interior decorating

7 Ways To Use A Serving Cart

December 30, 2018

Furniture can be divided into three categories: pieces you use daily, pieces you use weekly, and pieces you hardly ever use. To a minimalist designer, the latter category is clutter, filling up unnecessary space. A traditionalist will look at that piece differently, allowing it to remain as long as it jives with the rest of the decor. A transitional or functional designer says, “Let’s put that piece to use more often!”

Serving carts are a prime example of a furnishing that can be superfluous unless you’re getting more out of it than the occasional service at a party or social gathering.

7 Ideas to Make A Decorative Serving Cart More Functional

A serving cart can be attractive in its own right but, unless you’re using the piece regularly, it’s also a space hog. Here are ideas to put that piece to use.

Make it a home bar. Serving carts work great as a small home bar. Put all of the basic – or your favorite – liquors on the top, along with an ice bucket, napkins, a shaker and a glass to hold spoons or stir sticks. Put a few tumblers and wine glasses on the bottom level. Now, happy hour can migrate anywhere you want it and is at the ready when you have a visit from an impromptu guest.
A kitchen island. Have a small kitchen? Apartment, cottage or townhome dwellers find a serving cart makes a wonderful kitchen island substitute, providing extra “countertop” space for food prep and storage.
Enjoy fresh flowers. The idea of having a fresh flower arrangement on a weekly basis is lovely, the practicality is less so. It’s difficult for families to find a space where a vase of fresh flowers can sit relatively undisturbed – most of the spaces where it would rest are used on a regular basis, which makes it more of an inconvenience. Your serving cart, however, makes a perfect host for your arrangement, and when it’s tucked diagonally in a corner or along a wall, it won’t be in the way.
Craft cart for kids. No matter how hard you try, the kids’ craft supplies are rarely returned to their intended location. Why? Because kids draw on the coffee table, the dining room table, the kitchen table, on a book on the floor…etc. Purchase some attractive storage containers and make your serving cart a portable kids’ craft cart they can wheel to where its useful and then wheel back again – making it easier for the miscellaneous supplies to make it back into one spot.
Your craft cart. Do you love to scrapbook, embroider or sew? Don’t tuck those projects away in a cupboard. Instead, use the same idea as the kids’ craft cart. Organize your crafting materials in tidy, attractive storage containers and keep them out and handy so you can work on your projects more often.
Use it as an end table. If the height works with a chair or couch in your living or family room area, the cart can serve as an end table – holding a lamp, some magazines or those errant remote controls.
Plant stand. House plants add color and life to interior decors, and the right plants also improve your indoor air quality. Your serving cart will work as a plant stand. Put the pots on serving trays to protect the stand from water run off and to simplify things when it’s time to relocate the plants while you use the tray.

Senior Friendly Design

December 20, 2018

Are you first-time homeowners who would love to never move again? Are you baby-boomers interested in aging-in-place, rather than moving into a retirement or assisted living community? Are you a homeowner interested in selling your home as quickly as possible and for top-dollar? Do you plan to have a parent, grandparent or in-law living with you for some time?

If you answered, yes, to any of these questions – I recommend turning your attention to what we call accessible design principles.

Senior Friendly, Accessible, Universal or Livable – Good Design Matters

The terms accessible, universal and senior friendly frequent design publications these days. This is partly due to baby boomers, but it’s also about something bigger and larger than that.

It’s the post-2008 perspective shift that makes people want to buy a home they can make home, without worrying about flipping or investing. It’s about the mobile worker population who can live where they want and work without having to transfer companies or uproot their families. It’s about families who are choosing to care for one another in the comfort of their own home, rather than relocating in senior-only communities.

Finally, it’s about people realizing that accessibility improves life for everyone, not just those in acute need. With that in mind, let’s look at some of the ways you can make your home more accessible.

Lighting and electrical plans

It starts with something as simple as a lighting and electrical plans. By building these things in now, you won’t have to cut into walls and amend things later.

