professional interior designer

Choosing Furniture

February 10, 2019

Let’s go furniture shopping!

There’s an exciting thought. Until you think it. Then it can seem somewhat daunting. Furnishing a home is no easy feat and the ultimate goal should be to select timeless pieces that can be used for decades to come – even if their rooms, placement, location and orientation change down the road.

Here are some guidelines for choosing furniture that you and your guests can enjoy for a long time to come.

Take the Long and Winding Road Approach

Home design is not stagnant. It is a living, breathing thing that changes and evolves along with your tastes and lifestyle. That being said, it also doesn’t make sense to reinvent the home design wheel once a year, as remodels and renovations are time and cost consuming. Therefore, interior home designs should be timeless enough to last a while, but changeable enough to accommodate shifts in seasons and styles.

The same goes for your furniture. Choose pieces that can be moved around fairly easily so your living room or family room can accommodate better party flow or more intimate conversations, depending on the gathering.

Consider things like:

Swivel chairs that move to accommodate conversation or enjoy the view out a picture window.
Enough light-but-comfortable pieces that can be easily moved (poufs and ottomans are examples of these).
Smaller end- or coffee tables that serve as portable surfaces.

Consider Size and Shape

Yes, you want to invest in versatile furnishings but you also want them to fit the room they’re in. Proportion is important. Your furniture should always accommodate comfortable flow as well as a sense of the room’s spaciousness.

In most cases, you want at least 36-inches between the edge of a piece of furniture and an adjacent object so people can walk and move comfortably around the space. Draw your rooms to scale using graph paper, and take these with you when furniture shopping to ensure potential furnishings will fit well.

Think About Materials and Textiles

The materials and textiles you select should reflect your lifestyle and the building occupants needs. If you live alone or are empty-nesters, you can be slightly less selective since wear-and-tear isn’t as much of an issue – – unless you own pets. If you have children, pets or grandchildren that visit on a more regular basis, you will want to select furnishings and textiles that can take a bit of a beating.

These days, designer fabric and upholstery designers offer fabulous prints and designs in high-quality indoor-outdoor fabric, allowing you to enjoy a designer look without having to fret every time a dirty paw or errant chocolate chip comes in contact with the furnishing.

Consider Adding a Few Custom Pieces

One of the best things to come out of my years of working as an interior designer are the contacts I have made with artists and furniture makers throughout the Bay Area and beyond. This provides clients the ability to enjoy custom furniture for a much more affordable price. Custom pieces can transform a room’s design.

Custom furniture pieces are ideal for unique or hard-to-fit spaces, rooms or niches. They can be used to put the finishing touch on a particular “look” or to meet your personal lifestyle needs. Maybe you need that perfect reading or napping nook, or a corner cabinet to house your prized wine opener collection. Designing a custom furniture piece is a way to put your ultra-personal mark on your home’s interior design.

7 Questions To Ask Your Potential Interior Designer

January 28, 2019

Did you know you don’t have to hire the first interior designer you schedule a consultation with? Quite the opposite. Your consultations should be viewed more like professional interviews. It’s a chance for you and designer to sit down, talk about your hopes and visions, and get a feel for one another so you can determine whether or not it’s a good fit. You’ll be working very closely together – maybe for a long time depending on the scope of the work – so a personal connection is almost as important as the designer’s capabilities and talents.

Bonus for you: by scheduling three to five consultations, you’ll glean a host of free ideas that you can put to use when you get started on the official remodel or renovation.

7 Questions to Ask During Consultations With an Interior Designer

Here is a simple list of questions that will yield important information while simultaneously allowing you to learn more about the prospective designer, her philosophy and her general style.

Can you work with our budget? Unless funds are unlimited, you must have a budget for any given home improvement project. This figure should be set, fixed and firm to keep your sanity and make sure you don’t get in over your head. Build in a 10% to 15% emergency contingency. Once you have this figure set, you’ll be able to run it by your prospective designers to see if they can work with it or not.
How do you charge? In most cases, designers charge by the hour or by the room. Or, they may have an entirely different fee structure. This can greatly alter the total price of your design from designer to designer so make note of how they charge and determine which fee structure you feel the most comfortable with.
When are your fees due? It’s no surprise that money is often the most stressful aspect of a design (notice the first 3 questions are all about finances?), which is why it’s so important to have complete transparency. Does your interior designer want half now and the balance upon completion? Does she prefer to receive installment payments? Get all of the financial agreements in writing and signed so there is no room for misinterpretation.
What is your design forte? In theory, every professional interior designer would be able to create a perfect version of any design you desire. In truth, we’re human and we all have our own design fortes. If you are a hardcore modernist, you’re best off working with a designer who specializes in modern design. If you like things a little more eclectic, seek a designer with a portfolio laden with funky-chic designs.
Can you show me examples of my style/budget/ideas in your portfolio? And, of course, seeing is believing. Take time to review their portfolio. Can you see yourself living in any of their designs – especially those at your price point? If not, they may not be the designer for you.
Do you offer industry discount fees? The longer a designer has been in business, the more connections she gleans along the way. These connections often result in discount fees for furnishings and textiles that can be passed along to the client.
Can you provide professional references? Don’t neglect the power of references. It’s good to speak with people who have worked with the designer so you can get a better feel for how she operates, how she handles challenges or hiccups, and so on. This input often seals the deal on who a client hires.

