Nesting?

Funny I thought that the "nesting instinct" during pregnancy meant that you had a sudden urge to prepare everything for the baby's upcoming arrival. And I've done... a few things. Like, buying some very pretty fabric (from that collection) to make new covers for my breastfeeding pillow and rocking chair. And... Asking my sister to bring me back some stuff, like the bassinet and my pump. Hey, that's something.

But strangely, what I have been mostly obsessed with lately are home design blogs. Suddenly I want to change everything in the house. I want color and patterns and uniqueness and style and fun! I want to work on LP's room: it's often messy -sometimes we just don't have the energy to pick up after him day after day after day, and it was never really finished as a big boy's room, hence never achieving this lovely cohesive feeling. Then there's our bedroom: we've been wanting to do a big bold damask wallpaper on the back wall for a while, and change our draperies and bed linens for cooler, sexier ones.

But mostly, what I can't stand anymore is our main living/dining area. I sort of like IKEA, but it happens that our two ugliest and blahest pieces of furniture come from there: our generic dining room set, and our sad, sad, tired couch. While the rest of the furniture in there tends to be family keepsakes, quirky antiques and other eclectic finds (we recently bought two mint condition, joint theater seats we absolutely love for 45 bucks), I don't want the look to be too "house of curios" either, and my plan was always to balance these with some strong, statement-making sleek contemporary pieces. But now the two pieces that should have an impact are our worst, and it's not working at all!

Our table is not that bad. It's made of small, thin pale wood strips, and can open up to a good size, so even though it's not great quality we are fine with keeping it. We've however been actively looking for (and arguing over) new chairs to replace the offensive and cheap, country (as in covered in straw) ones we have for several years. We first found big cushy 50's chairs, but they needed to be reupholstered and it seemed too complicated. When my office moved locations, I was supposed to buy a set of OK-looking leather chairs we had in the cafeteria for a song, but at the last minute I was informed that they were going to sell them to an employee who had been complaining since he had been there longer than me, and was permanent (as opposed to my contractor status) instead. I was furious, especially since he immediately turned his back and sold them to someone else for more money. Sometimes we would find 4 chairs that we both liked, but didn't get them since we thought it might be better to buy 6 like we currently have. For some obscure reason M persists in not liking chairs with thin metal legs (I LOVE them), so he vetoed most of what I suggested (for instance we have four of these in gray-blue from my old apartment -and OK, they're a bit worn-, but he doesn't want to use them). His ideal ones would be the Louis Ghost, but at that price, it's not happening. Then, we both liked these from yes, IKEA, and they were a good enough compromise for both of us, but at $129 each we hesitated before shelling $800 on self-assembled chairs and came back home defeated.

Here is my latest lust: that's pretty much exactly how I envision our dream dining room to be (from the September issue of Canadian Style at Home). The table was found on Craigslist, and is original 50s arborite. The chairs are Herman Miller Eames Eiffel, an iconic American midcentury design, but oh my, they still look so perfect and fresh and contemporary. And M even likes them! At $249-$299 a piece, they were out of our budget. But after seeing that I just didn't want anything else.


So the hubby did a little research online to see if we could find nice reproductions. And there were a few: like a place in California which had a wide array of colors, but charged a minimum of $150 in shipping, not including customs and duty fees. Then, we found a place in Vancouver, B.C., which also manufactured and sold them for $119 each. We thought, forget it, even though it's the same country it's just as far as LA, for sure it will also cost a fortune in shipping. But I still decided to send them an e-mail, and I am glad I did. The guy promptly wrote back to tell me that they would gladly send them to our house for free, in four to five business days. Note to self: ALWAYS inquire anyway. You never know what nice surprises you could have.

We decided to start with 4 (after all we don't have visitors every day and when we do, we can always use the Umbra ones) , and got two in white, and two in red (they only had three colors available). We're eagerly waiting for them to arrive, and I let out a little snicker directed at the straw chairs every time I see them, just as a small warning that their days are now counted.