Lightening Up An Olde Favorite

This LaGrange Park home is an historic victorian lovingly restored by it's owners over the last 25 years or so. This home has been through many renovations and redo's including stripping the paint off of all of it's interior moldings to reveal its original oak, redesigning the kitchen to have modern conveniences but hold onto it's old world charm, updating bathrooms, screening in porches and most recently lighting up the colors used in it's formal living room.

About 20 years ago these folks called me in to choose colors and fabrics for a first go around at pulling their first floor together-kitchen, dining room, living room and family room. At the time, 1990 or so, the couple had two small boys and green leather sectionals in their family room and a collection of family antiques in the living room and dining room. We went with the very popular color scheme of the early nineties-greens and burgundies.

Now, twenty years later, the green leather sofas are long past their prime and some of the antiques have been relegated to bedrooms. We've kept the original rug, entry wallpaper and the settee in the living room but we've lightened up the walls, changed the window treatments, bought 'new' antiques and recovered all of the furniture. The over all effect is one of lightening up and comforting up by getting a few new pieces that are comfortable yet traditional.

Still seeing RED....but in a good way.

Some people and some projects are just a lot of funand this client and her project proved to be just a joyfrom beginning to end. First off, this client had areally good sense of humor about the apparent need for a redo in this living room. She knew that it wasn'tworking, but it was the Living Room and, really, who cares about those? But it IS the first room thateveryone sees when they come into her home andthe kids are getting older and the kitchen and deckhave been redone, so why not give a facelift to theroom everyone passes to get to the rooms they really live in?

I love projects like this because there is no way I can fail. I'm not trying to be mean but, well, look at the pictures. Luckily, there was nothing in the room she wanted or needed to keep. The main priority for the redo was to have it look new, fresh, updated, pretty and to give her husband a comfy seat in which to play his guitar-away from the family room.

She gave me a lot of leeway and a lot of trust. I pulled together some fabrics and we were off and running on our way to a whole new look. Despite the fact that there was a lot of furniture in the room before, it's really not a very big room. I downsized the scale of the furniture by quite a bit, added some interesting pieces, gave her a bit more seating and a one-two punch with a leaning mirror (to open the room) and one huge flower print for POW.

We think the overall effect is pleasing to the eye yet also so comfortable. It's traditional yet it's hip with the flower power print and the polka dotted bench.

Loving Living in the Living Room

This very special client of mine is one that I've been working with since I first began designing 20 + years ago. She and her husband have consulted with me on many, many projects over the years and this particular project is one that I've been waiting for them to do for years. THE LIVING ROOM! That room in the house that no one ever, ever uses unless it's Christmas or they are having a Graduation party.

In this case, we had given the room a lick and promise more than once over the years-including the construction of the beautiful mantle and bookcases that you see in this before photo. (Mr. Client, in this case, is more than just handy. He happens to be a very talented woodworker, as well as painter, wall-paper hanger and as of this year, layer of hardwood floors). But despite the beautiful built-ins, it remained a seldom used room and the furniture, brought from a previous home, never really seemed to be just quite right.

At the beginning of 2009 this couple decided that it was time to turn a never used room into an active part of their home. How would we accomplish this? One word-TV. They made the decision to put a television in the room. That, and add beautiful new french doors going out to their gorgeous new pergula covered deck.

All of Mr. Client's sweat equity: hardwood floors, paint, new french doors, electrical work (including the lamps over the sectional), and new brown marble surround coupled with the beautiful new furnishings, art, and area rug (Can't forget the star of the show- FLATSCREEN TV) combine to make this a warm, serene, subtle and inviting space. After more than 20 years in the same home they've gotten a new addition without adding anymore space. Maybe it's time more of us start finding a use for that seldom used room in many of our homes.

A lot of old, A bit of new, some rearrange=BIG CHANGE

This client called me looking for an update to her outdated living room. She did not want to buy new furniture, but was willing to invest in drapery and an area rug. She donated the peach colored chairs and window coverings, as well as a couple of lamps that were screaming 1975. We rearranged the furniture that she was keeping to emphasize the fireplace and we borrowed the buffet from the dining room (giving that room a much more open feeling). We painted the room a fresher color and added floral drapery panels as well as a patterned rug. The only other thing we purchased were the new lamps on the buffet. In the built-in shelving we displayed some collectibles left to her by her mother which were very sentimental and important to her. This client was very happy to have gotten such a different look without having to invest in all new furniture.

Florida Master Bed and Bath Facelift

This client last decorated her master bedroom and bathroom 30 years ago when she bought her condo on the Gulf coast of Florida. It was time to lighten, brighten and modernize her outdated and drab master suite. She was looking for something totally different, bright and cheerful. These pictures show the drastic difference from old to new.

A Little Bit of Retro

This family home in Winfield got an updated living room in 2009. We did something for this client a little bit different from most of their 'traditional' neighbors. The client was drawn to modernistic art and clean lines and was looking for a soothing living room. We accomplished this by giving her tranguil chocolate walls, cream colored sofas and area rug and just a few accessories of glass. We added a little ZIP with a patterned chocolate and cream drapery fabric. The effect is both modern and soothing and the best part of it is that this living room is not like every other on the block!

Welcome to 2010

Well! Happy New Year! Turns out that last year was a pretty good one for Plzak Interiors. Despite economic reports to the contrary, there were actually people out there spending money and, happily for us, some of the people who were willing to pump some cash into the economy did it with us. We were all over the place: Sarasota, Fl., Naples, Fl, West Palm Beach, Fl, the western suburbs, the northern suburbs, the Gold Coast. We had big projects and small projects. Many of them have been completed and others will be complete as of the end of this month. Our (and by 'our' I mean 'my') goal this year will be to bring to you a series of 'before' and 'after' photos from the projects we had fun doing in 2009.

As always I have to sincerely thank all of my clients for trusting me with their projects and for being, for the most part, so enjoyable and easy to work with. I hope to have many more projects coming up in 2010 and look forward to working with both old and new clients.


The first post of 2010's series of Before and Afters will start with a family room redo which was a 2008 Christmas gift from husband to wife. These clients were looking for a more refined look for their family room-less country and more traditional. They were hoping for more lighting and more seating and they wanted to keep many of their accessory pieces and carpeting.

We gave them what they were looking for by adding two new sofa's and a bench surrounding a large storage coffee table. We also replaced an oversize chair with a swivel chair and ottoman.

We gave the room a more elegant look with solid colored drapery that covered a lot of the wall on the window walls. We added more light by hanging a bowl shaped chandelier on the ceiling and two wall hung lamps on the wide muttons between the windows.

We think the overall effect has accomplished all that they had hoped for and, the best news, they thought so too!