TayRose Design interior design Interior Design Room Archives - Page 2 of 7

New Home, new furnishings Part 2 Master Suite

Master Suite in neutrals

So many of us are so busy that we rarely have time to enjoy and retreat to our Master Oasis’s until the family has been fed; dishes done; lunches made for the next morning; kids bathed; stories read; kids tucked in; laundry folded; and bills paid…..so, collapsing into the bed that may or may not have been made that morning, and falling immediately into an unconscious slumber is how our Master bedroom meets our need. And yet, trends reveal when it comes to designing, or building a house, clients want the master suite, and “en-suite” to be spacious with sitting areas, even exercise machines with adjoining steam showers, double vanities and tv sets as their “must haves.” Who has time to enjoy all of this blessedness? But hey, who wouldn’t want a restful, spacious area to retreat to at the end of a hectic day? We all deserve a space that beckons when the day is done, and the door can be closed to put the world on a time out.

Master suite sitting area in neutrals

This Master bedroom space was one of those spaces where I wanted to create a soothing break from the demands that every young parent lovingly accepts. The client had sent me several photos of colors and styles they liked for the room which were very helpful to draw inspiration from and recreate for them. Neutrals were chosen, in creams and taupe with a bit of gray. Lots of texture from the nubby linen and metal nail heads of the casual chairs; the cool metal from the glass side table; to the painted metal art on the wall over the bed; and the soft cream of the carpet underfoot. The warm woods of the bed, nightstands and dresser give a nice contrast to all of the neutral colors surrounding the room.

Seating grouping in master

The comforter was a great find at Burlington’s and was the light neutral color that the client was looking for. It’s hard to see, but there are fine light gray lines creating a subtle pattern on the fabric. I was able to find matching shams, a throw, and all of the accent pillows at several different stores while shopping for accessories. We found long curtain panels that had beautiful texture and just the perfect colors of gray and taupe to frame the windows and carry the color to the walls. We hung the panels higher over the window to draw your eye up and helps the room feel larger.

Cream lamp and curtain panel by bedside

I found the lamps and shades, in a simple shape, creamy like the trim color and a few photo frames to be filled with kiddo pictures in black and white to keep with the neutral scheme. The design rule of grouping in 3’s and 5’s really does work in most cases, and helps surface areas from getting too cluttered. Choosing groups that have different heights and shapes gives the items more definition and interest. A small seating area was created on the back wall with a couple of nubby chairs, a small glass top table and then adding the accent mirror centered over the grouping instead of centering the mirror on the wall. The standing dressing mirror fit perfectly just outside the entrance to the master bath plus doubles as a jewelry cabinet- I love when products can be double duty…so functional!!

Since the bed should really be the focal point of the room, I wanted something light and airy for the space over the large bed. While in the Home Store, I found a large grey metal floral leaf art piece that was pointing up and leaning against the wall. I picked it up and immediately turned it upside down. Perfect! I just needed to take some cream colored chalk paint and lightly distress the metal a bit to soften the color and bring it more to a neutral but still have that hint of gray coming through….just like the comforter….get where I am going with this? Why upside down? Well, I think it looked better upside down, and I liked how the bottom which is now the top was narrower than the top which is now the bottom, and it seemed to “hug” the bed. Did I lose anyone? It’s fun to change up something whether it’s turning it upside down, or sideways, or adding a piece to it, or changing the color…..it’s all part of the design process.

Floral metal wall art painted and distressed

You will notice that there is a lot of wall space in this room, and we do have future plans for that. To the right of the bed, the wall leading to the master closet will be a grouping of black and white wedding photos framed and hung, one which will be enlarged to go behind an old pane window.

It’s important to carve out a space where you can escape…..even if just for a little while to rejuvenate….not only will you benefit from the results it can bring, but your family will appreciate it as well. Even something so simple as making the bed and finding homes for the clothes that made their way to the floor, can do wonders when you drag yourself at the end of the day to a space that is welcoming you back.

