What were they thinking?! Bad Design Layouts

When you buy a home, you don’t expect everything to be the way you want, but you expect some thought to have gone into the planning. How about a home on the lake with no bathroom in the walkout basement? That’s right – everyone has to run through the basement and up the stairs to the bathroom or up through the deck, through the dining room and kitchen to the bathroom.

The bathroom, because it would be in the basement or walk out part of the house, meant that the toilet plumbing had to flush up rather than the typical gravity fed systems you find in homes. A great deal of research was done and pricing was obtained. The most recommended suggestion was the breaking up the basement concrete floor to put in a sewage ejector system, which means you break up the concrete basement floor and put in a plastic pit to use a sewage ejector pump to remove the waste. I was uncomfortable with this idea. And then we found the “Saniplus” system. It handled the toilet and sink. (In fact it handles four fixtures – toilet, hand basin, shower and bathtub.)

The pump, which was in a box fastened to the back of toilet, had to be connected. The toilet tank had to be connected to the water supply. The sink was connected to the pump using a 1 ½” plastic pipe, and the pump had an air pipe connected with the other end being put through the wall. It was connected to the electrical supply.

The “Saniplus” system is activated when the toilet is flushed. The micro switch within the pump box starts the motor, ultimately pumping the slurry up to a maximum of 12’. As soon as the water level in the pump box goes down, the micro switch deactivates and the toilet is ready for use again. It takes about 15-18 seconds for the entire flush process.

It was a day and a half job to get a toilet installed in the basement. It uses only 1.6 gallons of water per flush, so it uses less water than older toilets. Have you ever had a need for a bathroom in a lower level? What about any “What were they thinking?!” design problems have you run into?

Are Stripes the Answer for Your Plain Room?

Are you feeling like your wall needs a pop for little cost? Painted stripes might just be the perfect answer for you! Stripes can fulfill a need for a subtle or dramatic look depending on the colors you use. First of all, decide on a color scheme for your room. Next, do you want to have stripes throughout the entire room or just on an accent wall? How many colors do you want? Do you want all the stripes the same size or varying sizes? Is horizontal (used to make your room look larger) or vertical stripes (make your ceiling seem higher) more appropriate for your space? These are all questions to ask yourself before delving into this adventure!

When painting stripes throughout the entire room, I might recommend keeping the contrast subtle. First pick the main color you would like the walls to be in your room. Then take your paint fan deck and go up one or two colors on the page from your main color choice, or down one or two colors. This will ensure you have kept the colors in the same “family” because colors can play tricks on us when they get onto our walls, appearing to have an undertone that wasn’t quite expected such as a green or pink/peach. My other recommendation would be to pick the color you would like to use and paint one stripe in a matte finish and the other stripe in a semi-gloss or gloss finish. This will give you just enough effect to make an impact without overwhelming the space with lots of colors.

Are you looking for a more dramatic contrast? This can be achieved by combining coordinating colors to make a powerful impact in your room. Might I suggest choosing one wall or a focal point to achieve this look? Possibly even using the stripes as a focal point for a headboard, staircase, or fireplace. Finally, pick one of the more subtle colors in the stripes, such as a beige or gray for the remaining walls.

By now you are probably asking yourself how to do this? One way is to paint the entire wall the main color. Let this area dry for 24 to 48 hours. Then decide how thick of strips you would like to use, anywhere from 4” to 12” is standard. Don’t be afraid to mix widths, might I suggest 3”, 6” and 9”? Next, measure and tape the area you will paint in for your stripes. Allow yourself wide enough tape to be able to paint over the edge to guarantee that crisp line. Once finished, remove the tape and enjoy the pop your stripes have brought to your room!

How do you feel about stripes on your walls? Yay or nay? Thick or thin? Dramatic or subtle?

Thinking Vertically – Making the Most of the Space You Have

When you want to make a space look bigger, you have to get lighter as you go up. A dark ceiling can make a space feel closed in, so naturally doing to opposite and making a space lighter towards the top will give the space expanse. A light-colored ceiling reflects light and allows for openness. So now that you have an expanded space, what can you do to fill it and bring it to it’s full storage and display potential?

