Homes Designs: dilemma

Showing posts with label dilemma. Show all posts

Friday, March 13, 2009

A chair revamped, and a dilemma

We received an email from Doreen that I HAD to share: I love everything mid-century modern and therefore, I thought I would share a recent find with you. I went to a local antique/thrift store last weekend. I had been hoping to find a mid-century modern chair one day here in Columbus, GA. Never thought, I would! My luck was about to change this time! I went in and could not believe that they had a Chromcraft chair for sale that was in good condition. Now comes the best - the price tag! It was priced for $38 and I ended up getting it for $30!!! Can you believe it! As soon as I bought it, I went home and cleaned up the whole chair and polished the chrome base. Even though I kind of liked the retro cushion cover it came with - it was dirty and it did not really fit in with my decor. Therefore, I re-upholstered it with a black and white fabric that I had gotten from IKEA. I took before and after pictures that I am going to attach to this mail. I paired the chair with another recent find. The white chair I bought new and I love the look of both chairs together. The two black and white pictures you see on the wall behind the chairs are old Abercrombie & Fitch boards and I just made the frames myself.

She did such an amazing job on the chair, and her vignette is fantastic! Love the huge framed ads and the frames are perfect. Kudos to you Doreen!!

We also received an email from Jen who is looking for some advice on her living room: I am hoping you and your readers can inspire me. I am having a mental block regarding what colors to interject in the attached room (paint/trim, window coverings, accessories). I have searched through endless blogs, magazines, etc, and I am having a real hard time. We are keeping the furniture (minus the speakers/lamp/entertainment center). We are adding in the loop media center/file hutch from crate and barrel. Our style is organic modern and we want this room to feel warm and cozy.

For more information check this post she published on her blog. She has removed the wallpaper (YAY!) and is thinking about bright white trim, dark warm gray below the chair rail, and light warm gray above the chair rail. I was thinking more brown tones as opposed to grey (and I always lean towards grey) because of the fireplace colour, but if the carpet is grey, then I would go with a grey with alot of brown in it (and I'm seeing orange accents, mixed with maybe some acid green). I would keep the colour below the chair rail only slightly darker than above, because it just emphasizes the narrowness of the space. It sounds like Jen is putting her new entertainment stand where the existing one is, which I'm not loving. I would put it to the left of the fireplace, and maybe have the couch to the left of it facing the far window, and chair in front of the patio doors, angled towards the couch. Narrow rooms are very tough to organize as I know very well having lived in a couple narrow houses. So if anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment for Jen! Read More..

Friday, February 13, 2009

White kitchen inspiration

Abby wrote me with this request: "Congratulations on your amazing kitchen redo! I am about to embark on the same project, and am hoping you can offer some inspiration photos - both to give me ideas and to show my better half what the heck I'm talking about. My kitchen is very dark - no windows - so I'm planning to do white cabinets with white countertops (though I'm also toying with doing the cabinets in the palest shade of grey, still with the white countertops), to keep things luminous. I prefer a modern style, though some Regency details are fine, and like just about everyone I'm fond of Shaker cabinets. Definitely nothing country. I'm sure you looked at a million kitchens when you were planning yours, so I'm hoping you'll have some great thoughts for me!"

A kitchen with no windows?? And there's no way you can put one in? Or a skylight maybe? How sad! Going with white is a great idea because the light will reflect off the surfaces and keep it nice and bright. And I've already told Abby that I highly recommend the quartz I chose for my kitchen because it has all sorts of little grey and mirrored specks in it that sparkle. :) I have many photos of white kitchens, so I've selected some non-country ones for Abby and her better half. Hope this helps and good luck with your reno!


AT Casa	Bolig Magasinet

Dixcot Locations	Coburn Architecture

David Netto	Canadian House & Home

House Beautiful	Canadian House & Home

Verity Welstead	Living Etc.

