Design Reveal: Cozy in Capital Hill

Hello and happy Thanksgiving week, friends! I sit here writing to you during a very soggy day when life outside seems to slow and quiet for a bit. In fact, if not for the pounding rain I likely wouldn’t have sat down to share this recent project! I so appreciate when God nudges me towards a slower day that I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen for myself. Taking the time to look over these images of work I was able to do this past year just reminds me how tethered creativity is to my Creator. I am grateful not only for this work but the passion that fuels it!

This project was attractive to me from the get-go. While the house was updated, there was charming evidence of it’s age still lingering around and I couldn’t wait to get rolling! The absolute perfect person for this home had recently bought it and as a first time home owner, wanted to invest in her new space well and thoughtfully. So we set out to work through her new home together, room by room. While each space is uniquely designed with it’s own palette, there is consistency in the depth of the colors. Sameness is not the only route to cohesion.

Let’s check it out!

Master bedroom

Deep green walls, ceiling and curtains - a sophisticated tone on tone display of moodiness contrasted by the white oak bed and neutral linens. I LOVE designing with contrast, and going dark on the walls and light elsewhere was really fun in here!

I had actually saved these lights long ago and then patiently waited for the right room to use them! Architectural elements are really attractive to me and I enjoy finding opportunities when they can enhance a space!

Design tip: Mix up those wood tones. When a room is full of all the same wood, it feels dated and heavy. Blending lighter tones with medium and/or darker tones gives a home a more collected feel to experience, rather than just enter.

Guest room

This quaint room is just large enough for the guest bed and home office on the other side. While there are no overlapping colors between this room and the master bedroom, I went with a complimentary rich, dusty blue tone and carried that all the way through. The traditional floral wallpaper is a nod to this homes age and the powder blue duvet a fun play with tone on tone.

Design tip: You don’t need a large room to create an accommodating guest space. When I put guest rooms together for clients it’s always with a light touch. Have fun with impactful elements that don’t take up a large footprint in the room, like pretty bed linens or a fun accent wall. If you’re like us, our guests usually stay in one of the kids’ rooms, so we clear what we can from surfaces to make room for them.

Kitchen

This kitchen. As a designer I have a deep love for transforming a space when there’s no budget for a renovation. The client did not love her kitchen in the least. The white walls, white cabinets she wouldn’t have chosen and the counters with their flecks of maroon were the low point for her. But those maroon flecks inspired everything that followed! Take a look below at the space before:

And after some magic with color, furnishing, lights and aged brass cabinet hardware!

I enjoy the challenge of taking an undesirable element, and not only making it work but making it look intentional - like it was meant to be there all along!

As is always the case with design, the vision comes before the view. I saw this space in mauve with a rich cranberry island and couldn’t see it any other way. My client has a really cool style and isn’t afraid to push the envelope, but of all the rooms in her home I held my breath on this design the most. I fully expected a negotiation process and was prepared to pivot…but she loved it!

Design tip: It’s fine to have brass, black and chrome all in the same kitchen or bathroom. This is one of the more common questions clients ask and my personal preference is more of a mix than everything being an exact match. This kitchen has a chrome faucet, antiqued brass cabinet hardware and a black framed dining light, and for this space in this home, it works really well.

Living room

My favorite aspect of working on older homes is the asymmetry - maybe because it drives most people bananas! I tend to embrace chaos and am naturally inclined towards design challenges. Here’s how I tackle asymmetry: Balance. More often than not you’ll find symmetry nearly impossible. Maybe it’s an oddly placed window, or an off center fireplace. It’s everywhere in new homes and old; workarounds that builders just have to come up with on the spot that mock all the future homeowners.

Design Tip: Instead of worrying about the asymmetry you can’t change in your home, work towards creating visual balance. There are a variety of ways to do this and each solution will be unique to the challenge and your particular style. In the image below, the fireplace was such that we could add shelving on one side but not the other. No biggie. Angling that chair towards the center of the space brings balance on both sides of the fireplace.

That’s a wrap! Bless you if you read this far. I hope you enjoyed seeing this project and getting a peek into some of the process that went into it!

Design Reveal: Color, But Make It Sophisticated

It’s a design reveal day! These are among my very favorite days of the year. The precious day when I get to share the fruit of many months, sometimes over a year, of work! I don’t share all of my work - 10% of it, in fact! So these projects that make it are truly special to me and I feel so humbled to get to share them with you friends.

