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Learn About Home Lighting Design

February 26, 2018

Lighting is key to how our eyes perceive color, shape, contrast and details. It affects our moods as well as our abilities to focus or relax.

When I arrive at a consultation, my clients are all atwitter, ready to tell me about the amazing ideas they have for countertop and flooring options, cabinetry and wall colors. In the meantime, I’m shrewdly peering from room to room, figuring out how much natural light we have to work with, if there are ways to bring more natural light into the space, and how I can work to decrease the glare over here and increase lighting in that shadowy spot over there.

While it’s not often a client’s favorite thing to learn about, astute interior designers know that without a thoughtful lighting plan, all their hard work will fall flat – or will never be viewed in the way they envisioned it in their minds..

Steps to Create a Thoughtful Lighting Design

This is why it’s important that clients to understand a little bit about lighting before they move too far into their design choices. Some colors will work better than others, depending on the amount and quality of light in a living space at any given time.

Here are some of the steps involved with creating a thoughtful lighting plan that shows your future home renovation in its best (literal) light, while also providing the right amount of task and ambient lighting, and a balance of light and softened shadows.

Where Do You Need Light?

Have you ever thought about where you actually need light in your home? Probably not. You simply flip on a switch or move a lamp from here to there. An interior designer takes it a step or two further. We consider the orientation of your home and even the existing landscaping.

Where does light enter you home in the morning? What about at noon, or at dusk? Do evergreens keep light from entering your home in certain locations? Or do surrounding deciduous trees open a window for light during the darker months of the year? What does each room look like throughout the day when all the lights are switched off? Would your home benefit from skylights or solar tubes?

These are the types of questions we think about and answer in order to create a general lighting plan – subtracting or diminishing light where it isn’t needed and adding it where it’s lacking.

How Can We Optimize Light Quality or Quantity?

There are lots of ways to tackle this one. Of course, we use a balance of natural and artificial light. But, as you know, artificial lights are not created equal. The types of lights (LED, halogen, incandescent or CFL), the wattage and the use of a shade – or no shade/filter – makes a huge difference on the way our eyes perceive light. Ceiling height will affect the quality of overhead lighting and suspended light fixtures. Certain fixtures may have decorations that accentuate or inhibit the flow of light.

Speaking of flow of light, how does light move from one room to another? Apart from the type of light fixtures I recommend, I might also suggest a client use glass cabinet doors in the upper cabinets between the kitchen peninsula and the adjacent living space to maximize the flow of light. Or, we might decide on a different type of window treatment to enhance the quality of light that comes in to a particular room – you may want a different quality of natural light in the kitchen than you do in the bedroom, for example.

What Are Your Personal Lighting Needs?

Lighting needs for a young couple will be very different than the lighting needs for an elderly couple or family. I might install a different type of fixture in a corner used for reading or homework than I will in a corner that’s used for yoga or meditating. Then, there are accent lights to consider – those that have a fixture design that adds visual interest as well as those lights that are specifically directed to highlight a specific design feature.

A thoughtful lighting design will always take the home occupants’ needs into consideration, and will also include a plan for the future if necessary.

Choosing Lights That Fit the Design

Now that we have the plan’s foundation in place, it’s time to build it out with the right fixtures. Typically, this means a mix of recessed lighting and suspended fixtures, as well as table and floor lamps. Things like energy-efficiency are also important, especially if you are planning a sustainable home renovation. Ultimately, we want light to be balanced in terms of task, ambient and accent lighting, but we also need to ensure the fixtures we select are the right aesthetic fit for your home.

Work with an interior designer who understands the importance of lighting when it comes to showing an interior design to its optimum advantage. Get out of the shadows and glares, and learn to see your home in a new, improved light.

Arranging Living Room Furniture

February 25, 2018

Arranging furniture is often a process of trial-and-error and, odds are, if you’ve moved into a new home or planning to remodel the one you’re in, it will take a few different arrangements before you land on the living room furniture placement that suits your family or household best.

Helpful Tips for Arranging Your Living Room Furniture to Enhance Style, Function & Flow

It’s impossible to give you a set of rules because every living room is different – and every family’s use of that space is different as well. However, there are a several tips that can get you started.