Displaying Your Fabulous Collections

January 25, 2019

I once had a wonderful client who collected pigs. The last time I visited her home, she had more than 350 different porcine replicas of all shapes and sizes. When I met her, the bulk of them were jam packed into an entryway curio cabinet, while the rest were scattered about her home or stored in boxes.

While the curio cabinet was fascinating to study, it really wasn’t the best way to display her prized pigs because:

It was overcrowded.
They were mostly the same, small-ish figurine size.
None of the pigs, some of which were old, beautiful and/or valuable ever got to live in the limelight.

She has since passed on, but the lessons I learned while creating different ways to display her abundant collection have served my client roster for many years now.

10 Ways to Let Your Collection Shine

If you aren’t careful, the word Collection can become synonymous with Clutter. Here are 10 ways to make sure that doesn’t become the case with your prized collectibles!

Whittle It Down. There is a danger in letting anyone know you “collect” something; friends and family inundate you with apropos collectibles every holiday, birthday or as souvenirs from their recent travels. This makes for many (maybe even dozens) of items you never would have chosen on your own. Don’t keep a single thing you don’t really like. Go through your current collections and eliminate the ones you think are tacky or just don’t really jive with your preferences. This will keep your collections more stylish.
Use a divided case. Using a divided case is a good way to highlight individual pieces or a few pieces that share a theme. The segregated sections create a literal “frame” around the pieces, making it easier for the eye to take them in one at a time.
Go bonkers. The antidote to eliminating clutter is to display your clutter with style. Build shelves or cubbies to show off every single piece of your collection from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Have a hat collection? Make a hat wall. All those baskets? Hang them all over the room. This is a particularly successful method in an office, a long foyer or entryway or down a long hallway.
Use cabinets with multiple shelves. If you choose to use curio cabinets, select versions that have different shelf heights or depths so the pieces don’t run into one another – creating a featureless sea.
Install upper-wall shelves. If your collectibles are on the bigger side – think lunch boxes, globes, antique hat boxes – create tasteful displays favorite pieces in one or more living spaces. Then, have upper-shelves installed just below the ceiling to display the rest. They end up creating visual interest in an area of wall space that is normally devoid of décor, while elevating the items up and out of the way so they don’t create clutter or take up valuable square footage.
Find a vintage display case. Display them in a case meant for displaying. Scour antique stores and flea marts and keep your eye out for a vintage or quirky display case, like the ones used in old general stores.
Rotate them. One of the ways we improved my aforementioned pig-collecting client’s collection was by rotating them. We cleared out about 75% of her entryway curio cabinet. She culled some of the lesser-loved and just-plain-faded or falling apart members, and then she kept the rest in a closet. Every few months, she rotated the figurines, which kept the collection fresh.
Donate your collection to each room. Rather than having a single space or two that’s devoted to your collection, create small displays in each room of your house, using whatever display method makes the most sense for each room. Perhaps those high-wall shelves make sense for the family room and kitchen, while a sideboard cluster makes sense in the dining room and the kitchen can enjoy an antique spice cabinet used as a display.
Don’t forget the bookshelves. Rows and rows of vertically aligned books are boring. Instead, break up your book collections by stacking some of the books horizontally. Then leave a nice sizable gap to display collectibles before resuming another run of books.
Use corner collections. Keep an eye out for tasteful corner shelves that suit your décor and fill them with your collection. Corners are notorious for being interior design “dead zones,” so move that houseplant elsewhere and create more room for your collection instead.

Do you feel like your collection has grown beyond your ability to display it attractively? Never fear. I firmly believe that “where there’s a will, there’s a way!”

The Tiny House Movement

January 24, 2019

The tiny house movement is holding steady. Birthed amidst a trifecta of events – tiny houses were inspired by the market crash of 2008, the uprising of new college grads that refuse to take on large mortgage debt when already up to their ears in school loans, and parallel conservation trends that look for ways to live large with less.

Want to work less and play more? Want to sacrifice some material goods in an effort to live sustainably? Interested in having a comfortable place to live while you slowly build a mortgage-free home? The tiny house movement makes all this possible.

Tiny House vs Big House – Fun Facts and Comparisons

Before we start fantasizing about HGTV-worthy tiny houses – and boy are they cute – let’s look at a few interesting facts.

According to thetinylife.com:

The cost of owning an average, single-family home (2100 sq ft) over 30-years is roughly $1,073,000 (that includes purchase price, loan interest, repairs, and maintenance, etc.
The cost of owning a tiny house for 30-years – assuming you buy a piece of land to put it on – can run about half the cost of a conventional home, but over the course of 30-years, you save hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes, HO insurance, utilities, and repairs.
68% of tiny house homeowners are mortgage-free, compared with only 29.3% of all homeowners.
89% of tiny house owners have less credit card debt than the average American, and 65% of them are living debt free.

