Tuesday, May 20, 2014

REVEAL Top Secret Nursery-It's a girl!!

If you have been following along, my client (& friend) enlisted my services to plan and install a top secret nursery behind closed door! No problem, right?! 5 weeks ago she gave me "the envelope" with the gender of the baby inside and I swore not to breathe a word to anyone, including them! I've been bubbling over not being able to give any peeks at all as to what I was planning as everything screamed girl! So you wanna peek!? Well here you have it! Just a little one before I make you get into the details... It's all about the details, I know you agree!!
When I started I decided on my color scheme and had the idea almost immediately that I wanted to paint all the doors, trim and window casing the more dramatic accent color. I chose a soft subtle peach color that almost has a golden hue called "Champagne" for all the main walls in the room. Then I used "Certain Peach" for the baseboards, window trim and doors. The green and the deep coral were used on accent furniture. Can you see the fabrics in the background?! 
I love the fabrics for this room! There is both a modern and vintage feel which I think every little girl should have a good mix of. There are only so many years you can pull off a really soft vintage look for a little girl. Knowing my days are numbered with my own daughter's eclectic room makes me sad as she points out jeweled light up "Peace" signs with hideous colors...Lord help me! But the truth is that although I do listen to what my clients want, I always have some selfish motives in my designs, that's what you get with me!:) Speaking of that, I am happy to share many sources with you but not all as a courtesy to my clients who pay for me to give them a unique design. Make sense?! I am happy to say that I sourced several Etsy shops to comes up with my bedding design though. I love Etsy and I always looks there first, for everything! I also hate most of the bedding sets that they have out there! I always want to change something. I had this problem with my own kids but Etsy wasn't as far along as they are now and they have some super cute baby linens! The sheet and changing cover were hand made and the fabrics were from one shop. The skirt was from another Etsy shop. 

The crib was in her son's room and was chocolate brown. I love this crib and although she gave the option to get a new one if it was a girl, I knew this one had not yet seen the end of the road (it is also special to me as it was my daughter's crib that they got when they found out they were having twins and needed two cribs the first time around)! So I had the lady that painted my other client's china cabinet come and match the crib paint to the new dresser I got for the room! 
BEFORE....
We also used a gold paint to highlight some of the details on the crib! You know how I love gold and gray together! They are a perfect combo!
I know you saw the little peek of pom pom garland above! I used a whole bunch of these as a sort of new age crib mobile. I love these for a party or for decor and they have gained much popularity in all the colors and patterns you can get now. I tried to marry all the shades of coral and gray in one happy cluster to pull everything together in the room. These were fun, but a tad time consuming as each one comes flat and it's assembly required on these babies! 
 As to not take away from the drama of the cluster of poms I hung a semi-flush mount light in the center of the room. With me it is usually the bigger the better on the chandelier but this light was very well priced at under $150 and it made the perfect statement... fancy and sophisticated but not fighting to be the center of attention! 
To the right of the crib sits a rocking chair that she already had. It is a darker gray fabric so that is partly why I chose to do the crib and dresser in light gray as to draw attention away from the chair color which was intended to go with a whole other nursery decor and to make it feel like it was chosen for the room from the start. When you are playing up the colors in the room and playing up pattern, best to only let some accent pieces be in color and the bigger pieces more neutral. In my opinion, that is! 

