living space

Preparing Your Backyard For Spring

March 13, 2018

Winter is the season for focusing on the interior of your home since darker, colder, and wetter days keep us from our favorite outdoor activities. Once spring is on the horizon, however, that balance begins to shift and it’s time to focus more on the outdoors.

How Can I Incorporate Interior Design Principles in Preparing My Backyard for Spring?

When preparing your backyard for spring, incorporating design principles effectively can help create a visually appealing and functional space. Consider elements such as balance, color, and texture to achieve harmony in your outdoor oasis. Play with different planting schemes, utilize outdoor furniture strategically, and focus on creating a cohesive atmosphere that enhances your overall backyard experience.

7 Steps to Get Your Backyard Ready for Spring

For many Bay Area homes, the backyard is an extension of the interior living spaces during the late-spring, summer and fall months. This means you should place equal attention on sprucing up your backyard space so it welcomes you and guests outdoors, and provides a comfortable space to relax, unwind, play and dine.

Spring cleaning. Take that spring-cleaning itch outside and put it to work in your backyard. If you don’t have time to do it yourself, contact a reputable local landscaping company and schedule a spring cleaning day with them. This will ensure all those old leaves, twigs and branches are moved up and out of the way. They will eliminate early weeds from the plant beds and can amend the soil and prep flower beds for your upcoming spring planting.
Fertilize. Your lawn, shrubs and trees can’t wait to sprout, bloom and grow but they need nutrients for that. This is a good time to fertilize the soil in these areas, creating the foundation for lush foliage and blooms that will transform your outdoor spaces. For the lawn, consider using a fertilizer with crabgrass pre-emergent to stop unwelcome crabgrass before it can get a tenacious hold on your lawn. Once it’s established, crabgrass is difficult to eradicate.
Give patio furniture the once-over. What’s your patio furniture looking like these days? Sometimes, the changes that happen right under our nose are the hardest to see. Thus, the fresh new patio furniture you bought last year may have faded a bit over the summer without you even noticing. Take an objective look and decide if perhaps some repainting, oiling or refinishing is in order. Maybe it’s time to purchase some new cushions and pillows for a more vibrant look as well.
Trim and Shape. Make your way from bush-to-bush, shrub-to-shrub and around any ornamentals you can safely reach. Trim and shape them once their growth is established enough to take the hit. Use YouTube as an ample source of pruning advice from the pros. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes when those unruly, fast-growing branches and shoots are trimmed back into shape. Hire a professional arborist or tree trimmer to tackle the taller, more established trees.
Update outdoor lighting. Your outdoor lighting plan is as important as your indoor version. Only in this case, safety takes a primary spot on the considerations list. Make sure that all steps and pathways and uneven areas of ground are well-illuminated after sunset. Use a combination of up- and downlighting to create ambience and to showcase hardscape and landscape features. Don’t forget soft twinkle lights and colorful strings of lanterns or stars around trees and the main gathering spots.
Use container gardens to your advantage. Container gardening is an essential element for the busy homeowner. Not only are containers smaller and easier to plant and maintain than regular planter boxes, containers can be selected for color and pattern as well. This means that empty container you haven’t gotten to quite yet will still provide beneficial visual impact to the landscape. Vary sizes, shapes and colors for extra interest.
Add that fire and/or water feature. If you don’t have these already, it’s time to invest. There are plenty of affordable, portable options if you’re a renter or simply aren’t ready to spring for a permanent version. Fire and water features add loads of atmosphere to outdoor spaces and when accompanied by comfortable seating, they provide endless hours of enjoyment, relaxation and conversation-centric zones. Another benefit of a water feature? It adds welcome white noise for homes located along busy streets or adjacent to noisy neighbors.

Creating The Perfect Gallery Wall

February 27, 2018

Adding a gallery wall to your home or office is a wonderful way to add interest, color, pattern and emotion. If you’re an art collector, it provides a way to highlight your collection; if you are a globe-trotter, it provides a way to display favorite scenes or memories from your travels. Many gallery walls combine art, photographs and mementos – however, there is a fine line between a well-executed display and one that comes off as a bit cluttered or messy.

Create a Gallery-Worthy Wall in Your Home or Office Space

The following tips will be helpful to keep in mind when assembling your own pieces and formatting the layout for a gallery wall.

Place the furniture first. One of the keys to preventing a cluttered look is to keep things in proportion. For this, you must have a clear understanding of the dimensions you’re working with, and that requires prior furniture placement so you know exactly how low or wide you can go with your pieces. Keep your wall gallery on hold until you are sure about your furniture placement, then you’ll be able to space and place your collection accordingly.
Pay attention to light. Natural light is gorgeous and a bonus to any interior design, however, it will take its toll on wall hangings, photographs and art. Pay attention to how the light spills into your room during the course of the day, and place the smallest groupings – and least important of your pieces – in areas that receive the most sunlight to reduce fading.
Hang the most important pieces first. Determine which of your pieces are the most important and hang those first. The rest of your collection and placement should be considered in relationship to your focal pieces. Your focal piece(s) should be the center of the display, everything else should move out from there.
Find a unifying theme. Perhaps it’s the frame, a specific color or symbol, or a particular genre of art – in most cases, an attractive gallery wall will have some type of unifying theme. If your art does not, consider using the same types of frames to avoid distraction. This being said, it’s a good idea to hang an atypical frame here and there, perhaps for your focal pieces, to avoid monotony.
You don’t have to measure exactly. Contrary to the mathematical formulas you may have found online, you don’t have to measure exactly. Quite the contrary. That being said, you should leave a few inches of white space between two frames to (you guessed it) prevent clutter, but also to provide each piece with a hint of independence.
You should think about a level. There is nothing more frustrating than unintentionally crooked lines. Do use a level to keep the pieces relative to one another and to spare your Type-A and decorator friends from the irrepressible urge to straighten something that can never be straightened without starting over from scratch.
Step back and view from different angles. As you go, do step back every few frames or so and walk to different areas of the room. This will help you determine if your plan is working out as you envisioned it, and will highlight any red flags so you can make changes before you’ve gone too far.
Don’t be afraid to layer or prop. Some of my favorite mantels and bookcase displays involve larger canvases that have another, smaller piece of art propped off-center on it’s surface. Simply propping a canvas against the wall adds a modern, avant-garde touch.

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.

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.