Joanna's Living Room, Part 1

I am so behind on posting photos of completed projects! I have several to share with you guys over the coming weeks.

First up is Joanna Goddard's living room. I know many of you read Joanna's blog - she is a style maven and truly one of the most lovely, genuine people I've ever met!

Joanna and her awesome husband, Alex, have a really great pre-war apartment in the West Village. They had some nice pieces in their space already and just needed a little help with the details and reworking a few areas.

As a side note - I've learned over the years that I'm really sensitive to the balance of warm and cool colors in a room. Sometimes I confuse my clients with all my talk of color 'temperature'! In Alex and Joanna's case, the room in it's before state was altogether too warm - lots of oranges and reds. Rust red couch, orangey red (bare) wood floors, wooden bookcase and tv stand, yellowy cream chairs, etc.

{some before shots...}

To balance out all the warm oranges in the room, I sewed some simple, long blue linen rod-pocket panels for the windows. I found the pretty linen at a fabric warehouse for $3/yard.

Joanna needed a desk in the room, and we really scored on craigslist with this vintage sawhorse-leg stunner!

I spray painted a very inexpensive, but high-quality vintage office chair a pale gray color. I think it was Krylon's 'Medium Gray.'

The rug is Pottery Barn's Tangiers rug, which we got on eBay. Joanna reported to me that the rug did shed quite a bit for the first months especially, but she just vacuumed and it wasn't a big deal. I love the look of a Moroccan wool rug, and this one was very reasonably priced for an 8x10 and is really soft.

We painted the existing coffee table black to break up all the wood pieces in the room.

I found a campaigner chest that needed some love and painted that black too. The brass reading lamp was also a great vintage find. I love that little lamp so much.

The tv stand is one of my favorite parts of the room. Alex and Joanna had been using a old side table as a tv stand and it just wasn't working. They wanted a new piece with open shelving. I found this really old and very beat up chest at a flea market for pennies.

The most challenging part was the ripped veneer.

I cleaned up the jagged edges with a razor and then covered the whole spot with wood filler using a putty knife.

I had to also fill in the old hardware holes and drilled new holes for simple ring pulls that I've used before in other projects (they're my favorite).

After the filler was completely dry, the whole piece got a really good sanding, then primer and paint (Martha Stewart for Valspar in "Olive Oil').

I was really happy with the color and scale of the piece. It fits the room perfectly!

Come back tomorrow for the second half of Alex and Joanna's living room...

{PS HUGE thanks to Karen Mordechai for taking many of these photos above. Karen is a fabulously talented New York-based photographer. You should check out her portfolio, especially if you have a wedding coming up!}

READ MORE - Joanna's Living Room, Part 1

Joanna's Living Room, Part 2

Joanna has a beautiful fireplace in her living room. We both loved the look of stacked firewood, so I bought a couple of reams of wood at a nursery (though they sell firewood everywhere - even Home Depot).

I had to cut a couple of inches off the length of some of the logs because the sides sloped in a little. I'm so happy with this look and think it's a great way to add an organic/rustic element to any room with a fireplace (especially of the non-working variety).

Another great feature in Joanna's living room is the wall of built-in bookshelves. All we did here was paint the shelf backs with Benjamin Moore's Horizon - one of my very favorite blue grays.

We whipped this project out in just a few minutes using this great little tool called a paint edger.

The subtle color really adds a lot to the color balance of the room, I think.

Joanna had this great little captain's mirror hanging in another room, but it just looked so perfect hung here on the shelving moulding. We tapped in a wall brad to hang the mirror, but 3M Picture Hanging Strips would also do the trick if you're worried about damaging the surface of your built-ins.

We liked the idea of creating sort of a reading nook in front of the bookshelves. I found this CRAZY heavy and huge vintage swing arm lamp at an antique shop, and thought the scale would be fun and could hold it's own in front of a wall of books.

I taped up the cord and the bulb inner workings and spray painted it a blue color from Sherwin Williams.

On the opposite side of the room, where you enter the living room, is also near the front door of the apartment. The space was perfect for this vintage brass bar cart, which is sort of dual purpose and acts as an entry console too.

I think every room needs a decent sized mirror to reflect light and brighten a space. The ceilings in this apartment are really high, so we needed a really long and narrow mirror to hang above the bar cart. I found this one for a couple dollars at a local thrift shop.

It looks better than new with a few coats of Benjamin Moore's Gentlemen's Gray (one of my very favorite moody colors).

