our house - Seeing Design

Published April 7, 2010 by Anne Collins Howard

Apt. Makeover: My Living Room

Pretty without the pretense, our goal was to make our living room the most inviting space in the house. It’s the first room guests see when they walk through the door so it had to look polished but, once first impressions are out of the way, the idea is to get comfy.

Living Room Before
Maroon damask and gold accents set the tone for a formal and “mature” space. And I wanted nothing to do with that. The architecture of the room with its cove molding, 19th-century fireplace, and plaster ceiling medallion already said that. What it needed was some soft, contemporary touches to counter it.

Living Room After
These 1940s French chairs are the sassiest and most sophisticated thing I’ve ever purchased. Asymmetrical and curvaceous, I love that they command attention but I wasn’t going to let them take over the room. To balance the space, I paired them with their polar opposite design: the nitty-gritty bricklayer’s table. The steel box formation and reclaimed-wood top bring a touch of boy to the semi-girly decor.

Window Frames
Since this is technically a railroad apartment, I liked the idea of adding more windows in the center of the space. These 12-glass compartments provide no extra light but the subtle reference and the photo storage is unbeatable. (See how we turned old windows into picture frames here.)

Media Center
For optimal television viewing, the most logical place to put the TV would be over the fireplace—but I couldn’t bear to do it. I didn’t want a black hole of a plasma and the back of a sofa to be the first thing you saw when you walked in the room. To remedy this, we placed the TV on the same wall as the front door so guests could take in the full space before arriving at the inevitable electronics–and my fabulous Matisse cabinet. The delicate leaf-cutouts lighten the large piece of furniture and its compartments are perfect for favorite tchotchkes. The prints, above, are the latest addition to the house and were a year in the making, so I’ll save that explanation for a later post.

Stress-Free Chic
Though the frilly chairs may fool you, this is one tough living room design. The chocolate brown upholstery on the Grayson sofa, the indoor-outdoor Le Poeme rug, and a distressed coffee tabletop can all handle a party without a scuff.

Going Forward
Still in need of window treatments, mantel art, and a bookshelf, this living room–and apartment–is a work in progress. From the projects that make the house run a little smoother to the accessories that make us smile, decorating has become a lifestyle that we won’t be done with anytime soon.

Projects

decorating DIY living room our house

Published April 3, 2010 by Anne Collins Howard

Apt. Makeover: My Guest Bedroom

This bedroom design was born out of a mix-up—and I’m thrilled with the mistake. With a coat of Benjamin Moore’s metallic Veil Cream, these walls have a subtle sparkle in the sun and warm glow by lamplight. It’s the prettiest paint and was intended for all four walls—but in efforts to save an unused roll of wallpaper (see the bathroom blog for full explanation), the fourth wall is now covered in a red magnolia print that brings the room to life.

Bedroom Before
White walls and twin bed made this the loneliest room. The single sleeper did offer a bit of extra space, but mainly as grounds for clutter. The room was more like a walk-in closet and deserved to be made for guests.

Bedroom After
As I mentioned, this wallpaper by Graham and Brown was originally intended for the bathroom. But when I realized it was not made to take humid conditions, I became determined to find this hand-sketched floral design a new home. On the off-chance they would go together, I held this paper up to my freshly-painted guest bedroom walls and, amazingly, it couldn’t have been a better fit. The leaf design was the same color beige and it was accented with shimmering micas to give it the exact luster of the Veil Cream. The wallpaper was going up!

With a new red, cream and black palette on the walls, I was ready to pick the bedding. The paper is undeniably bold so all I needed for linens was a simple white with a touch of crimson—and John Robshaw’s line had just the thing. The hand-stitching around the border of this duvet is a subtle tie-in to the floral paper while the Gents Stripe bed skirt adds a nice contrast. Then topped with one of Robshaw’s vintage ikat pillows and I made my perfect guest bed.

Check back Wednesday, April 7 for the final makeover in the series…the living room.

Projects

bedding bedroom our house wallpaper

Published March 31, 2010 by Anne Collins Howard

Apt. Makeover: My Kitchen

There is no actual dining room in this apartment but with a large kitchen it gave us options:
1. Divide the space into distinct areas for kitchen prep and formal dining
2. Pretend it’s a dining room with a wall of kitchen stuff
3. Build an island and create a big dine-in kitchen

The Kitchen Before
I would have never even thought of option #2 but that is how the former tenant presented it to us. With a six-person mahogany dining table, seven-foot wide china cabinet, and full bar, she had created a dining room within her kitchen. But why? Was it a hate for cooking? A love of take-out dinner parties? I don’t really understand why someone would snub their kitchen with zero-prep space and a fortress of furniture, but I knew this was not the route for us.

