Wednesday, April 23, 2014

One Room Challenge - Week 4

It’s been a super busy week around the piano room (to catch up on what’s been happening if you’ve missed previous posts, read all about week 1, week 2 and week 3) in a ‘feels like not much happened but when I write this post, I realize that tons has’ sort of way. All in all, it was sort of a ‘un-glamorous work’ week…all the structural/foundation stuff was finished and though not as exciting as the pretty exciting business, it had to get done.

So let’s get to the…

…fun shall we.

To start with, my Mr Allen did ALOT this week…and by alot, I mean an insane amount of work. My client’s husband was also rather busy busy and after much labour, this is what was took place…

1. Moulding was applied below our chair rail…

2. The central vac, along with all the wall switches, outlets and return air ducts were moved so as to not interfere with the moulding…and a coat of primer was applied to the walls…

3. A skim coat of concrete was put on the floor to level it out in anticipation of our tiles going down…

4. And in his spare time, Allen Sir Amazealot managed to construct our:

Fireplace mantle….

…and steel console table…

As for my part if all of this, I stressed out ALOT over shipping and schedule business…and by alot, I again mean an ‘insane/god grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change’ sort of amount

After many messages back and forth, it turns out that our sconces weren’t in the boat they needed to be in to make our deadline so likely won’t be here in time for the reveal…insert a soundtrack of me crying huge crocodile/ I hate the world tears here. Thankfully, Nina over at Black Rooster is coming to my rescue and supplying me with one showroom sample sconce in the meantime so we can all at least get the idea of what they’re going to look like…hopefully I can do some clever photography and convince you all in some magical unicorn way that there’s actually two there;)

I also almost morphed into a stress eating strawberry jelly roll over the fireplace brick decision making…turns out off white relatively smooth brick of this vein…

…is mucho difficulto to nail down so after reviewing many many samples that just didn’t make the cut, we’re going old school and buying up some brick veneer that we’ll DIY with a coat of white paint.

And the finally, there was the tiling. As you may remember from last week’s post, I promised that this was the week our version of this Viceroy Hotel (PS…in narrowly related news…I’m going to Miami on Friday, which after all of the above noted stress deserves a major wooooooot wooooooottt…perhaps I’ll visit this KW piece of heaven and snap some of my own inspo shots;) nirvana would happen….

…and as I noted above, the foundation work to make this happen did get finished…unfortunately, after a bit of a scheduling snafu yesterday, the tile hadn’t arrived when the worker bees did so they left…and of course, wouldn’t you know it, the tile showed up a few minutes later…which = an entire day of floor magic waiting to happen wasted….

…arrrrrrrrrrggggggggggg.

So though there aren’t yet photos of the triangles of marble/granite love, we can enjoy them in their ‘purest/sitting piled up on the floor’ instagram form…

…with giant promises that next week will be one heck of a post;)

Now because I always like to end things on a ‘by the grace of the gods the sun WILL come out tomorrow’ note, two majorly awesome things happened this week in the form of ORC sponsor fabulosity….

1. The two framed pieces of artwork I ordered up from Minted arrived…

…and they are even more perfect than I imagined when I ordered them up…we opted for the museum quality paper and the combo of such beautiful images on such professional paper is stunning…I literally couldn’t be happier with these…and PS, they shipped to my door in a grand total of 3 days…and I’m in Canada…that NEVER happens. Delighted to say the least.

2. I placed a little surprise order for my clients from Lamps Plus, who will see this whole thing for the first time when reading this post this morning!!! SURPRISE A & M!!!!!

From the HUGE selection of furnishings, lighting and accessories over at Lamps Plus, I selected a pair of these ottomans, that with the help of my very talented fabric painting friend Hollie, will be re-upholstered in some gorgeous graphic linen along these lines…

I’m debating painting the base as well…will figure that out once they arrive. They’re so lovely as they are but for our room, we need a little hit of the modern graphic to balance out the frilly pink walls. And heck, what would any project of mine be without a little re-invent fun;)

I have to admit that I sort of want this art and bench business for myself… a little jealz that it’s not all coming to my house! Heck…since the customer service at Minted and Lamps Plus is so amazing, I might just take advantage and order a little package of my own;)

And with that, I believe I’m done for this week…make sure you check out what the rest of my ORC friendlies have been up to…

Abby M. Interiors

Copy Cat Chic

Design Manifest

The English Room

My Sweet Savannah

…and I’ll see you back here next Wednesday with large sugar plum fairy promises of floors and pink walls.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Many, Many Project Updates

I promised some updates on the project front so here she goes.

