Furniture in Design

I'm loving the trend lately of featuring furniture pieces in art or other made objects!  I guess you could say I'm a furniture junkie!

Vintage Chair Prints

I Like to Rock Poster featuring the Eames Rocker.

Have a Seat Pillow

Inspiration: Dining Rooms

Sometimes I hear that dining rooms must be red.  That is definitely not the case!  Here are a few that I found that are far from a traditional red dining room!  Do you have a favorite color for a dining room?

Color!

Yep, it's another color post!  I just can't help but love color.  I think that I would have no problem getting ready in the morning if my shower head was as colorful as this one from Grohe:

It comes in some great bold colors as well as some awesome neutrals.  I love how many companies lately are adding more color to their product lines.  Many times this isn't considered a safe move for companies as colors can invoke strong reactions from some people, whether good or bad.  It's nice to know that they are listening to those of us who love color and want to add it to rooms in ways other than paint and accessories.

Outdoor Furniture: Dedon

I've been thinking about spring weather and can't wait until the temperature is just perfect enough to spend all day outdoors!  I've fallen in love with this outdoor furniture from Dedon:

Nestrest

Daydream

Summer Cloud

The clean, modern lines are perfect!

Tile Trend: Cement Tile

I've seen more and more cement tiles lately and I'm loving them!  Nice polished cement can actually be more smooth than ceramics or porcelain.  I found these great geometric ones from Granada Tile.  The cool thing is that this company will let you customize colors too.  Aren't these fun patterns?  They'd be great for accent areas and work on floors and walls.

Contemporary Winery

I just had to share this beautifully designed winery with you.  When I think of a winery, I usually don't think of anything modern or contemporary but Lundberg Design has created just that.  Hourglass Winery in Calistoga California is a beautifully designed modernistic winery built into a cave in Napa Valley.  I think my favorite element is the glass bottles used to make the wall seen below, a modern stained glass!





So gorgeous!

Modern Christmas Trees

I love how a Christmas tree can really be any style you want it to be.  Here are some modern, fun, unconventional trees I love.

Modern Plywood Tree.

Blown Glass Tree found in Venice, Italy.

Flat pack eco-friendly Christmas tree from Buro North.

Christmas tree decals from Mooo.

What's your favorite?

Bev Hisey: Textile Designs

Have you seen these amazing designs from Bev Hisey? They are all made by hand in her studio in Canada.  I just love the bold, simple patterns!   Some of my favorites include:



River Rock area carpet.



River Rock Pillow.



Butterfly Pillow.



Morrocan inspired felt wall panel.

Monday Redesign: Danielle's Living Room

Happy Monday everyone!  Danielle contacted us about her living room and needed help designing the space.  I asked Danielle a few questions, and in her own words, this is what she had in mind for her new space:

"A modern, chic & calming space design.  And the main things I want accomplished are to have a painted {or wallpapered} accent wall.  I'd like to get rid of the chaise and love seat and replace them with 2 arm chairs - If there's space for another chair in the living room, I'd love to see a third chair for additional seating. So, a new seating arrangement will be necessary. We'll be installing hard wood flooring in the living room in the near future, so a color suggestion would be very helpful.The fireplace has this 70's rock material happening that I'd like to update in some way.  If you have any ideas to share I would love to hear em'!"

So to work I went on a space design.  Just so you have an idea, here are a few pictures of Danielle's space currently.

The first thing I worked on was the floorplan.  Danielle wanted a more open layout with three chairs in addition to the sofa, if possible.  Here are the changes I made with the new floorplan pictured below.

1. Mount the television above the fireplace to give her more room to work with.


2. Place a bookshelf on each side of the fireplace to balance out that wall.


3. Place two chairs across from the sofa to make it more conversational as well as the best use of the space.  This will give Danielle ample access to her sliding door, and great traffic flow through the room.  And if she needs to turn those chairs around, say during movie night so everyone can see the tv, it should be easy enough to do.


4. For additional seating, a bench would be great centered on the wall with the opening to the dining room.


5. I kept Danielle's end tables and coffee table as requested.

After planning the layout, I did a little shopping for the space.  Here is a mood board for a visual of the new space.

And now for a breakdown of the goodies:

1. The color palette actually derived from the pillow sitting on the orange chair {#3}.  It has a neutral base, but color pops using contrast throughout the room {with mainly the orange and whites}.  The bottom color of this palette is Danielle's existing wall color and the color on top of that is the color suggested using for the accent wall.  The color is Behr Pepper Spice.


