"I like sexy rooms, and I don't think all-beige is very sexy." Billy Baldwin

I'm getting ready to have my couch sent out to be recovered. I have the fabric: white leather. I chose it because I think it will be durable, and easy to clean. I have had an Ikea slip cover on this couch, as well as a toile one, originally black and white, and now over dyed pink. I have started to dismantle the old upholstery, and have hidden my crime under the slip cover while I am waiting to send it out.

From the clipping file:
it inspired me to cover my couch
in white leather (with nail head trim)

I am just waiting until the next Bed and Tango guests come and go, as I don't want the living room in disarray when they are with us.
While the sofa is getting a face-lift, I am going to repaint the living room - finally! It's been yellow, a color I inherited from the previous owner. I've decorated around it, and even enjoyed it's sunny qualities, but now it's time for it to go. I have been seduced by all the pale rooms being done everywhere, beige, soft blues, silver leaf accents, white furnishings - so pretty. Our guest room is a pretty shade of beige, called Studio Beige, that I thought I might use in the living room.

The living room opens onto our dance parlor through a set of double doors. The dance parlor is a sexy deep brown, after all we teach tango in this room. So I have decided to paint the living room the same color, in hopes of expanding that visual sexiness by joining the two rooms with the same color. The floors are light, and must remain so, and I'm hoping that a kind of reverse of the current trend of dark floors and light walls will work some magic.

I have been looking at images of brown rooms, and look to Billy Baldwin, a master of using this color. I found so many nice things at Style Court and An Aesthete's Lament (who I have added to my blog roll of favorites tonight).
I don't want the room to be an homage to retro, which will be tricky since all of my things are vintage or antique. I have one "new" piece, an armless slipper chair. I'm going to change the curtains too from my poison green velvet with pink linen center panels, to the natural drop cloth drapes. I am going to make a wide white leather covered valance. I will add a new chandelier, perhaps an over size lantern that seems to be popping up everywhere.

The huge nine foot long credenza will be moved to the kitchen, so I can change the floor plan. I plan to place the sofa there, looking out at the dance parlor. The flat screen will be placed on one of two flanking tables on either side of the French doors. I am going to cover these tables with the same white drop cloth fabric used for the drapes.

We have a vintage Eames leather lounge chair and ottoman that I am thinking of selling, and maybe replacing it with a white slip covered chaise lounge. I am also considering a geometric print slip cover for the slipper chair. As far as a rug goes, the jury is out. I have a brown and white cow hide, and also an antique red kilm rug.

So for now, it's just dreaming of Billy Baldwin, and imagining myself looking like Diana while working in in my red book room on my blog.

If you want to play with color choices, Better Homes and Gardens has a nifty little toy on line HERE called Color A Room. The room choice Escape From Beigeland was especially fun for me because it uses a similar camel back sofa as mine.