1. #projectfeminineinjection

Things are moving right along…windows have been painted out in black…

…a new b/w stripe rug has been layered on top of the existing grey solid…

…and various and sundry fabrics have been tested out…

…for a pair this pair of chairs that will be added in toute suite…

But…instead of those little swatches you see, this (PS…MY FAVE FABRIC OF ALL TIME) will be covering them…

Yup…a pair of French wingbacks in Pierre Frey Kubus…could be dead on that one.

As for the wall behind the sofa, we’re still debating between wallpapering in Black Crow pink brushtrokes…

…or instead, leaving the wall as is and doing the pink graffiti like pattern on curtain panels (like in my kitchen.)

I’ll keep you posted on that front.

The art will be one of the mannequins above alongside the Gray Malin pink umbrellas.

Love, love.

2. #projectbistrochic

There have been big goings on in this project because my clients just moved in and are busily unpacking all the goodness we ordered up.

The Black Rooster trestle table we ordered has arrived and has found its home in the kitchen…so so happy with it. On the flip side, the chairs we ordered in NOVEMBER from Ballard Designs are not here and have officially constituted the largest and most annoying screw up in terms of ordering I’ve ever gone through. I don’t really want to go down the path of negativity with this one but let’s just say the order has now been cancelled and after 5 months of waiting for these god foresaken chairs, we’ve decided to cut our losses and have them down locally…

And let’s just say, I’m one very happy designer…I literally couldn’t bear one more phone call with BD.

On a happier note, we’ve also nailed down plans for the kitchen bar area…we’ve decided to tile the wall in subway and add in some floating brass trimmed shelves…

…a pretty bench under the counter to sort of mask the radiator will complete that area.

As for the rest of the mainfloor, the family room furniture has started to arrive…

…with these Lawson Fenning chairs hopefully coming any day now…

As for upstairs, pieces have started to arrive in the master…

…and all is looking so pretty:)

3. #projectmykind

Some fabric decisions have been made…

Quadrille Lascaux will be covering the gold gilt settee…

…and this stunning B&F floral will be going on the console benches…

So in love with both choices.

My client also had some furniture arrive:

a. A vintage burl coffee table…

b. a Maitland Smith brass table for the dining room…

c. and my fave of them all, these burgundy leather scoop chairs…

The living room is completely and utterly shaping up to be my sort nirvana…adore the mix of pattern, colour and old/new.

Stay tuned…I so can’t wait to see the whole thing come together:)))

#projectwowzers

I don’t even know really where to start with this one because there is just sooooo much going on.

Of particular note, the son’s bedroom has been completely covered in Hague Blue and it’s magic…

My client loved it so much that she’s decided to switch out plan for the family room to the Hague as well- only this time, we’re going to glass lacquer that business and add in all of this…

And on the board/blue front, I also put together the planksi for the playroom, which looks like this…

And to finish things off, I thought I’d show you what’s happening in their foyer…prepare yourselves with this one…you’re about to get real jealz…

Yup…that would be a hand painted mural in shades of Farrow and Ball black, white and grey.

Oh and to add to the beauty, this overhead chandelier and a pair of fab vintage sconces…

…and yes, that is a different chandy than originally selected…the search for this fixture has been a loooong one…turns out 1st Dibs sellers can forget to list things as sold etc. so we’ve seen a few dream purchases crushed in their wakes but thankfully, this one is a go and everyone is happy, happy.

There’s SO much more to let you in on with this project but this post has already turned mammoth styles so I’ll leave it here for now.

Check back tomorrow for mucho progress on my One Room Challenge space…I’m talking floors tomorrow people:))))

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

One Room Challenge - Week 3

It’s officially the week I’ve started to panic a la…

Though tons of progress has been made (you can catch up on week 1 and week 2 if you’ve missed) , there’s still ALOT to get did as it were…starting with our incredible floors, which are on the docket to begin tomorrow…to say I’m excited about this development would be one of those HUGE understatements.