Thinking vertically is a way to use limited floor space and gain storage at the same time. We create floor plans most of the time in interior. Traditionally a floor plan is the equivalent of slicing a space at the four foot elevation and marking everything below that line. For this blog I want to focus on the space above that 4 foot line.

A really trendy and creative way to think vertically is the use of ladders. Either a super sheik metal ladder or perhaps an antique ladder matches your style; both will serve the purpose of thinking vertically. There are even some nice bookcases that look like ladders that are a great alternative to assist in the vertical movement.

Memo boards are another good way to use your wall space. Memo boards are a dressed up way to display notes, cards or other “to dos.” A memo board is just a little more dressed up. Plus, with this type of display, you can make one very easily yourself – select your favorite fabric and ribbon, add a staple gun and a spare piece of board and you are golden! But don’t forget buttons and batting to wrap it up!

Finally, shelving overhead is a great way to think vertically. When talking about that space over 4 feet – why not go all the way up to 6 or 7 feet on the way? This type of installation might give you a heavy feeling from above, but it all depends on what you are planning on putting on the shelving. If you choose heavy books, the shelves will be visually heavier along with having a heavier load.

So whatever method of thinking vertically you pick, just be sure to get the most out of your wall surface area!

How do you use your walls to think vertically?

When is a Cornice a Lighting Fixture?

Remember that cornice that my husband and I wrote about that we created for our super long window?  Well, apparently we hadn’t thought ahead to far. When the cornice was up, we then wished we had thought of adding light to it!

We began the process of trying to find a small fixture that would work. We had a hard time finding a fluorescent fixture that was small enough not to protrude about the top of the cornice. There were a plethora of problems: should have recessed another inch; if you put the fixtures end to end, you had black spots between them; not exactly the look we were going for. Then we staggered the fixtures and that created hot spots and dimmer spots. Again, not the look we wanted. So far, we were not finding the solution for the perfect accent light we strived for.

When visiting a friend, we saw the soft glow of light we wanted at the top of their kitchen cabinets. They told us they had used rope light. Rope lighting would be an excellent solution because it is made up of LED (Light Emitting Diodes) lighting.

LED’s are all the rage now because they do not get hot like the ballast system for the fluorescent. They are less than an inch in height so they wouldn’t show over the top of the cornice. They use very little electricity and they last for almost forever. Hmmm, rope lighting easily comes in the length we have hanging on our wall over the windows. Now how to get electricity to the cornice…

Sometimes even we get lucky. There was an electrical switch box below our cornice end that turns on the outdoor flood lights. My husband (being the electrical engineer that he is) gave me a smile and went to work. After a lot of attempts, he was finally able to “fish” the electrical line up the wall and into the top of the cornice. He then hard wired the rope lighting.

In the evening when we want “mood” lighting, we can turn on the lighting over the cornice and we get this really cool glow. How do you create “mood” lighting in your home?

What Was I Thinking?! My Bathroom Building Experience

We have the basement bathroom toilet installed. We could have just done a pedestal sink, but oh no. I wanted to have a cabinet so there could be storage for soap and toilet paper, some hand towels, you know the drill. And it couldn’t be just any cabinet; it had to be the one we used as our dry sink in the dining room before the new furniture because I am all about recycling and reusing everything I have. So we moved that bad boy to the basement and began the reworking.

There is the drilling of the hole in the top so the sink can discharge. Then there was the plumbing from the “Saniplus” system at a slight incline so we could determine where the plumbing would come up inside the cabinet. Then there was the connection between the bottom of the sink to the outflow pipe. Sounds easy right, well that part was, but because I wanted a glass sink to sit on the dry sink and a faucet that came out of the wall…things got a little tricky.