As you would assume from the name and the concept, those who get on board the tiny house train are innately drawn to getting more for less out of life – and keeping themselves detached from the American credit/debt consumption cycle.

Tiny Home Living Requires a Different Way of Being

Now, all that financial benefit is fantastic, but it comes at a price. For most of us, that is a complete restructuring of how we live our lives. The average tiny home is about 189-square feet, while the average American home is 2100 square feet. There are examples of families living in tiny homes, but realistically this way of life works best for singletons and couples. A moderate climate is also a good thing to aim for so substantial outdoor deck space can compensate for the lack of indoor square footage.

And, perhaps, what it really means is that we have to go back to how we lived before. When you consider that most people on the planet live in significantly less than 2100 square feet, perhaps the tiny house movement isn’t the movement at all – it’s the way things have mostly been; it is actually the “big house” movement that began sweeping the world by storm – specifically during the post-war era.

Even so, going from big to small requires a different way of planning, thinking and being. Here are things to consider if you’re thinking about building or buying a tiny house:

Does your city or town allow tiny houses?

If you want to build a tiny house as a guest space, office or studio, you may be able to fudge it without permits. However, if you plan to live in one, you want to make sure they are legal – or can be permitted – where you live. Otherwise, you can run into trouble with the building department.

Do you have a way to transport it legally?

While they do fall under recreational motor vehicles (the same way a motorhome or RV does) they aren’t designed to move around on a regular basis. And, after construction, yours may be slightly wider than the legal DMV width limit. Make sure you’ve dotted your “i”s and crossed your “t”s with the DMV before you haul yours on a major roadway.

Choose the smartest interior design you can find

Living in a tiny home is like living in a ship; there’s a place for everything, everything in its place, and it has to be very efficiently designed or you’ll have wasted precious inches that could have been more thoughtfully put to use. Spend a lot of time looking at various tiny house designs, like the ones here on tinyhousebuild.com, to find a plan that makes the most efficient use of space in a way that’s best for you.

I’m fascinated by the tiny house life – and I love the idea of owning one as a means of having a smaller primary home with additional space that is only consuming heating/cooling and other resources when in use. As for a primary living space – it’s not the answer for our household. It’s sure fun to fantasize, though.

6 Ways To Spruce Up Your Entryway

January 22, 2019

Your porch is all ready to greet your holiday guests when they pull up to the house. But how’s your entryway looking once they cross the threshold? Creating a welcoming and noteworthy entryway makes a wonderful first impression. In fact, the “tone” of the household is set here, so it’s worth taking a moment to assess your entryway and make any small tweaks (or large ones) that can spruce it up and make it worthy of your home.

6 Ideas For Creating an Entryway That is Guest-Ready

Give it a deep clean. These days, many of us enter our homes through a garage and/or kitchen door. Even neighbors and frequent guests may use a side or back door. That means the entryway is often a rather stale and lifeless mausoleum – a collector of corner-anchored fur balls, cobwebs and a layer of dust. So, first things first! Get your bucket and scrup brush, the feather duster and wood polish – and then do a thorough cleaning from top to bottom, including the light fixtures and wood details.
Give it a little color. A fresh coat of paint can continue the goal of the entryway cleanup, making it look even more fresh. Choose a color that complements your current décor – but maybe one that ads a little more warmth or va-va-voom to the space.
Create a wall gallery. When guests walk in the front door, what do they see? Is there a blank wall ahead or alongside of them? Create a more interesting visual by using a single, striking piece of art – or arrange an eclectic cluster from mismatched pieces you have stuck away. I’ve even seen clients frame scraps of unused wallpaper from other rooms in the house, which is a fun way to “set the tone,” as I mentioned above.
Add or change out the area rug or runner. Do you have a welcome mat only? Anchor the entryway space a little more using a properly sized area rug. If your entryway forms a narrow hallway that spills into the rest of the home, use a runner that draws the eye and leads guests “down the red carpet”. Make sure your front door can clear it easily and that it doesn’t get caught up on any other furnishings.
Add an interesting light fixture. Odds are your entryway has a ceiling-mounted or suspended fixture. But, is it truly interesting? If you moved into a subdivision, odds are you chose from a standard collection or a home where the standard option was chosen for you. Switch it out for something more interesting. A table with a lamp or a floor lamp is another homey addition, and it will create a nice ambient blow in the evening time. Whatever you do, make sure the light isn’t harsh or glaring, which can cause people to squint when entering from the outdoors on a dark night.
Take advantage of reflection. If your foyer is tiny, take advantage of a mirror or reflective surfaces. Not only will they provide the illusion of more space, when they reflect the existing space back at you, they will also capitalize on any natural or artificial light. If the space allows, be thoughtful about what is reflected in the mirror, placing an attractive or interesting object directly opposite if possible.