Out of the gate!

I thought you might like to see the beginning of progress being made in the Redesign project (dining room from former post).

Painting furniture makes a big statement of style and can really change a room, but it really is a project!

The garage was set up as the "shop"! Our painter opted to spray paint the furniture. Did you know that you can purchase a pump bottle that can turn any can of paint into a spray paint?! Sherwin Williams offers this dandy contraption.

...work in progress

Terry started with the top of the china cupboard. As you can see, the back is taped to prevent the spray from hitting the mirror.

Closeup of china cabinet. We are using several of my favorite colors for the furniture and walls-SW Tony Taupe and SW Warm Stone. I fell upon these colors several years ago when we did the Bucks County Designer House living room, and have been a lover of them ever since.
It's amazing the change already in the look of this furniture! When I first considered the design of the room, I really was lobbying for new furniture. The painted finish makes an enormous difference in the style of the room, taking a true traditional dark stained cabinet into a cleaner, slightly urban feel-all due to paint! The color of paint is important in the process, but just leave that up to me!

Review of these colors used in the Bucks County Designer House living room

SW Warm Stone on chest, SW Warm stone and SW Brainstorm Bronze for stripes

I loved this room, and expect that the Redesign for the new dining room will be a favorite soon!

(Just to remind you what it looked like prior to beginning the painting!)


Yes, this is definitely progress...out with the old and in with the new!

Stay tuned for more progress. And, don't forget to comment to be entered into the drawing for the next Redesign project by Susan and her team. Good luck!

Breath of Fresh Air!

With all that has been going on, (packing, moving, more packing, more moving, packing, editing, hauling, packing, painting, cleaning, unpacking, sorting, merchandising...and so on, and so on), I've been lax in reporting what has been happening with my designer room for the Princeton Jr. League Designer House. Ugh.

It's been on my list of things to do, but it's been pushed to the bottom of the list night after night!

That being said, I have some glorious photos of the before when I can locate the camera chip that holds the information...for now, here is an in-progress report that I think you'll find interesting.

Often, in designer houses across the nation, there emerges a theme of color...unbeknown st to the designers collectively, trends set the stage and many rooms begin to follow a pattern. In a quick preview of many of the other spaces, this is what I found...

Grey living room...

Warm stone foyer...

Grey-ish upper hallway...

Another grey hallway...

Charcoal/taupe master bedroom walk-through...

And these are just a few of the rooms I perused...who knows where else this trend color (stone) will show up.

And then...ta da!! My room, yes in glorious Yam!

Here is a fabulous vintage bookcase/desk that I picked up and painted SW Warm Stone as an accent to my Yam...way cool!

I'm happy to report that amidst the room after room of grey/taupe, grey/charcoal, grey/grey, and even more grey, my pop of orange shines! Yam sets the stage for natural linens, velvets, and creamy contrasts. I think it's going to make for a memorable room.

Lastly, I just couldn't resist reminding you what color my room was in last year's Buck's County Designer House...SW Warm Stone. I do believe that Black-eyed Susan sets the trend.

More to follow in the coming days, as we near completion of our room, I promise!

Susan Saves the Day!

It's always an exciting day in design when the long awaited custom draperies are installed for one of our fun interior projects! There is an air of anticipation, all the while holding your breath that all will go as planned, the draperies will be the perfect length, the trim will be as exceptional as you expected, and the overall completed product to die for.

Thursday, we me our installer on the job site to install $10k worth of fabulous silk striped draperies for a fabulous historic living room in Bucks County. I had designed a beautiful inverted pleat panel and taken a very special tassel from a Scalamadre trim to be added to each pleat. They looked exactly as I had envisioned! Wonderful! This design had taken the owner of the workroom to oversee just how they would be fabricated in order to get the desired result and I was excited to see the finished product

We had waited a good 5 weeks for custom painted barley twist rods in a bronze/silver finish to be manufactured.

Out come the rods.

Within a few moments, my installed quietly announced that the pole was too large for the inside loops that had been fashioned to support the panels to the wall.

What??!!

Needless to say, our client was even more disappointed than we were. Easter dinner with family and friends...long awaited draperies noticeably absent...despair for all.

Then, I started brainstorming. Surely I could purchase some substitute rods from somewhere close (Calico Corner, perhaps?!) , paint them and return before the installer was ready for them. After all, he had an entire other room to complete first! Much to the surprise of my project manager, we left in a hurry to try to replace the poles.

Success! I found the pole I needed at Calico Corner. Rifling through the floral paint supply, I found a good, full can of antique gold spray paint. I applied this color first to stained poles, then dry brushed them with antique silver and, VOILA!! Perfection achieved!!

The poles dried almost immediately, I packed the car and set off to show my magic! My project manager had her doubts that the client would be happy with my makeshift "custom rods", but I thought she would totally be impressed that we were able to overcome this quite serious obstacle and end up with a perfectly installed living room full of the most gorgeous silk drapery panels. Indeed, she was!

This is not the best photo to show my end result, but I will tell you that it was the perfect finish! Kind of a florentine finish, fit for $10K worth of draperies!! I was very pleased, and my client was thrilled that the installation had been saved. Sorry, I didn't get a good shot of the draperies. Taking fine photos of draperies is always a challenge, as we are always looking into the light of the window.

So, take my word for it! The finished product was indeed, fit for a king. Every now and then, the winds blow in your favor.