As for where we are now, the main focus of this week has been the piano, furniture selections/delivery and moulding.

Let’s start with the grand dame of the room, the piano…

You may remember that this beautiful old girl started off looking like this…

After a whole week of a professional restoration…

…she now is all lacquered up in black with a little gold action inside…and yes, I did say gold…her ‘workings’ have been painted in my favourite metallic and I could die it’s all so pretty.

Because our weather has been pretty stinky these past few weeks, the stain has been taking longer than anticipated to dry so we’re crossing fingers that she’ll be ready to move out of the room later today so that floor prep can start.

In other news, our paint delivery arrived…apparently there’s a run on FB Pink Ground because this stuff has been hard to nail down…

Come to think about it…pretty sure my client roster alone might be responsible for the inventory depletion…I’ve got 3 rooms being painted in this perfect pink as we speak;)

And speaking of walls, work has also started on our moulding.

To be honest, this one has not been totes smooth sailing…trying to decide on the specific trim pieces we want in order to achieve this sort of look…

…has been a challenge…there are just so many options and we have timelines to keep in mind etc. Thankfully, after a few (and by few, I actually mean many) sample reviews and much discussion, my fabulous clients have bought up a giant supply of this stuff…

…and we’re off to the races as it were.

Last night saw my carpenter extraordinaire Allen lay the groundwork for the plan out on the walls…

…so that we’ll be all ready to slap those bad boys up once the floors are finito next week.

In the meantime, we still have select the decorative rosettes that will go in the corner of each panel…the choices have been narrowed down to these lovelies…

…and I’m leaning towards top left or middle.

And finally, in furniture news…

1. Because my amazing supplier 219 is sooooooo awesome, this side table has been ordered and delivered within 1 week…

…as have our horns…

2. Our modern take on the classic settee has arrived…

…in the form of a Stellar Works Laval sofa.

I’m still trying to sort out if we want to stick with the lumbars that came with it or switch it out for my fave pillow of all time…aka the Pierre Frey Kubus (from Arianna Belle)…

3. This mirror fantastica has been delivered to my client’s US warehouse (how much do I love that they have their own over the border address that I can ship stuff to!?!?! That would be a lot) and is being picked up today!

4. A vintage stacked acrylic coffee table from one of my fave local shops, Patina has also been picked up…I’ll snap a picture of it for next week’s post:)

And on our ‘please god make them come in time’ wait list…

…our floor lamp, piano bench and wall sconces…please pray for us on this front…especially when it comes to the sconce ladies…NEED those to come on time or I might cry myself to sleep over and over again;)

And I think that wraps it up for today.

Next week promises to be a big one with our flooring nirvana being installed …soooooooooo excited!!!!

For now, make sure you check out the goodness that my fellow ORC’ers have been up to in week 3…

Abby M. Interiors

Copy Cat Chic

Design Manifest

The English Room

My Sweet Savannah

I don’t know about you, but I’m loving following along with everyone’s projects…so much inspiration as it were.

Happy days.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

One Room Challenge - Week #2

Lot’s of progress has been made on my…

…space this week (if you missed last week, click HERE).

As you know, I’m transforming a client’s piano room into hopefully, one chic little butter nugget of a space.

This week was all about demo and decision making.

My client’s got the tools out, started ripping this business up and made all kinds of progress.

At week’s end, this is the situation…

Room emptied…

Window seat removed…

Carpet and fireplace surround ripped out…

And the entire chimney stack re-insulated. Apparently there were rather large holes to the outside in the previous insulation, which was probably the reason the room felt a little sub-zero like during this year’s polar vortex.

Can we say awesome clients much? I can’t get over how much they’ve got did in the ‘rip it up’ department.

And if this wasn’t enough, something special also started with this lady…

…who really is the centerpiece of the whole room.

This really incredible square grande actually appeared in the movies if you can believe it and is all kinds of amazing…it’s unlike any piano I’ve ever seen before and in an effort to really make her shine, we’ve decided to do this…

That’s right…she’s getting a black lacquer makeover. Now because paint would apparently alter the sound and musical quality, this is being done with stain…first, 3 coats of an alcohol based stain, then 2 of the actual min-wax stain which will actually give it the colour and then a few coats of polyeurothane on top to give us the shine we’re after…so that makes about 8 layers in total. The photo above is after 2 of them so she’s definitely going to be black…and hold on to your hats, turns out the inside of this beauty is leafed in gold so yeah…that’s going to be restored as well.

