A bedroom of her own

Here are a few teaser photos of my very long (and can I saw hot) day spent working on the two little girl's rooms. It was a re-organize / re-decorate project on a small-ish budget and done in a day (minus the painting). 

The room before:

And the room after:

I will share the details and the other bedroom tomorrow ... have to get some sleep!

A clean slate

This week I am doing what I love best (well, as far as work goes) ... and that is putting things back together after a remodel. Don't get me wrong, I like all of it - the planning, the selecting of materials, and seeing it all come together. But what I love the most is having that clean slate to come back in and style everything. 

A quick "styling" to the newly finished kitchen

Today I will be working on two little girl's rooms - the one I posted about here - organizing one of the closets, adding artwork, decals and hopefully hanging the rods for the new curtains for closet doors and shelves. (My handyman was involved in a head-on collision and my not be up to par to help me out afterall (so glad he is okay!) ... this may be a test of my "construction" skills as well!). 

The pile of things that need to be loaded into my car for the install 

Later in the week will be putting the finishing touches on the new kitchen remodel and most importantly, sprucing up the room that is next to it to make it look as pretty as the new kitchen. (Don't you just love how one improvement leads to another!?!) I hope I will get some nice photos to share with you later in the week. In the meantime here are a few updated photos of the kitchen remodel. 

This is the kitchen where my client had the bet with her brother that it could not be finished in the 8 weeks that was proposed. Well, we won the bet ... we finished it in just 4 weeks and one day! We kept the original footprint of the kitchen and the client wanted to keep her brick floor. Here are a few photos of what we started with followed by what we ended up with. Keep in mind that I snapped some quick photos while the guys were finishing up and if you look close you will still see some blue tape and sawdust around:

bar area before

 bar area after

We removed the upper cabinet over the old 'wet bar' to open up the room and we also took out the sink. The client liked the sink and wanted to keep it, but as we discussed it further it was decided that they rarely used the faucet and really just liked the sink to fill with ice to keep their wine cold when they entertained. We toyed with the idea of a faucet-less sink with a drain to be able to keep the ice idea (really just a big recessed ice bucket) but in the end we decided that counter space was more of a premium and took it out completely. The new wine refrigerator will be a nice asset.

food prep / storage area before

food prep / storage area after

Here we just it cleaned it up a bit. The glass doors on the upper cabinets give the sense of openness and the client asked for all drawers where possible. I am 100% for drawer storage when you can - it is so much more functional! We moved the spices to a new cabinet over by the new cooktop. The most dramatic change was the pantry area that was on one side of a hallway and it felt crowded and tight. I didn't take an after photo (they were working on the drawer pulls still) but you can get the idea below...

pantry before

pantry "in process"

cooktop peninsula & sink before

cooktop peninsula & sink after

We removed the upper cabinet above the existing cooktop here as well to open & lighten up the space. As with most construction when you start tearing things apart sometimes things are discovered that are not expected ... sometimes things that are not so good (pipes in the wrong places) and sometimes there are nice surprises. The existing cooktop was electrical and as much as the client would have liked it, running a new gas line was not in the budget. But when they tore out the old cabinets they found a gas line already intact. What a gift! The Viking cooktop will be a fun new toy I am thinking.

Happy Monday everyone! What are you up to this week?

Simple truths

via

 ^"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."

 - Ephesians 4:2

Framed fabric & spotted pillows

I hope you all had a lovely 4th of July!  This was the first year since we have had children that they were not with us on the Fourth of July and although it was disappointing and a first-time break in our usual BBQ / fireworks celebration, I decided to take advantage of it and use it as a much needed day off to just relax and unwind. I had a few things I needed to take care of around the house but it was nice to have a day that I didn't need to go anywhere or even get dressed if I didn't want to. Don't you love those kinds of days?

One of the things I needed to get done was a little cleaning and when I clean it makes it more fun to move a few things around. Since I have committed to not changing my living room for a while (do you remember that post? It has been exactly 30 days and no changes yet!), I did a little re-styling in the entry. And the best part ... using mostly things I already had).

When I moved everything around last month, the entry was a little neglected. I had taken the large mirrored screen from behind the mirrored chest and moved it to the other side of the room, which I love, but it made the entry look a little bare. And on top of that, I sold the artwork that was there and so I needed a replacement. One that didn't cost much.

I picked up an inexpensive frame from Ikea and put in some fabric I found (6.99 / yd.) last week while I was purchasing pillow inserts for an upcoming client project. 

It is not a permanent solution ... but for now, it is bright and bold and a nice placeholder. I really like how it looks with the rest of the room.

By the way, my spotted pillow (which I love), was made by Kassapanola and this week they featured my home on their Facebook page! :D 

Happy 4th!

Hope you are having a wonderful 4th! 

images mine from 4th of July 2011  :D

Beaded chandelier as an exclamation point

Remember the project where I moved my client's dining room into her living room? You can read about it here and here and here. The rooms were finished for the most part, but we have been waiting on a couple of things (a rug that is still not here) and a chandelier.

The original mood boards

I thought you might like to see how the sitting room looks with the new chandelier in place ...

I love the impact it makes ... like adding an exclamation point!

Remember, this was where the dining room used to be and it had a chandelier hanging over the table. Rather than patching the ceiling where the chandelier was, I thought it would be nice to put something fun in its place. 

New ceiling fixture - from Ro sham Beaux

We decided not to place a chandelier over the dining table in its new location for a couple of reasons - one, was that the table is off center from the current recessed lighting and it would be a "project in itself" to move them all in order to accommodate a chandelier. And most importantly, the room has enough going on visually with the art wall and a chandelier would have overwhelmed the space. Putting the chandelier in the sitting area balances both rooms and brings in a nice pop of turquoise. I like that it carries your eye over to the sitting area. 

The area rug will cozy up the sitting area ... but if it never comes I am not sure it would be the end of the world!

Future area rug

BHG

Happy Monday Everyone!