Wednesday, January 25, 2012

One Room Challenge: Week 2



Hi all.  It's week number two here of the one room challenge!  Last Wednesday I shared with you the 'before" pictures of the room I'm redecorating...as well as some sketches for structures/things I thought the room needed.  To see that post, go here.  This week, I'm here to share my inspirations.  

I put together the room inspiration board above.  It all started with two amazing chairs that my sister found for me at a yard sale down in Branson, MO {second home to country music...which, I think Branson made it's name known in a phrase from the movie "Horse Whisperer" with Robert Redford, and Kristen Scott Thompson}.   But ....ME....I'm just a hop skip and a jump from there.  A little town called Springfield, MO.  Brad Pitt's hometown. Not that these are facts too relative to design, but moreover facts that relate to BEAUTY, and "hollywood-ish excellence", which I'm hoping to accomplish with this here room.


Pretty vintage blue velvet.  In great shape.  

NEEDS: 
1. serious cleaning by my rug cleaner.  
2.  Wood to be painted white. {white paint just makes it much more slick!}
3.  Tacks to be added to all of the edging {we all know that tacks just look MMmmm..}

I'm going to make it look somewhat like this beautiful and AW-mazing chair that Aerin Lauder sits in pictured here below {from one of the most recent issues of House Beautiful.}



Okay, so the client's bedroom is grey.  I know grey is a current color and it's pretty much a great color, but I'm tired of doing it in every single client's bedroom.  I want to give the room a facelift that refreshes and says "HELLO!".
  
SO, I chose Benjamin Moore's finest aura paint in their Gentle Breeze from their Preview deck.  Sort of a minty-greenish-soft-robins-egg-blue.  

 As you can see, and I WARN you, this room is going to be colorful.  

STYLE: Mixed Eastern style, meets Classic English, Meets Early American goes to Hollywood with a dash of Branson salt and peppa.  YES, it's one where the client trusts me completely.  EEEK.  I love it.  And, you know I really just hope you love it too when it's done.

APPROACH:   Sometimes I have a set, clear plan, but usually, it's a piece by piece experiential approach where I'll be mixing and layering styles, colors, textures, eras, flea market finds, and online products.  I'm sticking mostly by the inspiration board however.

INSPIRATION IMAGES:
The minty blue on the door will be the color of my walls.   And the red-ish tone will come into play with the oriental rug I found pictured below. 


This rug is pretty, huh?  I will be pulling some unexpected colors and textiles to join in with it.  
Love the idea of mixing salmons, corals, peaches, greens, blues.  Also going to add a screen behind the dark headboard.  I may add a painted embellishment to the screen.  NOt sure yet

God is a designer.  How did he think to make rocks not boring?




I found an early american secretary, but who's to say it needs to stay early american?  Why not twist it into hollywood mod?  Pushing the envelope with my attempt to twist two eras together.  



Beautiful, huh?  Did you notice the reflection of the chair in the mirror?  This reminds me of an old dutch painting.


IKAT.  A Little boho style.  Always good in any room.  


Miles Redd...the unorthodox king.  Traditionally rooted.


Beautiful figs.  I'm going to turn them inside out.  




LOVE the plum against the greenish-blue walls.


Great color scheme.

LOVE Olatz Schnabel's sheets.



BLUE and WHITE ware.  I'm hoping to bring a lot of it in.  Deeply rooted in chinoise-chic.  

More to come from Branson/Springfield next week, including floor plans, elevations and a curve towards "box office" records.  HA! 

Be sure to check everyone else's progress.  That's where I'm headed now...  

Bloggers


Suzzanne ~ Saved by Suzy
Jayden ~ Dutch.British.Love
Nicole ~ Nicole Scott Design
Kim ~ Kim Macumber Interiors
Emily ~ Rue De Emily
Jennifer ~ The Pink Pagoda
Lisa ~ Trapped in New Jersey
Kelly ~ Refresh Designs
Danylle ~ Nana Moon Shop
Taylor ~ Taylor Morgan
Jen ~ Inside Ways
Linda ~ My Crafty Home Life
Janet ~ House Four
Tiffany ~ Living Savvy


xx
sharon

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Babies In The Making

I've been scurrying around squeezing in last minute photo shoots to make submission deadlines.  And, that always requires bringing in the "just right" props/accessories/flowers to make the project sing and swing well when pitching it to various publications.  This week, I loaded up the van {in between meeting with clients for other projects} and inevitably, I got in a hurry and broke a vase.  I was sick about it.  I guess I should be glad it wasn't a mirror.  I tried to find a reason to make light of it and finally arrived on the notion of the phrase..."MAZEL TOV!"

Here's a project that still hasn't been photographed by a professional.  It's my baby.  Boca Baby.  I've put the photo shoot off because it overwhelms me a bit.   The reason it is overwhelming, is because there were many customized details that went into the project and I want to make sure each one gets highlighted with my stamp of approval and stylization.  SOMEDAY. Meanwhile I will work on my client's current needs.


