Hello, Sven. I Just Want to Put My Hands on You
Executive summary: In my haste to pull together our condo on a condensed timeline when we moved in 8 months ago, I made some less-than-perfect decisions that I am now finally diagnosing and rectifying. Live and learn!
I had a friend in college whose boyfriend named his car Svetlana. He chose it to be a sexy-sounding name (up to personal taste/interpretation, I suppose), but is Sven the male equivalent of that? (Or it’s a moose, if you subscribe to the Disney version of the world.) So when a sofa is named Sven, you’d expect it to be a good-looking dude, wouldn’t you? Let me back up and start at the beginning, because undoubtedly you’re confused:
I am an interior design enthusiast who has trouble spending money on home furnishings. Not that I haven’t dished out thousands of dollars to acquire furniture and light fixtures for our new condo this year, as there were literally multiple empty corners to fill in this bigger space, but my go-to retailers are the likes of IKEA, Target, and other decidedly un-fancy stores. I generally only dabble in smaller items (e.g., throw pillows, bedding, dishes) from places like Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn, and I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from shooting up my forehead when I walked around the Arhaus that recently opened at the Stanford Shopping Center (I mean, $2k for a nondescript floor lamp? It’s not like it cleans your house, preps meals, or watches your children for that price). Even though I can now afford higher-end products, I still find it difficult to stomach lofty pricetags, and I also struggle with spending a lot on any given piece of furniture/decor because I’m still trial-and-erroring over here. It’s so much harder psychologically to make swaps when something isn’t working if I’ve dropped a lot of dough on it, so I like to leave myself some flexibility as I figure out what’s right/wrong for our home.
In the case of our living room, I designed the layout to incorporate our loveseat from our previous smaller apartment (as opposed to spending $$$ to replace it with a larger sofa or sectional), but this orientation leaves a corner sadly empty without a purpose. I decided we could use more seating in the living room (a loveseat isn’t quite enough to fit two adults and two growing children), so I tucked an accent chair into that corner. But now I realize that the one I chose from Wayfair half a year ago is too small and leggy for that particular spot. I couldn’t have predicted that when I bought the chair, but now that I’ve had months to stare at that corner, I think I’ve finally diagnosed the issue: the corner looks unanchored, kind of adrift from the main seating area, and there are too many skinny and unmatched legs between the stool/side table and the scalloped chair for a cohesive look. So I decided that what we need is a bigger, blockier armchair, to anchor that corner and strike a visual balance between solid and airy pieces in the room. But bigger = pricier, so I argued with myself for days, trying to decide on the right course of action. Finally, I decided to spring for the striking Sven lounge chair from Article, which I’ve been eyeing for literally years. I considered the sofa version for our last living room, but ended up settling on the firmer Anton loveseat from Article, which has held up well (just don’t ask how much kids’ drool has sunken into the cushions — that’s why I went with a darker gray instead of a lighter color that would’ve been my preference). Oh sexy Sven, I’ve waited five years to get my hands (and butt) on you. My husband might not appreciate my appreciation for a chair, but look at that dashing figure you cut in the living room. You’re a big boy who knows how to hold your own in that corner.
Before-and-after with the smaller accent chair vs. the new solid armchair.
The Sven lounge chair is fully half the width of our loveseat, so yes, I did expect that it’d be on the pricier side of what I’m accustomed to, given the size. I ordered ours for $700 ($800+ with tax and shipping), while our couch was ~$1000 five years ago. I’m not used to spending that kind of money on a discretionary piece of furniture (as opposed to the sofa, which is more of a “necessity”), so I’m really hoping I made the right call and won’t live to regret my decision later. I’m looking for a long-term committed relationship here!
The other related change I made in our living room is switching the upholstered bench for a (faux) leather one. One peril of shopping online is that you don’t get a true sense of the material — I only realized later that the upholstered bench (that we use as an ottoman/coffee table) has a very similar texture and color to the jute rug it sits on, so it blends in while I would prefer to see some contrast. Plus, I opted for a similar fabric on the Sven chair, so it felt like a lot to have the couch, lounge chair, bench, and rug all with the same texture in the same room. I’ve been itching to incorporate some leather for variety but am too risk-averse to try it on a chair of Sven’s size and price, so a bench seemed a safe vehicle by which to introduce a different material to the living room. (And never fear for the old bench — it’s been transferred to the sparsely furnished guest/ flex space where it now adds a welcome touch of coziness.)
This bench pops off the rug, which is what I’d hoped for.
I bemoaned to my husband during this process that I’m losing my grip on the one-in-one-out rule that many minimalists swear by. He points out that the rule only makes sense in a static setting, but we went from 800 to 1,300 square feet from the apartment to the condo, so we’re operating in a dynamic environment here. Yes, totally logically true, but I still do my best to adhere to that rule as a guardrail for not letting things get out of control. We did give away one chair, which we’ve been using as seating in the primary bedroom, and replaced it with the blue scalloped chair from the living room corner. The former was too shallow for comfortable lounging (it’s technically a large dining chair) — fine for the kids (they also have one in their bedroom) but less accommodating for adult tushies. The scalloped chair is a better shape for curling up in, so it gets to live in our primary bedroom now. Rotating furniture around is my part-time job and full-time joy.
Before and after with the dining armchair vs. the blue scalloped chair.
Idk if I’ll ever get used to paying what I consider a lot for more upscale home furnishings. I classify our light fixtures as a splurge (they ranged between $100-$400 each), as well as our curtain rods (they averaged $250 each), but that’s where I drew the line. On the objects that are literally attached to the condo, lol. Otherwise, we have IKEA curtains, Lowe’s rugs, Target chairs, Costco-printed art, etc. The funny thing about my psychology of spending is that I’m fine paying for nice experiences and services (e.g., travel, dining, handymen to install those lights), but struggle with justifying anything other than budget prices on physical items. There’s something about me seeing the item every day that reminds me of how much it cost, and I don’t want to feel precious about everything in our home (especially with two young kids) by knowing that it was expensive. Whereas experiences and services are “used up” on the spot, and then I can just bask in the pleasant memory instead of remembering how much money I put into it. So Sven ties for the second most expensive piece of furniture we own, behind only the $1k couch and comparable to my daughter’s $800 convertible crib (which was the only mini crib that fit in our 1-br apartment closet when she was born, so I didn’t have many options). But Sven certainly takes first place for looks, as much as my husband says things like “I don’t see how furniture can be handsome.” Oh, how little he knows! Maybe if Sven were named Svetlana, he’d change his tune.