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New Home, New Furnishings-Young Family Moves In Part 1

Taylor

31 Jan 2016

Interior Design Room, Living room

#myrfstyle

I had a wonderful opportunity to design the interior for a young, busy, working couple’s new home under construction. The couple had already chosen their fixtures and flooring, so I guided them choosing paint colors and furnishings.

New construction installing doors

The challenge at first was determining their design style for they were living in a furnished apartment and had sold all their furniture to start anew.

Thank goodness for Pinterest! I asked the couple to go online and send me pictures of styles they really liked from Pinterest so I could get a feel of how to choose furnishings for their home. In no time, I was getting a steady stream of photos with comments of what they liked and didn’t like which was so helpful in deciding the design direction.

For the living room, you would think picking out furnishing would be the biggest challenge, but it was searching for long curtain panels for a 9ft ceiling that took the longest search. Funny, you would think since taller ceilings are more and more the “norm” for new housing and clients seem to want their curtains to be hung closer to the ceiling, that there would be more options in local stores…..not so much, mostly have to find online. These panels from Wayfair at 108″ worked perfectly for the design. Though a little long, they pooled fine at bottom, or can hem up a bit if needed.

Wayfair curtain panels 108″

Hanging the curtain panels closer to the ceiling leads the eye up and adds a little drama to the room. The curtain panels also “frame” the window and break up all of the wall color with pattern and contrasting color. The windows also have large slatted blinds, so when they are open you can see the outside easily without having to raise up the shades all the time like you do with the mini blinds. With the blinds, the curtains can remain open to frame the window, or can be pulled close if needed.

Tall curtain panels in living room dramatic look

Livingroom before and after install design by TayRose Design

With a budget in hand, I was able to find most of the major furniture and a few accessories from one place which was what the client had hoped for. This is the view you see straight ahead, at the end of the hall after entering the front door. Over the leather sofa, the large clock allows the wall color to show through the open metal fretwork creating quite the room statement. More pattern with accent pillows and wall art, bring texture and color to the neutrals of the room. Add to that a couple of plaid floor pillows to pull up to the trunk coffee table for more casual seating. The metal and wood of the end tables and lamps tie in with some of the accessories in the joining open spaces.

Livingroom in earth tone colors

The entertainment center has dark metal accents as well as the hanging lanterns and sofa table making great use of the wall niche between kitchen and family room. (Love how the wall clock over sofa reflects in mirror.)

Buffet nook

There is still plenty of room for the client to add personal framed photos and mementos to “homey” up the spaces.

The clients were so pleased, and kept commenting on how comfortable it felt and how the design captured their style to a “T”. They were also able to move in just a couple of days before Thanksgiving to start making new memories in their new, ” Home Sweet Home.”

I invite you to be watching for Part 2 of this series showing several rooms of this new house design, where I will write more about how Pinterest pictures inspired design decisions as well as the model home.

What inspires you for your design decisions? Inspiration can come from many sources!

I thank eRegal Studio whose photography skills always makes the designs look their optimal best! (It also helps when the photographer is my husband!)
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Fireplace brick surround makeover-Brighten Up Space

This particular makeover didn’t start out as expected. You see, my client wanted to change the feel of her formal living room to more of a casual feel so they didn’t have to go downstairs to their family room all the time. My client was looking for new curtains, some updated wall art and accessories in colors that would bring some “pop” to the room.

Upon entering the room, what caught my eye first was the oversized sofa and loveseat which were newly purchased, so they had to stay. Secondly, the fireplace of multi-colored dark bricks didn’t give off the light and bright feeling she was looking for in the room. In the back of my mind, I remembered a fireplace makeover I had done just a few months prior and how well it turned out. So tentatively, not knowing whether she absolutely loved her fireplace or not, and, not wanting to offend her, but just to suggest, I asked her if she had ever thought of changing the brick color. Well, she almost jumped off the sofa with glee saying she always wanted to paint it but wasn’t sure- if I had any photos of the one I did prior, how much it would lighten the room, how soon it could be painted, and, oh, did I mention how excited she was!

