SAN FRANCISCO KITCHEN - WEEK 2

I'm a Designer.  I NEVER pick anything without seeing all the samples.  This goes for paint colors, fabrics, tile, flooring, EVERYTHING. 

Week 2 brought the selection of the soapstone.  The original soapstone we had selected in 2008 was longer available (probably because everyone heard that Martha Stewart has soapstone in HER kitchen).  So we had to scour around for a slab with minimum veining and deep enough  black color once it was oiled.  Doug found a great company in Roseville:  http://teresinasoapstone.com/    Carrie was very helpful, and sent us photos of the possibilities.  I called her and arranged for samples to be sent to Doug and myself, so we could test the color with the rest of the kitchen samples - the red Ikea door, the black granite mosaic backsplash, and the espresso oak for the Dining Room bank of drawers.  Above is the sample we chose:  Black Minas.

Next, we had to select which slabs we wanted to purchase.  Carrie sent photos again, with the areas marked off in the sizes that we would need.  We completed the purchase and Doug's contractor picked it up in Roseville and began to cut!  For more information on soapstone as a countertop, visit teresina's website.  Doug loves it!

Now for the COLOR!

As you can see in the above photo - the COLOR is starting to emerge in this kitchen!  The red filler strips and the granite mosaic have been installed by Paul, a member of the team at Victory Construction, Inc.  Doug is extremely pleased with this team.  Their website states:  "Based on our deep spiritual and moral belief in the 'golden rule' of treating others with honesty and integrity, we strive to run our business in this manner."  And that is precisely how they operate.  Check them out at http://www.victorybuild.com/

Here's a close-up of the soapstone (not yet oiled) and the granite mosaic.

The whole team at Victory are from the Ukraine (yes, they speak Russian.  Doug is trying to learn some before the project is finished!)  The above photo shows the meticulous attention to detail that Paul puts into his work.  He was a surgeon in the Ukraine, and his beautiful craftsmanship shows it.

This photo shows what the Ikea cabinets look like before the red doors go on.

Here we have the bank of drawers in the Dining Room, with the granite mosaic and the not-yet-oiled soapstone.  You can catch a tiny bit of the espresso trim at the side of the cabinets.

Below:  a photo of the hood that is going to be installed this week.  Stay tuned for more progress soon!

RED KITCHENS

 

I ADORE red kitchens!  They have so much life and an expectation of something really COOL just about to happen.  (BTW, it's possible to have a red kitchen and still have it be cool.  Red does not always have to be warm.  However, a red kitchen is never COLD.  How's that for contradictory color theory?  Designers are allowed to do that!)  

My first personal remodel was updating a 1960s modern house to be current for the 80s.  We tore out the old kitchen and put in a modern white German kitchen (by Alno).  The walls were - you guessed it! - RED.  I cut my teeth on that project:  I had to layout the design in centimeters!  And my husband and I did all the installation ourselves. But that's a blot post for another day....Moving on with Doug's kitchen:

I had seen this red kitchen from Ikea on line and loved it, and I had read in shelter magazines about architects that were using Ikea for their own NYC apartment remodels.  If architects were using it, the quality would probably be OK.  And the price was right:  for an apartment, we didn't want to spend all our budget on Italian cabinets...there had to be some money left for art, since that is Doug's passion.

Doug and I visited the Ikea showroom in Palo Alto to check out the quality, and decided to go with it.  We started this project in 2007, long before I got my new Interior Design software, so I used Ikea's software to lay out the floor plan, import the cabinets and do the elevations.

The design developed as we went along, as design so often does!  The original design was for the microwave to be hidden behind doors, but Doug wanted to consider ease of access, so I laid out this elevation (above), showing the new black frig and dishwasher, with the existing microwave installed in an open cabinet. Neither of us liked this, so we went back to the original, with the microwave behind the doors.

This sketch is hand drawn onto the Ikea wall elevation of the back wall of the kitchen.  It shows the view from the Dining Room, with the new hood vent, the Dining Room drawers from Ikea, granite mosaic backsplash, and soapstone counters.  Doug loves soapstone - he had it in his Santa Barbara house and is hooked on soapstone!