Get out the ol‘ fashioned graph paper. If lugging furniture back and forth doesn’t appeal to you, and/or you are good at envisioning two-dimensions in your head, I recommend getting out a sheet of good ol‘ fashioned graph paper and start drawing, cutting and shuffling. Your first item of business will be to outline your living room’s exact perimeter measurements to scale. Mark windows, doors, the fireplace and other architectural features that will affect furniture placement. Then, use another sheet to draw to-scale shapes that mimic your furniture and furnishings, and begin placing your “furniture” in different spots to see which arrangements seem to work best.
Consider traffic flow. Think about how people enter and exit your living room space. You want your furniture to facilitate, rather than hinder, traffic flow. Also, try to prevent traffic from bisecting those who are seated and their view of the television.
Think about your focal point(s). What is your our living room’s focal point? Is it the television or a large picture window? Perhaps it’s your fireplace mantel or a gorgeous work of art. In any case, your main seating area should be placed such that the eye is easily led to an attractive landing point.
Get furniture away from the walls. It’s so common for people to place couches and/or chairs right up against the wall, thinking it will make the room seem larger. In fact, this tactic can make for a boring interior design and can also yield a great deal of dead space if you aren’t careful.
Create a balance of high and low energy. If your living room is big enough, try to create separate areas for entertaining and higher-energy activities – like movie nights – and quieter, low-energy areas – like a corner or fireplace-oriented furniture arrangement that facilitates private conversation or a reading nook.
Think about surface placement. Make sure that every couch or chair has a hard surface nearby, whether it be a coffee table, end table or a nearby credenza or book case so you have a place to set drinks, snacks, magazines or books, the remote controls, etc. If you are in the process of remodeling, this is a good time to think about lamp placement too, as well-placed floor outlets prevent trip hazards created by exposed electrical cords stretched across the floor. Figuring out your future furniture arrangement now will allow you to be more precise with your new electrical plan.
Don’t forget the benefits of area rugs. Area rugs are used often to help anchor living room furniture and/or to create a visual sense of different areas in a single space. One rug, or two layered rugs, can be used to anchor your main seating area while another smaller rug can create the boundary for a small play area or reading corner.

Decorating with Milk Glass

February 24, 2018

Have you every noticed that items that were once the property of “the common folk” wind up being trendy and highly sought after a generation or two later? Consider the price of an old farmhouse desk in an antique store and you’ll see what I mean. Another example of this would be Milk Glass.

Named for it’s white, milky color, milk glass was produced from about 1835 through the 1980’s. It was “porcelain for the masses” and allowed lower- and middle-class homes to enjoy similar aesthetics for their dishware and figurines as the upper-classes did via more luxurious options.

Milk Glass: Porcelain for the Masses

Of course, over time, milk glass has become a collectible and has made quite a comeback in the interior design world. You can find modern milk glass light fixtures and reproduction pieces from several manufacturers. Antique milk glass can run from a few dollars at a garage sale or flea market to thousands of dollars for rare and collectible pieces. If you don’t know your stuff, it’s easy to get ripped off.

Keep your eye out for the name Westmoreland Glass Company, which was one of the major producers of milk glass throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. However, many pieces lack any official manufacturer’s stamp so it can be difficult to know if a piece is truly antique or not. At one point, lead was used to produce milk glass, making the pieces ring like a bell when tapped.

Creative Ways to Decorate With Milk Glass

Of course, if it’s the look you want and the antique factor is less of an issue, you’ll be able to find affordable reproduction milk glass at big box stores like Ikea. Once you’ve started your collection, it’s time to get creative in how you display it.

In Groups. One of the most fun things about milk glass is all of the different shapes, designs and motifs that were used in its design. There are several different ways to organize your groups. You can use things that are the same, as in a grouping of milk glass bowls of different sizes or milk glass vases, etc. The continuity of the objects paired with the difference in patterns, textures or shapes is attractive. Or, you can do groupings of different milk glass objects, like a bowl, a few coffee cups and sweet milk glass figurines.

In an all-white design. Their fun textures and shapes, combined with the shiny white exterior makes them an excellent accessory for an all-white design.

Use them functionally. One of the best things about anything produced for “the masses” is its durability, and most milk glass is certainly that. You can use milk glass pitchers as vases or take a row of milk glass bowls or cups and plant them with bulbs or succulents. Milk glass looks gorgeous at night with the soft light of a candle glowing from within. If you have a few tea cups or bowls in your collection, try placing a votive or tea light inside and lighting it up. The bright white looks great with color so I also recommend using milk glass bowls or cake stands to display colorful seasonal fruit on a table.

Light fixtures. One of my favorite modern uses for milk glass is as a light fixture. Several manufacturers use milk glass for lighting fixtures of all types. They look especially good as a kitchen pendant because their vintage look works with any design style.

Flooring: Choosing The Right Color

February 20, 2018

Whether you’re choosing carpet, hardwood or laminate flooring, there are color choices to contend with. In the case of hardwood and laminate options, colors will be lighter or darker wood stain options. In the case of carpet, the color world is you oyster.

The following guide will help you select the color that will look best now, and that will also blend with future design changes or potential remodels.

