a matching side table.



We recently found this side table at Kudzu Antiques. One day in the future we will have the two tables refinished since they are not in perfect shape. They look great for now though.



I got really lucky and scored this awesome lounge chair from an estate sale for $80. Everyone at the sale kept asking me about it so I knew I was lucky to snag it. I have been looking for one of these for a long time and I this is the first one I've found in my price range. Eventually we will have the cushions recovered but the frame is in perfect shape.



It took forever to decide on window coverings for the sliding glass doors. We ended up going with the Kvartal system from Ikea and we are very happy. The shades let a lot of light in but you can't see through them at all. The only issue, and maybe we are doing something wrong, is that you can use one pull rod to open all the curtains but you need multiple rods to pull everything shut again. That seemed a little odd to me but maybe I was expecting too much from Ikea.





I got this clock for pretty cheap from Storehouse when they were going out of business. Initially it kept horrible time so my Dad changed the clock mechanism. It works like a charm now.



Also, you may have noticed that the floor is a different color. When we first pulled up the carpet we put down a coat of primer as a quick way to hide the ugly brown tile. That got grimy fast so we have now painted the floor with some honest to goodness floor paint. We still plan to redo the tile one day but until then we will rock this painted floor, which actually looks pretty good. The only other things we would need to address down here are a new coffee table, some matching lamps, an area rug and what to do with the bar. We plan on keeping it but I would like to rebuild it. The the wood panelling is not doing it for me (soon we will post some better pictures of the bar and ask you, our valued readers, what you think could be done to improve it). Either way I am finally happy with how this room is looking.

End of line.

8 comments:

  1. Awesome, a Nelson fire grate would look real swell in that fireplace!

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  2. Hey Chris,

    Do you have a picture of one of those grates? I tried looking for one but didn't see any.

    We also need to decide what kind of screen we are going to do for the fireplace. At the moment we are scared to use it with no screen and 2 pets in the house. Do you or anyone else reading this have any suggestions?

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  3. Hi! Casie from www.redneckmodern.com here. You're den looks fantastic! I love the furniture. As for a fireplace screen....we searched high and low for something that wouldn't junk up the space or detract from the overall look of the fireplace. We ended up going with the mesh spark screens in black. Most of our fellow Eichler owners have the same and they really seem to work well with the MCM look. We bought our kit from these guys and were very pleased - it was affordable and the quality is great. http://www.fireplacedoorsonline.com/acatalog/Mesh_Curtains_-_Replacement_Mesh.html
    According to their website it looks like they sell curtains specifically for corner fireplaces which would be perfect - Good luck!

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  4. I got our Nelson grate off Ebay several years ago. I think it would be cool to have someone fab you up a longer one since you have a lengthy fireplace. You can't go wrong with a mesh screen, mounted or freestanding.

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  5. Casie - Thank you for the link. I have been looking for something like that but could never find the exact thing we needed. I will have to take some measurements tonight and send them off for a quote.

    Chris - That's a good suggestion on having something made. Most of the things I see are too short and never really look right. However will it be an issue to have the fire spread out in the fireplace when the vent is in the back corner?

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  6. The back corner vent may be an issue depending on how large it is. Even a small Nelson grate could do the job.

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