Urban Spaces

honky

Sköna hem

Sunset Magazine

4Homes

Ideal Home

Monday, February 9, 2009

Paint question

Laura wrote us an email with the following:

"I was inspired by this entry to ask you a question. There is a lot of discussion about the perfect white paint, but I have yet to come across a discussion about the perfect off white/cream/beige paint. I know people use it because I see it every so often in Domino. One of the things that I love about Domino so much, is that they talk about paint colors. White is discussed a lot. But, I've noticed that if there is a picture of a space with an off white/cream colored wall, the paint is hardly ever mentioned. If the perfect white is so often hotly debated, why not the perfect off white?

I am really looking for the perfect color for a room in my house that I am working on. Just to prepare you for the picture, we had a terrible water pipe leak and as a result we had to tear down most of the left wall and some of the ceiling. You can see in the picture the new dry wall. Also, our windows are very special. They were made from old telephone pole wood. Every window in the house is some variation of this window. I don't plan on painting the wood or the baseboards. I've already painted one bedroom a robin's egg blue that looks beautiful. I plan on painting the master a light gray (right now it is a horrible yellow). But this room I wanted to do in a cream color. Hopefully, this will be a child's room someday and I want a nice neutral background that will be able to take on blue or pink accent colors. As you can see in the picture the color that the previous owner's of the house used is a beige, but it has a lot of yellow in it, which I don't particularly like.

Here is the room. I apologize in advance for the chaos, but I am still working on the drywall:"

What a beautiful window - and a whole house of them?!?! I am very jealous. I explained to Laura that I had absolutely no experience with off-white, while I always stick to pure white or light grey when I'm looking for a neutral paint colour. My suggestion for a non-off-white would be a light grey as I think it would be really pretty with blue or pink. But I thought I'd throw this out to you guys if anyone has any paint colour suggestions for Laura. What's your favourite off-white or beige? Read More..

Bathroom lighting dilemma

Ian wrote us last week with a request for some ideas for this bathroom: "I'm trying to get my bathroom lighting sorted and I've decided against harsh overhead lighting with the plan of having the mirror lit either side instead which is a much more flattering light. However, I've looked everywhere and can find barely any ideas! I was thinking of a couple of Glo-balls coming out of the mirror, or recessed lighting, or a pair of Tolomeo lights coming out of the wall etc. Anything other than a horrid downlighter above my head! I wondered if you may be able to help me and post some much needed inspiration on your site?"

I went through my photos of bathrooms and selected some that hopefully give Ian some ideas. I personally think 2 glo-ball-like lights hanging on either side or wall-mounted Tolomeos would look fantastic. (I've got Tolomeos on either side of my range and I LUV them!). Examples of these and others are below.


Cossman_de Bruyn	Ami Mckay

Dolly Howarth	IFI

Location Works	Kate Hume

House Beautiful	mlk studio

Better Homes and Gardens	Jeff Andrews

John Lum Architecture

Napanee Design

Architeam

Friday, February 6, 2009

To paint or not to paint?

Lee-Anne from Toronto wrote us looking for help: "I love your website and thought you might be able to help me with my design dilemma. We recently bought a home that was built in the 40’s that’s a bit of a fixer upper. It has wooden baseboards throughout and lots of wood trim. I am still hanging onto my old furniture but I am sooooo ready to redo this room!! I want to modernise it and add colour and texture!! My dilemma is that in almost all of the design pictures that I see, the baseboards are painted white. My sister has told me in no uncertain terms that I am NOT to paint the wood trim in the house. I am looking for inspiration where people have kept the baseboards a natural colour." Below are some photos Lee-Anne included of her home.

At first I immediately thought "PAINT!!" but if I had such beautiful baseboards and trim, I would be terrified to paint it. So after looking at the photos, I would listen to your sister. But I would get out the paint can for a few things. I would paint out the fireplace (and lose that huge mirror above), the risers on the stairs and maybe the balusters (a photo below shows this). That's it. But keep your walls light and if you were going to get rugs, I'd keep those light too. Or you could go with a warm bright wall colour (see the yellow wall below). So the following are photos of spaces with unpainted trim (except the last one but imagine it's a dark wood).