Saturday, October 22, 2011

Library Complete

The largest area we had to work on before Sweet Home magazine came to our house was the 'family room'. R and I are calling it the Library or a lounging space. You might remember back awhile ago when I was thinking about what to do with this space in my post here. I had wanted something low to the ground for lounging. Ultimately, I decided not to go with the Ikea mattresses because the grey covers were not made to be used as upholstery so the cushions would get worn and need to be replaced too fast. I did look in Malaysia for other low to the ground type furniture, but found nothing except bean bags. I had seen a cool photo of a few bean bags here and thought that they might work for the space and create the lounging effect R and I were looking for for reading and relaxing.

I was able to find three dark brown nearly black perfect colored bean bags from Jusco in Seremban 2 and bought them up with some matching pillows. The center rug is from our Bali trip. We wanted something playful and colorful to go with the colors of the books and items on the bookshelves. The small rug in the corner is a Persian rug from R's mom on her recent visit.

I had wanted to place these two Expedit Ikea shelf units straight on the ground for a low effect so it would be at the level of the bean bags, but R and I decided on legs at the store because the shelves just looked toooo low. Even with the legs, they are fairly low and go nicely with the seating area across the room.

The other thing we desperately needed in the Library space was some kind of Curtains for the large windows. I wanted something that you couldn't see directly through, but still could make out the green and sky behind. The curtains we were hoping would cool the room down because it gets so much sun in the afternoon it is super hot there. We bought another one of those long cables to hang the curtains on with clips from Ikea and 8 panels of white curtains (forget the name of these). The photo above was right after the installation. I have since hemmed them so they flow to the floor and don't bunch at the bottom. And I also removed the clips and used those old fashion curtain pleat clips and attached the curtains higher so there is no gap showing light through where the clips used to be, also, the curtains look more 'pleated' which is the look I was going for.

A couple Persian metal mirror holders (left) and a covered metal container sit on the table base with our Kindle. By the way, Kindles still aren't easy to get in Malaysia. When we bought ours a few months back, Amazon in the US wasn't shipping US manufactured Kindles to Malaysia. We had to have someone send it to us. The few Kindles that were available in KL stores were of questionable origin (meaning possibly knock offs or the models made and distributed in countries where the product is not the same as the better US models ... I don't know R knows more about this ... ) Hopefully, they will start to sell them in Malaysia before the next model comes out. We love this one so much we can't wait to get the next version.

A few old Persian photo albums.


6 comments:

  1. it is always a joy in the journey of furnishing your own home. glad to see you are taking your time in creating your own place.

    perhaps some thai, middle eastern or indian floor cushions in minimal pattern will suit the space better?

    here are some recommendations for malaysian furniture companies that suit your aesthetics. the design are miles ahead of any jusco/local mom-pop furniture places and not the ikea generic furniture:

    http://www.haus.com.my/furniture_list.php?uid=
    http://www.houzdepot.com/index.asp
    http://www.macy.my/about/
    http://www.ssfhome.com/
    http://www.xzqt.com.my/

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  2. Matt

    Thanks for your suggestions. I have been to Haus, Houzdepot and Macy and not found anything like the floor cushions you mention, maybe I missed them? I think Houzdepot isn't a great place for furniture. I bought my microwave there as the appliances were ok back in 2010. But last time I was there, the place was seeming pretty stale on new items. In terms of Macy, I had looked at their sofas when I was looking for my living room sofa. You know a number of the Macy sofas are produced by a company called Dynamic http://www.dynamic-brand.com/index.html I went to their showroom. You can work directly with them on what you want and hopefully it would be a better price than Macy. I guess I could have them make some cushions or the company that made my custom sofa, but then the price might be getting up there and I'm on a budget.

    I'll check out your other suggestions SSF and XZQT. I would also suggest Timeless http://www.timelessdesign.com.my/ if you haven't been, similar to XZQT style although very limited selections.

    Thanks again for your post!

    Best
    K

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  3. Love it K. Sometimes simplicity is best. The reading lounge is bright & airy and you've added your own personalised touches on it. Common mistake we make is that we feel that we need to fill a big area or space with big furniture. Better to start small get the feel & sense of it first and you can just add if you need to as you go along. It's easier to increase than decrease.

    From experience when you invite a large group of people over not everyone will huddle together on the sofa even though it sits more than 4 people. Bean bags, cushions, stools & extra chairs are essentials so your guests can sit & gather as they like. So, you can never go wrong with those.

    Love Timeless & XZQT but just to get some ideas. And way over our budget. If we purchased stuff from there there'll be a lot of empty spaces in our home :) We really liked a bar stool from Timeless, but it didn't have a high back. So, we sourced from another company which had what we had in mind and bought 3 stools for the price of that one stool.

    Anyway, you don't have to buy all the stuff at one go. After 4 years we still don't have coffee & side tables and a very empty foyer. Still searching...;)

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  4. never tried a Jusco beanbag before but if u are after custom made, vast selection of colors and most important - good quality beanbags we would like to introduce www.lullabean.com - we are a home based business in making bean bags - was in KL and now back in Seremban 2... still wondering if the market is good or not for beanbags in Seremban and N9. If it's not, we might have to make a U turn to Selangor or KL for the sake of our business. thanks for reading and posting my comment :)

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  5. Lullabean,

    The bags on your site look better than the ones I bought hope you sell a lot of bags in Seremban!

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