This busy, professional young couple gave me a call when they moved from the city to the suburbs. They bought a lovely home with a family room off the kitchen. The family room is situated about 6 stairs down from the kitchen and, as with just about every house I know of, the kitchen/family room would be the hub of the home.

Their goal for the room was to have plenty of seating for entertaining and plenty of storage to accomodate their 18 month old's stuff. They wanted the room to be comfortable and attractive but not formal or stuffy. Their aim was not to make a focus of the TV or have it look like a toy room with seating for mom and dad.

We first addressed TV placement. While the Mrs. did not want the TV to be the focus of attention, it only made sense to me that to place it where it could be seen from the kitchen as well as the family room would serve them well for the gatherings they like to have when the Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks are playing. Lots of seating was easy-a sectional and two comfy chairs fit well into their room size. We gave the idea of storage some thought and found this wonderful storage console which holds their TV nicely, but still commands it's own attention. We added further storage but using a cocktail-ottoman which has a lift off top. To warm the room up, we added a floral fabric at the large window and some shades for both light control and privacy.

I think we hit all marks here. The room fulfills all of their needs for seating and storage and looks warm and inviting. Nice job!

What's black and white and pink all over?

This was a fun project using products from Pottery Barn. This teen spotted (no pun intended) the black and white floral rug while walking through a model home. It was just the thing she was looking for as a place to start in her bedroom redo. Her mom gave me a call to see if I could help pull the whole thing together. We picked a pretty pink paint color which was applied to both walls and ceiling. We then ordered up the Pottery Barn rug and bedding. We also used PB's black and white dotted sheets turning them into cornices and the window seat cover. We did some accessory shopping at Hobby Lobby, Target and TJ Max and pulled the whole thing together in a matter of a couple of hours. The outcome is pretty fun and hip for a 15 year old who'd been living with Laura Ashley for 13 years.

Downsize and Modernize Part Two

Part One under Downsize and Modernize talked about my clients living room. This entry is the same client and is about her kitchen. As you will see from the 'before' pictures, she had a very 80's oak kitchen. She wanted to modernize it and again didn't want to 'break the bank.' There really wasn't much room for changing the layout, so we kept that the same, but modernized it with bright white cabinets to the ceiling, gorgeous granite countertops in a color/finish called Taupe and added some stried mini brown glass subway tiles. The little bit of wall space there was we painted brown and added kiwi green accessories to keep our green/taupe/brown color scheme consistent with the living room. We love it!

Downsize and Modernize Part 1

Recently a client of mine purchased a nice but outdated townhome. They wanted to do some renov ating but did not want to go too extreme and custom because they were not really sure how long-term their stay in this home was going to be: might be two years, might be twenty. They wanted to live there for a while and see how they felt about it. My job was to update it without breaking the bank, and also to reuse furniture that they already owned. They were willing to invest some money in updating window treatments and some minor reupholstery, but basically they wanted to keep the investment as small as possible due to the uncertainity of the length of their stay in this home.

I love a challenge, so after taking inventory of what they owned, I put together a new color scheme and chose the pieces we would use. I decided to nix the 80's white shelves in the living room but decided to keep the shutters. We removed the wallpaper and repainted the walls and recarpeted the floor. In addition, we added new drapery panels and reupholstered the window seat, pillows on the sofa and backs of the two pull up chairs.

We made this room serve triple duty as the 'formal' living room, desk area for the Mrs. and comfy TV area for when someone wanted to watch something other than what was on the family room TV. We wall mounted an LCD over the desk area but out of eye-shot from the entry or dining area.

I think we did a great job in pulling out a NEW look and multi purpose space without 'breaking the bank.'

Just a little something-something adds a fresh new look!

Sometimes we get so used to seeing our house the way that it is we just can't imagine what we could do to change things without either painting or buying more new stuff. This client is building a new home and doesn't want to make any investments in new things for her old house, yet she needed a 'freshening up' because her son is getting married soon and she will be doing a lot of entertaining. I didn't bring a lot of 'things' with me but I did bring a much needed fresh eye.

The first room that needed some serious 'weeding out' was the family room. She had a few things that were too big and a lot of things that were too small. We moved the gigantic tree from one corner of the room (which happened to be the one corner of the room that you could see from everywhere else in the house) to a less conspicuous corner freeing up tons of light and space, giving the room a much grander and more open feeling. Then we removed all of the little bric a brac from the fireplace mantel and the coffee table, hung the mirror over the mantle rather than leaning it, and added just one 'important' piece on both the mantle and the coffee table, creating a simple yet elegant feel.

In the powder room, we added a rug, new towels and repurposed a more appropriately sized piece over the storage unit. We hid the cord of a repurposed lamp and added a couple of little knick knacks from her 'recycle pile' from the family room.

In the dining room we added a more appropriately sized piece of art (formerly in the living room) to the right of the hutch, brought in a cute tiered garden cart with 'recycle pile' pieces of greenery and pottery, streamlined what was on the open shelves of the hutch, brought in a new centerpiece for the table as well as custom greenery for the wall sconces on either side of the bay window. Oh! And got rid of the old and dusty ficus tree.

Before and After

Here's a pretty straightforward 'before' and 'after' shot. Mom, in this case, wanted new seating and new colors. Against the wishes of her family she opted to sell the old sectional (soooo comfy by her family's standards) and get a new set up with sofa, loveseat, table between and large coffee table with storage that she really wanted. I understand the kids aren't that happy, but Mom is thrilled. She feels confident that everyone will eventually come around.

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.