Please pardon me while I dust off my keyboard to start writing again – (and what kills me is that I deliberately accepted Linda’s Calling It Home One Room Challenge last summer to force myself to write more). But, I have some good news! Over at The Pink Pagoda it’s the March: Blue & White Bash! So, I thought I’d take a page (again) from Linda at Calling It Home and learn how to do Polyvore this morning. There are a few quirks that I couldn’t iron out – but, overall, it was super-silly easy to learn. And, I love it! Look at the concept board I created. And, it just happens to be blue and white! So, I may take this baby and link up to the Blue & White Bash! Come join me – it’ll be loads of fun!
Good Morning All! I am SOOOOooo excited this morning. I’m here in Little Rock, Arkansas getting ready to start Tobi Fairley’s MBA Design Camp! I’m hoping that this experience will be an eye opener and help me tremendously. Already, I’ve met some incredible designers who are here to share the experience!
Stay tuned – I’ll let you know what’s happening this week. Can’t wait!
Do you know how THRILLED I am that it’s reveal day for the One Room Challenge?? I am. I was up until 1:30am last night working my little fingers to the bone – creating mess and havoc everywhere. This morning I started working again at 8am. It’s now after 12. But, I can post my reveal! My Basement Office. FINISHED (okay – almost finished) TA-DA!
AFTER
BEFORE
My pair of MATCHING Crystal Column Lamps with my green silk lamp shades. I’m not completely done with everything. I still need to apply more of my crazy pink leopard wallpaper to the backs of my Ikea bookcases. The leopard may be a little wild for some (and unappealing to others) – I get it. But, I love pink – and a little leopard in a room is good for it’s bones! And, the pink definitely brightens up that area of the room. You can see how dark and cavernous the unwallpapered bookcases look (should have bought WHITE bookcases in the first place!).
AFTER
BEFORE
Love these luncheon plates! Started collecting this pattern years ago! PINK, natch!
I still need to paint this door white!
I have to give a HUGE HUGE hug of thanks to my Dad. My parents came to visit and were only here for a day. I asked my Dad if he would please switch out my fan light with pull chain start to a more practical and sleek “track” lighting fixture that I got for about $32 at Costco. It was a relatively easy honey-do task – except for that the new fixture didn’t have a light switch to turn it on. My dad volunteered to put in a new switch for me. But this process was much more difficult than anticipated (due to the materials and my poor selection of work tools). I also asked if he might be able to drill me some picture holes in the walls. My basement walls are super thick and EXTREMELY difficult to drill a hole in. Anyhow – long story short – I think my dad started working on my project around 11am. He finished well after 8pm! Thankyou Dad – I NEVER would have a reveal today if it wasn’t for your patience and thoughtfullness! I truly appreciate it!
So, thanks to my Dad – I could hang my prints and light my lights. I still have to put another coat or two of paint on my white Knot bookcases, but that can wait. I’m exhausted!
After a bit of rest, I can’t wait to check out everyone else’s reveals! Thank you Linda at Calling It Home for allowing me to participate! If you’d like to see the REVEALS from all of the other bloggers, please click here. Have a great day! I will!
Last week I chaperoned my son’s kindergarden class to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I was especially excited to go because I hadn’t been to the Botanical Gardens in a while – but most importantly a very special exhibit from Montreal was there – Imaginary Worlds – Mosaiculture.
As you can see by my photos, this was a truly unique exhibit and incredulous to see! For the most part, these plant sculptures were huge – most probably in the range of 16′-25’tall – all larger-than-life!
This was my son’s favorite topiary “Fido” – an amazingly realistic 10ft shaggy dog!
This fountain Goddess was the highlight of the exhibit. It’s hard to imagine the size and scale of this topiary from my photos – but, she was truly a sight! Even the kindergardeners were in awe!
Sadly, the exhibit ended on October 31st. I have no idea where it will travel to next. Atlanta was the first city on the US tour. If it comes to your city, you MUST go see it – it truly is an exceptional and fun exhibit!
