interior design Archives - Page 6 of 20

How To Design A Kid’s Room With Personality | Mastering The Art of The Mix

I can’t tell you how stoked I was to see Noah’s room featured on MyDomaine last week! As a deft curator of cool, MyDomaine is one of my benchmarks for rockstar design status, so the feature was definitely a design career highlight. It also never hurts to be described as an interior designer with “an incredible sense of style and an amazing ability to balance the old, new, bold, restrained, and playful” while being given the title of “coolest mom around.” Hey, I’ll take it!

PHOTO by ASHLEY CAPP

This bedroom was definitely all about the art of the mix. Noah’s a pretty sophisticated kid, so I knew it needed to reflect his passion for design and his love of details while having a vibrant, modern vibe and a hefty dose of vintage mixed in for good measure.

If you’re looking to create an eclectic space of your own – whether for a kid or a grown-up – here are some tips you can take to the bank.

No.1: TAKE YOUR CUES FROM THE BRIDE

PHOTO by ASHLEY CAPP

You know the old wedding superstition that a bride should always wear something old and new, something borrowed and blue? Well it totally applies to good design…at least, the first half does!

NEW: We totally fell in love the moment we laid eyes on the bold and vibrant duvet cover and shams from Aura Home {now available at The Bay for all my fellow Canadian design lovahs}. We knew they were the perfect choice to function as our modern centrepiece {OK, and our something blue *wink*}

OLD: Old can also mean traditional, or an older style, and I knew we needed to juxtapose those modern bed linens with some traditional touches. Enter a traditionally tufted headboard {covered in luscious black velvet from Kravet and beautifully upholstered by Barrymore}, and a gorgeous traditional rug from Kaarma. Hello lovelies!

VINTAGE: There’s old and then there’s antique, and nothing can take the place of the personality and style that real antiques add to a space. Would you believe I found these vintage French Art Deco side tables on eBay? Seriously the score of the century!

QUIRK-FEST: The whimsical deer head from Cardboard Safari {his name is Bucky} is the perfectly quirky mascot for the space, and he plays so nicely against the traditionally panelled feature wall.

Add some modern table lamps from West Elm and a naturally shed antler we picked up antiquing for an added dollop of quirk, and we can officially dub ourselves design mixologists!

The mix-master recipe? MODERN + TRADITIONAL + VINTAGE + QUIRK = PERFECTION.

No. 2: YOU’VE GOT SOUL BUT YOU’RE NOT A SOLDIER

PHOTOS by ASHLEY CAPP

If you’ve been following me for very long, you’ll know I’m a passionate believer in original art. As I always say, it’s the soul of the space. When it comes to kids’ rooms, though, that can be a scary investment for some as you know your kids’ interests and tastes will change. If that’s you, I have three suggestions for you:

ONE, start with smalls, like the two canvases you see on Noah’s dresser above. The outdoor hockey scene is by one of my favourite figurative artists, Elizabeth Lennie, and the piece on the left by Kelly Grace depicts an evening at the fair, complete with ferris wheel and food vendors. Not only are they fun and story-filled pieces full of life, but they are totally timeless and I’ll be happy to reabsorb them into my own collection should Noah ever tire of them.

TWO, art doesn’t just belong on walls. I love styling bookshelves and the tops of dressers with art to bring soul to every corner of a space. I also love the silver easel from Indigo as the perfect way to vary the heights of a grouping without hanging a single thing.

THREE, create a gallery wall with pieces that aren’t too precious so that it can evolve over time. Noah’s gallery wall is made up of vintage postcards of New York City bridges that I picked up at the Williamsburg Flea a few years ago, a mysterious moustached man from Mitchell Black, an inspiring quote/art print from Lisa Congdon, a stunning photograph of icebergs from Canadian photographer Irene Suchocki, and a reproduction vintage blueprint of a bridge I picked up from Touch of Modern. The grouping tells a story of Noah’s current interest in architecture and travel and our hope that he’ll always stay curious. The quote on the Lisa Congdon piece is by Thoreau and reads:

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

No. 3: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE MAGIC OF A GOOD WARDROBE

PHOTOS by ASHLEY CAPP

When it came time to plan out the storage for Noah’s space, we had some pretty big hurdles to overcome. There was just one very small closet shoved into the right-hand corner of the closet wall. It was totally awkward to the room layout and even worse, it just didn’t leave us enough space for all of Noah’s cool threads. Even moreso, the remaining wall space – which would typically be the right place for a dresser – came so far into the room that there wouldn’t have been any clearance to open his drawers.

Gratefully, there was another under-utilized closet on the other side of that wall facing into the hallway that connects Noah’s bedroom to his bathroom. Remember this hallway with the gorgeous chevron floors and dove grey panelled walls?

PHOTOS by ASHLEY CAPP

Well, we grabbed the closet from the hallway and flipped it into Noah’s room and – with one move of stealthy designer ju-jitsu floor planning – we tripled his storage space with two closets the size of his original and room for his dresser to sit in between. Yes, it required filling in the hardwood underneath his dresser {which was no small DIY feat} but it was totally worth it.

In actually fact, we more than tripled his storage space. The closets themselves are IKEA cabinets with all of the awesome organizational “guts” that they offer – think customized pants hangers and the like – and we broke both closets up into half-hanging which means double the storage per closet. So I guess we quintupled his storage? Awesome.