As with any good lighting plan, you need to accommodate for safety and task lighting. Make sure that all exterior walkways, stairs, and doorways are well-illuminated. Lighting inside the home should be bright enough on a dark night to illuminate the full room, with fixture placement such that shadows are minimized. Safety lighting can also take place via toe-kick or undercabinet lighting that provides an ambient glow when desired and also serve as wee-hour night-lights for the kitchen and bathrooms. Putting all of your fixtures on a dimmer switch is the best way to keep lighting under your desired control.

In terms of electrical plans, I recommend installing some well-placed floor outlets in the living and family rooms. This minimizes exposed cords from floor lamps, which are common, senior trip hazards.

Have a master suite downstairs

If you have a two-story home, I highly recommend placing a master suite or a comfortable guestroom with an attached bathroom on the downstairs, or most accessible, level. Even if you choose to sleep upstairs, for now, it means you and/or your partner will be able to have an accessible bedroom/bathroom, that doesn’t require navigating stairs, when you’re older, are recovering from a surgery or illness, etc.

Ample room for maneuvering

Accessible designs are always focused on seniors, but what about when a family member has an unexpected accident that renders them in a wheelchair, with a walker or on crutches at one point or another? What about family gatherings or parties, when guests may have mobility aids that need to be accommodated?

Accessible designs leave at least 36-inches between and around furnishings and walls, down hallways, around tables and chairs, between your perimeter cabinets/countertops and the kitchen island, etc., so people can maneuver easily. You’ll never regret building that access into the design now, and it makes for a gracious and flexible home.

No grip faucets, cabinet handles, and door pulls

Things that seem easy to grip take on a whole new personality the minute hands are out of commission as the result of injury or arthritis. This is why accessible designs incorporate faucets, handles and pulls that don’t require strong gripping action. Plumbing fixtures can be touch-free these days, and larger bars or levers are preferred for doors and drawers.

If you’re a young family, you’ll appreciate that more accessible kitchen and bathroom fixtures mean more autonomous kids, not to mention less wasted water.

Plenty of daylight

We know now that electrical light is not nearly as beneficial as light from the sun when it comes to our circadian rhythm (sleep and wake cycles) as well as mental and emotional well-being. This is true for everyone, and it becomes especially important for those who work from home or are more housebound – spending more time indoors than out. Adequate daylighting also makes colors look brighter and fresher, it makes rooms appear more spacious and inviting and it helps indoor plants to thrive.

Make sure you have adequate windows and add skylights and solar tubes for extra benefit. A solar tube placed over a home workstation is superior to fluorescent or LED lighting any day!

Think about grab bars and handles

Shower and toilet area grab bars and handles are like a quintessential senior design feature. But, let me tell you if they’re available – you’ll use them. They also make bathrooms safer for people of all ages. If you plan on aging in place, having seniors or physically challenged house guests, these bars are worth well more than their weight in gold.

Your bathrooms will look infinitely more stylish if you incorporate these features into the design now than if you have to install them later.

Implement slip-free surfaces

Finally, slip, trip, and fall hazards are the leading cause of injury for adults over the age of 65, and this includes serious traumatic brain injuries or the need for surgical procedures that can lead to further complications. Since most falls occur in or around the home, it makes sense to minimize slip, trip and fall hazards when designing any space.

Select slip-resistant flooring in kitchens and bathrooms. Invest in high-quality area rugs that don’t curl at the edges and corners, and reinforce them with full-coverage, non-slip mats underneath. Be thoughtful about the transitions or thresholds between hard surface and carpeted flooring. Minimize stairs wherever possible and design a ramp if you’re able to for exterior stairways.

The Perfect Front Door Color

December 17, 2018

Your home’s front door is almost like the smile on your face; it’s a welcome beacon for family, friends and unexpected guests. In fact, the front door is considered by many cultures to be like the mouth of the home, and you must be careful about the energy you let inside. Even the color can be symbolic, depending on your beliefs.

The color you choose for your front door can run the gamut from bold and bright to more conservative or neutral, and each one will leave a different impression. If you’re stuck choosing a new front door color for your home, we have 7 tips to make your job a little easier.