The Atlanta Botanical Garden has so many other terrific things to see! It’s a great way to spend a gorgeous afternoon. Here are a few other photographs that I took along the way!
Dale Chihuly sculpture
The Scarecrows in the Garden exhibit is still going on. There are wonderful pieces created by all different groups around Georgia.
For those of you just tuning in, I’m nervously struggling along with about 80 other bloggers trying to re-design a room in 6 weeks – The One Room Challenge! You can click on the other bloggers links here.
My challenge is my future Basement Office. To review look at Week One here, (I was out of town for Week Two and not much to show for it – so, I broke ORC rules and skipped my blog post), Week Three here, and now Week Four (yikes!). But, today is the beginning of Week Five and I’m ACTUALLY beginning to feel GOOD about my project! I still don’t know 100% if I’ll finish by next Thursday, but I’m aspiring to – and the best part about all of this is – I NOW have a plan!
My initial problem when I signed up for this challenge was that I had no plan. I knew I needed to organize and create a working space for myself, but I had no clear-cut PLAN on what I was going to do. So, each week I focused on the larger things – like what desk to buy, what lamp to purchase, lampshades, office desk. I was looking at the bigger pieces and not thinking like a designer. What makes my rooms special are the details. And, what this One Room Challenge OFFICE lacked was details!
So, after complaining to my friend and client, Rebekah, last Friday about all of the challenges of my Office; Rebekah just said – well, what about your office – how are you going to finish it? Rebekah didn’t want to know about all of my set-backs (although she listened with interest – “thankyou Rebekah”!) – she wanted to know and see the finish outcome! So, with her interest in wanting to know how the story ends, I put on my best Designer Hat and started thinking of solutions to my problems.
Problem 1: I bought one Crystal Column lamp last summer from Home Goods. I needed two, but there wasn’t a 2nd lamp to be found anywhere. So, I nixed that idea and bought a 2nd set of lamps for my desk. Only problem was – there were Art Deco style column lamps and not at all what I had in mind for my Office.
Problem 2: All lamps needed lampshades. But, finding a basic, inexpensive lamp shade isn’t just as simple as you’d think! What it all amounted to was this – in general – an Office doesn’t call for using many fabrics in it. In order for me to bring more “fun” and color to this space – I thought introducing color to my lampshade would be a much-needed jolt of interest in this project.
Problem 3: Painting these BLACK bookcases WHITE is more of a hassle than I orginally thought! It’s taken me several coats to finish the first bookcase. I dread starting and finishing the 2nd bookcase. I’m trudging through this ordeal, but not happily. Suffice it to say, that I will never be painting a piece of furniture again (well, not until 2014!). This doesn’t include the piano bench that I found and have painted the legs white!
SOLUTIONS! Where there is a design problem- there MUST be a solution! My job as a designer trains me to find creative solutions to problems. I wasn’t tacking this Challenge correctly! I’ve found my solutions!
Solution 1: I went online and googled Crystal Column lamp. I think I may have found the match to my Home Goods lamp! I ordered it and it will arrive Friday!
Solution 2: I found beautiful silk pagoda-style lampshades at my local lighting store. Problem was – the Hot Pink Pagoda shade that I fell in love with was discontinued – only one in stock. I bought it anyhow. But, I also found a pair of gorgeous green silk shades from the same company – that were discontinued and selling for a VERY reasonable deal! Purchased!
Solution 3: Went to Home Depot yesterday and bought White Enamal spray paint and a small can of Primer paint. Best to start off the second bookcase with the correct materials!
Solution 4: I wanted to add more color to the backs of my IKEA Billy bookcases. As you might remember, I was lamenting that I bought them in the stylish brown-black Wenge finish (trying to be cutting edge, ya know!). Anyhow – I’d originally planned to paint the backs PINK. But, after struggling with painting my bookcases, I realized this was a horrible idea for me. Instead, I decided that applying a pink wallpaper might be a better and more sane idea. The pale pink leopard wallpaper “Bagatelle” from Osborne & Little would be the perfect complement! Problem – it’s discontinued – no stock (story of my life!). After about a day of tracking down dead leads on the internet, I found a solution for my pink wallpaper. EBAY! I love eBay! I found a cute pink wallpaper (leopard, of course) on ebay that I purchased. When the owner contacted me to tell me that she only had one roll in stock (not the two that was advertised), I told her to just send me the one and I improvised! While in my powder room, I realized that I had the perfect solution! Remnant powder room wallpaper would remedy the problem. This blue/pink Chinoiserie paper will go on the backs of my White Knot bookcases. It will bring in more color to the room and brighten up a boring wall.
