Bathroom Glamour

This bathroom had me at “Hello…Yellow.”

I discovered it at the home of our friends, Bill & Shirli. Their house is filled with gobs of creative energy, whimsical art, eclectic furnishings, and a friendly floor plan. Then it’s doused with the high octane levels of four kids and a collection of dogs and cats running about. To my kids, it’s a slice of heaven. To me, this bathroom is.

Bill, an avid DIYer, crafted the clean-lined black mirror frame and base cabinetry. Isn’t is cool how the  chunky white vessel sink cantilevers over the cabinets below?

The real show stopper for me is the wallpaper. The flowery plumes and the way the yellow pops against the black and white elements in the room bring a fluid and energetic vibe to the space.

It’s the perfect glam pit stop in this house of fun.

If you want to truly love where you live, please contact me about design services.

Easy Easter Eggs

I don’t have a lot of patience for crafting, yet admire and covet the end result, so if I'm willing to give a go, you know it has to be easy.

Photo Credit: Philip Friedman/Studio D

I bet you already have the needed supplies on hand to create these beauties. Use masking tape sliced and positioned to make stripes or plaids. The wavy stripes are cut with craft scissors. To step it up a notch, use paper punch-outs (available at craft stores) on your masking tape to make letters or shapes. Apply the tape to raw eggs making sure to eliminate any air bubbles. Then simply drop your eggs in a standard egg tint (like Paas). Once the eggs are dry, blow out the yolks (use a pin or wooden skewer to make a hole at the bottom and the gooeyness should slide right out). Then remove the tape to reveal your design. Snazzy!

surprise! happy birthday honey

I have a friend who is awesome. She works hard, is tons of fun, and makes her family a priority. She has 3 kids, and when the youngest was just 1, she was called to serve in Afghanistan for a year. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been. Just last night, she told me she would have to miss the planning meeting for our kids’ upcoming school auction, because she had to work late; she was pulling chicken bones out of an 84 year-old man’s lungs! (She’s a pulmonologist). I have to admit, it was the best excuse I’d ever heard for missing a PTA meeting. She has a great perspective on what’s important in life, and I’ve learned a lot from her.

So when her husband asked me back in December to help him to surprise her with a bedroom makeover for her birthday, I could not wait to get started. Here is their bedroom before:

He wanted a place where his wife could relax that had REAL furniture, cool art, and reflected their preferences for simple lines and a mid-century aesthetic. Since I'm a design pleaser and am always up for a mid-century vibe, we pulled in two dressers from this collection at Room & Board. The simple, clean lines and the airy base were perfect for their tastes and the smaller size of the room.

Source: roomandboard.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Even though my clients’ design preferences are far from traditional, I wanted to change the arrangement of the furniture into a more symmetrical layout with the bed under the window flanked by matching nightstands. These hipsters from West Elm were a slam dunk…

Source: westelm.com via Lisa on Pinterest

To soften the straight lines in the furniture, we needed bedding that had an organic quality, but still retained the hip, modern effect we were working toward. This Marimkekko collection was a perfect match.

Source: crateandbarrel.com via Lisa on Pinterest

The husband and I schemed, planned, emailed, and texted for nearly 2 months until we had orchestrated every detail. I stored everything in my garage until the big day when she went off to work, and we got to work! Something we didn’t plan on was 6″ of unexpected snow, but the movers showed, and we made it all happen anyway.

When my friend got home from work, her family couldn’t wait for the big reveal. She walked into the bedroom and screamed! Later she told me she hasn’t been that surprised since her seven-year old birthday surprise party. But even better, she told her husband that it was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for her. Sigh!

If you want to truly love where you live, please contact me about design services.