This elevation is a study I did for Doug about hanging his new Wusthof knives on a magnetic knife rail on the granite mosaic backsplash.  I imported the Ikea elevation into my new software and imported the picture of the Wusthof knives from the internet, and correctly scaled it to see if it would fit properly.  We're going with it!   Stay tuned for tomorrow's post: Week 1- Demolition and Wall Construction....

The MAGIC of WINDOW TREATMENTS

There are many beautiful things in the manufactured universe, and FABRIC

is certainly one of the most magical. I have always loved fabric. I first recall being entranced by it as a child, when I discovered a bolt of vintage silk in my mom's closet. She had brought it with her from England. It was a delicious red color, and I could imagine a rajah's trappings to go with it. When I was twelve, my parents enrolled me in a sewing class at the local Singer store and I got to select the fabric and pattern for a dress (black and white checked gingham!) that I made myself (with zipper!). I was hooked. I loved walking the aisles of fabric stores wherever I could find them, and made many of my own clothes. I even made my wedding dress - an exquisite, simple, elegant Vogue pattern.






When I enrolled in the Interior Architecture and Design curriculum at Northwestern University, I discovered all the magic of interior fabrics. The showrooms at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago begcame my regular haunts! Rows and rows of fabrics and trims - surely this is Heaven!

Window Treatments are one of the most creative ways to enjoy beautiful fabrics. With the perfect balance of shape, color and texture, each treatment is a canvas, and that is exactly how I approach designing a window treatment.

Also wonderful to consider in your "window treatment canvas" is how the outside light plays into the mix. Different times of day produce different light effects, both in color and shadow, and the results can be thrilling, when you walk into a space and see the light dancing on your wall or floor through the pattern of your fabric or shutters.

I have a wonderful workroom that I have used for years. I specialize in very individual treatments, and this seamstress has all the background and skills to help me put my ideas together in the most practical form for the client. I am an artist, and I treat each project as a canvas specific to that client. I don't have any standard treatments. I start each treatment with an in-depth discussion with you to find out what you need and what you love. And then we work to narrow the field to those solutions that are right for you (including your budget). If you do want a "standard treatment" (simple pinch pleats, for instance), we have no problem executing it. But I love to put in a little detail that distinguishes your treatment from anyone else's...

I don't have a particular period. I love all interior design! I do traditional through contemporary based on the client's preferences. Clients usually come to me because they have specific needs and desires. My task is to coordinate all the elements that you love and fuse them into a cohesive whole. Creating a beautiful, individual project canvas is what I love to do!

All the above treatments were designed by me. Check out my new Window Treatment Slideshow to see more. These are not professional photos (I took most of them myself), but you can still get the idea! See the Slideshow link in the column to the right, just under my website url.

RENOVATION IN ANDERSON HEIGHTS

BEGINNING WITH THE DRAPERIES, ART AND RUGS.....



These clients own a wonderful home in Anderson Heights in Raleigh, not far from Five Points. They have lived there for years, and love the neighborhood so much, that they decided to stay where they were and renovate. We are still working on the final touches, but I wanted to get this much up on my blog, so the rest of you could see what fun we have been having with our art collection and custom rugs. The picture below is the BEFORE for the Dining Room, and below that is the empty Music Room, which they added during the renovation.

BEFORE

When I first saw this Music Room, I envisioned it as an art gallery. There aren't many walls, but with proper selection of original art and custom area rugs, we could make this room a peaceful yet dynamic experience.

After we designed the draperies (see below for full details), we began the search for some original art. I had seen the work of Scott Upton at Flanders Art Gallery a year before, and had recommended that my clients take a trip to the gallery to see his work. When they did, they were captivated!! We tried several different pieces for this space, and when this blue one went up, my clients were sold. So we began our color scheme with this work. We have since added some additional pieces on the other walls, and they will show up in a later blog post. Flanders has been great to work with!

The design for the rugs in these rooms had to begin with the Music Room. It was critical to choose a color combination that enhanced the Scott Upton, as well as flowed with the rest of the downstairs. And it needed to be simple enough not to detract from the painting, but still have enough detail to be interesting and balance with the rest of the traditional decor in the home. The colors turned out perfect in the space. These jpegs don't do it justice, so if you would like to see the rooms in person, I am sure my clients would be happy to give you "the tour"!