Solution 5: Details. It’s all in the details, folks! I dashed out to Hancock Fabrics yesterday to find grosgrain ribbon. I didn’t find what I was looking for – but found the finishing details for my room plus trims for my window valences.
Solution 6: Art. Since I didn’t blog last week – you won’t know that I found the most fabulous mirrored frames at Target! You don’t need to know that I must have scoured 4 or 5 Target stores to find these frames (when I was able to locate these frames, disappointment was palpable when I’d see huge chips or cracks in them). But, I have three of these beautiful frames. And, I’ve put two of Jennifer’s from The Pink Pagoda, prints in them. I love how they look! The third frame is empty and I’ll probably fill that will a swatch of colorful fabric.
Piano bench – painting phase
leftover Osborne & Little fabrics – over for bench
SO – long story – longer! I am happily on my way to finishing by Week Six of the ORC. But, now, I’m happy with my room. Thanks for hanging in there with me! I appreciate it!
Okay….I thought that the One Room Challenge would challenge me to work super-duper fast to finish this Office Basement project that’s been looming over my head since June. Instead, I’m second guessing my choices and wondering if there are more fabulous fabric and furniture options out there for me! What it amounts to – is I hate designing for myself! It takes me forever to make decisions – I’m my own worst client! If you are a designer out there reading this – you MUST understand! I, typically, have to pull a scheme for myself and look at it for about a year (give or take a few minutes) until I can pull the trigger. But, because the ORC opportunity became available, I went for it! I didn’t think about my scheme or how I was going to implement it – I just started in!
The BEFORE photo (yikes!)
AFTER: Painted walls and re-organized!
Week One – posted my embarrassingly messy Design Library photos. I felt a little “dirty” after Week One – exposing my ugly basement trash room!
I didn’t realize it when I signed up for this Challenge – but, for Week Two – I would be out of town! Before leaving, I had to make an agonizing decision – do I order the Pottery Barn Bedford White Office Collection? Or, do I order the Home Decorator’s Martha Stewart White Office Collection? This kind of decision can wear me down quickly and consume my waking hours! I knew that I had to take serious action and decide quickly! Week Two would be over before I knew it – tick-tock, tick-tock – I HAD to order quickly and now!
Martha Stewart Living Craft Desk
I opted to go the Martha Stewart route. Why? I LOVE Martha! But, seriously – cost was a factor. Also, I kind of wanted the furniture to be bright white – to create a more stark contrast against the beige walls (the PB desk is creamier). Also, the MS Desk and Filing cabinets are leggy. This will make my Basement Office appear visually larger and more airy. Also, I just thought the Martha Stewart collection was more feminine!
So, before Week One ended – I ordered all of my desk stuff and the
Pottery Barn Bedford Desk
Chinese knot bookcases (in black). I find an inexpensive White Office chair from Costco ($62) and bring it home.
Week Two – my boxes from Home Decorator’s Collection arrive. However, I am already on vacation. So, I do not post. I feel bad about not posting, but obviously, not THAT bad! I enjoy my time at the beach and worry about what progress I will be able to talk about for Week Three! Happily, I got (some) of my act together and put together my new White Martha Stewart desk and filing cabinets! It looks good! I love the wide expanse of working space. I add my white Desk chair and, VOILA! Tres chic!
It is in this “white” moment that I wish my brown IKEA Billy bookcases were WHITE. I curse the day (two years ago -when I thought I’d be “edgy” and buy Wenge bookcases! What was I thinking! So, I won’t paint them white (already thought about that) and buy trim to make them look like custom built-ins . Instead, I’ve decided to embrace my “edgy” bookcases – leave them as they are and just paint the back boards a pink color.
