Flooring Challenges: Working around the color scheme
November 15, 2010 § 4 Comments
Are you living with a slate floor from the early ’80s? Many of you are. Slate is a wonderful material for the foyer as it’s easy to mop up after muddy boots and dogs trample through. But many slate floors have a distinct color palette (the gray-greens, blue-greens, purples and rusty reds) all in one small square footage. Busy? Yes. And out-dated? Yup.
Besides throwing a rug over it or replacing it, the other approach is to embrace the color palette presented to you by the previous owners. Currently, the gray-blue-greens are quite popular in fabric lines and even paint stores. 
And purple is a great accent color. So if you are updating your foyer and are cursing the flooring, take heart. Pull a palette from the floor at least for the foyer area. Blending the floor with the surroundings will make it less of a color feature in your room.
And as always, create a focal point just inside the front door. A large piece of art, a bench, or a mirror– something to draw the eye upward away from the floor.
If you are planning to install new flooring in your entryway, choose a neutral that will stand up to decades of wall color changes and will look just as terrific 20 years from now as it does today.
House and Trim Colors that Make a Statement
October 14, 2010 § 3 Comments
Every now and then I see an accent color that whacks me over the head, and this bold expression of lemon yellow really does it to me this time! Usually a color that does not translate well onto siding or other large surfaces because it’s just too intense, this clear saturated primary color on a shutter paired with black wrought iron hardware on a subdued and sophisticated dark, gray-blue siding is a knock-out! What a statement!
What makes this combination work is the sharp contrast between the gray tone in the siding color and the bright clear shutter. If the siding were another warm clear color, the combination would scream like a caution light. But the calm understated siding lets the yellow attract all the attention. There’s no competition between the colors, just sheer harmony.
Another key to this combination is the “bridge” color that pulls the look together: white. The white trim makes the colors pop — as they say — and it’s critical whenever you use bright colors, either inside or out. White also gives your eye a chance to rest from the intensity of the palette.
But just like other bold statements, be prepared to attract a lot of buzz. And keep the lawn mowed.
Going from Home to Sold: Working with a Stager
August 10, 2010 § Leave a comment
I know they have to design, stage, and sell in one hour. But on some of those design shows, the home stager comes sweeping through, insulting the homeowners in every room, as if those poor people should know instinctively that the wall color they chose for the kitchen is the only reason their house won’t sell. A good home stager in real life, of course, will tread delicately through the minefield of personal decorating taste and homeowner attachments and end at a win-win.
If you need to sell your home and your realtor recommends a staging consultation, here’s what to expect.
The stager will arrive and begin looking at your home from the curb. Don’t be alarmed or feel invaded. They are there to help you sell. Try to envision this fairly unwelcomed guest as someone who is on your team.
If you haven’t listed your home yet, the stager will walk through your property and evaluate what changes need to be made to sell the home. It’s nothing personal. The stager is seeing your home from the perspective of the buyers in our current market.
The stager will know how to identify all the selling features that your property has to offer and how best to highlight them to buyers.
The stager may give you tips to enhance your landscape or point out areas that need touch-ups.
The biggest nerve that the stager will hit (delicately we hope) is what is personal to the homeowners and needs to be removed from the home if it is to sell quickly and for top dollar: family photos, children’s art and toys, figurine collections, delicate houseplants, years worth of memorabilia, most of the books, and yes, the homeowners’ personal design style. I quipped with one homeowner the other day that we were turning their well-lived-in home into more of a Ramada Inn (with all due respect to Ramada, of course).
The point is, if you’re selling your home, you will want to appeal to as many buyers in today’s market as possible. That means that lots of things that made your house your home need to be packed up so that the potential buyers can see themselves living there.
At the end of the consultation, the stager will leave you with a rather lengthy to-do list. You can plow through it yourselves or call them back to help you. Your realtor will have access to other service providers as well, like cleaners and organizers. Chances are very good that if you accomplish everything on that list, the home you are trying to sell today will become the house that… SOLD!
Sew a Simple Window Topper
August 9, 2010 § Leave a comment
I do own a sewing machine (a hand-me-down), but I would not call myself much of a seamstress. I sew when I feel inspired or I find a fabric I cannot live without. These window toppers were so easy that I had to share. If you cannot sew a straight line, pick stripes for your fabric. Infinitely easier than everything else.
Cut rectangles of fabric and lining, allowing enough extra for your seams and your rod pocket at the top. Then with right sides together, sew along the edges of your rectangle leaving a little space at the end to turn the fabric right side out. Press the box, turn over one edge and hand-stitch a rod pocket. You’re almost done.
Once you’ve hung your new valances, then you can add a little style by cinching up the fabric in a couple of places (maybe along either edge and in the middle if your valances are wide enough). Use a needle and thread to tack in place. Voila!! Little custom valances in an afternoon!
Banish Old Brass with Paint
August 5, 2010 § 6 Comments
Brass will be back at some point, but there are lots of alternative metals on the market these days that make shiny, brassy… well… brass seem really dated and ordinary. I see these brass candelabra chandeliers everywhere. I even had one in my own home until I decided I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I suppose I could have replaced it at relatively low cost, but then I would have to take it down, etc, etc. I decided that the quickest fix was to paint it. So I got my tallest ladder, moved the table out of the way, and primed the brass. All of it. Then I gave it a coat of matte black acrylic paint. (I was liking it better already.) I then drew on the inner artist somewhere in me to apply several different colors: dark brown, burnt umber, lighter brown, in kind of a faux finish of sorts to make the finished product look more like oil-rubbed bronze (my version).
