SIMPLICITY (AKA the IKEA RED KITCHEN)

For a lot of us, this is a life goal:  to achieve a balanced, simple, uncluttered existence.  It can be a challenge in today's society!  But you can accomplish this in your surroundings.  Whether your interior is contemporary or traditional, or anywhere in between, you can eliminate clutter, live with what means the most to you, and let go of the rest.

I have been very blessed to work with Doug to help him attain this harmony in his San Francisco apartment.  Stillness is sacred.  You feel that when you enter Doug's space. 

We are not quite finished yet, but I was out in San Francisco at Thanksgiving so I took these photos.  We'll update in a few more months, after our silk TAI PING rug arrives from China, and after we install our solar shades and dimmers.

But for now, here's an abbreviated tour of Doug's renovated apartment, with my comments on Interior Design as Art......

Doug and I share a passion for original art and 20th century furniture classics, and that has made this project one of my all-time favorites.  Doug's friend Susan Tibbles is the artist for this set of mixed media assemblages from her "Swank Box Series."  The shadow boxes were originally from the Swank Jewelry company, where they were used to store various components in the manufacture of their jewelry.  Each of the boxes is filled with a melange of fascinating miniature vintage finds, and each box has an individual title by the artist.  Once you begin exploring them, it's hard to tear yourself away!  (For a closer look, see the enlargement below - and to magnify it even further - increase the zoom level on your monitor.)

Tibbles' work embodies "a sense of wit and political consciousness," and she has "a unique ability for assigning dual meanings to commonplace objects" (quoted from Gallery Ocho, Santa Barbara).

Here's the closeup:

                                                             "SWANK BOX SERIES"   by Susan Tibbles

To learn more about Susan Tibbles and her unique work as an artist, as well as her extensive work as an illustrator for the L.A. Times Opinion Page, visit her website at

http://www.susantibbles.com/

Contemporary art is all about juxtaposition.  Elements of line, form, color and texture are combined by the artist to create a unique work.  Sometimes the artist has a particular objective in his work - a social or political statement.  Sometimes the intention is simply to engage or delight the viewer.

Doug's apartment is a wellspring of juxtaposition.  One might think that this would cause clutter, but when properly edited, it creates just the right amount of tension to keep you thoroughly engaged. 

                  

Take, for example, this classic TRAVE table, with its simple glass candle ornaments on top.  This is Doug's doing - his canvas.  I've loved working with him because he has such a wonderful sensitivity for balance.  Look at the angles in the table base - so beautifully and simply counterpoised by the 3 glass spheres.  And the one blue sphere picks up the blue light in the stainless LED wall switch nearby (see photo below). 

This composition of the dining table is Doug's self-expression.  My "artist role" as editor is to be sure it is in harmony with everything else in the space.  My "techician role" as interior designer is to be sure that everything in the space conforms to health, safety and building standards, and to provide sources for the products needed to accomplish this.

SWANK BOXES by Susan Tibbles,  Stainless/Blue LED Lutron Lighting Control, TECH LIGHTING round stainless transformer for track lights

From the dining area you peek through to the red Ikea kitchen.  The raised bar hides the cooktop on the other side.  The soapstone counters and Black Empress granite mosaic add elegance, while still maintaining our theme of SIMPLICITY:

Doug's apartment is all about detail.  To make sure that we controlled every detail within our power to control, we worked together for months prior to and during the installation.

To revisit the construction portion of this project and to see the BEFORE pictures, click here:
http://swestdesign.blogspot.com/search/label/san%20francisco%20ikea%20kitchen

The beautiful reflection we get off the polished granite mosaic is a perfect backdrop for Doug's antique Thai bamboo container.  Several hundred years old, and given to Doug by an archaeologist friend, this piece is carved out of a single piece of bamboo, hollowed out inside, and fitted with an interior bamboo tray.  (And the special order Lutron receptacle in black is almost invisible....)  The mosaic technique is 1000s of years old, and much of the earth's granite is PreCambrian - this is another miniature "canvas" of juxtaposition in the apartment.

Take a close look at the center of the above photograph.  Doug's skyline view of San Francisco from the 10th floor of his apartment is reflected in the glass fronts of his Ikea kitchen.  It's magical!!

Also in the dining area is Doug's copy of the iconic Mackintosh Hill House Chair, designed by scottish architect Charles Rennie Macintosh in 1902-1903.   The original still resides in the bedroom of the Hill house in Helensburgh, Scotland, 20 minutes from where Doug used to live when he was working out of Scotland.

Above the Hill House chair hangs a Susan Tibbles work:  "Unzipped"  ......another study in contrasts:  the geometry of the chair is perfectly balanced by the soft curves and wispy feathers in the artwork.

                                                                                 "UNZIPPED"   by  Susan Tibbles

There is also a Tibbles piece in the kitchen - a special gift to Doug - a single long-stemmed rose entitled "Valentine Love Monster":

The luxurious finishes in Doug's space provide worthy surroundings for his beautiful art collection.  Once inside the kitchen, the rich red and black furnishes an elegant backdrop for food preparation.  But it is completely practical.  Soapstone requires no maintenance.

The cabinets run all the way to the ceiling to provide generous storage for things out of sight.

The halogen lighting supplies ample task illumination, and Doug's Wusthof knives are hanging within easy reach of any kitchen task.   