This little wicker table is a antique shop find and was only $30 so I used the green to have it sprayed. We had little space so the table had to be small and delicate looking with just enough space to sit a bottle. 
Here is the table in its "before" state! Needed a tad of color!
Also found at the antique place was this little rocker! Can I get an "awww"?!? That's what I did when I saw it! I was like "that is so stinking cute, I wish my kids were little enough for it..." then I was like "wait I'm doing a nursery here"!! If you don't know me I'm a stitch absent minded and this makes perfect sense! 
OK well now you have seen the curtain panels. Probably my most favorite thing in the nursery and where most of the inspiration came from. These mint colored marvels were the ones when I spotted them. The color is even more gorgeous in person! The ruffles are perfectly frayed. The only problem was they are linen and slightly sheer... Although there are wood blinds on the windows my client's request was darkening panels!! What to do?! Well, I will tell you! I decided to do a double rod and do the reverse of logic. Hang the "sheers" up front and a blackout panel in the back! I almost died when I found a white blackout panel with a ruffle edge to stick out on the sides!! These are the kind of things we dream of people! And by "we" I mean, me! 
Anyway, on we go and then I will show you it all together!! For the dresser my client wanted function too. Now I am all about using and painting vintage dressers in kids rooms! You know this to be true! However, with the old comes the limited functionality (e.g., drawers not as smooth and spacious etc.). When it comes to Rachel (I don't usually mention the client by name but she won't mind me razzing her a bit) you don't mess with the function! She had made mention of liking the drawer sizes on this Pottery Barn one I landed on. Of course, I couldn't let PB win, I had to change it a little to make it look more vintage:) 

Here is it as it was...
A few decorative knobs on top...
We probably need to change the hardware color too... Gold, of course!
And done!
The mirror wicker scroll mirror above the dresser was painted to match the rocking chair and some decorative accents for the dresser. I loved this lamp as it matched the ceiling light perfectly and I got to have my "chandelier" looking fix with it! 
Lastly I found a cute book about what little girls are made of and had the idea to fill several frames with pages from the books to do a corner gallery wall above the rocker. I went to Hobby Lobby, picked out frames that were 50% off (as they almost always are at Hobby Lobby). Then if you pick their frames then they will do the labor for free so you just have to pay for the mats to be cut! I chose a soft gray mat and gold frames. Go figure...right?! Since they are glass frames I never had a good picture up close without a glare so I am posting these before ones in hope you can read the little print on them!
Here is the best I could do on a close up with all the glare... I know, the room looks yellow and you can't read them but hey, I tried on these limited photography skills!

OK so I think I covered it all! You ready to see some final pictures?! And of course I couldn't help but to do a before and after of the main wall view:)!
Congratulations to Team T on baby Quinn! What a fun and exciting project this has been! I'm kinda sad to have it all over with! I guess I need another baby's room to do!! Who's next? It can't be me....that ship has sailed...so so far away:)! 

{Cheers)
Laura

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Wall Striping, Slow and Subtle Wins the Race

First off, I gotta make a confession. I always have to spell check because I am the worst at spelling and using words in the wrong context! Yes, this post first read, "Wall STRIPPING, Slow and Steady Wins the Race," Yikes! That kind of intro is for another type of blog so I'll stick to my specialty on this one and tell you about striping only! I am sure you are relieved...

I have been MIA for the last few weeks and Erin has been blowing it up on the blog with some great posts! I've been holed up in a baby nursery... I know, it sounds dangerous and mentally exhausting but I have enjoyed decorating in this quiet serene nursery and am ready to turn it over to the parents in time for all the commotion:)! If you follow us on Facebook and Instagram, which I hope you do, I will be teasing you with a few sneak peeks early next week! Baby T will enter the world tomorrow and then I won't feel like I have to tip toe around with this secret all bottled up! 

In the meantime, I am sharing with you another project in the same household since that is where I have been spending my quality time. The big bother of this little baby X, also has a cool room! I had no part in decorating this cute little vintage airplane room but she asked me to come up with wall color and a fun painted wall treatment as well as a color to paint the turquoise dresser that used to be in the nursery. So I will show it off then tell you why I am in love with the subtle combination of neutral colors and mixing unexpected neutrals like brown and gray in a striped look!



The vintage airplane inspired bedding and decor has lots of fun vibrant boy colors! Oftentimes when it comes to making decor and paint color work together you need to let one win! However that doesn't mean that just because you let the colors in your decor stand out and pick more subtle colors for your walls that they can't be presented in a fun way! In this instance I knew I wanted to use gray to bring out the background color of the airplane shams and coverlet. The room has lots of rustic brown wood tones so I picked brown as the other neutral in a soft shade as to not overpower the gray. The third color is off white. White is always a color in my book but it also helps to define the other two colors and let them stand on their own without getting muddy in tone. Does this make sense?! I didn't think so... let's look at more pictures:) 


The dresser was a tealish color and was great for a nursery but it was time to grow up. But lets face it, that doesn't mean we don't need color! I love this shade of green (Courtyard, Benjamin Moore) picked for her dresser! It's not emerald green and it's not lime green but its somewhere magically in between! It turned out awesome, would you agree? I love the color with the wall stripes and I think its perfectly "boy". 


