A Bright and Modern Sunroom Intro

Hey all, it’s Ginny again with yet another intro to a room of one of our clients. A couple with two kids and the best dog ever. We’ve been working on this house for over a year now, yes you heard me correct… a year! This is not that uncommon, especially when the clients have particular and expensive tastes (they won’t mind me saying that). It can take sooooo long to source 10 amazing matching vintage dining chairs, that are the perfect size and scale, and work with everything else in the room. Believe me, I know 🙂 Not only that, but some things can have insanely long lead times. Don’t worry, I’m not complaining here at all, the clients and I have a very good relationship. I am however really, really excited to share every inch of this project, because the house is a real stunner: Two-story 1939 Georgian. It has a lot of original features including a double height entryway, a wood paneled den, ornate moulding details and 2 staircases to say the least, and a sunroom/bar room which I’m going to talk about today.

This is the view of the bar when we first started. The client’s previous house was more modern in style, and their existing furniture, shown here, has a Danish mid-century vibe. With the new house being more traditional, they wanted to veer away from this style and make it feel more classic but still super cool.

That top right corner is begging for a built-in which is exactly what we did!

These were the initial inspiration images that we were drawn to for this room. Since this is a sunroom, we wanted it to have more of a neutral palette of whites, woods, leather and natural earthy tones. You’ll see further down in the sneak peek and final product mood board that the style evolved over time. It needed to feel more traditional and refined and less boho, and compliment the aesthetic of the rest of the house. Sometimes these initial boards end up becoming redundant very quickly during the process.

In true EHD form and at the client’s request, we pulled together a few mood boards. They knew they wanted a round marble Saarinen table, and they’d also had their eye on a set of cantilever cane chairs for the corner. So those were some of the items to be purchased first. They wanted to see different options of sofas in leather, white, light grey and dark grey sofa so they could see how they looked with other pieces of furniture. I tried to convince them to buy these side chairs above but sadly they were a gazillion dollars. So that idea went out the window pretty swiftly. Unfortunately the live edge wood coffee table (that Emily had in her old house) is not available anymore. Since the room leads out onto the patio/pool area, most of the rugs shown below are indoor/outdoor for durability. We included some black elements like the lighting, which helped to bring up the sophistication level and add depth.

Sofa | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs (similar) | Coffee Table (similar) | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

Without going into too much detail about each mood board, I will touch upon our favorite items that we included. Both Emily and I have been obsessed with the CB2 Piazza sofa forever – it’s deep and low and simple. You can sit and drink wine on it and also feel like you can take a long nap on it. There’s just something very pleasing to the eye and doesn’t feel too modern or dated. If I had a TV or family room I would probably have this guy in there.

Sofa | Art (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Leather Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs (similar) | Coffee Table (similar) | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

When I was looking for the side chairs in my living room these ones from Cicso home were huge contenders. I didn’t end up getting these but I did buy the fabric to reupholster the vintage club chairs I have. Before we started working with them, the clients had purchased two blue velvet sofas for their living room (intro coming soon) so we thought it might be nice to have that blue continue into the sunroom.

Sofa | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs | Coffee Table (similar) | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

This is a great indoor/outdoor rug from Dash & Albert. We liked the idea of adding something graphic to the floor to edge it up a bit, and we did try a few striped blue options. They started to feel too beachy, which wasn’t the vibe we were going for.

Sofa | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs | Coffee Table (similar) | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

This went in a totally different direction completely and feels heavier because of the dark grey sofa. We ultimately wanted to keep this room feeling bright and airy so we moved onto another option.

Sofa | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs | Coffee Table | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

I love this option – the light grey sofa feels way more relaxed than the previous sofa.

Sofa | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs | Coffee Table | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

West Elm had just brought out these rad leather chairs (no longer available unfortunately) The amount of conversations around the studio about whether Brady should buy them or not was bonkers. He went back and forth and talked so much about them they ended up being discontinued before he had chance to actually put his money where his mouth was! 🙂

Sofa | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs (similar) | Coffee Table | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

Same but with the a white sofa which highlights the whites in the rug more.