Fireplace before paint treatment

I took lots of before pictures so I could show my friend Amy who helped me with the last fireplace makeover to see the size and colors. This fireplace is a smaller surface, only up to the mantle. My concern was how deep the colors were and how many coats of watered down paint we would need to brush on in order to cover the especially deep red colored bricks.

close up of bricks before paint treatment

Amy gathered up her glazes, rags and drop cloths, and I picked up a sample quart of the new color paint that the client was going to paint her walls…Accessible Beige from Sherwin Williams. One of my “go to” colors, it looks great anywhere with most any color. A perfect neutral.

We arrived and started our prep, taping with painters tape all around the edges and covering the fireplace doors and carpet with plastic, plus laying down drop cloths. It seems like the taping and prep takes longer than the painting, but very necessary! Not taking any chances of splattering paint on walls or carpet. We had a small bucket that we added some water and started to add the wall color paint, mixing it until it was lightly tinted. Better to start with a lighter mix than too opaque with the paint. With a brush in one hand and a rag in the other, we started to paint the first coat over the dark bricks. The bricks were soaking up the paint fast and barely changing the color. I thought, wow, this is going to take a lot of coats. After painting the whole area with the lightest coat, we waited a few minutes then added a little more paint to the water mixture and started the whole process over again, painting on and dabbing off with the rag. We found that we painted more over the red bricks then dabbed off some on the more darker color bricks giving a more varied look with the colors, plus, dabbing also gives texture- a stippled look.

Fireplace started painting after taping off

The client was working upstairs, but often came down to peek at the progress and loved seeing the transformation. I was surprised that we only had to go over the surface twice reaching the color saturation that the client approved with a little dabbing of extra paint here and there over the deeper red bricks. The surface dried very quickly, we waited about 20-30 minutes or so before removing the tape and plastic. The pictures show the fireplace before the walls were painted, they were a soft yellow color. The new wall color was painted about 3 days later in the same color as fireplace but a bit deeper, for the paint would be at full strength and not watered down. Thank you Amy, for the “after” photo, you can see how we let the different shades of colored brick come through for added dimension and color, but the reddish tints are now warmer neutrals.

Fireplace painted makeover after

As for the rest of the room, the client decided to wait a bit and decide what she really wants. I made some suggestions and she may call to have more work done.

Fireplace before and after

All in all, another fireplace makeover success. A side note…I love brick fireplaces and I rarely suggest painting them, but there are a few, that just need a little help, and we’re glad to oblige!

(If you have a fireplace that needs a little lift and you would like a quote and live locally, take a picture and measurements and email them to me and we can give you an approximate quote for the job.)

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Shareathon Cutting Edge Stencil Project – Sofa Table and Pillow

I again was invited by Hometalk.com to participate in a Shareathon project featuring Cutting Edge Stencils on any item of my choosing and sharing the process. I haven’t used stencils very often and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try them on a larger scale.

I went to the Cutting Edge website, www.CuttingEdgeStencils.com and tried to choose just one of their beautiful array of various stencils for my project. I had just been to an auction and purchased a sofa table that I thought would be a great candidate for stencils. I chose the “French Poem” allover stencil, from the website because I really liked the writing style and since I don’t speak French, the mystery of what the words say….

While waiting for the stencil to arrive, I decided that I would prep my table so it will be ready for stenciling. The sofa table had a factory finish, meaning it had a shiny finish over the paint that had to be sanded down before applying any new paint so the paint had something to grab onto.

After sanding, I wiped off all of the sanding dust and wiped down all of the surfaces of the table so it had a clean, dust free surface to start painting. Cutting Edge Stencils recommends acrylic or latex paint which I would have used if I painted my table with a latex paint, but I chose to try the mineral based paint again from Country Chic Paints in the color Cheesecake, for that color is a warm cream and goes with everything. I wanted a contrast color for accents and for the legs, so deciding the 2nd paint color was between Dark Roast and Licorice….dark brown or black. I chose the dark brown color, mainly because again, it would have a better chance of blending in with most decor, and I also wanted to add some metallic highlights, and an antique gold would best suit a dark brown color.