Once we arrived at the right rug for the music room, the challenge was to come up with a design for the adjoining Dining Room space, which is just a few feet away and completely visible from the Music Room. We explored many possibilities, and eventually chose a design that is actually a continuation of the border scrolls in the Music Room. But in this rug we used a plain double border, and let the scrolls dominate in the middle.

This is a close-up of the Dining Room rug, with the Music Room in the background. Both rugs use only 2 colors each, and they are the same colors. But the Music Room field is tip sheared, which makes it look like a third color (while keeping the price down!)

We did a lot of analyzing of color poms to get the right results in these rooms. The Music Room is very sunny, while the Dining Room light varies. We wanted to be sure that the results would be pleasing at all times, both day and night. We are thrilled with the final product!

CLOSE-UP OF CUSTOM LINEN DRAPERIES: I had a close-up here but I accidentally deleted it after I had completed all the rest of the layout. And since I am a designer, and not a webmaster, I give up! I'll post a close-up later on, but you can read about it here:

We chose to wrap the exterior of the room with these linen panels, to improve the acoustics for the piano. I designed a simple pleated panel with horizontal tucks at the top and the bottom. The sheers are fully operable, to provide protection from the direct sun in the morning.

Below are the renderings of our final selections for our custom rugs. After we chose the styles we were interested in, and the wool colors, we had renderings made of each possiblility. There was no charge for these renderings, and we explored at least 20 possibilities. We narrowed it down to these 2, and ordered custom strike-offs (24 x 24 inch corner samples), to be sure that they were perfect in the rooms. We were very happy with our choices, and then ordered the full size rugs. Davis and Davis Rugs has been wonderful to work with. There are hundreds of designs to choose from, and I can render all the standard designs myself with software on my laptop. There are over 120 wool colors, and I have the samples. When we want something that is not standard, they are so helpful, and they will render whatever you want done.

ALSO: they do WALL-TO-WALL carpeting, and have many beautiful designs that they can customize in your choice of colors.

Stay tuned for a continuation of this Project!

As we wrap up the details, and the photos are taken,

I will be posting it!!

DIMENSION RETURNS TO THE WOODS - HOORAY!!!!!!

Important notice: Dimension is returning to the woods. It happens in NC in September every year, and is one of my favorite times. After enduring the heat of August, and the flat landscape of everything green, dimension begins to appear. How does it happen? Take a look outside, and view it as a canvas: one tree begins to turn, and all of a sudden, everything is no longer flat.

Then as leaves slowly begin to drop, deeper areas of the woods come into view. Even if it’s still mostly green, you can see into the woods, and the shadows give depth to your canvas.

Try it. In this photo from Blowing Rock, the shadows around the tree trunks add the dimension. If you put your fingers over the green and dark tree trunk area at the left, and imagine that section of the photo to be orange, like the rest of the picture, you find that the dimension on that side of the photo goes flat.

You can see it also in marshy areas, where the water plants grow in clumps around each other. What was a solid sheet of green in August begins to have layers of brown and varying shades of fall, which add depth to the view. All of a sudden there is perspective in your picture, which was missing in August. This photo is from Moses Cone Park near Blowing Rock, but there is an even better example of layering of color right here in Cary at Crabtree Park. The section of Aviation Parkway that crosses Crabtree Lake is one of my FAVORITE places to view the changing seasons. Unfortunately, it is not an easy place to take a photo, because of the heavy traffic and lack of road shoulder. But next time you head to the airport, keep your eyes open as you cross the lake, and see what the season is doing.

What does this have to do with Interior Design? It’s an interesting thing to contemplate. In the case of the woods: by REMOVING something, you create dimension. In your spaces, where you may have a solid sheet of “things” too crowded to enjoy, a careful editing can reveal a balance and beauty of form that is nurturing and inspiring. In the cases of Moses Cone Park and Crabtree Lake: proper contrast and color balance add a perspective that makes a space seem bigger.

Dimension is an important quality of Life. It adds spontaneity to our spirit, and joy to our days! It keeps us fresh and ready for the next unfoldment of beauty, whether it be in our children’s artwork, our parents’ wisdom, our own sense of service, or our physical surroundings. All that perfection and beauty comes from the same Place, and is Life’s gift to us!