Speaking of friends, the amazing client who owns this home has been an acquaintance for many, many years! Her older sister, Lori, was my Young Life leader in high school! In fact, it was Lori who suggested this effort together in the first place. Sure enough, Jenny and I hit it off right away and now is a sweet friend!

When we first connected, she wanted to completely transform her main floor, which includes a family room, dining room, den and kitchen. She had been saving up for this and was ready to hit the ground running! The main objective was to fill her home with color but make it feel grown up - whimsical yet sophisticated. Jenny realized she had gotten about as far as she could with the assortment of hand-me-downs and random pieces she’d found here and there, but (like many), the more she added to her home, the further she got from her vision.

Family Room

It may seem counterintuitive to get your walls white when you love color so much, but this was a move I really encouraged from the beginning. But not without a vision of what would come next:

I don’t think white walls are the answer for every single project, but I knew that it would be the game changer for this home; the defining factor that would enhance all the colors we were about to explode. Now, this home glows like a sunset!

I mean, it absolutely GLOWS! And there was no laying out samples of patterns and fabrics together to come up with this. I stayed in the general family of jewel tones and then ran in every possible direction. Jenny wanted allthecolors so there was really no holding back. Of course, playing off the color well are very grounding elements like the black and white rug and the camel leather ottoman. It’s all about striking balance where it matters most!

Let’s shift to the dining room!

Dining Room

Since the dining room and family room are literally side by side, I wanted to carefully craft a TOTALLY separate space that felt as exciting as the family room, without making it feel like it was a completely different house. The objective here was more cohesion than matching. A playful but black and white pattern on the walls creates a balance to the family room, while the chairs and cabinet echo the jewel tones. Again, there was no matching or looking closely to be sure that the colors ‘went’, but it was staying in the jewel tone family that I knew would be enough.

There is not a dull line of sight from any point in this home!

Den/Kitchen

Like the other areas around this main floor, there was already quite a bit of color going on. Yet, the heavy wall color and the varying tones of color between the rug, chair and decor were all competing to make this room feel very heavy and dark. The strategy in here was the same as the other spaces - get the walls a nice clean white and then build up the color using jewel tones, balanced by beautiful uses of wood and leather.

Replacing the two lower floating wood shelves with a simple white cabinet decreased the visual weight of the space, providing a relaxed balance to the assortment of color used in the pillows and rug. I have never loved fuscia more in my life! I LOVE this rug in here!

The kitchen is still in a bit of progress until tile backsplash is installed, but painting all the lower cabinets and this accent wall in a saturated teal just creates the most incredible contrast to the freshly painted white uppers (with saturated teal knobs). And just look how rich the leather stools are against this color. Oh my word! It’s just stunning.

I absolutely delight in the work I get to do and feel so incredibly grateful to be trusted with peoples homes. To be given the opportunity to work on a project SO unique like this is just such a treat. If you’ve been a part of this community for any amount of time you know this is unlike any other project I’ve shared - and that’s what I’m feeling particularly proud of right at this moment. To go all out and deliver my best work in a style that is different from my own is what I love about design! Trying new things and having so much fun playing around! I don’t like feeling boxed in or delivering only what’s expected of me; rising to a challenge and even showing something surprising satisfies so much of who I am as a person.

Next week I get to go shoot my last project of the year! It’s another doozie, just a heads up :)

Thank you so much for coming by today!

Design Reveal: Deedees Digs

Hello there! There’s no dancing around it, THIS is my favorite design project to date. I got to work with my sister! Quick story, when she was around 2/3 and I was 9, she pronounced her name (Casey), as ‘Deedee’. I was Cha-chi (Chelsea). The nicknames stuck and we use them here and there! The past year has been a whirlwind as Casey fled overcrowded NJ as the covid cases started exploding and came to live with us for a bit! Then she moved in with my folks, and just this past January moved back up to NJ! Getting to be a part of her apartment search was a fun and exciting insight into her subconscious. I learned she likes quirky spaces with interesting nooks and angles - and a strong aversion to cookie cutter! So it may be surprising that the below apartment was her winner:

It’s BASIC. And she was weary - in fact, she had seen 4 identical apartments to this one in the same building, which is precisely what she was trying to avoid. But here’s the kicker:

A million dollar view of the worlds greatest city. NYC is a global landmark herself and a place we have enjoyed visiting with our Momma over the years for girls weekends away. This Jersey Heights apartment is nestled high above charming Hoboken, with an unobstructed view of this beautiful skyline. At Christmas, the Empire State building (left window), is list up in changing colors. On Valentines day it glowed pink. There is nothing basic about this view. This apartment is on the corner of the building, so Casey’s other views look out over a bustling park busy with dogs and their owners - one of Casey’s greatest amusements. So, the views of this top floor apartment tipped the scale. But how to create that quirky, nook-y feel?

