20 Oct How to Transform a Breakfast Nook with Sexy Legs – One Room Challenge | Fall 2019 | Week 3

Ever shop for a dining table and chairs?  Fairly easy for an actual dining room, but a bit more challenging for a Breakfast Nook, especially if you already have built-in seating.  Before we get into how sexy legs can transform a Breakfast Nook, let me warn you that with a 6-week challenge something’s bound to go askew. It’s the nature of the beast.

 

Welcome to Week 3 of the 2019 fall One Room Challenge (ORC) sponsored by Better Homes & Gardens.  If you’re not familiar with the challenge, learn all about it on my blog posts (below) and the rooms of 350+ Featured Designers and Guest Participants in the challenge.

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6

What could possibly go wrong?

Week 3 is the half-way point where all hell usually breaks out. They don’t call it a “challenge” for nothing!  At this point in time, some of us are freaking out not sure if the products we ordered will arrive or installed in time, our DIY projects with the room will be finished, and for novices like me (this is only my 2nd One Room Challenge), did I make the right decisions in the first place. I worry constantly if what I selected will look great together.

Having to make many decisions in such a short time – only 6 weeks –  often leaves room for things to go wrong. Really wrong!

Everything has to line up right for a room to be completely transformed. Designing a room is all about problem-solving and that is one thing interior designers and decorators do extremely well. In fact, that’s why you hire them. Let designers execute your vision and sweat the small stuff so you don’t have to.

Look at this beautiful blue-green pattern fabric I selected from sponsor Kravet for decadent luxury pillows!

Two for the Road

In the Breakfast Nook, as I mentioned in Week 1, there were all sorts of problems to solve. But sometimes, in the process, we run into problems ourselves.

When I ordered fabric from our generous sponsor Kravet, I ordered it for the cushion and shades in the breakfast nook, and a chair and ottoman for the living room right next to the nook.

PROBLEM #1

Question: Why did I not order fabric for the pillows for the breakfast nook?  Excellent question!

Answer: I was a total space cadet thinking I would make all the pillows with our studio’s vintage fabric.

Duh! Kravet has G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S fabric!!! What was I thinking?!?!

 

My only excuse is that I’m a pillow designer, and wasn’t thinking beyond my own studio. My bad.

Problem Solved: I emailed my Kravet rep immediately to tell him my mistake to see if I still had time to order fabric.  Yes, I did. YAY!!

PROBLEM #2

This one’s too embarrassing to even write about.

Well, okay, I’ll at least tell you, even though you’ll think I’m a complete IDIOT! Trust me, you will!

Back at it again

I had to go back to Stockton Hicks Laffey Trade Showroom (which is always a treat because it’s so gorgeous!) to select pillow fabric and get my order in pronto.

I swear the poor women in the Memo Room (where you check out samples of fabric) must think I’m crazy because I was a bit frazzled at this point.  Anyhoo, I finalized the pillow fabric with my dear friend Sandy and ordered it with my rep.

Luckily I called my seamstress to coordinate our schedules and I told her about my problem and she said,

Question: “Wait a minute! You ordered how many yards?”

Answer: Uh-oh!!!  Yup, I totally forgot that fabric is 54″ wide. I had double ordered. Crazy, I know, especially since I’ve been making pillows for 15 years!!

Problem Solved: I had to quickly change my order.  Just in the nick of time. Phew!

 

There’s always something new to learn

Okay, here’s what my seamstress said, although I think she was trying to be nice to make me feel better.

“You are not used to ordering fabric at the showroom because you collect fabric and already have it in your studio.”

Well, of course, that must be the reason for my temporary moment of insanity.

It is partially, but not totally.  My brain is at the “3-week-fried” stage and that’s probably the real reason.

So there you have it. Problems DO arise and designers and decorators and their entire teams do everything they can to fix them immediately.

Now, onto the real reason you’re reading Week 3 – How to transform a Breakfast Nook with Sexy Legs. Let’s start with our Breakfast Nook right now.

The table that doesn’t work anymore

You see we’ve had a wonderful modern table. In fact, it is the only piece of Modern furniture I’ve ever bought, from a favorite local store, Nest Modern and I was super proud of it.  I love its design and the blonde, solid wood top. It’s made by Creative Elegance and has served us well.

But this dining table is really designed for a dining room with four chairs and not a nook. Whenever we added people to the table, for dinner or a board game, someone was bound to bang their knees against the brushed chrome legs. Thus, the main reason we want a modern pedestal table. (Note: It’s for sale on Facebook Marketplace if you’re interested.)

A touch of gold hits the sweet spot

Knowing we needed a pedestal table and two chairs, the first thing I needed to do was let go of the preconceived notion that a Breakfast Nook had to be casual. Yes, maybe, if fully in the kitchen, but ours is more visible from the living room. And anyways we eat all our meals, not only breakfast, and we entertain there as well.

I couldn’t find much inspiration because most breakfast nooks I saw on Pinterest or Instagram were casual, and frankly, rather boring. Or they were that beautiful light blue or neutral color that, as I explained in Week 2, was not going to work for our lifestyle.