First, basement walls are typically poured concrete, so we built a fake wall. Now the wall couldn’t be a typical wall thickness because that would have made the room too narrow, so we built a 2” fake wall (just thick enough to hold the water lines). Because I wanted a faucet that came out of the wall, we had to figure out how to attach the faucet to a finished wall while having part of the wall unfinished to do the plumbing.

We dry walled only the top half of the wall. We attached the faucet to this part and dropped the flexible water lines down the wall. Have I told you how much I love flexible water lines? We would be still working on this job if we had to use rigid lines.

We then hooked up the water lines in the not yet dry walled area of our wall and proceeded to dry wall the lower part of our wall. That only took us a couple of weeks to figure out all of the parts and pieces to make it work.

The plumbing goes through one of the drawers in the dry sink, so we took the face off the drawer and permanently attached it to the dry sink.

Now I have 1 drawer and ½ of the dry sink for storage. It looks great and we have had a lot of complements on it. Have you ever thought up a project that ended up  taking a lot more effort and time than you originally thought it would? Tell me one of your “What was I thinking?!” projects.

A New Look For Baby Rooms

It’s a boy; I must use blue and white…. It’s a girl; I must use pink and white…. Are you tired of feeling trapped in what society views your baby’s room should look like? Well, here are some thoughts for bringing a new look for our future generations.

Light pink is generally used for little girls. But what about taking it up a notch to a darker brighter pink? Pairing it with a lime green and/or a bright dark yellow can bring a phenomenal pop to a room for your little girl. Is this a little bit too much out of the norm for you? Try mixing a dark chocolate brown with the standard light pink. How about adding light green or blue? Just because it’s a girl doesn’t mean she can’t have blue!

Baby Blue is often used for little boys, but what boy is going to want that light of a color once he gets a little older? Why not start off with a brighter blue or navy? Try pairing it with red for a pop! Did you know that red is often the first color a baby can see? Other color combinations for your little baby boy might be lime green and white, black and yellow, or light green and brown.

Now you may be saying, I really like the idea of doing something different but where am I going to find the bedding? The standard baby chain stores typically have the same themed bedding. Try going to a baby boutique in a trendy urban downtown, have custom bedding made or you could even make it yourself! I guarantee the local fabric store will have plenty of what you need. If you have something more specific in mind, I would recommend spending some time shopping on the internet. I bet you can find it somewhere in the world! As for the furniture, try pieces that are painted white, black of even smoky gray. This will provide a sharp contrast against the wall paint you have chosen.

Several other ideas to bring a change to the old fashion baby room would be to hang a trendy baby quilt on the wall. Have their name stitched on it with some fun patterns. Might I recommend animals or sailboats? Don’t forget to bring in the fun colors with the fabrics! As for other artwork, keep with one theme. Trying to add too many can end up giving you a room that looks like mass chaos. As for the typical baby rocker, try modernizing it with a rocker-recliner. In some instances you may even be able to pick a fun fabric to coordinate with the room. Why not be comfortable while rocking you baby to sleep? You are going to be spending a lot of time in that chair, might as well invest some money in it.

Just take a minute to think about this. If you stay away from the typical baby colors, your child may not ask you to paint their room a different color for years. Well, one can at least hope!

Breaking the Rules…Modern Mix

The challenges that a lot of my clients experience today is finding a style that they like. Whether it is a modern Le Corbusier chair or a hand carved Queen Anne table, you may like both items and find yourself puzzled with how to make them work in the same environment. We live in a world of “change.” With modern day technology we see constant changes taking place all around us, which sometimes makes us want that to take place in our homes as well. For every time you’ve walked into your home and thought to yourself that a particular room needs something new or different there is a simple way to finally take action and start taking steps toward making that change. Whether you want to furnish that part of the house with classic furniture or modern furniture, with a few simple steps you can have the look you want and surprisingly they can both co-exist! The key is to decide what the room needs and what you want.

Let’s say, for example, you want to redo your master bedroom. The most common elements that you are dealing with are the paint, the furniture and the general design of the room itself. So maybe its as simple as finding an old vintage trunk at the foot of your sleek modern bed. How will these choices affect the rest of the room?

