The beach house project: Before’s and After galleries.

Heres a wee taste from the photo-shoot with more photos to come once the post production and editing are finished!

In this project my aim was to give the children a fresh and fun room that celebrates color, pattern and is gender neutral. The design also needs to allow for the children to have their own space and personality.

Color is used extensively to unify the room; the use of blue, off white and raspberry red are the default hues that play very nicely with splashes of saturated secondary colors. Breaking up the walls by adding the dado running the perimeter and using the patterned wallpaper from Harlequin on the lower 2 thirds of the wall space adds buckets of interest without over doing it.

Bunk beds help to open up the floor space and the wallpaper has the additional benefit of being wipeable and more resistant to grubby finger prints, rogue markers, and nicks & dings – which will keep the room looking fresher for longer than using just paint on the walls.

Inexpensive shelving from ikea and baskets for clothing makes it easy for the two children (both under 5) to access to their clothes without squishing fingers in drawers. The shelves also provide more storage space for all the extra things parents seem to need with toddlers & preschoolers, transitioning to more permanent furniture pieces and perhaps separate bedrooms further down the road.

My design of the table base & bench legs were inspired by the youngest members of the household - the family’s three ‘kids’ (including ‘Starlight’ the yellow lab). The legs purposefully have a playful and anthropomorphic quality to them.

It was important to me that the legs not look heavy, as I didn’t want such large scale furniture pieces visually overwhelming the space. Stainless steel was the perfect choice to achieve the feeling of lightness whilst supporting such a heavy table top.

To enjoy the views by having the seating right next to the windows, I designed extra deep benches (with lots of throw pillows for comfort) which maintains a spacious and comfortable feel.  My intent for the benches was to enable multiple uses; not only as seating for family dining, but perhaps a comfortable place to do homework, or relax in the sun with a good book, and maybe dad could even stretch out and take a nap on a lazy sunday afternoon?

I was delighted to hear from my client that her children especially love the benches, and that they keep asking to sleep over night on them.  Im not sure if mum & dad have relented yet though!

Credits: thanks to John @ Kolkka, Live Edge Designs, Lucy from Custom Sewing, David at Interior Decorators Upholstery, and Good Moves Delivery Inc.

Leather chairs are the ‘folio’ chairs from Crate & Barrel. Fabrics: Lee Jofa, Kravet, Osborne & Little, Shears and Windows.

We recently installed part of the project – the new sectional sofa and custom throw pillows.  Since there are still various elements to be installed, I thought Id post a few images to show how the process of choosing some of the soft furnishing elements came about.

The living room has all the large foundation pieces in and has a warm and calm feel to it now, however there are still finishing accessory pieces and art & lighting to be purchased.  A slightly sterile feel can occur in a room when it is left without some key accessory pieces and/or smaller objects that delight. I prefer accessories to be simple and have charm, or a interesting quality to them that relate to the clients ’story’.  And these tertiary objects or things of interest need to be discovered the longer you are enjoying the space, never fighting with all the other elements to be center of attention.

I would love to replace the existing stainless steel fireplace surround (installed by the previous owners) as I think it feels a little cold and charmless, but that unfortunately is not part of the scope of work… at this time!

Credits: The pillow fabric is from Osborne & Little and the furniture is from Kravet (sofa), A.Rudin (leather chairs), Peter Alexander (mohair covered chairs) at Enid Ford, and Bernhardt (coffee table w/ Edelman leather upholstery), the large floor lamp is the Linley – Mortisse Angle Floor Lamp from Lee Jofa, and of course the cowhide rug is from Kyle Bunting Rugs.

If you are in Paris this store is worth a visit, as my snapshots fall well short of translating atmosphere when you are in the space.

Polar bear anyone??

All were visual delights and I can assure you, all had the most delectable things to taste!

Last night I visited some of the showrooms on the ‘Paris Deco-Off ‘ route and happened to snap a few pics of the beautiful window display at Nobilis showing some of their latest textile collections.  I particularly liked their embroidered linens that play the matte linen base off shimmering threads in the embroiderie achieving a gorgeous & subtle effect.

note: not great photos as they dont really do justice to the beauty of the fabrics – hopefully I’ll get some better ones today or tomorrow!