Recently I was hired by one of my former clients to stage a three bedroom condo in UBC. I had staged another condo for this client in the same area 2 years earlier and she said it had sold for a very good price so off we went last Thursday to ‘shop the city’ for all the furniture and accessories. This is the ‘after’ photo of the living room.
Before we left for our shopping day, she asked if we would be able to use any of the existing furniture in her living room (shown below). We might have been able to keep the IKEA sofa (and freshen it up with a new slipcover) but the room would have looked unfinished with just a sofa facing the fireplace and we couldn’t put an additional chair in front of the window because that would have blocked the patio door, so I recommended we start again and get a sofa with a chaise. We bought a chair as well for the opposite corner but it hadn’t arrived at the time the above photo was taken.
Before
During – Installation day
First we went to the “Furniture Spot” in Richmond where we snapped up the sofa w/chaise immediately for $800 (it was on sale). Then because these guys have their own factory and could deliver a coordinating chair by the following week (for $500), we picked out a striped blue and beige fabric for the chair. Then we found this leaf fabric for some toss cushions and got them to pipe it with the striped fabric we had just chosen for the chair!
She also needed a dining room table so we picked up this set as well for a fantastic price (there was a scratch on the table as this was their display model but as we were staging the place, the client didn’t mind). I also liked the fact that the chairs didn’t match and that we had 2 of each style. We asked if they could cover the seats in the same stripe we were doing the chair in (and also deliver them by the following week) and they said yes!
In one hour we had picked out the sofa, dining table/chairs, a coffee table and 3 upholstered chairs. This included the two shown below in the space:
Then we went to Homesense and bought the accessories we needed, 1 lamp, 9 pieces of art and the area rug. The bill here came to $1400. QUICK--START THE CAR, START THE CAR ;) Such a deal!
After that we went to the Brick because we needed coffee tables and an apartment size washer/dryer. We found a washer/dryer and scouted out the tables but didn’t buy anything here because they were a little more than she wanted to pay so they suggested we go the their clearance outlet.
Next we stopped in at Mobler on our way to IKEA and scanned their showroom for more coffee tables, here we found a couple cute options, one shown above for $200. I said they were a possibility but that we would decide by the end of the day what was going to work and she could go back the next day to make final purchases.
At IKEA we picked up drapery for the bedrooms and the rest of the lighting we needed. We also bought some more art and because we were now running out of time in our ‘one day’ marathon, picked out a few fake flowers to go in the vases we had bought earlier in the day to dress up the place.
My client already had the bedroom furniture and bedding so we had to work with the purple and IKEA only had purple sheers (only other option would have been white which would have been too boring with the walls that were not going to be painted) that matched the bedding so we picked up 4 panels (Never buy 2 panels when you are doing store bought drapery, that really screams IKEA) Better to get a minimum of four so you get the additional fullness.
Last stop at the end of the day was ‘The Brick’s Clearance Outlet” where we bought 3 coffee tables which were to be delivered by the weekend. Then I recommended that she go back to ‘Mobler’ and pick up the little round table we had seen earlier in the day.
Here is the dining room set installed with the chairs re-covered in the blue and beige stripe we had chosen.
This vase and bowl we placed on the peninsula to dress it up and in the end the flowers ended up coordinating very nicely with the artwork above!
Because I placed the artwork above on the dining area wall which was right beside the kitchen peninsula, the art below (from IKEA) didn’t match anymore so I propped it up with the vase of orange ‘what-nots’ on the loooooong countertop that otherwise would have looked quite bare.
My client had left on the weekend to go back to Toronto where she lived, so on Tuesday her friend let me into the space with my drapery installer [Michael, who I cannot live without] and one of my talented students, Lisa Lyttle who came to help me out and experience firsthand what an installation looks like! Thanks Lisa!
The friend came back later in the day when we were done and said, “I can’t believe you bought all of this furniture in ONE day, it took me TWO days to buy one little table for my apartment, the last time I went shopping!"
Salespeople can always tell when a designer is in their showroom because we walk through it with lightening speed saying, no, no, yes, no, no—lets go! The longest amount of time spent in a store is always when we are actually paying for the merchandise, otherwise, it’s, NEEEEEEEXT!
Related post:
