River House Diary

We own two Cooper Upholstered Cubes from Ballard Designs that need to be reupholstered to work in the great room. I plan to use Sunbrella's Piper fabric in Mineral. They will be placed under the console table behind the sofa available when extra seating is required. Cooper Upholstered Cube upholstered in Piper Mineral; courtesy of Ballard Designs

The next major purchase for the Great Room are the rugs. I plan to layer a wool rug over a sisal. Thanks to the sisal samples that arrived last week, I know I'll be ordering the Prato Tan rug with Harvest Haze binding as the bottom rug. I'm still waiting on a sample of the wool rug I plan to order. The fabrics in the room will be beautiful in a very understated way as the star of the room is the fireplace. Great Room fabrics; personal collection The fabric samples are on the flat weave outdoor rug in the dining area of the kitchen, which is visible from the great room. Starting from the lower left are the pillow (stripe) and spool chair  fabrics. Above them is the sofa fabric  (the textured solid beige gold). To its immediate left is the fabric for 22" square pillows -- two of five pillows for the sofa. The samples in the upper right are for the window treatments in the dining area -- woven wood shades and linen drapes. Putting all the samples together lets me s...

We ordered the sofa for the great room this week. We plan to layer rugs in this room -- a large sisal and a smaller wool rug -- to define the seating area. Three samples were delivered yesterday for the sisal "under" rug. I will be ordering this rug from SisalRugs.com  because you can easily order them in custom sizes. Three possibilities for one of the great room rugs; personal collection The rug on the left matches the sisal in the foyer, which was an all-weather sisal in the Costa Rica weave and color. The rug on the left matches the flat weave rugs in the kitchen best. But but will look best with the sofa fabric  and the smaller wool rug we plan to layer on to of the sisal? Loloi Rugs Julian Collection JI-01; courtesy of Loloi Rugs

I have wanted to attend the Core Sound Decoy Festival  since the show began 32 years ago but I never seemed to be in eastern North Carolina on the first weekend in December until last year. So many beautiful things, from artwork to working decoys to decorative carvings of many, many types of waterfowl. Pete and I purchased a large swan and a carving of a Mallard Duck. The swan was so large, Pete started referring to him as my "pet swan." Earlier this week, Swanie found his permanent home on the console table behind our future sofa. Swanie at home on the console table; personal collection

Since we moved our host and hostess chairs from the kitchen to our bedroom, there wasn't room for our bench at the foot of the sofa. So we've "promoted" it to the great room where it will be available when extra seating is required. We reupholstered the bench in Kravet Basics yummy 35239-23 (terrible name). Kravet Basics 35239-23; courtesy Kravet I plan on having a large lumbar pillow made for the bench because you can never have enough accent pillows ! Zuniga Interiors recommended a Schumacher fabric and I literally fell in love. Santa Monica Ikat in China Blue; courtesy Schumacher The colors are just perfect with each other and with the Walker Zanger tile we used for the fireplace surround. Duquesa Catarina field tile; courtesy Walker Zanger

I think accent pillows are a great way to make a room pop. They allow me to keep my large upholstered pieces neutral, which is a great way to make major investments last a long time -- so much less expensive to update accent pillows. We'll have four major upholstered pieces in the Great Room. Obviously, the largest is a sofa, which will be the Ethan Allen Oxford Small Sofa . It will be covered with Ethan Allen's Chance fabric in the Grain color. Oxford Small Sofa with Chance Grain fabric; courtesy of Ethan Allen I plan on using five pillows on the sofa -- two 22" square pillows, two 18" square pillow and a lumbar pillow. Accent pillows for Great Room sofa; courtesy of Ballard Designs, Houzz and Living Spaces The Shiloh Spool chairs and custom accent pillows have been delivered . The chairs were covered with Sunbrella's Dimple fabric in the Sand color and the fabric for the lumbar pillows was also from Ballard Designs -- Suzanne Kasler Signature Li...

The counter stools for River House have been quite the saga. First, there was the St. Martin stool from Williams and Sonoma but they were no longer available. That was the same story for the Ibzia stool from the same source. Next, we tried the Avalon from Serena & Lily , and a more uncomfortable stool couldn't be imagined. Our fourth attempt was also from Serena & Lily -- the Riviera Sunwashed Counter Stool . It was slightly more comfortable than the Avalon, but not by much. Take five is the Capitola counter stool from Palecek. Of course, it's three times more expensive than my other attempts but Zuniga Interiors was able to get us a pretty good price. We ordered them yesterday. Finally! Capitola Counter Stool; courtesy of Palecek