To give you a small taste of where some of the quality details started, I should share with you that the table tops were made of disposed-of/free pallet wood.  Now, bare in mind, to see these tables in person right now, you would never in a million years believe it.  They are beautiful.  I'm in complete awe of the craftsmanship and utilitization of discarded materials.

Here's what my carpenter started with.  I love him for how his brain thinks.

And, we didn't just find things out of catalog or online to make this project unique.  We customized everything.

This job was a TON of work, antiquing, phone calls to vendors, problems, and things that had back to the drawing board.  I was nine months pregnant on installation day.  A baby in the making x's two!

Here are some of my iphone snapshots of just one side of the building.  Hopefully I'll blog about the other half someday soon.










The cafe chairs were so bad before.  It took me two and a half meetings to convince the landlord that the awful 1980's cherry-ish colored finish on the chairs needed to be painted.  You know how some people are about painting "nice wood", even if it's the worst pressed wood piece ever?  Well, I understand that with some wood pieces, but these were really bad.

Here's a before...

The landlord finally listened to me. That was the first triumph of the project.  The second one was getting to paint the ugly high chairs.  Green... "For the sweet pea babies".

Anyway, I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend and I hope you'll visit Boca.  The food and people there are the nicest.  I'll be at the store today.  Come by and see me and baby Jack!

xx
sharon

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The One Room Challenge!

Hi everyone. I have a new little venture for the next six weeks. It's called the one room challenge. Linda, from My Crafty Home Life invited 15 talented designers from across the country and even Canada to make over one room and then blog about it.







I like challenges! And I know some of you out there do too. Sometimes you just need an extra push or a helping hand to do it. Call me if it's that "helping hand" thing you need...

Okay, here goes....

My one room challenge is for a client's master bedroom. Here are some before shots.

























Here are my sketches of what I am thinking about doing in this room.



More to come next week!!

Below are the links to the other 14 bloggers so you can check out their rooms.  I can't wait to follow all of their projects, can you?

Suzy ~ Saved by Suzy (girls room)
Jadyn ~ Dutch.British.Love (dining room)
Nicole ~ Nicole Scott Design (master bedroom)
Kim ~Kim Macumber Interiors (living room)
Emily ~ Rue De Emily (boys room)
Jennifer ~ The Pink Pagoda (laundry room)
Lisa ~ Trapped in New Jersey (dining room)
Kelly ~ refresheddesigns (office)
Danylle ~ Nana Moon Shop (TBA)
Taylor ~ Taylor Morgan (living room)
Jen ~ Inside Ways (spare bedroom)
Linda ~ My Crafty Home Life (dining room)
Janet ~ House Four (master bedroom)
Tiffany ~ Living Savvy (master bedroom)

xx
sharon

Monday, January 16, 2012

Tobi Fairley Chair Contest Winner

Happy Martin Luther King day! I will be celebrating with my family by participating in a local march across the Martin Luther King bridge. I have never done this before, but am excited for what's to be an uplifting experience for all, I'm sure. How about you? What are you doing?

I haven't been regular with posting, but will be updating with more regularity, and good stuff. We have a very exciting week this week. Promising new ventures, and MORE publicity!




In other news: I won THE Tobi Fairley chair contest I told you about awhile back. It was a fun process! AND, I just love Tobi Fairley period. She's a master of not only design, but of business, and planning for success. So winning was a great honor. Her words were beyond sweet and she even sent me a personal message of congratulation. To see the full post, go here...

A special thank you to heather cherie photography for taking such pretty photos. Also, to BIG Fish screen printing for taking care of all my printing needs.

And thank you to YOU for stopping in today. I hope you enjoy your day and your week! May you find windows filled with much, much sun streaming thru.

xx
sharon

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

2012 is SWELL!!

Hi All! It's been awhile since my last entry. My babies had a long spell of coughs...and we found out that Sylvie had pneumonia. Poor girl. I kept thinking she'd bounce back, but it took a long while. New Years eve we stayed in, and baby Jack coughed all night...so I spent New Years day at the E.R. only to find out that he had pneumonia too. whew! They were sick. We're all on the mend now and I'm so glad to see their happy little selves back to normal.

I've been strategizing my year. AND, since the last time I posted...I 've seen a real promising start to this year.

You know how a lot of the weddings featured in ALL the magazines and on ALL the blogs are usually from the East and West Coast?? Welp, I'm here to stand on the very tip of these Ozark Mountain roof tops and shout hooray for the Midwest!! We know how to throw weddings here too. Yes indeed.

Style Me Pretty announced their best 20 weddings of 2011 just this past week. We're SO honored to be on that list! Here's the cover of their Best of 2011.

The link to their jaw-dropping, chuck-full-of-ideas e-gloss mag link is below that. ENJOY!!


Here's Top 20 weddings. It was an honor to help design Elsie and Jeremy's wedding.

I have another fun announcement tomorrow.

Thanks for following me, you all. I hope it's a fun journey filled with fulfilling dreams for all of us! Are you making plans to make your dreams come true this year? You know, I believe in that.