So with paint colors in hand and after the top of the table was sanded down, I used a sanding block to rough up the surface on the legs and apron of the table. One of the features that I liked about this table was that the ends flip up or down, and transforms from a really long table to a shorter version depending on the space allowed. Another feature is that there is a drawer, which is very nice to have to store items for buffet, desk or playing cards .

I painted 2 coats of paint on the top and on the bottom shelf and let it dry. I used a roller for the 2nd coat to smooth the layer, although the grain in the wood still showed the pattern, at least the paint was smoother without brush marks for an easier surface to stencil on. I also painted the legs and the border in the contrast color with 2 coats as well. The stencil arrived and there was a nice instructional sheet included along with a mini foam roller with several replacements and a small stencil brush. The instructional included everything I needed from materials, getting started, stenciling techniques, tips and tricks and finally, cleaning and storage of the stencil. Cutting Edge Stencils also have wonderful tutorials on their website that I referred to before I got started so a lot of the uncertainty I felt melted away.

The stencil I received was an allover stencil, which means it is made for large surfaces like a wall. Since the top and shelf of my table were on a much smaller scale, I ended up taping the stencil on the ends to stabilize the stencil so it wouldn’t move as I painted.

The table was also longer than the stencil, so I needed to re-lay the stencil after the paint had dried on the first half and line it up with the lettering to continue the poem. Since the stencil is clear, it was easy to line up lettering as the pattern continued on the surface. I started to use the small stencil brush using a small amount of paint on the brush, then dabbing on a paper towel before dabbing on table surface, and this process worked fine, but it was going very slowly, so I opted to try the foam roller instead.

What a difference! With the roller, painting went super fast and very easy. I still rolled off a lot of the paint on a paper towel before applying on stencil and was careful how I rolled so that the roller didn’t catch on the letter edges and pull them up while rolling. The chalk based paint seemed to work fine, no problems at all with the stencil. I wanted to also try the stencil on fabric, so after finishing the table, and laying the stencil on the pillow cover to see how I wanted to line it up, I used windex to spray on the dried paint and wiped clean with paper towels and rags. Easy peasy.

After all the surfaces were painted and dry, I applied some antique gold colored rub n’ buff metallic to the legs and a little on the borders to bring out some highlights on the curves and brighten up the brown a bit.

After applying the metallic, I used the natural wax offered by the same company as the paint and brushed on all the surfaces and buffed off the excess until all the stickiness was gone.

I found a wallpaper roll I had onhand that I used to line the drawer, so a bit of a surprise when opened, and the colors seemed to work well with the paint colors.

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to try the stencil on fabric, so I used a solid velveteen pillow I had onhand, and I first removed the pillow insert, then laid the stencil down on top of the fabric and lined up the lettering as straight as I could, then taped down the edges of the stencil to the floor to keep it steady as I painted. I was able to use the foam roller in the same application procedure on the fabric as I did on the table top and shelf and it worked like a charm! I even used the same chalk based paint that I used on the table, for I read that the paint could be used on fabric as well. I decided to flip and have the cream stencil words on a brown surface to show a different look with the lettering, plus I did have the pillow on hand, so no added cost there!

When staging the photo with the table, I used a table lamp that had originally been brass and I painted it in the same color as the table with the chalk based paint, and I also took the lampshade and stripped off the fabric and painted the wire in cheesecake color as well. I found at Hobby Lobby back in the dollhouse furniture area, a small wood dresser that I painted in same paints as the sofa table to pull in the colors as your eye went to the top of the lamp, and to have a little unexpected finial idea.

I love how the stencil poem gives enough of a pattern but doesn’t feel too busy and can be decorated easily. (Of course, when my husband takes such beautiful pictures, everything looks awesome. See more of his wonderful work at eRegalStudio.com. )

Cutting Edge Stencils recommend storing the larger stencils flat and under a bed as an option, so that is where my stencil is heading….but not for long for I’m sure I will have more projects in the future that will include this stencil!