2. I love the modern and sleek look of this couch.  It's the Silhouette Sofa from Crate & Barrel in Maya: Taupe.  I would put three of these pillows and one of these on the sofa to bring in the orange color.  I loved the idea of hanging the three mirrors Danielle already has on hand from Ikea above the sofa.  It will make a great statement and mimic what I think she should do for the fireplace.  I also think this Nash floor lamp is great to put either behind her end tables for additional lighting, or next to the bench.  A pair of them in the room would be nice.


3. I saw this orange chair, and immediately fell in love with it.  It has such clean lines and fits Danielle's room so perfectly.  It's the parlour tangerine chair from CB2.  I would recommend a pair of these placed across the sofa each with a bull's eye silk pillow in berry from west elm.


4. To dress up the sliding glass door, I would recommend putting up some drapes, and Pottery Barn has great drapes at an affordable price.  I would get the Cameron Cotton Drape- two of them in the 50 x 96 length in white {hang the rod about a foot above the door frame, and let the drapes pool slightly on the floor}.  This will make the window seem bigger and more expansive.


5. I went with a darker wood floor to give a little contrast to the neutrals in the room.  I found a great wood floor at Lowe's made by Natural Floors by US.


6. I placed an 8x10 rug underneath the sofa and chairs to tie everything together, and so it didn't feel like the chairs were floating in the middle of nowhere.  I love the flexibility of FLOR and recommend the Sophistikat in Barley.   30 tiles to make an 8x10 rug.


7. Danielle has a couple options when it comes to the fireplace.  She can either paint over the rocks {in this case, I'd paint it all white}, or remove the rock and start over.  I went for removing the rock and starting over.  I would recommend something like this fireplace {scroll to photo 4 of 10} as it puts a little more chic into this modern room. I found this tutorial online too that seems like a pretty good step by step.


8. To provide additional seating in the room, I would get the Besta bench from Ikea.  I would recommend placing it just about centered on that wall.


9. To balance the room, I put two bookcases in the room, one on each side of the fireplace.  I would recommend the six shelf in the 36" width in white.  The bookshelves should be place nearly centered between the wall and the fireplace on each side.

So what do you think?  Is there anything you would add?



If you need help redesigning your space, check out our services here.

Rug Roundup and giveaway winner

While shopping for clients I've seen a lot of cool rugs lately.  I thought I'd share a few with you:

Eastern Colors wool rug

Peacock Rug

Monochromatic Rug

Floral Rug

Ready for the winner of the giveaway?  Using Random.org we chose a winner!   Looks like it's #5, Celia:



Congrats Celia!  Please contact us and we'll put you in touch with Andrew's Reclaimed!

Prism Color Wall

I sure love color!  I honestly don't have a favorite color as I'm in love with all of them!  Color makes me happy, excited, and energetic!  Imagine my delight when I saw the 1st Place winner of the Mind Blowing Color Competition.  Amirko, a Moscow based designer, designed a wall made of prisms that can be changed based on your mood, or favorite colors.  Isn't it fabulous?

After: Shelly Townsend Photography Studio

For the last few months I've been working on a photo studio!  Last week it was completed and celebrated with an open house!  I absolutely LOVE seeing finished designs!  Shelly, on top of being a fabulous photographer and actor, is DIY to the core!  Did I tell you that on our first meeting she confessed to me that she fixed her leaky dishwasher!?!  I'm not sure that's something even I would attempt.  So I knew that she could handle some DIY projects for her studio.

Her goals were to turn this room that's over their garage into a working photography studio for her growing business, Shelly Townsend Photography, as well as to leave space for watching movies as a family when not being used as a studio.  One of the big changes was to put in a more durable floor as carpet doesn't hold up as well for lots of traffic.  We needed to add window treatments too, ones that would allow Shelly to have complete control of the lighting in the space.  Blackout lining was the key to that!

Her husband works in marketing so making sure that the space was consistent with her branding was key in the color selection.  We wanted all the pieces to be able to be used as props as well.  Sounds like a tall order, huh?  But I love a challenge!

Here's what the space looked like before:

And here's the finished studio:

Guess which parts were DIY?  Would you believe if I told you everything except the sofa and lamps?  Yep, you heard me!  Shelly sewed and made the cornice board, curtains (including blackout lining), circle pillows, and the rug, which might be my favorite thing in the whole space!  We worked out all the details and she made it!  (I'll try to do a tutorial to show you how to make your own circle rug!  It's easier than you think and would be great at a smaller scale for a bathroom or kitchen.)  The end tables were made by my fantastic wood worker, Russ.  (If you are in the Dallas area and need some custom wood work done for a reasonable price please let me know because I have the perfect person for ya!  I'll never use anyone else!)  They actually have removable lids so that the insides can be used for prop storage!  The flowers are vinyl decals that can be changed out if Shelly wants, or if she's doing a themed photo shoot.  Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks so much Shelly for calling us up to help you with your space!  I couldn't be more thrilled with the results!