Well, to add balance and make it look deliberate, I would suggest pairing either of the two styles with perhaps a third piece like a modern Ghost chair in front of your grandmother’s vanity table in a corner. When it comes to lighting, perhaps the bedside lamps are mismatched, one being a sleek chrome modern style, paired with a vintage Victorian mirrored table lamp. Check out AllModern.com for some great ideas on modern furniture.

There is a big difference between redecorating the entire room and replacing a single piece and generally there are no rules when it comes to selecting the style of a piece of furniture, just so long as you can determine BALANCE. A few smaller items can really help define the room and make it your own.

Classic versus Modern Classic furniture has an appeal that is easy to understand. For instance, an antique curved end console has an intrinsic appeal that you find immediately attractive. And you think that there is no possible way you could place that behind your Florence Knoll sofa. Truth be told – you can! Break the rules, but follow through accordingly. Make sure that you add a vintage painting above the fireplace with an ornate frame to balance the console. Maybe find a modern Womb chair and a pair of traditional rolled arm club chairs. Go ahead and find a traditional vintage rug. A crystal chandelier could be accompanied with a modern tolomeo reading lamp. A sleek glass top coffee table and the room has achieved a modern mix! And I bet it will make you feel right at home. Please share your thoughts and feelings about the modern mix design…do you think you can do it?

You Want the Cornice How Big??

Hate the look of curtain rods? My solution has been to put a cornice over them. The cornice can be more architectural or a fabric covered box. When you use a panel of fabric that hangs over the rods, it is called a valance. I prefer a padded cornice that has simple lines with plain fabric. As our home is an eclectic blend of antiques, comfy (which defies description) and modern, my first foray into cornices was going to be simple.

We have 22’ window on the south side of our home. I did not want drapes. I just wanted a detail element on that wall that hid my honeycomb shades. Ever talk to someone about building a 22’ long cornice? They sort of snicker at you, if not outright laugh. I priced a custom-made cornice, hold on…$3.00 to $7.50 per inch. Yep, per inch (22 x 12 = 264 inches x $5.00 = $1,350.00).

So, how hard could it be? Once again my husband and I set about to figure out how to build a cornice. We drew out the length and then determined how far it needed to project from the wall and how we wanted the face to look.

We made our cornice out of pine planks to give it the stability we needed. Once the pieces were cut, we screwed the returns to the face and for added measure added metal L brackets on the inside. We also used these to connect the recessed top to the face and sides.

The fabric we chose matched our wall cover and we laid it face-side down on the floor. We then put our padding on top and set the face of our cornice on that. We now had a sandwich!

I don’t like to cut the fabric until everything is stapled on, so I set the top near the edge of the fabric, leaving about 2-3”. I began in the center top and stapled. I then pulled the fabric towards the edges and stapled every 2”. I only moved 6” in one direction and then moved from the center in the other direction. This keeps the fabric taunt on the cornice for a smooth finish.

If your fabric has a pattern, you will want to roll the cornice up and check to make sure the pattern does not become skewed. Once the top was completed, I repeated the process for the lower edge, making sure that it stayed tight.

Once the top and bottom are done, I then pulled the sides and staple them. It’s just like wrapping a present – you want the paper to be tight against the sides of your gift, so you should have a nice snug fit. I then used a box cutter with a sharp blade and cut the fabric, leaving about 2” beyond the staples.

We placed metal L brackets across the recessed top and sides and then we invited a couple of friends over so we could get this bad boy placed on the wall. We drew a line where the horizontal board would go with a level and up it went. A few screws later and it was attached to the wall.

Have you ever built a cornice? What type did you build, fabric or wood? Do you prefer cornices, curtain rods or something else?

Creating an Organic Feeling Environment

Organic, Natural, Environmentally friendly, these are all the buzz words we are hearing today. But what can you do to bring the organic look into your home? In the ideal world, a large open area with lots of windows would be a great way to bring in the organic look.