One of the first ideas I shared with Case was this washed brick wallpaper. I have NEVER used a faux stone wallpaper before and thought I never would…but this was a perfect project for it! It’s non-committal as it’s a peel and stick paper, and it does wonders for this otherwise box-like room. My Mom and Casey installed it together (without a stool or ladder, I hear), and I can’t believe how awesome it looks. Sometimes as a creative I will get really excited about an idea, and still be blown away by how awesome it turns out - like it’s a surprise lol!

Mixing up the heights of the elements in the room helps, too! Balancing high pieces with lower pieces is a great way to create some movement around a space. These shelves from Castlery were one of Casey’s early requests - a place to shelve books, and ultimately collect a whole shelf of childrens books and short stories about disabiliy (not just the career Casey has pursued but a tremendous passion of hers to learn and share through education).

The sofa itself was a complex decision - being that this is a one bedroom apartment, Casey really wanted to have a place for guests to sleep. The obvious choice was a pull-out sofa, but I was having a hard time finding pull out sofas that also functioned as long enough sofas. Most of them were in the 50-72” length, which would have been too petite for this space. I, myself, have an Article Sven sofa, and one afternoon was doing my work from it, and realized how comfortable the cushion itself is. And not only does the cushion come off, but underneath the cushion is a memory foam type padding. SO, this Article Sven sofa could sleep 2 people comfortably, but as a sofa by itself, it’s 86” length is perfect for this space.

And a typical stop in anyone’s home these days, the WFH corner (work from home). Casey does not like clutter ( we are cut from the same cloth, afterall), so having a modern secretary style desk that can close and hide all work-y materials was a perfect solution here.

Another little architectural detail one can add to make a space feel more unique is lighting! This plug-in sconce adds some height, a little shine, a little interest, and does a fantastic job illuminating the space at night so she doesn’t have to use her overhead. Thank you for installing this, Dad! My Dad could work for TaskRabbit, he’d love it.

One must-have in this apartment was closed storage. With zero closets in the main living spaces or entryway, I really wanted to give Case a place to store things like towels, linens, textbooks, etc, without cramming her small bedroom closets. This ‘sideboard’ is actually a pair of kitchen uppers bought new from Lowes, that I then painted and added legs to, while Matt added a flat top surface.

In the bedroom, the solution de quirk is the canopy bed. I didn’t want to cram a lot of things in here, but knew a canopy bed would feel very cozy and nook-like all on its own. Paired with simple bedding from Magic Linen, a cane nightstand, leather pull dresser and a woven chair (FB Marketplace), this space came together very organically. The very first element, however, was the rug! I found the rug at one of my favorite Etsy shops, Rugville. My inspiration for this room was the gorgeous sunrise that poured in over the skyline on the first morning I woke up in this room - Casey and I came up to see the place together after it became hers, and we slept a hard night on the floor. But it was so totally worth it. The surprise in the morning was like heaven kissing the city right in front of us. I wanted this room to have the same glow.

As I mentioned, this apartment is a bit short on closets. This storage piece from Vasagle is a perfect entryway drop-zone. Easy to walk around, it doesn’t take up a lot of room but it carries a heavy load.

Rugs are literally one of my favorite elements of creating a home. This was another vintage find from Etsy shop Vintport.

The kitchen is simple, cozy. We had held out hope that we’d be able to paint the cabinets something neutral, which was denied. So to suit the space, a gorgeous blue-green chair just felt right. After sorting through a few options, Cate found these while we were all sitting together one evening amongst children, video-gaming men and wine. And they’re lovely!

There you have it! A not-so-cookie-cutter apartment anymore. Shire and I have already been treated to a weekend visit and while we thoroughly enjoyed the fun of Hoboken and the neighborhood parks, it was so special to enjoy this home together at the start and end of our daytime adventures. The fun of this project is only just beginning.

Thank you so much for coming by!