Choosing the Right Color For Hardwood or Laminate Flooring

For the purposes of this post, we are going to treat wood and laminate flooring the same. As a general rule, darker wood finishes show dirt, pet hair and other debris quicker than lighter floors. If you have a busy household, filled with kid or pet activity, you may want to keep your flooring options on the lighter side.

With that in mind, here are the steps I recommend for selecting hardwood flooring:

Visit the showroom with a few samples. When you head to flooring showrooms, bring a few samples of textiles and paint chips that are exemplary of your home’s design and color scheme. This will help you and the sales rep settle on a better selection of flooring samples. Choose your three favorites and stick with them. More than that and it becomes harder to make a choice.
Take the samples home. Once you get the samples, take them home and begin shuffling them around the perimeter walls, cabinetry or key furniture pieces they’ll be making contact with. See how different finishes and tones bring out different colors or aspects of your existing furnishings. Just like paint samples, you want to look at them in daylight, dim light and artificial light. Discard your least favorite right away.
Live with two. Unless one jumps out as your obvious favorite, live with the other two samples for a couple of days until you’re able to decide on one of them.

Choosing the Right Color For Carpet

In some ways, choosing your carpet color isn’t all that different from choosing hardwood or laminate flooring. The most dramatic difference is that your options are seemingly endless. Here are some steps for helping you choose the best one.

Permanent or temporary? How permanent do you want this decision to be? If you choose a carpet in a rich burgundy or forest green, that’s great. But it’s also important to remember that as your furnishings or fixtures change through the upcoming years, those colors may not work anymore. Also, if you think your home will be on the market anytime in the next 5 to 10 years, boldly colored carpet might turn off potential buyers, so do keep that in mind. The longer you plan to have the carpet in place – especially if it will be laid throughout the entire home – the more neutral you’ll want to go.
Choose samples and take them home. Choose carpet samples in your preferred colors and then take them home. View them under different light qualities. Wood varies a little bit under different lighting sources, but carpet colors can vary quite a bit due to the different fibers and dyes involved in their production. Start moving samples around against walls and furniture throughout the day and evening to see what you think and remove your least favorite options right away.
Consider flooring transitions. If you are selecting different carpets for different rooms of the house, rather than the same one throughout, consider the transitions from room-to-room. A color wheel can be helpful for this.

8 Reasons You Should Hire a Professional Interior Designer

February 13, 2018

The internet is an amazing tool. Technically, you can learn how to build your own house watching YouTube videos and reading blogs. However, the reality is that most people really can’t build their own home regardless of how much they research. Interior design is similar. You either have a knack for it, or you don’t.

Even if you have the knack, you may lack the valuable industry connections that lead to a more cost-effective project or you might not have the energy to complete your vision in a reasonable time frame.

8 Reasons To Hire a Professional Interior Designer

Your colors just don’t work. You studied those House Beautiful spreads diligently, copied the exact same color scheme and…it just doesn’t work. This is the result of not knowing how to integrate the combination of space, lighting and design elements present in a room. Those colors worked in that space, but that doesn’t mean they’ll work in yours. A professional will help you select a color palette that works in your specific living space.
Budget is an issue. What?!? This may seem counterintuitive but people on budgets are the best candidates for a professional designer. Left to their own devices, the budget gets blown long before the design is complete and they’re stuck with an unfinished product. A designer knows exactly how to structure an interior design budget with the monies available and has professional relationships with subcontractors and vendors, yielding much lower prices than if you hire them on your own.
You value your time. Do you feel like spending after-work hours and weekends for the next XX months on your interior design project? A professional designer will work on it while you’re at work, on vacation and doing the things you love so your design comes together in the meantime.
We speak Construction. The construction world is its own culture and there can be a disconnect when homeowners opt to be their own general contractor. Professional designers speak the language, which goes a long way when your remodeling and/or adding on.
You want more than the basics. Sure, you can study the color wheel and learn how to work with texture, shape, proportions, etc. But, if you want to get to the more complex aspects of design, like pattern layering or making a modern design work in a traditionally designed existing home, it often requires the assistance of a professional.
A little validation is always nice. Hiring a professional interior designer doesn’t mean a permanent working relationship. In fact, some of the most fun work we do comes in the form of a single consultation or two that are set up to guide, facilitate and nurture our clients’ ideas. Bring your ideas to us and we can give you the thumbs up, a little professional critique and/or offer you solutions or ideas you may not have thought of to help round out your existing ideas.
To avoid the design rut. Often, clients want a whole new look only to find their “new design” is just a different version of the old one. An interior designer can help you break out of those ruts and embrace different or more daring sides of your aesthetic tastes.
To design your “forever” home. The Great Recession caused many homeowners to go back to “forever-home mode” rather than investment mode. If this is the case, your designer will help you balance timeless interior design aspects with more transient and trend-oriented features so your home can evolve without the need for major remodels in the future.