Designer rant

[avanta7]

Spouse and I want an accent chair to go with our new living room set. We want a contemporary chair in a striped neutral fabric, something that blends with the deep chocolate brown of the leather sofa set, and is enhanced by the cherry and glass tables. That's not too much to ask for, right?

Wrong.

Apparently, our taste differs widely from what the furniture designers have decreed will be available at this time.

We've found several chairs that both spouse and I like, but none of them have come in fabrics we liked. In fact, we haven't found fabric that we like at all in any of the furniture stores we've visited. And believe me, we've sat down and gone through every fabric sample they've had available.

(I feel I must clarify something here: Spouse is the party insisting upon a specific type of stripe. I've found several fabrics I really liked, contemporary geometrics mostly, but he hated them. And he was hateful about hating them. Chair shopping has not been a happy experience.)

Anyway...

Failing finding anything in bricks & mortar, I've gone online. Same thing. Great chairs, wrong fabric. Let me show you what I mean:

This chair:

is perfect as far as the styling goes. And the stripe is close to what he wants, but this particular stripe is too "peach" and not enough "caramel". None of the other fabric options even comes close.

So I hunted online for fabric, thinking "maybe if I find a fabric, I can google the fabric name and come up with a chair". The closest fabric to the ideal is this one:

and I can't find a single chair on the entire internet which lists it as an upholstery option.

Ditto this one:


And this one:


See what I mean?

So my choices are:

• Buy a length of fabric and hope we find a old chair in great structural shape but in desperate need of re-upholstering.
• Go to a designer and pay through the nose for a custom-made chair.
• Convince spouse to be more flexible on choice of fabric.

Which of these options do you think will be most successful AND least expensive?

I don't know either.

Comments

I am a bear in a cave

[deech-satx.livejournal.com]

I congratulate your Hubby for even having the courage to go chair shopping. I would rather have my legs amputated than to do that. I take whatever furniture I am given and move on with it. I have no taste in this type of asthetic. I guess I am just a bear in a cave!

Flyinfox_SATX

Re: I am a bear in a cave

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

I take whatever furniture I am given and move on with it.
~~~~
Which is as it should be. Choclaholic has raised you right. *grin*

My pre-caffeine thoughts:

[marina-wolf.livejournal.com]

Looked here yet?
http://www.norwalkfurniture.com/

Would it be easier/possible to consider a solid for the chair itself, then shop around for "the perfect" throw?

If Steve was being that picky over shared-space decor, I'd tell him to stuff it (but I'm home looking at/using it all the time, so that would actually work).

Get a huge beanbag.

Re: My pre-caffeine thoughts:

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

Looked here yet?
http://www.norwalkfurniture.com/
~~~
Omigosh, Marina, you may have just saved my marriage. There was a Norwalk in Little Rock. I never even thought of checking online for them. I am a silly rabbit.

Spouse has ALWAYS been really picky about furniture, dishes, bedroom linens, etc. He's the only man I've ever been involved with who has such definite opinions about this sort of thing. I mean, my mom and dad shop for furniture together, but Daddy usually bows to Mom's taste when it comes to fabric, as long as it's not too girly. Spouse's insistence on such major design input has taken a LOT of "getting used to", and every now and then, it still rises up and smacks me in the face.

I've considered the beanbag. But then we'd fuss over its color.

*grr*

I'm going to bookmark the Norwalk site and give it a good look later. Thanks!

Re: My pre-caffeine thoughts:

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

I am copying that icon, if it's OK with you. TIA.

re: icon

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

Sure, go ahead! Just credit it to pouringicons, who made it.

[amyleaton.livejournal.com]

I LOVE that chair. I even like the stripes. It would be perfect if he could accept it because it seems really close to what you're looking for. My husband is really firm about what he likes too but he's usually not so specific... Good luck!

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the good wishes!

re your icon: I finally read all the Harry Potter books in preparation for the final volume's release later this year. Trusting Snape is pretty difficult at this point, but I'm still reserving judgment.

[amyleaton.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just finished my re-read of the series and I am just holding out hope right now. I just have to believe Dumbledore was right... You're right, it's hard right now! :-)

[antof9.livejournal.com]

Apparently, our taste differs widely from what the furniture designers have decreed will be available at this time.

I often feel the same way about clothing.

Sorry, I have nothing to offer you but my sympathies. We've had the same problem with curtains/drapes at our house. I now have some lovely drapes in the front room, with gold undertones when I have no gold in that room. *sigh*

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

Omigosh, I don't even want to think about the impending battle over window treatments. I may just buy them, install them and present them as a fait accompli.

[markgharris.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to go look up, "quotidiantities," now. : )

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

You won't find it.

It's a word I made up, combining "quotidian" with "inanity", and it means "the mundane nonsense of everyday life".

[markgharris.livejournal.com]

I like it when people make up words.

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

It was a word the English language desperately needed. :D

My friend bunrab recently came up with "decarpitation", a term to describe the cutting off of fingers. (I didn't ask why she felt that particular word was necessary. I didn't want to know.)

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, it was in the context of a near-decarpitation, luckily avoided. I still have all my fingers (although that one I slammed the Pontiac door on when I was four will always have that rather peculiar lane-change bend in it.)

[shendoah.livejournal.com]

This gene skipped me. I think that is why God made my mother AND my sister design oriented. :)

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

Wish it had skipped my husband! Do you think your mom might have any ideas on where to look for what we want in the Sacramento area?

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

One option that some friends of ours back in Austin did: when my mother passed away, I gave our friends S & L her armchair - a rotating rocker with wing-chair styling, whose seat foam was almost entirely flattened, and the fabric of which was a horrid orange and brown chintz, but structurally quite sound, and of a comfortable size. L signed up for an upholstery course at the local community college, and used the chair as her workpiece, so for the cost of a CC course - about $100 - and the fabric she wanted (purchased separately at a fabric store with a decent home-furnishings department), she got lessons in upholstery/re-upholstery, got to use their power tools in their workshop set up for the purpose, and got a like-new armchair out of the deal. It would have cost more to have the chair re-upholstered by someone, and she wouldn't have acquired the skills, which she then used to re-upholster more of their old furniture. Plus, she got to make matching curtains out of the same fabric as the armchair, and it gives their living room a wonderful look.

Thanks for the idea!

[avanta7.livejournal.com]

That is a possibility. It requires haunting flea markets, yard sales, and used furniture stores. Oh the horror. *grin*