A little tip for painting mirrors: I used to be really intense about taping off the mirror part before painting the frame. It would literally take me three times as long to tape off the mirror as it would to get the actual painting done! And then I would be so frustrated after pulling off the tape only to see the old finish reflecting underneath the edges of the frame. So now I don't tape anything - I just paint as much as is necessary to cover all the old finish so that it's not peeking out anywhere. I really dig my brush down under the edge of the frame and the paint usually gets all over the mirror, but I still leave it all to dry for a day or two. After the paint has cured, I spray the mirror down with windex and use a paper towel to clean up the mirror surface. It's like magic! The paint comes right off the mirror, but stays on the frame. Sometimes if I'm feeling ambitious, I'll run a razor blade around the borders of the frame to sort of perforate the paint before cleaning it up with the windex. Works like a charm!

Next up: the Nursery!

{Again, a HUGE thanks to Karen Mordechai for taking many of these photos above. Karen is a fabulously talented New York-based photographer. You should check out her portfolio, especially if you have a wedding coming up!}

READ MORE - Joanna's Living Room, Part 2

Toby's Nursery, Part 2

Here are some more projects from Joanna's adorable baby boy's nursery...

The goal was to find a vintage dresser that could double as a changing table - because we all know that most of the changing tables on the market these days are pretty blah. I found this mid-century piece for a steal at a flea market. The dimensions were just right for the room and for a standard changing pad.

I lightly sanded the whole piece and cleaned it really well. Then I spray painted the body of the dresser red.

The drawers were painted white for a fun contrast. And we purchased two new blue milk glass knobs for the top drawer. I love the way the dresser looks with the AMAZING Sharon Montrose baby deer print! What a talented woman!

The brown gingham changing pad cover is from this great site that sells every changing pad color under the rainbow. The lamp is from IKEA. And we put a vintage blue suitcase under the dresser for some additional storage.

We wanted a mirror above the bed to reflect light from the window. So another painted thrift store mirror came to the rescue!

Before:

And after:

The headboard was an inexpensive project. I just had some plywood cut down at Home Depot, and then upholstered the plywood with an egg crate mattress topper, some batting and navy and white striped Ralph Lauren fabric.

Next to the bed is another vintage dresser that I got for a steal and refurbished with paint and new knobs. And on top of the dresser is a lamp that I liked for the size and style and the touch of wood on the arms, but the brushed nickel wasn't working for me.

Here are the befores:

And the after:

Don't you love the little yellow stool? It's from Home Goods! The little family of brass elephants are from a flea market, but you can find some just like it on etsy. And I LOVE Joanna's beautiful egg lamp. It makes the nursery like a little planetarium!

And that's it for little Toby's nursery! I hope you enjoyed the tour.

A big thanks to Joanna for being so wonderful to work with and another huge thanks to NYC photographer, Karen Mordechai, for many of the beautiful images above.

READ MORE - Toby's Nursery, Part 2

Pink, but not too precious

Decorating a house takes a lot of time and a lot of money. If you live in a huge house, it takes even more time and more money. I've been working with a handful of my clients for a really long time on their large homes. We sort of take things piecemeal and I'm cool with that. I like working in layers.

This client has a large and lovely home and though she likes the look of her home to fall on the less cluttered side, I'd say we're about 75% there with her decorating projects. But I think it's good to take a break, let the new furniture settle in a bit and begin to prepare for the next layer.

I got some of the progress photos from this home last week and I thought I'd share a few shots. You'll probably remember the night stand project from this old post.

I think this home is the perfect mix of high and low furnishings. The couple spends on only things they really, really love and plan to keep for a long time.

These were two inspiration images for the oldest daughter's room:

Suzanne Kasler

Sources:
Wall color: Benjamin Moore Pale Oak
Chair: LEE Industries in Raspberry Strie velvet
Pouf: Tazi Designs
Bed: Oly Studio Helena
Sheets: Serena and Lily
Duvet: Pine Cone Hill (Hannah in pink)
Quilt and shams: Matteo
Box spring cover: Restoration Hardware Matelasse in Blush
Rug: Wool broadloom that looks a lot like seagrass but is really quite soft.
Pink chevron pillow: Fabricadabra
Nightstand: Homegoods DIY knock-off of Bungalow 5 night stand
Side table: Restoration Hardware Baby
Lamps: Pottery Barn
Curtains: Made them from inexpensive but nice, heavy weight linen I found on Fabric Row in Philly

It was a perfect match with the duvet. We really wanted a coral, peachy pink for the room, so this fabric was a big find.

The placement of the windows and the queen-sized bed made curtains tricky. We opted for one wide panel at each window pulled to the side with a tie-back. It's hard to see, but we added a thick band of creamy white linen to the leading edge. This was our inspiration photo.

Ruthie Sommers for Domino

We're getting there! Layers! We've talked about putting up a big wall of fabric-covered cork board in a coral and white stripe for pinning up homework and artwork, etc. There's also some cute pink movie posters that need to go up.

READ MORE - Pink, but not too precious