New Curtains and Rug Cleaning

I decided to try the curtains from Pottery Barn - I couldn't make linen curtains for that price and I figured I could return them if I wasn't happy. I bought them, ironed them, and put them up. Very happy with how they look!

When the old desk was given away I could not believe how filthy the rug was under the kneehole. The rug shampoo guy wasn't sure it would clean up - fortunately it did.

New Lampshade

Much better!

When I was in Pottery Barn to buy the lampshade I noticed their lined, linen curtains were on sale for almost less than I could make them so I'm debating.

Painting

The room was painted Sherwin Williams Hopsack. Not surprisingly, the room is much darker and the black shade on the cypress knee lamp doesn't help. I spent some time swapping around lampshades to see what would work. I tried the shade from the floor lamp and it was a huge improvement - so off to Pottery Barn tomorrow to buy another one. I'm realizing that I tend to pick lampshades that are too small.

Fix III - Paint and Slipcovers

Since I realized that white walls were never going to work in this room, what color to paint the walls? Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams both have these great tools on their websites that allow you to upload pictures of your room and "paint" them with any color in their lines. I found the BM site would hang if I tried to save my work so I primarily used the tool with Sherwin Williams. I discovered that if my walls were brown and the sofa white, the room looked 100% better.

Fortunately Sherwin Williams sells inexpensive quarts of paint that are meant to be used as samples to help you decide on the color before spending a lot of time and money. From the chips I couldn't decide between Latte or Hopsack so I bought samples of each and painted the back of wall paper to make a final decision. That worked well - I could move the samples around to each wall and see how it looked at different times of day and decided on Hopsack.

I tested the paint sample with a pillow from my white living room sofa just to be sure about the new slipcover too. I had to get in touch with Mitchell Gold to find out where I could order a new slipcover locally - Max & Co. I wanted white, but not bedsheet white. When I went in the store to select the color from the samples, the slipcovers were on sale so that was good news.

Fix II - The Desk

I spent hours surfing the 'net and visiting stores (Pottery Barn, West Elm, Ballard - all the usual suspects) looking for a new desk. I originally thought I wanted a sawhorse desk but became convinced it wasn't practical - where do you put your stuff?

Then the lightbulb went on and I decided to look in my own back yard - Scan Design. Instead of my usual, "I just want to look" I told the lady in the store exactly what I wanted and needed and she was so helpful! What I ended up with is actually a return but it's the perfect size and I could (and did) buy a printer stand that fits under it perfectly and has a second shelf for the dsl modem, power strip, and router. A white leather desk chair also caught my eye so I ordered that too. This should go a long way toward straightening out the mess in the corner and now the coffee table can stay in the room when the sofa bed is opened.

Fix I - Lighting

The horrible lampshade on the floor lamp was a quick fix - I just went to Pottery Barn and bought the lampshade in a size they recommend for their floor lamps. And I no longer hate the floorlamp so that's good.

I found a squat lamp for the small bookcase in the corner on the West Elm website. The local West Elm had one in stock and since it's being discontinued it was 50% off. So now I have lighting in corner #3.

The Plan

After a lot of thought, there are several things I have to do:

• Get a new desk that's not so bulky and will handle all the peripheral equipment
• Replace the curtains
• Paint - white just won't work in this room
• Get a new slipcover for the sofa
• Correct the lighting as much as possible given the bookcases

Problem II - Lighting

This was supposed to be a black, white, and khaki room - but that's not working either. During the day, instead of white, the walls look almost gray. I discovered why on a wonderful blog called "Colour Me Happy" - a light color (white or pastel) never works in a room without a lot of natural sunlight - you just get shadows. And every room needs lighting in at least three of the four corners.

So...I've got a couple things working against a white room. The room has only one window with a northern exposure and an overhanging roof so no natural light ever makes it way into the room. Because one side of the room is entirely taken up with bookcases, it's only possible to place lamps in two corners (and one of those lamps has a black shade).

The picture (fuzzy since I purposely did not use flash) above gives a general idea of how gray the walls look during the day. As you can see, it was taken when I was playing around with new wall and sofa colors.

Problem I - The Desk, Lamp and Curtains

My current desk is just too bulky. This means that when I have overnight guests the coffee table has to be moved to the hall so that the whole condo is disrupted. And since I bought a Mac, I don't need all the storage compartments to hide a PC tower, etc.

The desk also does not accomodate the printer, router, or cable modem which leads to the mess in the corner. Since I still need access to the mess, it rules out a proper end table with a table lamp. The floor lamp I bought for the spot is from Pottery Barn but I was too cheap when I bought it to spring for the lampshade designed for it. Consequently, I've bought several Target lampshades over the years that were never straight or too small.

The curtains were a stopgap measure and five years later they're still there. They were ready-made and "inexpensive." While I still think plain white is the best choice for the room, these are unlined so they just look limp and cheap.

My Den

Now that I'm retired and home during the day, my den is just driving me crazy!! There are so many things wrong and this room has to really function well because it's not only my den but also my guest room and it's just not working.