Now for the technical side of things! There are many ways to stripe a wall... horizontal, vertical, all the same width or varying widths etc. For her room I chose vertical stripes because her ceilings are not that high and the room is on the smaller side. I think the busier you get with your variation you want to make sure your stripes are not making the ceilings seem even lower. They started out painting the room the gray color (Agreeable Gray, Sherwin Williams) all over. We wanted the gray portion to end up around 12 inches in width, the brown to be 6 inches and the white to be 3 inches wide. The brown (Huntington Beige made 50% lighter, Benjamin Moore) was the next stripe to be made followed by the white (Alabaster White, Sherwin Williams). The striping process can be done by taping off the stripe area to keep your lines even or if you have a steady hand the lines can be drawn in with a laser level and straight edge to pencil in your lines. Either way expect to have to touch up and wait several hours between striping if you use tape as it is best to keep the tape in place until the paint is fully dry. I love the look of the varied widths of the striping as it really turns out to look more like wallpaper at much less cost if you do it yourself or have a reasonable painter with a steady hand:) 



So now that you have kid's rooms on the brain, I can't wait to reveal to you the little secret room sitting right next to this room! It's just waiting over there for a baby to come home to it on Monday! And of course the parents who will get two surprises in one great weekend! 

Congrats to Team T and good luck to them as they switch up the game from man-to-man defense to full court press! May you be strong although outnumbered forever more, forever more:)! 

And most important we get our old friends back to throw back some wine with! 

Cheers! 
{Laura}





Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Client E Design - Old World Study


My newest client is looking to transform an 11'x13' room into a cozy, old-world style den for her husband. He needs a place to quietly do paperwork and dictation and she wants the space to be distinctively his with a traditional, masculine feel. 

Here is the basic layout of the room and general furniture placement. The alcove on the right of the layout (#13) is a 21"x54" open nook - perfect for built-ins.

Item #12 - Window; Item #15 - Entry Door; Item #14 - Closet with Door

Here is the first design for the main desk area. The room is not huge, but it does have a tray ceiling which gives it good height. I stayed away from using large, bulky furniture so that the room has good movement. I am recommending she highlight the room's height by using two paint colors. 




 Pottery Barn Clerk's Cabinet

Two of the Clerk's Cabinets make a nice storage credenza along the back wall. They are only 18" deep, so they are functional without over-powering the room.



Since my client wants to go darker on the walls for the old-world feel, I kept the color of the drapery light with a dark trim. 

Custom Drapery

Here are two ways to highlight the height of the ceiling with paint.   


I really like how dramatic this room looks with the dark walls and upper ceiling. 


The second furniture option ahs a similar writing desk but with matching file cabinets.  




I love the over-dyed rugs - they have a traditional pattern with more modern color palette. 



I also like the bolder pattern of the Navarre Rug with this design.



For the reading nook, she currently has a brown leather club chair with nailhead trim that is in great shape and would work perfectly in the room. I added a narrow table that will go against the wall, lighting and a foot stool for comfort and/or optional seating.


I also paid a little homage to their alma mater with wall letters and framed vintage postcards of the campus. The ikea table in the design could also be set up as a bar cart. 

Ballard Design X-Bench in Athena Black

Dwell Studio/Robert Allen Vintage Plume

And here is a second seating option if they decide not to use their existing club chair. I think the nailhead trim and high wingback style of this chair pays homage to the old-world style without being too stuffy. 




The last area of the room is the wall on the right side of the layout where the alcove is located. As I mentioned before, the alcove would be perfect with built-in shelves for printers, books or memorabilia. My client would also like to frame black and white photographs of their college campus. The wall between the alcove (#13) and the entry door (#15) is a great space for a gallery of photographs.


I hope to share results of this old-world oasis with you all soon!

{Erin}


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