Since my DH is finally home from his trip and has seen, as well as oohed and aahed over, the sofa back I decorated while he was gone I thought it was high time I shared the whole design.

I’m kind of excited about it. I haven’t had a dedicated horizontal space to decorate in over two years that wasn’t destined as a book case, Starwars Lego repository, clothes-making-it-to-the-drawers land, counter top or workstation. Since we just got a  huge frickin couch and it now creates a separate sub-room unto itself, I thought it was high time I actually conceptualize a design and see it through as opposed to drawing up plans, feverishly window/catalog/internet shopping and then promptly forgetting about them.

The Original Design

The design incorporates the longest sofa table I could find that didn’t cost a bigillion dollars, the Stockholm Sofa Table from IKEA (measuring 59″ long). We needed something to take up a lot of real estate, and this sofa table accomplishes that nicely. It also fits well with our overall black/minimalist/clean aesthetic.

We were also in desperate need of lighting. In our loft, we have a whopping 2 overhead lights with an additional light bar in the kitchen area. While watching TV in the dark is nice, it has been almost impossible doing anything other than reading and/or watching TV after the sun sets in my house. The few times I’ve thrown caution to the wind and crafted anyways have resulted in injury. So, after 2 years of suffering through that crap I was more than ready for adequate light.

Originally, we were thinking large arching lights over the back of the couch or, in our dreams, statement spotlights on tripods from the magical land of Restoration Hardware but $500 cheaper. After an exhaustive search, I must report that that magical land does not exist and I just can’t do $800 for a lamp, no matter how awesome it is.

So, we headed to our old friend IKEA. We didn’t like the black lamps from the original design in person, and luckily they were out of the floor lamps. I think the lights we ended up getting work just as well as the dual lights from the concept, and ended up saving us money in the process. Always a big fan of that.

I’m happy to say I haven’t gone a night without turning on the light on my side of the couch. Light is kind of luxurious.

Since our old coffee table looks ridiculous with the new couch, we are doing away with the coffee table idea until we can find something that is just the right width and height. This is not going to be easy. Our couch is on the tall side and while there is a fair amount of space in the middle, I don’t want something too huge that is going to fill the space completely.

We need somewhere to eat. I have half a mind to pull the sofa table around for holiday dinners, since we literally have zero other horizontal space on which to eat, but that really isn’t going to help us on weeknights. We need somewhere to eat dinner every night and I would like for my DH to have a surface on which to work so he isn’t hunched over all the time. I found the laptop tray holder things at IKEA as well, and so far they are working out quite well as makeshift dinner tables. We will have to figure something else out come Thanksgiving, but for everyday use, these are not too bad. Originally I had thought of using TV trays or some sort of table that hooks around the edge of the couch, but so far I haven’t been able to find anything that doesn’t cost $130 each or isn’t tacky.

The baskets are from Target and are being used to hold our couch blankets and my DH’s overflow video games, the few he is currently playing plus a few more. I also added an additional basket on the shelf to give him somewhere to house his pocket stuff, sunglasses, etc. This shelf has become his full-time computer docking station.

I ended up picking up glass canisters at Home Goods and have fallen in love with them. I’ve always loved apothecary style canisters, and these give me a good place to work out my decorating jones at least once a season. Right now, they’re all decked out for Halloween with skulls, spiders and black plants.

I haven’t made it to ZGallerie for the silver cameras yet since they aren’t very “Halloweeny”, but the next time I am there, I just may pick them up.

The Completed Design

I’m loving it. Functional, stylish and easily changeable with the seasons.