Week Three – stay tuned. I will put together my two Chinese knot bookcases and paint them white. Hopefully, I’ll have the stamina to paint all of the Billy bookcase backs pastel pink, too. I’m just hoping that I survive this Challenge and can limp across the finish line in time! (fingers crossed)
Drafting Wall – will replace those 2 Lowe’s laminate cabinets with “Chinese Knot” bookcases.
“Chinese Knot” bookcases – in boxes…..calling my name!
I’m super-excited (and slightly dreading) this One Room Challenge event. I think it’s fantastic that Linda from Calling It Home blog has graciously opened the doors for other bloggers and heartfelt design enthusiasts – to accept the challenge and join in the fun!
My Project: THE OFFICE
I can’t wait to get started transforming my scary basement Fabric Library into my new “luxury” office space! Over the summer, I mentioned that I’d been hoping to transform a room in my basement into an Office space. Now that I’ve committed myself full-time to my interior design business, I’m feeling the urgency to escape my current office- located on the first floor. It’s just too easy to get up and start doing laundry, or cleaning, or, well…snacking! So, this past summer, I painted the room and purchased a single lamp for the space. I needed a pair – but, after scouring all of the Home Goods stores in Atlanta and Pittsburgh, I settled with just owning one. That’s all I’ve done so far. This challenge will force me to finish what I started. So, for that, I am grateful!
THE BEFORE:
Wall A and Wall B
BEFORE….Wall B and Wall C
My basement is the dumping ground for all things unwanted. I, literally, pile all of my “Office” things in this room and shut the door! Wouldn’t you? It’s a disaster zone! No one would want to work in here. YET.
MY PLAN:
Integrate my dark wenge IKEA Billy bookcases with a lighter palette. Purchase an afforable, but large desk with filing cabinets, purchase more white shelving storage. Utilize leftover Osborne & Little chinois fabric from an old project. Cover the dark green wall-to-wall carpet with a lighter prettier area rug.
If budget allows, add a cream area rug and dashes of PINK! It will be the only room in my male dominated house that will have pink! yea!
The Atlanta Gift Show was HOT, HOT, HOT this past July! JULY?! you say? It’s now September…September creeping into October! Barclay! What’s up with that? Well, okay – truth be told. I couldn’t download my photos onto my laptop computer and…..well….things like that slow me down! Anyhow – the Gift Show was such a blast this year – as I went into a corner of the Market that I’ve NEVER been in and I found numerous, wonderful vendors!
Dunes and Duchess (www.DunesandDuchess.com)
Dunes & Duchess lacquer lamps
Beaded Bargello pillow by Callisto Home
MooMoo Designs – FAB Orange Leather picture frame
Deco-inspired Coffee Table
“Audubon” Coffee Table
Phoenix Sun Mirror
Modern Chest in Ivory
Stepped Chest – love the organic look!
Tara Shaw’s nod to New Orleans
As you might have expected – orange is still the hot trending accent color! You’ll see pops of it in my small sampling of photos.
Amy Howard chair
Mr. Brown chair
Love the fun bubble mirror! Very feminine
Bliss Studio chair
Tara Shaw chair
I saw several “duplicate” styles of furniture out there. But, the ones I photographed were exceptionally beautiful and well-done! Both of these examples are very haute couture and sophisticated, but selling at a reasonable price. They would be considered the “jewels” in your room or the show-stoppers!
Amy Howard
I have a bit of a penchant for Coffee Tables! I can’t help myself – but, I love them! (and occassional chairs!) So, whenever I hit a furniture market – you can know, for sure, that my camera will be out and clicking when I see a fantastic and affordable coffee table! I spared you all and thought better of not posting all of my luscious tables. But, here are a few!
Which coffee table is your favorite? I’d love to know!!
I’ve got to run and post this blog. I’m accepting the ONE ROOM CHALLENGE and need to figure out how I can link up with the group this morning! See you soon!