Align with the architecture. Because architecture always reflects a period, certain colors will look better than others. For example the exterior paint colors used for colonial architecture will vary from those used for a Mediterranean-inspired design. Many of the major exterior paint manufacturers make period- or architecture-specific palettes that can help narrow your choices.
Play by the exterior paint rules. Architects and designers typically recommend selecting three to four different colors for your exterior paint. These are referred to as the field color, the trim color and the accent color. The latter is used for shutters, railings, and architectural accents. Your door can fall into this third category OR you can select a fourth color that is used solely for the front door.
Consider your landscape. Are there dominant colors in your landscaping? Working with these colors and highlighting a particular favorite color that appears in your geography or planted landscape can also be a good way to select your front door color.
Consider feng shui. While feng shui comes to us by way of China, there are interesting similarities between the color rules used by this specific design code and rules from other cultures. For example, blues are thought to represent peace and tranquility. Red doors are typically considered “welcoming”, which is why early-American homes often had red doors. A red door let wayfaring travelers know they could stop, enjoy a meal and stay the night along their journey. If you are seriously interested in feng shui, the direction your door faces will also determine your color options. You can read more about it in this article by feng shui expert, Rodika Tchi.
Take a peek at the neighbors. No, I don’t advocate keeping up with the Joneses, but your neighborhood has its own style and (hopefully) synergy as well. For this reason, I do recommend you try to select a color that blends somewhat with your neighborhood’s collective environment.
Be trendy. Not surprisingly, exterior paint colors don’t trend as frequently as interior paint colors and with good reason, right? Nobody wants to repaint the exterior of their home more often than necessary since it is cost and labor intensive. However, there are broad trends and, right now, deeper and darker colors like blues, grays and slates and woody taupes are popular.
Throw caution to the wind. Have you always wanted to go completely wild and paint your front door an atypical color? Why not do it? The good news about painting a front door is that it’s easy to repaint if you aren’t happy with it. There’s no reason why you can’t try something more daring as long as it still works with your existing exterior paint colors.

How To Get That Cozy Cabin Feel

December 16, 2018

We’ve all seen those amazing room transformations, typically in a child’s bedroom, where the room is converted into an under the seascape, a pirate ship lagoon or a tropical jungle. It’s pretty unbelievable what a little ingenuity and artistry can make happen.

You, too, can enjoy a mini-transformation of a living space, especially if where you live doesn’t resonate with where you want to live.

Make Your Suburban Home Feel Like a Rustic Cabin

If you live in contemporary suburbia, odds are your home is a far cry from the cabin in the woods you pine for. That’s okay. There are plenty of ways you can bring that cozy cabin feel into your everyday life.

Add wainscoting or painted beadboard to the walls and/or ceilings.

When you think “cabin” you think darker interior wood finishes, right? While it would be cost prohibitive to bring in a bunch of rough-hewn half-logs to line interior walls, you can get a cozy, woodsy feel by adding wainscoting to existing walls.

Traditional wainscoting is installed plank by plank, with a decorative rail at the top, but you can simplify by using prefabricated panels. You can also use prefab beadboard and paint it a rich brown. Whether your ceilings are vaulted or flat, the addition of wood on the ceiling surface will continue that warm, wood vibe.

Choose stone accents

If you’re planning to remodel your home, choose raw stone accents to adorn your fireplace, a pony wall here and there or a pillar. Cabins are set in nature and by bringing natural elements into the space you’ll achieve that same feel. You can even use stone to run the entire expanse of an accent wall or two. Cabins are texture-rich so your interior should aim for the same.

Go the eclectic route

I’ll admit, the last time we skied in Tahoe, the “cabin” we rented was more like a luxury home. However, a true cabin has a rustic and eclectic feel. It’s the kind of place where items are kept and repurposed throughout multiple decades or generations, yielding a fun and colorful mix-and-match of lamps, tea kettles, furniture and so on. Make sure your urban cabin does the same, using a range of furnishings and textiles from eras past.

Look for cabin-inspired furniture

See if you can find a substantial piece or two made from raw wood or logs. A dining room table or a rocking chair, a log-like futon or a bedstead – the rough wood look is automatically reminiscent of a simpler time and place when people made their furnishings with the materials they had on hand.