I even painted the little candlesticks a creamy yellow, found leather-like chandelier shades at my local home improvement store, and used a scrap of fabric for a chain cover. There. All set — I love it. Time to put the ladder away.
If you have old lighting in your home, you can either replace it or paint it! Just remember when working with lighting of any kind, turn off the power first!
Farmhouse Kitchen Renovation
August 3, 2010 § Leave a comment
This historic New England farmhouse kitchen posed a challenge to the homeowner when it came time for a remodel. How do you update your kitchen while keeping with the age and style of your home? You cannot simply drop a slick granite countertop into a kitchen whose bones date back to the mid-18th century.
With its layers upon layers of early architecture and more recent updates, the de-construction was bound to expose some surprises, but plans for the new kitchen proceeded. Since the homeowners are gourmet cooks, the appliances were purchased first. Form follows function in a busy kitchen where every weekend welcomes a different group of dinner guests.
The design team, which also included a local kitchen designer and the homeowner who is an artist, went through the wish list and created a floorplan that incorporated everything. The gas range took center stage followed by a bake station, double ovens and a large farmhouse sink. The round table and chairs were replaced by a sizeable peninsula with food prep station and leather-seated bar stools for guests. We chose soapstone for the countertops in keeping with the period and kept the woods and tile in natural tones with minimal contrast to make the rather small kitchen appear larger.
We brought the forest green and grape accent colors in from the wallpaper in the adjoining family room to create flow between the back-to-back rooms, and we added a built-in cabinet to replace the free-standing piece that housed collections and other kitchen clutter. The clean lines of the new cabinet also helped to enlarge the space.
The updated kitchen, even with all its bells and whistles, manages to maintain the old early American character found in the rest of the house and provide its homeowners with a much more efficient and workable space for cooking and entertaining.
Three Tips for Staging your Empty Condo
August 2, 2010 § 1 Comment
Selling a condo is hard enough, but in a buyer’s market, it’s a challenge to distinguish yours from all the others out there, some even in the same building. And if you’ve already moved out? Oh, forget it! There’s nothing worse than a vacant unit where the fingerprints on the walls and the spots on the carpet become the selling features that buyers remember.
If you are trying to sell your condo, here are three basic tips to get you started. This is not an exhaustive list of “to-do’s” for your space but if you do nothing else, do these.
1) Play up the saleable features. This condo has a fireplace and it happens to be the focal point of the room. But without drawing the buyer’s eye to it with art and chairs, the eye wanders from window to window and aimlessly around the vacuous space. With a couple of chairs, an ottoman, a piece of art hung on the wall (with no nails), and some accessories to warm up the area, potential buyers can picture themselves sitting there reading a book and enjoying their home. And that’s what we want.
2) Pay attention to the kitchen. The sellers were unwilling to upgrade cabinets or countertops so we picked a warm wall color that would blend the old-style cabinets and formica countertop. Doing that took the focus off the dated features highlighted by the white walls and made the kitchen look bigger — a selling bonus. The sellers had also painted a burnt orange accent wall that would not appeal to all buyers so we toned that down to a warm cognac brown that coordinated with the woven shade in the window and the wood trim on the cabinets. With a table and two chairs, the kitchen turned into a move-in ready space, despite its vintage. 
3) Define your living spaces. The only way to tell where the dining area was in this condo was the lonely light fixture hanging in the middle of the room. So we added a table and chairs and set the table with a contemporary color scheme that tied in with the art and furniture in the adjoining living room. The dining area was defined and set up for guests — again, allowing buyers to picture themselves entertaining in their new condo.
Don’t leave your condo vacant and expect it to sell unless you live in a penthouse in Manhattan. Most cookie-cutter condos need some personality injected into them to attract serious buyers, but a little paint, a few pieces of furniture, and some well-placed accessories will help you create the atmosphere you’re trying to sell.
Inspirations from the French Countryside
July 26, 2010 § 1 Comment
Traveling south of Paris into the French countryside really gives you a feel for how the French live. The quiet little town of Montgeron with its hilly one-way streets, gated driveways, and modest stucco and stone homes, is nestled far enough away from the city to give the town an identity of its own. Gone are the wrought iron railings and the bustling sidewalk cafes of the city. We’re in the quiet part of France where people still buy their daily breads, meats, and vegetables, but tend to live simpler lives tucked safely behind walls.
The public gardens are beautifully tended, kind of a smaller version of the Paris jardins, and the French details like the flowers on the light post are evident. Walking through the neighborhoods conjures up a lifestyle that many of us busy Americans (at least those of us just outside major cities) left all too long ago. It’s no wonder the French live so long!
A Window to Paris
July 12, 2010 § Leave a comment
The windows in Paris are almost as intriguing as the doors! First of all, the shutters actually work, the windows have no screens, and there are no bugs! Plus the shutters are fabulous soft colors of whites and taupes and light blues. The soft colors against the stucco and stone are simply spectacular. Not a black shutter anywhere to be found. I’m thinking that there may be room for more shutter colors in the palette — even on this side of the pond! Why limit ourselves to dark colors!
For stucco and stone homes, consider the subtle sensibilities of French architecture and the superb use of color on shutters. Tres bien!
The Doorways to Paris
July 11, 2010 § 1 Comment
Whether they’re painted a wonderful milk-paint blue or left a natural wood tone, the doors of Paris are spectacular. It helps, of course, that they’re attached to stunning historic residences that have been there hundreds of years. The scale of the doors is big to fit the scale of the buildings, and the embellishments are breathtaking (spoken like a true decorator). The doors stand out as they are truly meant to — as the focal point of the home or business. 
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