Doug actually uses his kitchen!  He keeps his favorite items right on the counter, and the colors enhance the granite backsplash and the soapstone.

On the opposite side, the oven and cooktop are easily accessible, but out of view from the living/dining area.

*****

I believe that everyone is an artist in some way.  And I approach every project as an artist ready to collaborate with other artists, including (and especially!) you.  My job is to direct you in your self-expression through your interior space.

Collaborating with Doug has been one of the most personally rewarding projects in my career, because his appreciation and embodiment of art has guided every step we have taken.  Doug lives and breathes his art collection, and he loves to share it with visitors.  I am delighted with each phase of this project, as Doug continues to refine and add to his collection.  We'll post the rest of the art when we get the final photography later this year.

To read more about the juxtaposition of old and new in interior spaces, see my website page:

http://swestdesign.com/church1.html

To read more about letting your own individuality be the creative canvas on which you build your interior space, and also how to work with commissioned art, see my page on ava living:

http://avaliving.com/room.php?rid=5613  (When you get to this page, it's counter-intuitive:  DON"T press NEXT under the photo....that will take you to the next featured designer and away from my page.  Instead, scroll down to see all the photos and the story behind this design.)

See you next time!

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!

WEEK 1 - Demolition and Building Walls

What a mess!!  This week the contractor took out all the old cabinets and the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Time to start over!  They also assembled all the Ikea cabinets.  Ikea is well built, but you have to assemble them yourselves.  If you don't have experience, then be sure to get a contractor to do that.  The price for an Ikea kitchen is very reasonable, but you have to allow for assembly in your budget.

Here's the wall where the frig goes...note the new dedicated elec box for the frig on the left (no more hanging cord!)....

....the new half wall between the kitchen and dining room.

....the frames for the dining room cabinets in front of the wall.  These cabinets will be a bank of drawers in a beautiful brown-black finish on horizontal oak.   They relate well to the new bathroom cabinet just around the corner.  In the back of this photo you can see the new black frig peaking out from under a canvas drop-cloth.

From inside the kitchen - the view out to the living/dining area.

Inside the kitchen....the center cabinet is for the oven, the 2 side cabinets will be doors and drawers in high gloss RED....Stay tuned for the progress....hopefully we will make new strides this week, and have more to show next week!

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....

SAN FRANCISCO KITCHEN REMODEL - BEFORE Pictures

REMEMBER THIS VIEW?
We are finally nearing completion of this very fun apartment remodel in San Francisco.  To get a little background on the project and to see the first 2 posts on the bathroom remodel, go to the label column on the lower right and click on "Bachelor". 

When I first arrived in San Francisco to help my client with this project (2007!  ...There have been some delays, but those of you who know Doug know that it's not his fault!), this was what I saw:

A VERY small closed-off kitchen.  With the 10-story view to my back, this boxy cave to the front definitely didn't live up to its potential.

Inside the cave, the suspended microwave with exposed electrical connections for the microwave and frig made this apartment look like it was located in a different part of the city than Pacific Heights!  Also, all the finish materials were completely utilitarian - like a kitchen galley in an office building.

So we began to develop a design concept that would open up this space and add some luxurious finishes.  You can see in the photo above that we experimented with red for the kitchen color:  there is a red napkin taped to the frig, with a piece of aluminum foil, to give us an idea of the balance of red and stainless.  There is a paint color fan deck on the table opened to red colors.  (Click on any of the photos to enlarge.) 

Guess what!!!  We decided on RED.  Check out the next post to see how the design progressed, and to see the pictures from WEEK 1 of demolition. 

BACHELOR'S BATHROOM REMODEL

SAN FRANCISCO HIGH RISE PROJECT COMPLETED....



Remember my April 25 post, with the pictures of the High Rise view from the 1oth floor? We have completed that bathroom remodel, and we are ecstatic about it! Quite a change from the "before" picture below.....


To see the drawings for this design, refer to the earlier email. Here is the finished product:

This is a tiny bathroom: the footprint is only 5 x 9, and this includes the tub, water closet and vanity. The actual floor space is less than half that figure. The challenge, of course, was to make it appear bigger. I did this by expanding the mirror over the sink to be the full width of the wall, and by using a reflective wall paneling on the opposite wall. Also, replacing the old medecine cabinet with a high quality cabinet the same height as the wall mirror creates a continuous corner of reflectivity, adding to the illusion of space.

This apartment building is about 30 years old, and due to the way the plumbing was configured, it wasn't feasible to change out the water closet. So we chose white grout for the tile, to help minimize the old fixture.

The wall hung vanity also adds to the spacious feel.

The owner of this space is an art collector, with a terrific sense of humor. He chose (with my approval!) this hand painted shower curtain, to continue the "art experience". The artist has a website, and you can order these artsy shower curtains on line, at www.showercurtainart.com

The carved granite sink is a focal point, and is complemented with the hand cut, recycled green glass mosaic tiles.

Halogen lighting adds great clean light to this crisp room....

VIEW INTO THE DINING AREA

We had the BEST contractor on this project: Be sure to check him out if you need work done in San Francisco: Brendan Waters. www.brendanwatersconstruction.com

This project is an excellent example of virtual design. I visited this space 2 years ago and took pictures. That's it. The entire project has been completed long distance, using phone and email. It has been a real pleasure to work on - the client is ABSOLUTELY one of my favorites!

Now we are working on the plans for remodeling the kitchen.

STAY TUNED!