Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend! Mine was good, not as productive as I had hoped it would be, but still good. We had dinner with friends on Friday and then on Saturday morning I did a little shopping at HomeGoods, Garden Ridge, JoAnn Fabric and Target for some new spring/living room decor. I fell in love with a gorgeous chair at HomeGoods, which I think would be perfect for the ends of our dining room table.
However, I’m holding off on buying anything non-living room related since our new sectional will need pillows and other styling items. Speaking of our sectional on Saturday morning I also made a trip to Haverty’s to attend a Home Fashion Workshop. These workshops are held every two months and each one has a different topic. This month’s topic was organization. We basically perused the store looking at different pieces that over great storage solutions. One collection that really caught my eye was the Avondale. The pieces have the weathered, rustic look, similar to some things I’ve seen in Pottery Barn lately, like this desk with chunky legs and oil rubbed bronze pulls. Also the chairs in this collection are gorgeous!
I also loved the versatility of this collection. These gorgeous china cabinets are actually two separate pieces, but they can be joined together if you wanted a larger piece with more storage. The molding at the top is easily removed or added to create a seamless look. And again, look at that gorgeous hardware.
My favorite piece in this collection had to be the hutch/entertainment center though. The shelves and center piece actually detach from the upper half to fit a tv. How neat is that?! The door fronts are also interchangeable, so you can pick whether you’d like glass front doors or if you want to hide the clutter and use wood front doors. (The Avondale is a really new collection and not on the website yet.)
Another piece that caught my eye was the Prescott curio cabinet. The door actually slides, which I thought was a cool feature. 
While we were looking at the Prescott, we also talked a bit about styling a piece like this, or a bookshelf. The folks at Haverty’s had a few fun acronyms to remember when styling area of your home. My favorite was CAP, which stands for Color – using neutrals and then one or two key colors to promote unity in a vignette, Arrangement – mix up the placement of your objects to create visual interest and Proportion – using size and the number of objects to create balance. I take all of these into consideration when setting up a vignette in my house, but it’s kind of fun to have a little acronym to refer to. Plus, it makes me really sound like I know what I’m doing instead of just saying “Arrange it until it looks good.” 
Speaking of vignettes, there was also a brief demonstration for how to style a side table along a blank wall or corner in your house. The various staff just grabbed different pieces to layer into the look. The blanket on the back of the chair was kind of the icing on the cake for me. I always forget to add things like that when I style things for blog pictures. 
Overall it was a nice, brief, workshop that definitely taught me a few things and gave me a little inspiration for how I want to organize and style our living room once we get our new sectional. Speaking of sectional, I couldn’t help but snag a picture of the floor model of our new sofa! I also may have pet it and told it how much I couldn’t wait to have it in my house.
I also took a picture of a chair that is the charcoal gray fabric that we chose. I think it will look really good in the living room, especially with some fun colorful pillows and curtains to balance out all of the neutral grays in the room. 
If you’re interested in attending one of these Haverty’s workshops here’s a list of dates for the rest of the year. I definitely put a few of these on my calendar! (You may want to check with your local Haverty’s for times for these workshops).
April 12 – Staycation
June 14 – Decorating ABC’s
August – Fan Cave
October 18 – Style vs. Trendy
November 22 – Rooms: Blah to Beautiful
Even though I’m not in the market to buy any more furniture for a long while it was helpful to hear different ideas and see different pieces. It definitely inspired me a bit and got my design, and even DIY, wheels turning!
For more information on these workshops you can visit the Haverty’s blog, or find them on Facebook and Twitter.
For locals: The Haverty’s that I have been raving about is off of Midlothian Turnpike, across from Chesterfield Towne Center, and my super awesome salesman’s name is Jason. If you go, tell him I sent you! 😉
How was your weekend? Do anything productive or was it all about relaxing?
love all the eye candy in this post. that’s fun that they have those workshops too! are you going to go to the style vs trendy? that one sounds interesting!
Oh how fun! I looked them up and there aren’t any Havertys here in Michigan 🙁
wow! I didn’t know Haverty’s had classes like that! That sounds really cool!
I love the sofa you chose. It’s going to look awesome.
And fun to have such great workshops available. I am horrible at styling. It’s a joke. I just need to pay someone to come over and stage my house.
Thanks so much lady! I’m so excited I won! Off to check out Ash’s stuff!
What an awesome opportunity to learn more about furniture & home decorating! And that Avondale desk is gorgeous! LOVE it <3
I recently went to a Pottery Barn workshop. I felt like such a nerd, but I took notes and really learned a lot!