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How to add “light weight” wall art

Taylor

03 Jun 2015

Interior Design Room

I had a client who called about needing help to decide what to do with a large blank wall in her living room. She wanted something pretty; loved the wall I had done for a friend of hers; was willing to try something out of her comfort zone; and her husband’s desk had to stay where it was on the wall. She had just moved into this new spec house recently and still had lots of moving boxes in the basement, but nothing she felt would work on the wall. The wall is vaulted a bit and stretches from the living room into the dining room….it’s one large open space. Her sofa and chair with coffee table defined and grounded with area rug created the living room space, then behind on the other side of the room was the dining room space. The kitchen was on the opposite wall with the fireplace and windows to the backyard on the back wall. The desk was only about 4 1/2′ wide, so I didn’t want to extend any wall treatment too far past this width or it would dwarf the feel of the desk even further.

The client didn’t want a “heavy” look, she loved the light and airy feel of the walls, so I asked her if she had any mirrors or frames that I could repaint to make a collage for the wall. Soon, there were several mirrors and frames that she started pulling out of packing boxes in the basement.

In my mind, I was envisioning a wall collage using mirrors and frames all painted in the same color, the color of the all the wood trim work. What I liked about using the frames is that with empty frames, the walls show through so just the outside of the frame is framing the art, which is the wall. The client said she would like a rose and an initial letter included in the collage if I could make it fit.

I packed up all the mirrors and frames and went straight to Hobby Lobby to look for the initial and for a rose sculpture that I remembered seeing there the other week. I scored on both, for they were on sale, and then I picked up the paint from Country Chic mineral based paint that matched the wood trim very well. I was able to acquire several other vintage wood frames from garage sales or thrift finds to add to the ones I had brought home from the client. I set up my saw horses and work bench in the garage and started the light sanding and prep for painting the mirrors and frames.

I used the chalk type paint, for I was working on several types of surfaces from plastic, to wood and even metal, so I knew this type of paint works on everything. Before I started, I did a trial layout of how the items would work together in the space I was allowing over the desk on the wall. Once I tried several layouts and chose one I liked, I started prepping those pieces for painting. I knew the client did not want the distressed look, so several coats had to be painted on each piece.

I taped the mirror with blue tape on the front, and I ended up sanding the backs of all the frames and mirrors lightly to remove any paint that ended up on the back edges. I had about 12 pieces to work with, and to lessen the amount of holes in the wall, I grouped a set of frames together and used nails and glue to make one piece out of 3 frames.

I also hung smaller frames inside larger frames and framed the initial and the rose. After applying at least 3 coats of paint on each, and touch up spots where the drips had to be sanded down, I rubbed on natural wax and buffed off so the surface would have a soft look and a smooth feel. Plus the wax after drying creates a nice protective coat. Of course, the warm weather didn’t help the wax to dry, so I had to bring them into the house for a few days to set. I kept buffing with a clean cloth until it didn’t feel sticky to the touch. I also applied many of the tiny felt pads to the backs of every frame and piece that would be touching the wall, so no marks would mar the newly painted wall surface when hung.

I initiated the help of a friend for installation day, and we brought in drop cloths and spread out the collage design on the floor first. I had cut out outlines on craft paper of every shape so we could tape to the wall in place, adjust as needed with the blue tape, and then measure where the nail hanger would go. We started with the middle row and made our way out the sides and it went up pretty quickly using the cutouts. The client was sitting at the kitchen table during this whole time and kept saying, “it’s so pretty” so I knew we were assured of a successful outcome.

What I liked about doing a collage rather than a large piece of framed art, was that with a collage and having open frames, it still gave the feel of space and airiness to the wall and wasn’t heavy or made the desk look too wimpy or small. We discussed with the client about changing out the knobs on the desk to match her glass lamps and she was happy to hear the suggestions.

The great thing about collages is that you can add to, change up without too much effort and still have a great timeless look.

And the best compliment of all is an email I received from the client – “Thank you so much for doing all that work I love it and sit and look at it lot
Thank you”

Nothing better than a happy client!

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