The Kitchen After
For Mike and me, number #3 was the obvious choice. We wanted a dining area that could double as a hang-out space–because you do that a lot more often than you throw 12-person dinner parties. The casual set-up of an island encourages guests to pull up a seat while you cook and, even when there aren’t enough chairs to go around, leaning on the table is never rude. Plus, the extra storage and prep-space are invaluable.

Constructing the Island
Now all we needed to do was figure out how to build it. We spoke to a few carpenters, looked at a few ready-made options but for our basic specs and budget, IKEA parts were our best option. While most IKEA items can be built with an Allen key, their islands, on the other hand, take a circular saw and an aspiring handyman. Good thing I have both in my house because, otherwise, I would have been in over my head (see Mike miraculously build this thing).

Selecting Chairs
With the goal of making this a dining table/hang-out area, comfortable chairs were key. Also from the wondrous IKEA, the Glenn stools were the perfect choice. The back has the perfect pitch to sit upright and it has a little give for leaning. With chairs tucked in, placemats out, and candles lit this workhorse of a table can actually feel romantic.

Wall Art
When it comes to selecting art for your home, I think the kitchen is the one place you can get a little kitschy. In our case we’ve done this with an homage to Hoboken-born Frank Sinatra on one wall (see record framing project) and a red cartoon-like painting of nameless Revolutionary War patriot taken from a fraternity at Mike’s old college.

The Fixed Parts
Of the kitchen elements that we inherited—appliances, countertops, cabinets–the Home-Depot-Does-Tuscany chandelier was the one thing I could not tolerate. It brought the whole kitchen back to the 1990s and it needed a modern replacement ASAP. The Firefly five-pendant light was the perfect swap. Clean lines and bubbly shades, it can go from task-lighting to mood lighting with the turn of dimmer.

Next up in the house tour…the guest bedroom

Projects

kitchen kitchen island our house

Published March 28, 2010 by Anne Collins Howard

Apt. Makeover: My Bathroom

Obsessed with wallpaper, I had the perfect plan for the bathroom. I found a fabulous red magnolia print from Graham and Brown to go above the chair rail and I matched one of latte-colored leaves for the paint below. Though, as you can see, this paper is not on the walls.

The day the painters came to take on every room in the house, I asked them to leave one wall in the master bedroom and the top half the bathroom for wallpaper. The day was moving along and I called my mother to tell her my brilliant palette plan. When describing the bathroom, she asked the question, “Is that wallpaper made for bathrooms? You know, can it take a lot of humidity?” I went cold. In all my scheming, this had not crossed my mind.

I stalled the painters and raced to the hardware store in search of a Plan B. In a split decision and with a recent love of deep purples, I picked Nairobi Dusk from Ralph Lauren Paint. It is a bold, stormy color and I had no point of reference to the bathroom when picked it, but it turned out to be the perfect choice. After all the drama, each color–the creamy beige we picked to go with the wallpaper, the purple wild card, and the white chair rail– all came together with success.

Bathroom Before
Though the existing tile, vanity, and toilet were far from my dream selections, I have decided to love them until we save for their replacements. Any element that did not require a contractor or a plumber, on the other hand, was on its way to the curb. This photo is the last that was seen of the swirly wrought-iron towel holder, gold hardware, damask shower curtain, and muted paint.

Bathroom After
Our bathroom is tiny so adding extra storage was essential. The former owner just had a mirror over the sink so I frankly don’t know where she was putting her stuff. We added a basic white medicine cabinet with a lower shelf (a must for daily toiletries) and improved the sink console by swapping out the old shiny gold hardware for a matte silver that matched the faucet. The silver theme continues to our homemade candle-lit sconce. As for the shower curtain, I resisted my propensity for florals and spared Mike with a geometric pattern. It’s from Target but the way it picks up the lower-wall color and the chair rail, it feels made for this bathroom.

I love big art in small spaces. This 1940s photograph of an aerial view of lower Manhattan was actually a raffle prize from a golf tournament (go figure). I originally won four sleeves of balls, but I happily traded them in for this historic photo of our neighbor, New York City. It nearly takes up the entire wall and its purple gray sepia tones seem to seep up from the walls in the best possible way.

The hand towels are from the same line as the shower curtain and the plush Hotel Collection bath sheets are almost an exact match to the Ralph Lauren Paint. For a lighter look, we rotate them with the textured geometric towel set hanging on the door.
Next up in room makeover series . . . the kitchen

Projects

bath our house paint

Tag: <span>our house</span>

Apt. Makeover: My Living Room

Apt. Makeover: My Guest Bedroom

Apt. Makeover: My Kitchen

Apt. Makeover: My Bathroom