Adding Colors (Sunroom Edition)

I find that I tend to find a color I love, and then I use it all over in a room, without much in the way of an accent color.  Most recently, my New Favorite Color has been various shades of turquoise - teal, aquamarine, peacock.   Whatever you want to call it, I adore it, and I've been recently adding it to my dining room and living room; I've decided to work another color into the mix, but that will have to wait for another post.

Our three-season porch, which I like to refer to as "the sunroom," is one of my favorite rooms in the Handyverger house.  I've shown pictures of it before, with its slate floors and white walls and lots of windows.  When I graduated from nursing school four years ago, we bought furniture for the sunroom.  We bought a table with comfortable chairs we love.  The chair cushions are a rich rust color, the fabric a soft jacquard.  So for four years, the sunroom has been predominantly that wonderful rich russet.

Recently, though I decided it was time for an accent color. I toyed with the idea of adding a gold to complement the russet, sticking with autumn sort of colors, but then I saw a rug that I fell in love with at Lowes.  The rug was only $19.99, so the price was certainly right.  I couldn't quite find a place in the house to use the rug, though, since it was cobalt blue and white.  I passed on the rug, and spent a month kicking myself for it.  A more recent trip to Lowes led to the discovery that there was one more blue and white rug left, so you bet I snatched it right up!  

I still wasn't sure what to do with it when I got home, but then I saw a pillow that inspired me.

It's made by Idari on Etsy, and it was a great price!   When the pillow got here, it was a tiny bit smaller than I expected, but it's adorable!  I bought two, actually, and the color scheme for my sunroom came into fruition.

The pictures are a little hazy - my apologies!  I hope to get some better pictures tomorrow in the sunlight.

You can get a good look at the rug below - it's not the softest on the feet, but I far prefer it to things like jute or sisal rugs.  We try to avoid buying expensive rugs at the Handyverger house, because with five cats... let's just say that I'd cry if I had to clean cat barf off a $1000+ Beni Ourain, as much as I love them!  I'd also cry if they decided the lovely $3000 overdyed Persian rug I loved was a great scratching post.  The things we sacrifice for our children, ha ha.

I'll also ask you to kindly ignore the veneer of cat hair on the chairs.  *sigh*  Story of my life!

I made a quick trip to Pier 1 last week and picked up a few odds and ends on clearance - the giant tray with flowers on it and the pillow in front of it in the picture below.  The tray itself was originally  $44.99 and it was on clearance for $19.99, and the pillows were originally 34.99 and I bought two for $9.98 each - score!

I also picked up a few paper lanterns.  I've been dying to get the peacock lantern, and I lucked out - I got the last one in the store!  The salesguy was nice enough to take it down from the display for me.

 The table runner is a scarf I bought from Old Navy.  I find that scarves are such an inexpensive way to add a hint of color and pattern to a space.

And here it is, all put together!

We had friends over for dinner last Friday evening, and we got to enjoy the newly decorated sunroom.  It was sticky, but it quickly became comfortable when the sun went down and we brought an oscillating fan out with us.

What do you think?



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