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.

laundry room lusting

Sometimes I get completely overwhelmed when I realize that nearly every crevice of our home is some type of home improvement project. I know I’m supposed to be patient, and do one thing at the time, but that strategy doesn’t work so well with someone like me who has A.D.D.D. (Always Dreaming of Decorating Disorder) I’m all over the place. Lately I’ve been fantasizing about how my productivity in the laundry department might improve if I liked the looks of it. Imagine how much could be accomplished with this set up…

source:  houzz.com

I’d never miss a call, forget to return an email, and could even run for the loo in between switching loads. At our house, part of the problem is that the laundry room location is far away from where my people leave their dirty clothes. Now if the mudroom (I wish!) was close by…now that’s convenient.

source: houzz.com (Main Street Design Build)

If proximity to dirty clothes is a problem that can’t be solved, then how about maximizing the space I do have with laudromat style efficiency (with the exception of pesky quarter slots, of course!)?

source: houzz.com

I could take the average time to wash and dry a load and fold that in half with this rockin’ double duty set up. But at the end of the day–which, as it happens, is often when I’m doing laundry–I can’t relocate my laundry room or load it with excess equipment to ease the pain. So I’m leaning toward some simple paint, shelves, and maybe even some bead board paneling to improve the looks. Something like this would do quite nicely. 

So now laundry room is added to the long list of renovation to do’s around here. Does it ever end? Nah. Can you relate? Please let us know if a new and improved laundry room has changed your life or if you wish it could!

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

drop this valentine hint

Some florists just do more. That’s the reaction I had when these beauties arrived on my doorstep today. From my sweet neighbor, NOT husband.

I mean, honestly, I have never even seen those yellow spiky flowers before. Anyone know what they are? The bouquet is from More Flowers in Denver. Look what they did with the container…so cool.

Drop the More Flowers hint to your sweetie. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!

chevron on my mind

Chevron, chevron on my mind. Please indulge me while I find… 

a chevron cake for you to eat… 

a spunky cushion for your seat. 

A cozy blanket to keep you warm… 

a sassy wrap dress for your form. 

Zig zag pattern underfoot… 

an awesome dresser for clothes to put. 

A fabric basket to hold your stuff… 

a stylish pillow for you to fluff. 

 A fabulous lamp to keep things bright… 

 I could go on and on all night! But I won’t.

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

porch pretty

Could it have been the 65 degree day here in Denver with gorgeous bright sunshine? All that melting snow has turned my thoughts to porch sitting. There is something about a porch that’s a perfect spot for casual entertaining with good friends or sitting in solitude and peacefully enjoying the outdoor scenery. The best porches have a combination of indoor/outdoor access, great views, creative lighting with ceiling fans or dramatic pendants, cozy furniture that’s not quite outdoor durable, but close. I want it all.

We have a porch. At it’s worst, our porch has looked like this. (I realize revealing this image could be bad for business.)

It’s the old cobbler and his shoeless kids story (except my kids have a lot of shoes, bikes, sports equipment, school projects, etc. and we apparently put them all on this porch! Yikes!) This room does have potential, so sometimes I catch myself dreaming about porches that look like this…

Oh, how I adore that furniture.

Or this… We could have a nice little chat over a glass of wine in those cozy chairs.

The glossy floor and steely trim color on this porch are delish. They probably don’t allow bikes on their porch.

This porch is like hanging out in the swankiest treehouse ever.

My sheer embarrassment about the state of our porch did motivate me to do some porch prettifying last summer. I found some kitschy patio furniture at an estate sale for a steal. It was in great shape and just needed a coat of black spray paint. But the big change was using porch paint to spruce up the floor.
What do you think? Better, no?

Of course I’m not done, and this picture does not show the wall where we hang backpacks, coats, pool towels, and whatever else I can hang on a hook. However, it’s waaaaaay better, and we are motivated to take care of our porch and enjoy it more often. I have plans for more improvements next summer, but I know it will get cold again soon, so I’m not in a hurry. As it is with most projects here, to be continued…

All pretty porch pictures are from House Beautiful or Better Homes and Gardens.

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