Sofa (similar) | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs (similar) | Coffee Table | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

Another good contender mixing the blue back in. I’m quite drawn to this because of the rug and I’m not usually one for zigzags or a chevron pattern.

Sofa (similar) | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Accent Chairs | Coffee Table | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

Trying out the dark grey again with a different combo. It really didn’t feel right for this particular room.

Sofa | Art (similar) | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Leather Pillows (similar) | Accent Chairs (similar) | Coffee Table (similar) | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Sconce | Cowhide (similar)

The GIF (which I know are slightly controversial) actually shows a lot more options. We didn’t present all of these to the client in the end but fun for you guys to see all the different scenarios that we try out as we go through the creative process.

We ended up memo-ing a few sofas so they could see how they actually felt in the room. This one was from HD Buttercup and felt way too bulky against the back wall and too similar to the floor. We bought the two side chairs from House of Honey and they are now in the bay window in the living room. There was a few discussions about these chairs and the clients not agreeing on them, but they’re amazing and perfect for the spot they’re in. I’m so glad we went for them.

We still had a hang up about a leather sofa, so we tried another option that was slimmer in profile and softer in its lines. It’s a beautiful piece but felt too formal in here (I also think it was $8k so not ideal for kid’s running in from the pool). The burl coffee table was too big for in here and was originally memo’d for the living room but didn’t work in there either. That’s the beauty of memo-ing, if it doesn’t work then you can take it back. There’s obviously the associated costs of delivery/return fees involved, but when you’re spending a considerable amount of money on furniture, you want to make sure it’s 100% before committing to that type of purchase.

We then went down the slip cover route – which felt too bulky, too cottage/beachy but the lightness of the color helped a lot. The clients had this rug left over from a shoot he was working on and we kinda loved what it did in the room. It goes back to what I was saying about a graphic bold rug bringing an edge to the space. However, since we’ve seen this rug a 100 times over we did want to switch it up to something else slightly different.

Just for fun (and clearly late into the evening), we tried out the sofa in a different orientation since there was talk of adding a TV in here. Interesting but no. No, no, no. We also tried more side chairs but they didn’t work either – I actually really loved them, but they felt wrong in this room. Now are you understanding about being particular and how long things can take?!

We eventually gave up on the idea of finding the perfect sofa so we ended up custom making one instead. We used Clad Home to create this simple shape with one long seat bench with a wood base. The fabric is by Pindler and is a stain resistant polyester that kinda feels chenille-y and is super soft. We ended up sticking with their original coffee table and having it refinished which came out beautifully. We kept with the black and white colours for the rug but opted for a different kind of stripe. We tried to convince them to paint this room, even in just a light tone so that it would highlight the moulding, but ultimately they like how the white feels, especially since it’s a sunroom.

We also installed a custom built-in bench which adds so much more to this room. We made it so the baseboard matches exactly to the existing, and that way it feels like more in keeping with the house. The fabric for the seat pads is one of the best things in this room, it ties in with the rug and hypes up the edginess we wanted in here.

This is pretty much where we are at with the final mood board. We were there a couple of weeks ago installing art, so the next layer is the styling and accessories. Time to get shopping me thinks!

Sofa (custom) | Art (similar) | End Tables | Cream Pillow (similar) | Pattern Pillow (similar) | Arrow Pattern Pillow (similar) | Blue Pillow | Accent Chairs (similar) | Coffee Table (similar) | Rug | Chandelier | Dining Table | Dining Chairs | Dining Chandelier | Geometric Print Fabric (for built-in) | Blue Pillow | Stripe Pillow Fabric | Blue Velvet Pillow 

Since this house hasn’t been fully shot yet, we don’t have any finished sneak peeks to share, but this is where we’re at with the overall progress. What do you think? If you have any questions let us know below.