Now some of you may have this and some of you may not, so let’s start with the background color. This can make or break the overall feeling in the environment. Make your color scheme consistent with the colors of nature; beige, brown, white, light blues, light greens, stone, and grays. I recommend picking one of these colors for the paint on your walls. Possibly light beige, a color that might remind you of sand. Now, what to do with the rest of the room?

For a dining room, I recommend light colored or painted white woods. The area to pop the other “nature” colors might be on the seat fabrics. Bringing in light greens and blues mixed with white and browns are ideal to make the room pop. Try a beautiful oil painting of a water scene over a buffet or on an open wall. Keep the window treatments light and airy; possibly not use any at all! Soft linen drapes in a white might be a perfect solution, but do not use this color if it is the same color of your walls because a soft contrast is needed here. Repeat the soft colors used in the room through the dishes, glasses and/or vases. And most importantly, don’t forget the table centerpiece! Some soft greens foliage, a bowl with sea shells or stones, possibly even candles may work perfectly here.

As for the bedroom, I would recommend light colored wood, painted white wood, bamboo, or wheat board for the furniture. The bedding would be the perfect opportunity to bring in the beautiful blues and greens found in nature. Texture can also add to the feeling such as using linen or soft cottons. Wood, bamboo, or tile floors would look great in here with a sisal rug. Wall art should be simple with a skinny frame or even frameless, but don’t forget to make sure there is some color! Keep the lamps light, possibly with a glass base and a white shade without any details. Simple picture frames, greens, or candles would be the perfect finishing touch for the nightstands.

Finally for the living room, always look at the largest piece of furniture you will need. Typically this is the sofa and is a great start to building the atmosphere of your room. A beautiful crisp white sofa will bring a light organic feeling to an environment. Then placing colored pillows in blues, greens, beiges, stone or grays is a great start to bring in the colors of nature. For the coffee, end tables, and entertainment console remember to keep the wood light colored or painted in light colors. Simple accessories that remind you of nature are great for adding to the feeling to the room. How about some large coffee table books with photographs of the ocean, lighthouses, or the outdoors? Simple candles can be placed in a large charger with stones or shells covering the bottom. Bowls are a great place to add natural textured accessory balls. Finally, finish off the room with a beautiful seascape painting, photography of outdoor places, or flower prints.

Enjoy your Organic Feeling Room!

Bring a Little Summer to the Remaining Months of Winter

We are all aware of the changes to the economy in the past few years. So a lot of us have cut back on vacations and this means it is much harder to fight the winter blues. I know that an inside project is a good way to distract yourself from what might be brewing outside. So why not inject a good winter project with a little summer. Here are a few ways to bring a some sunshine to your interior projects:

Winter can feel heavy, so lighten it up! If you currently have heavy drapes, a good place to start are your windows. Get yourself some inexpensive yardage of lightweight fabric. You can even layer some cotton with lightweight chiffon over the top. The key is to use something light in weight and in color. If you do like the layered look, be sure to use colors that are similar but have enough contrast to offer a little depth. For instance, a few tones in sands and light blues is nice.

Spring is also a time for renewal. So by changing a few accessories around your house, it can start to feel renewed and full of life. After a few months of staring out the window and only seeing cold, it is nice to focus on small changes. Sort of like the first signs of spring – slowly the warm days begin to replace the cold and when you leave work at 5 o’clock, it’s not dark outside! So in your space, start by changing out some photos in frames, get a new piece of artwork and maybe change up the arrangement on your mantle.

Change out your linens - meaning the sheets, bedding, towels… nothing beats a great white interior. This can feel fresh, open and clean. Why not open up your space by biting the bullet, switching to your lighter blankets and just layering them up. As the weather warms up you can remove one by one, but in the meantime at least you will feel a little reassured that spring is coming!

Be looking to that first day very soon, to open the windows and let the fresh air in! In the meantime, little changes to your interior can make all the difference… and if that does not work, you can always bust out your spring shoes early and look adoringly into your closet until the snow melts!

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