Recently a client of many years wanted to revamp her home to possibly accommodate live-in help. She thought she wanted to open the kitchen to the living room and bar seating for television viewing. However, we decided that expanding the kitchen would have taken too much of the living room space and the existing fireplace would have been less attractive with a television incorporated. Instead we put the television on the wall common with the kitchen. Then added a new sofa, two lounge chairs as well as a table and four chairs for bridge. We changed the draperies from dark to light and used a rug she already owned. The updated look is a refreshing change but the biggest impact was from the pillows! The client had an old, worn rug with perfect colors. The upholsterer based the pillow sizes on the pattern so they are varied. They are the most interesting accent and pull together the room colors. Instead of pairs or common sizes we used varying sizes. What was the media area is now the office and the former office an en suite for a live-in!
Adding new art?
It is so tempting to purchase a new piece of art, get it back to your home and wonder where it will fit in. During my design career I have purchased hundreds of pieces of art! Typically, if the client likes a particular style, the art follows through with their likes. My favorite method is selecting art first! The more open the areas of the home are the more necessary it is for the pieces to complement each other. As you get further into collecting, you consider what location the new piece will occupy and if others will need to be rearranged. Within an area, there should be a main focal point – the outside view, fireplace or a piece of art. While staying at the Peabody in Memphis, our room had a mirror with a scene painted on it in neutral tones. What a discovery! A space needs only one landscape, one floral, etc.
Here is yet another medium to add to the mix. While on my vacation, the client I was working with decided to part with the older bedroom furniture and complete the newer contemporary look. A large mirror was above the pop up TV chest. I suggested we use it in the living room. My miraculous painter added the tree and voila! We had completed the area!
One more option with variety over redundancy!
Creative Use of Tiles
Continuing With More Color of the Year Choices
Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams, PPG and Behr all chose similar green hues! These combine well with the earlier choices of lavender hues. All blend with the grey tones and introduce an option to the prevalent grey tones. The intention of all of the companies is to highlight and narrow choices from the thousands of paint options available. Custom paint colors to match a fabric swatch or anything else has been available for many years and certainly facilitates paint options. In real life, we gather the choices of tile, stone and other materials needed for a project and find a common denominator blended tone for a base color and then add accents in the current trends or all time favorites. Reflect YOU in your home!
COVID and Your Home Design
COVID did change work and home forever! It merged the two closer to each other. Homes should always be functional-just adding good lighting and a comfortable reading or laptop space changes an unused area to a highly purposed destination. The more you like the space the more you will use it. Just because your paperwork is messy doesn’t mean it should be relegated to an undesirable spot. Due to the nature of design good natural lighting has always been a priority. Even with custom options for your office you may gravitate towards the best view and exposure. The messy part doesn’t have to be located with the workspace. Workspaces are very mobile these days so just choose the spots that allow you to be the most productive. Filing doesn’t need to be near the workspace for instance. An uncluttered space necessitates storage. Old tax returns can be in remote storage with one year deleted every year-the same with files kept just for backup or reference. It would be great to have a file drawer in the kitchen for appliance info, food and recipe references. Current work in progress may be in a more decorative temporary file. Eliminating my condensing to computer files saves so much space. Prioritize what you need for function, make it look great and you will use it more! If you won the lottery what would you do? This exercise helps create a vision beyond your usual thought process and by breaking down those dreams they can turn into reality! No excuses, find your perfect spot and crank it out!
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