You’d never guess they were IKEA cabinets from the outside, and that’s because we customized them in three ways:

ONE, end gables. The end gables had to be super slim in this case to leave enough room for the dresser, so we just used some super-thin masonite and painted it out the room colour for a very simple fix to the non-paintable sides of the melamine cabinet’s exterior.

TWO, custom doors. MDF slabs + panel moulding + paint + an awesome hubby = modern classic custom doors to drool over! #winning

THREE, interesting door hardware. Finish off the gorgeous DIY doors with texturally interesting faux bone door pulls from Anthropologie and the finished product screams Paris apartment. Totally my vibe. The hardware on the dresser is also from Anthro. Paint It Like New! sprayed out his existing, yawn-worthy espresso stained dresser in Para Paints’ Jet Black, and the contrasting cream and brass pulls totally elevate the sophistication level from “so yesterday” to “on point” in a wink.

So, are you ready to master the art of the mix? Which room are you tackling next? I’ve got my sights set on another space in our home and am just itching to get started. Soon I hope!

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|July 28th, 2015|0 Comments

The Cure For A Boring Bathroom | New Ravenna Neutrals

“Beige is a colour that just doesn’t try hard enough in life.” So says my son Noah who clearly has a strong opinion about how to decorate. I love that he’s interested in how to make a visual statement, and I understand why he might feel the need to avoid neutrals, but is he right? I love him to pieces, but I don’t think so.

Take the latest collection of mosaic tiles from New Ravenna. The collection may be shades of grey {not beige}, but it clearly proves that neutral is anything but boring.

Texture. Pattern. Dimension. Detail. Contrast. Everything you need to take a bathroom {or backsplash, for that matter} from boring to breathtaking. This latest collection only underscores my belief that any product designed by an artist will have soul. Sara Baldwin’s latest artistry comes alive with her use of jewel glass and marble in mosaics and water-jet cut patterns that are at once modern and a reinvention of the best of tile design history over the ages.

Take for example “Kelp Forest,” an intricate, water-jet mosaic in glass that gestures at Art Deco with its undulating waves of cool perfection.

Even a classic hexagon is brought to life with the dimension and natural variation in this gorgeous grey stone.

New Ravenna inspires with endless options on how to elevate your next bathroom design to an unparalleled level of luxury and artistic sophistication. From tile carpets to feature walls to statement floors and delicate insets, the opportunity to create designs with delicious details is limitless. I hope you are as inspired as I am!

xo
s.

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|July 7th, 2015|0 Comments

Gifts With Heart: Your Curated Gift Guide to a Compassionate Christmas | The Citizenry

You know that moment when you feel like you’ve found your people? They share the same love languages, the same aesthetic, they’re passionate about the same things you are, and when you look at what they are all about you keep saying “Me too!” Yeah. That.

The folks at The Citizenry are my people.

A brilliant marriage of beautiful design and compassionate purpose, with The Citizenry‘s collection, neither is compromised. Each makes the other more beautiful. And together, they leave you utterly inspired. That’s why I am beyond excited to feature them as a part of my Gift Guides for a Compassionate Christmas.

ONE: DEL CAMPO INDIGO BLANKET // TWO: NADIRA TABLE LAMP //

THREE: PALERMO COPPER BUTTERFLY CHAIR // FOUR: ADIA WOODEN PLANTERS //

FIVE: CREAM + INDIGO FLAT WOVEN RUG // SIX: LIGHT HORN TUMBLER SET

By personally traveling to each artisan country and using only local materials, the team at The Citizenry has created sustainable relationships with their artisans. And by selling directly online, they’re able to offer handmade goods – crafted with the highest quality materials – at more reasonable prices than traditional luxury boutiques.

I love the philosophy behind their name: THE CITIZENRY.

“We set out to build a company that celebrates the people behind our products. Our name is a reflection of the collective of individuals – artisans, designers, and dreamers – who rally together across cultures and continents to craft our collections. The Citizenry is our way of sharing these stories and products with you.”

The designs are so beautiful that you’d love them without that backstory, but knowing the beautiful process behind the products makes them the kind of treasures you can happily share stories about at dinner parties for, like, ever.

As a designer, I’m in love with the entire collection. The modern aesthetic and their use of wood alone had me at hello. And that butterfly chair with the copper frame? Come. On. Needless to say, you will not go wrong in choosing a gift for the design lover in your life from their collection.

To sweeten the deal, they’ve offered a couple of lovely little perks for my readers:

1) They always offer free shipping within the continental US, but they have happily offered a code for free international shipping on all orders (including rugs and chairs!!) for my fellow Canadians. Use code: FIRSTCLASSTICKET

2) Free gift wrapping on an unlimited number of items. Click here to add gift wrapping, and then use code WRAPPEDWITHLOVE at checkout and the $5/package gift wrapping costs will be removed! Easy peasy and delivered right to your door with the proverbial bow on top.

I hope this makes giving gifts with heart a little easier for you this year! I truly believe the most beautiful gifts are ones that don’t compromise on either the process or the product.

xo
s.

P.S. A little shipping/shopping nitty gritty for you below:

USA, to deliver on or before Wed, Dec 24…

Standard/free: Order by Sun, Dec 21 (midnight CST)

Express 2-day: Order by Mon, Dec 22 (midnight CST)

INTERNATIONAL, to deliver on or before Wed, Dec 24…

Standard for all countries, excluding Canada and Mexico: Order by Sun, Dec 14 (midnight CST)

Standard for Canada and Mexico: Order by Wed, Dec 17 (midnight CST)

Express: contact support@the-citizenry.com

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|December 9th, 2014|1 Comment