Which one? Which one?

I've been looking at upholstery fabrics for my living room. Because, hey! If I can tear out walls, refinish a piano, and do electrical wiring, then surely I can reupholster my furniture, right? That, and Bruce worked in an upholstery shop for a while...

Here is my living room (and my kids) in its natural state. 
Just a little messy. Although the books piled up everywhere
are not normal. One day I will build those shelves
and put the books back where they belong. 
Why do I get myself into these big, hairy projects?
(Answer: I can't seem to help myself.)

When I asked Bruce if he thought we could reupholster the couches he said we could, and it would be fun to work together on it. When I asked what kinds of colors to look for he surprised me by saying, "Couches should be brown." He didn't elaborate, so I don't know why he thinks that, or if that's really what he thinks vs. that being a thought of the moment. We have never, except for an old hand-me-down when we were newlyweds, had a brown couch.

But, if he wanted brown, I could look for brown. And I did. And I didn't find many that I loved; they were OK, but they were so...brown! (Blues were drawing my attention, though.)

And then I saw this fabulous, multi-colored elephant fabric:

This one I love! (Now you think There's no accounting for taste...)

So I tried it with several colors: browns, golds, blues, greens, and even plummy-purples. I had a hard time finding browns that I really liked, but I found a couple that were OK.

I also found this "Aegean Blue" color that I liked pretty well.

But all of this fabric will be for a very large, squashy-style sofa set, and I was afraid that either the blue or the brown on every piece would be overwhelming. (Obviously I'm not going to do an entire couch—let alone three big pieces—in the elephants; that might be a bit much.) But what if I did one piece in a contrasting color? Aha! Blue couches and a brown chair, or the other way around? Hm. So on Friday I emailed the swatch pics to Bruce, and he liked what I came up with. He said, "Order it." Which did not solve the blue/brown question. My kids and I finally decided brown couch, brown love-seat, blue chair.

Even at a low, low price-tag of $600 to reupholster a couch, a love-seat, a chair, an ottoman, make a cornice-board, and get fabric for curtains, that was a little nerve-wracking, so I looked at more swatches first. And I came up with two sets that I liked.

1.

The west wall is the wall behind the curtains. The rest of the walls will be a lighter variation of the curtain color.

This first set was my favorite, for color. I felt like the dark brown really made the colors in the elephant fabric pop.


2.

Oooh! But I like this, too. It makes everything just a little brighter. And the texture of the brown kind of makes me think of elephant skin, which is a fun elephant element. (Not that I'm trying to make my living room into an elephant...)

Another thing is that the colors are deceptive when viewed on the computer. If the picture is at the top or bottom of the screen it looks darker than if it's at eye level. If the room is dark the pictures look different than they do when the room is light. How could I decide?

I put it on facebook for a vote, and I also asked all my kids as they wandered through the room. Out of fourteen votes cast (fifteen if you count my vote) only three were for the lighter fabric. Michael—who voted on facebook before he talked to me about it—chose for the lighter one on the facebook poll, but in person he told me he liked the darker color better; he just liked the elephant-hide texture of the lighter fabric. But the real vote that decided me was cast by Bruce: he likes the darker color—partially because we have cream colored carpet in the living room and he likes the idea of the high contrast.

So I held my breath and pushed the "order" button. I've never spent so much on fabric all at once. Of course, I've never bought fifty yards of fabric all at once either. Anyway, I put in the order, and then I instantly wondered if I should have chosen the other brown, and kept waffling all day long. >sigh<

Well, if I hate any—or all—of it, I can return it for a refund. There is that. But I hope that we love it!