WHAT'S A NICE VACATION AFTER WORKING IN SAN FRANCISCO?

NORTH CAROLINA - OF COURSE !!

A few days after my return from the San Francisco projects, my husband and I headed over to the mountains of North Carolina, one of our most FAVORITE places to be. Our first stop was Asheville, to re-visit the Biltmore Estate, during their annual Festival of Flowers. If you haven't been to the Biltmore lately, it's worth a trip. They've added a whole new section called Antler Hill Village, with outdoor activities, and you can visit their farm and winery as well. Next time we go, we are going to make it a 2-day pass, since there is so much to see. The second day is really a bargain. Check it out on http://www.biltmore.com/

Also an enhancement to your next visit:  watch the new British Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey, a 2010 seven part series on aristocratic and servant life.  This made the Biltmore come alive for us!

The gardens were wonderful, as usual, and we hit this beautiful section just in time to take advantage of the dramatic lighting on these outdoor sculptures. After we had walked down to the lake and back, the light had totally changed, and I was so glad I had snapped these photos at the perfect time. It was a gorgeous cool day in mid-May, with Carolina Blue sky.

One of the most impressive things going on at the Biltmore, from the interior designer's perspective, is the current work in historic preservation. There is now a section on the second floor of the main house that details the process for restoring some of the previously closed off rooms. Some of these rooms are now open on the tour, and others are currently undergoing transformation , to be opened in the near future.

This educational area on the second floor is worth reading every line in each of the kiosks. They have written explanations, films showing the processes, and actual examples of the materials that you can see, and in some cases feel. For example: learn how they discover what the wallpaper looked like in the original room, and then how they track down the company in France that can re-create that original pattern. Watch how the French artists hand color the paper, and hand block the designs. Another example: learn the same information regarding the handmade velvet fabric that covers the walls in Mrs. Vanderbilt's room at the front of the house, where she bore her children; and feel the velvet. See how they restore the old furniture and porcelain. Allow at least a whole hour for this section of the house. It's fascinating to trace the magnificent work they are doing. Also be sure to watch the film by the descendants of the Vanderbilts. This is a family home that they are sharing with us all. It's a great privilege to visit!!

Also, if you are interested in high quality fabrics from different periods, be sure to check out this site:
http://www.rentmeister-manufaktur.de/       This family owned business produces exquisite fabrics to order, and his client list includes european nobility, movie stars, the latest Harry Potter film, and ordinary people like us!..........

After our wonderful visit to the Biltmore, and a few quiet days at Chetola in Blowing Rock, we returned to interior design in Cary, refreshed by the beauty of the North Carolina mountains!

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

This Cary Interior Designer has not been in Cary much over the past couple of months. What have I been doing? Check out this beautiful view of Alta Plaza Park in San Francisco! My son moved into an unfurnished apartment and I was lucky enough to be the designated designer! The amazing thing about this apartment is that it is right in the middle of all the beautiful hills and typical San Francisco cityscape, but when you look out the window, this beautiful park is what you see. If you step out on the balcony, you can see all the SF scenes; but from inside you see the peace of the park.

So I have been designing a bachelor pad for a twenty-something. (I also visited my other bachelor client in San Francisco. We are working on his apartment too, but it's a radically different aesthetic. Stay tuned for more on that project later, and visit his completed Bathroom Remodel post in this blog: July 2010).

So where do you begin when you are designing an apartment from scratch? We began with my son's art: a Mondrian that we ordered after our visit to MOMA in NYC 2 years ago.

Here is a pared down view of the process:  (Click on individual images to enlarge)

FIRST VISION BOARD: After discussing with my son what type of sofa he wanted, and what type of entertainment center, I did the first "vision board". That enables us to get a feel for the possibilities. I imported pictures from Pottery Barn for the sofa and coffee table, and I found a cool table at Pier One that complemented the Mondrian, since we had determined that the dining area would be the best location for it. We had discussed the art for the wall over the sofa, and decided on using my son's photographs from Europe, NYC and New Zealand. And the entertainment center I imported from my software program.

FLOOR PLAN: The next step was to properly scale all these items into the floor plan. I did many, many different floorplans, studies and vision boards of possible furniture for all these parts of the space. I emailed links to my son and together we reasoned out what would work best, what appealed to him most, and what fit the budget. I am only showing a few of the images here...

NEXT VISION BOARD: This board shows some changes: We shopped around and found a really cool table that is similar to the Pier One piece in the first concept board, but this table was less stark, both in color and form (slightly rounded, whereas Pier One was totally angular). We found a chair at the same store that was comfortable and affordable. We purchased an entertainment center from Ikea that looked just as I had imagined from my software. We had arrived at blue as the right color for the rug after looking at several possibilities, so I colored in a blue shape. And I found a coffee table that I thought my son would like from CB2. So I imported all these changes and we kept on working from this revised basis.

NEXT ROUND OF VISIONS: For this group of vision boards, I sent my son several actual rug choices. We looked at rugs from Crate and Barrel, West Elm, CB2, as well as several choices from my designer arsenal. In the end, we chose one of my rugs from the San Francisco Design Center - a Capel rug in Denim Blue. I imported it into the vision board, and we are waiting for it to arrive.

ELEVATION: This elevation shows the Pottery Barn sofa with chaise that we have on order. My new software is so cool that I can scale everything exactly, down to the fraction of the inch. So I did a design layout for my son's photos, showing the exact sizes of his frames, and how far apart they all are to be hung. I hung them all before I left SF. We are just waiting for the sofa now! To the right of the sofa, we opted for a small simple table from Walmart to hold the Ikea lamp. We were running out of money! To the right of the table/lamp are the beginning of the kitchen cabinets and the microwave.

This project lent itself very well to virtual design - long distance communication by email and phone.  (I didn't have to go to San Francisco - I just wanted to!!)

The examples of vision boards and floor plan are a good illustration of working on a design as a package.  I can either work by the hour, or on a package basis.  Sometimes all you need is an idea of where to begin - where to place your furniture, what sizes to buy.  For others, like my son, you need to know what the possibilities are, where to find them, and how to integrate them. For more information on how we might work on your project, give me a call, and we can talk about it.

I'm back doing interior design in Cary now, and the things we've ordered have started to arrive, so stay tuned for final pictures later on!