Use the right accents to add character

As I mentioned directly above, cabins are lived in by people who spend more time at home in nature, and it is from nature that they derive the majority of their diet, furnishings and home accents. Even the typical equipment or tools they use each day are stored inside for lack of extra storage space elsewhere,

Thus, you can use home accents such as lanterns, sets of antlers, antique snow shoes or cross-country shows hung on a wall, sconces that mimic oil lamps – all of these will continue the theme.

Adorn surfaces and furniture with natural or homey textiles

A cabin-like interior design will include homey textiles like braided rugs, Native American woven art as either rugs, wall hangings or upholstery. You’ll probably see a few patchwork quilts on the beds, or folded on wooden trunks that serve as storage at the end of beds or as end or coffee tables. Maybe a home-made afghan or two is at the ready for those who want to cozy up by the fire on chilling nights or mornings.

Make the fireplace a focus

Speaking of the fireplace, it’s the focal point in just about any real cabin I’ve ever been in. Why? Because it used to be the primary heat source. Ideally, your living room will be set up similarly, with couches and seats that frame or are directed towards the fireplace – one with a beautifully decorated mantel.

The Entryway

December 12, 2018

If you could describe your household in a single paragraph, what would it say? What is the basic gist of the colors, energies, lifestyle and values of the people who live there? Now, take a look at your entryway. Is there anything of that paragraph inherent in your entryway design?

Your Entryway Is an Overarching Snapshot of Your Home

In my mind, the perfect entryway is one that not only looks great, and welcomes visitors – it also serves as a single snapshot of your entire home. Not only should its style serve as a precursor to what comes next, the mood, energy and features should reflect the people, creatures and beloved furnishings that call your household Home.

Here are some ideas for creating not just the “perfect entryway” – but for creating the perfect entryway for your home.

Brighten it Up. Even if you are partial to darker shades, the entryway is a place for a little lighter and brighter palette. You want guests to get a burst of energy as they walk in, so use lighter shades that complement your darker interior palettes. That way, the first impression isn’t gloomy or cave-like. If your entryway lacks natural light, consider adding a solar tube or skylight. Change the light fixture out for one that has more reflective or refractive qualities – perhaps a metallic or glass chandelier, for example, that will maximize the light.

Add a Mirror. Speaking of reflective qualities, it’s a rare entryway that isn’t dressed up by a mirror. In addition to enhancing illumination and making a smaller or more narrow space feel larger, it’s nice to give guests a space to take a peek and fix any stray hairs or wardrobe mishaps that may have taken place between their car and your doorstep. Similarly, on the way out, it gives women a spot to reapply lipstick or for men to adjust their coats and ties before heading to their next destination. Again, choose a mirror with a frame that somehow ties into other furnishings in the main living spaces.

Create Interior Design Echoes. Look around at your interior and see if it is echoed by your entryway. Are there similar lines or shapes? What about textures and fabric? Is the entryway formal while the rest of your home is casual? If the entryway isn’t an echo of your home, it can create a disconnect of sorts. Find ways to repeat basic design principles as well as specific motifs, so the entryway resonates with the rest of your design.

Add Personal Touches. Sometimes, people fear that adding personal touches will take away from their “picture perfect” entryway. Quite the contrary. The entryway of this Suburban Oasis in San Francisco is a prime example of why personalization matters. These homeowners hired me to create a transitional design in their new home. The entryway is striking with its high ceilings and fun mish-mash of arches and angles. However, all that open space, combined with a cool color palette and hard surface flooring could easily have come across as stark and modern. Instead, we installed two colorful pots with indoor plants (literally adding life to the space) as well as gorgeous shelves that are laden with family keepsakes and more greenery. It completely changed the energy of space.

Consider adding seating. If you have the space for it, it’s nice to add some seating options. The easiest and most space-saving way to do this is to use a bench that can run along the wall. Not only does it give people a chance to sit down to add/remove shoes or boots, it also gives you a place to display some fun art or collectibles, and provides a spot where guests can place their purses or bags – just be careful that it doesn’t become a clutter catchall.

Once you’ve run through this entryway checklist, the space is bound to be a more personalized and stylish entryway than it was before.