I just returned from a really interesting Color Forecasting seminar hosted by Sherwin Williams.
photo: courtesy of Sherwin Williams
Carolyn Noble, Marketing Manager for SW, spoke and showed us the many numerous influences that shaped the color palettes for the 2014 forecast. Sherwin Williams always does a fantastic job with this annual forecasting seminar and this year’s program was hard to beat! It was inspirational and eye-opening!
SEPTEMBER’S COLOR OF THE MONTH: SW 7045 Intellectual Gray “Welcome Back to School month!”
Sherwin Williams (SW) is forecasting four distinct color palettes for the new year. 1. Reasoned – is a collection of blacks, greys and whites. “Grey is the new black, and math is the new sexy”. (I didn’t say it -they did!) But, it’s true! I’ve seen an emergence of grey/white or black/white rooms lately. SW emphasizes that this popular color palette was influenced by the structure and forms coming out of fashion – pleats, folds, outlines that define shapes. And by artists – using positive and negative space, pen and ink forms, the typewriter.
photo: courtesy of Sherwin Williams
2. Intrinsic – is the second collection with a more Bohemian, worldly and culturally authentic look. Inspired by Eastern Europe and heritage crafts like embroidery, intricate lace and crochet – this color collection is bright, vibrant and earthy!
photo: courtesy of Sherwin Williams
3. Diaphanous – is a collection of light, delicate colors that evoke an atmospheric, billowy, spiritual weightlessness. OK – sounds a bit dramatic – but the colors are soft, feminine and soothing.
photo: courtesy of Sherwin Williams
4. In contrast, Curiosity, the final color collection jars your sensibilities. The color selections are inspired by the strange and unusual colors associated with weird science and eccentricity – think deep purples, acidic greens. Geology and the natural stones collected from the deepest recesses of the earth – like copper and metallics.
photo: courtesy of Sherwin Williams
The best part of this seminar was the inspirational photos from featured influential artists. I am sad that I wasn’t able to write down all of their names! But, I was able to track down one of the artists. Her name is Olga Kostina an artist from Siberia Russia. She has collected over 30,000 bottle caps and has decorated her wood frame house with them. Honestly, this was amazing!!
What are your design inspirations? I’d love to know! Have a great day –
Happiness is HOMEGOODS! I’m creating an office for myself in our basement. It’s a bit of a challenge – for many reasons: 1. our basement is one of those scary, partially unfinished basements! Dark and murky with no light. 2. the room that I’ve designated as my “office” has few electrical outlets, peeling plaster walls, and a hideous dark green wall-to-wall carpet. It also has a ceiling fan/light combination (REALLY special when you’re trying to work on a client’s color scheme!) 3. lastly, most importantly, I have very little funds to make this space look AB FAB! So – where does one go when one has limited funds – well – HomeGoods, of course!
I scoured all of metro Atlanta to look for the perfect pair of HomeGoods lamps for my office. I found lots of great lamps and all of them were really well-priced. Here are a few of my favorites. Do you have a favorite?
Loved the texture on these two white lamps. The one on the right was perfect for a beach house.
The blue/white combination of these bamboo lamps with acrylic bases caught my eye….
I, especially, loved these owl lamps – so charming! I’m not normally an owl lover – but, they just spoke (or hooted) to me! Anyhoot…I foudn and bought a gorgeously affordable crystal column lamp that had my name all over it. But, sadly, there was no match to be found (despite spending needless hours traveling all of metro Atlanta to find its match. BUT, while on my quest, I found many other HomeGoods goodies!
These smaller scale mirrors would be great in an Entry or Powder Room.
This circular rope mirror would look great in a beach house or a teen girl’s room!
Thought this might be nice in my son’s nautically-inspired room.
Faux rustic painted board mirror. So many places to hang this baby!
Maybe a beach or mountain house, boys or girls room…I was thinking our playroom…
And, HomeGoods always has a great selection of well-priced baskets.
Happy Shopping!
Almost there!50%
Budget Breakdown: How Much Does it Cost to Furnish a Room?