But, as you saw in last week’s post, a formal dining room by interior designer Timothy Corrigan from his new book The New Elegance, instantly became the inspiration for the colorway I selected, blue-green. And gold was going to be that little extra detail that would hit the sweet spot. Also, in all honesty, I think Timothy Corrigan’s dining room below helped me make that “mind shift” to view our breakfast nook with the potential to be an elegant space with touches of gold. Who says I can’t have gold in my Breakfast Nook?

ANNOUNCEMENT

I’m super excited to share we have another new sponsor for our Breakfast Nook –  Eurway Modern Home + Office, an incredible online treasure trove of fantastic modern furnishings and decor. (I’ll be writing about our lighting sponsor, CWI Lighting next week.)

 

 

 

Lucky for me, Collectic Home in Austin, is Eurway’s Showroom. I was able to pop in there and speak with the owner Joni Greeson.  I had met Joni when I was doing the Spring One Room Challenge and was really impressed with the artful mix of modern furniture, lighting, and accessories they carry from all over the world. They have an incredible selection in the store and even more so online.

 

Collectic Home also has an entire design center with hundreds of fabrics (above) to help consumers with all aspects of interior design, as well as an excellent To-the-Trade Program.

Joni has been a wonderful help in discussing some of my One Room Challenge ideas with her. Their customer service is excellent and their peanut M&M’s have saved me, more than once, for lunch during some of my busiest One Room Challenge days.

Love at first sight

The minute I walked into Collectic Home last week, I spotted it. It was right there in the front display, the perfect table and chairs for my Breakfast Nook.

It truly was love at first sight. I had been looking online for 2 weeks trying to find a pedestal table and they all were thousands of dollars or plain white. We have antiques in the living room, so plain white was going to be too modern. I also looked on Craig’s List and Facebook Marketplace, but could only come up with large, ugly clunky ones.

I dreamed of something sleek and modern, maybe with a marble top. I hit a home run (just like Altuve of the Astros did tonight!) running into this one below, the Odyssey 47″ table, classic, Mid-century styling with its gold tulip base and a faux marble round top.

This dining table is exactly what I’ve been looking for and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

It’s all about those sexy gold legs

With blue-green and gold textiles and a gold base pedestal table, all I needed was four gold sexy legs to transform my drab Breakfast Nook into the new elegance.  My luck, Collectic Home had them in stock right in front of me in this gorgeous dark green velvet.  And boy, are they super comfy to sit in. The curves are sensuous, the sides hug you, and they have a gold handle on the back to pull the chair out from the table.

 

 

 

But it’s those sexy gold legs that did it for me.  It’s amazing that one single design detail can really transform a Breakfast Nook.  I can’t wait to see what they look like in our Breakfast Nook!

We are incredibly grateful to Eurway | Collectic Home for providing the table and chairs at a very discounted price for our project for the One Room Challenge.  Please shop Eurway | Collectic Home to find the perfect modern furniture for your home too! (Click the table and chair images to shop these products directly on their website.)

The BIG REVEAL

Thursday, November 7th, is the Big Reveal, when you’ll see what this transformation with sexy legs truly looks like. We have only 3 more weeks left, and that includes getting professional photography done too.

Here’s what’s left for me to do. A lot!

1. Chandelier. Select a chandelier by sponsor CWI Lighting (I’m close.  Will be writing about that in Week 4) and contact the electrician for installation.
2. Sewing. Make the shades, valance and 9 pillows with the help of my seamstress.  (Will be writing about that in Week 5).
3. Shopping. Start shopping for and styling the tabletop.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot and plan to shop next weekend. Decorating the table, especially for the photo shoot, is important.
4. Fashion Styling. I’ve already secured sponsor Spring Frost Boutique to style my outfits again for the photo shoot. Her boutique has the best designer clothing, thank you Spring! This is a fun twist I’ve added to my One Room Challenges, as it enables me to enjoy the fruits of my labor and receive great photos for my website and social media at the same time.
5. Professional Photography. My photographer called today and there might be an issue with the dates.  Keep your fingers crossed it all works out.  It usually does.

 

Till next time, be sure to follow along on my Instagram @thepillowgoddess and subscribe to The Pillow Goddess blog.  Also follow @oneroomchallenge and @betterhomesandgardens and all the other 350+ participants on the One Room Challenge blog.

I think I’m number 195 this week, as I’m late because of an extra special guest we had in our Airbnb, The Collier Guest Room.  Design blogger and humorist Laurel Bern of Laurel Bern Interiors, (you must read her hilarious blog “Flush Mount Ceiling Lights – No Boobs Allowed”) was here for a conference and I had so much fun with her, along with my friend interior designer Patrick Landrum, who is my sounding board for this project.  It was a wonderful break right at the point when you really need a break from this intense One Room Challenge. Thank you Laurel and Patrick, and all of you, and fellow Guest Participants (you know who you are!) for your ongoing support! XO PG

Note: This post is sponsored by Eurway | Collectic Home and Kravet.  All logos and professional online photos are by the respective brands; opinions are my own.