We are still on vacation - and waiting for the last of Tropical Storm Beryl to move out. A big thank you to Cyndi Murphy for your fantastic (and always descriptive) guest blog. You can visit her blog, Musings of the Meandering Murphys at
http://meanderingmurphys.blogspot.com/
Thanks so much to Jennifer at Oo-la-la for letting me guest blog while
she's holidaying in St. Simons with her family! Jennifer's style and mine can be
quite different, though we always seem to love what the other
wears/decorates/eats/whatever. I was more than happy to share my latest
obsession as a guest blogger -- turquoise and red.
My husband and I are living overseas in Australia on a work assignment.
Typically, there are two ways to move with an international company: 1) Bring
your own furniture from home (more specifically, whatever you can fit in a
shipping crate), or 2) Rent a home that is already furnished. With our moving
circumstances, we opted for Option 2.
Long story short: We hated it. When the furnished apartment's lease came
up, we promptly moved out and bought the bare minimum amount of cost-efficient
furniture to make a comfortable home in an unfurnished apartment. While we did
have some added expenses, we also had the freedom to decorate with essentially a
blank slate. I figured I might as well try something a little daring and
different, especially since I was living abroad and this was not lifelong
investment furniture.
After visiting a fellow expat's home who was using turquoise as an accent,
I knew I wanted to use it, too. I searched online for a couple of turquoise
'inspiration photos' and stumbled across turquoise and red together. I loved it
immediately but thought I could never pull it off properly. I looked at a few
other colour options, but always came back to the turqu-red combination,
especially with a white background.
This vivid combo was definitely something daring and different for me, but
not so radical that I couldn't find pieces that worked together. In the back of
my mind, I knew could always split the colors to use separately in different
rooms if it didn't work or I grew tired of it. When heading to the shops, I took
some photos with me to capture the right shades of red and turquoise
for consistency.
The first piece I bought was the rug. This wasn't exactly by design but by
incredible sale price. On the rug sale rack, I spotted a plush, thick pile rug
with different shades of turquoise -- perfect for matching up any varieties of
turqu that I settled on. I told the salesman that I hadn't actually
started decorating the apartment yet, so it didn't make sense to buy a rug
before I bought a stick of furniture. He argued that the room decor should be
built from the floor (or rug) up. He added that it's much harder to match a rug
after the fact. Of course, he is a rug salesman but his argument
made sense.
I asked the price, and he flipped the rug over to get the dimensions and
item number. That's when I realized that I had picked out an Espirit Home
Collections rug... the most expensive brand the store carried. Of course. I
didn't even know Espirit made rugs, but I'm not shocked that their high prices
carry over to the home goods, too.
He checked the sale price and expressed his shock at how low the price
was for that size and type of rug (again, he is a salesman, but
it appeared to be genuine shock). It was still higher than I would normally
pay for a rug, but it really did sound like a good deal. Why not? I paid and
pulled the car around for pickup. As he was loading it in the car, he confessed
that he had misquoted me the wrong price (he had looked at the smaller size
price) but it was too late -- I got the rug for about 65% off the retail price
instead of the advertised 25%! It was a mistake definitely in my favour, and
it's definitely been worth it.
Now that I had a central rug, I had to get busy on the furniture. I figured
the best way to pull off this striking colour combination was against all white.
I found a furniture store in Australia similar to the American furniture store
Rooms-To-Go. It had a stunning Chanel-inspired quilted white leather sofa set
that would be the living room's focal point. The other pieces just fell into
place.
The result was expressive and clean, yet serene. Our new home feels bright
and cheery -- a relaxing, happy abode to call our own down under. When it comes
time to leave Australia, we'll try to bring the furniture back to America or
re-sell it. Regardless, it's ours to enjoy for now.
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