A shiny black piano with a gold interior…doesn’t get much more fabulous than that my friends.

As for my part in all this (i.e. client’s hubby has been in charge of demo and we’ve been in charge of sourcing/plotting/buying etc.,) I’ve been scheming to get some new furniture and art pieces in there.

To start, I found this incredible console table for the wall to the right of the door…

But wouldn’t you know, the damn thing is out of stock and wouldn’t get here in time so instead, we’re having my trusted carpenter Allen (who PS, I’d be a shell of a designer without,) whip up our own custom version…we’re going to back paint a scrap piece of antique mirror with some pink paint and slap it on top of a powder coated base…crossing fingers we end up with something even more smashing than what’s above.

This week also saw a lot of art sourcing…unfortunately, we haven’t been able to nail down what’s going over the fireplace yet, but we did purchase some amazing pieces from my amazingly talented friend Nicole Cohen…

As well, this loveliness by artist will hopefully be going over the console table…

And I’m hoping that one of these beauties finds a home over the piano…

I’m pretty obsessed with all of them so very confident that whatever goes there will be gorge.

And that my friends, brings us to the end of week 2.

To follow along and see what everyone else has been up to, check it here…

Abby M. Interiors

Copy Cat Chic

Design Manifest

The English Room

My Sweet Savannah

And make sure you link up tomorrow if you’re playing along.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Lots of Project Updates- Paint, Furniture Etc.

So I think I’ve already established that I have wicked awesome clients.

For one, they do things like paint rooms in amazing colours…take #projectwowzers for example…here’s just a sampling of the paint magic that’s happening as we speak…

…what you’re looking at there is BM Irish Mint, FB Lulworth, FB Off Black, BM Simply White, FB Hague Blue, FB Calamine and FB Railings…all so yummy.

And then there’s #projectbistro chic…it’s family room walls are looking pretty snazy lately, thanks to some FB Hague action…

…the Allen extraodinaire moulding and BR sconces don’t hurt either.

This home is also enjoying some rich charcoal in the kitchen, thanks to the incredible pantry we had custom made by you guessed it…Allen!

And then there’s my #oneroomchallenge spaces…as you know from my post on Wednesday, my fabulously fabulous piano room clients have agreed to slather their walls in FB Pink Ground, which I officially think is my all time favourite paint colour…which is why I’m SO excited that I have count ‘em TWO client rooms being transformed with it…I posted about a new Chicago project a few weeks ago but I just realized that I didn’t give this one a name…I’m going to call it #projectmykind because I feel like the client and I sort of share the same brain- very similar aesthetics as it were…as evidenced by the fact that this room…

…has since been painted in that favourite shade and now looks like this…

While you’re staring at that picture, please note the best chairs in the universe ( that hail from my fave Chicago store, Vern and Vera) that I SO wanted for myself but had absolutely zero place to put them…these Magistretti Cassina Maraluna beauties…

…are my life…so happy to see them in this gorgeous room.

And on top of those, these insanely good vintage pieces are also being added to this blushy haven…

1. Burl platform coffee table-

2. Green velvet sofa-

3. One of these consoles-

…or…

..or THIS ONE my client literally just emailed me…

…that we’d reupholster is something fabulous.

PS, have I mentioned that this client is an incredible vintage hunter? Can we say joy to work with?!?!?!

4. A set of chairs…

…that will be re-upholstered in blush linen and will sit around my client’s marble Saarinen table.

5. This settee lady pants-

…that we’re planning to recover in one of these guys…

All so my speed.

Oh and while we’re talking on this one, let me not forget the two incredible art pieces going in this space…super large style…

I mean stop it right? I’m sort of on an art binge lately and these two whimsical photographs are EVERYTHING.

And finally, a quick update on #projectfeminineinjection…it’s looking like this Black Crow pink swash goodness…

…will be going on this sofa wall…

Can. not. wait…good, good, good.

So there you go…tons of project updates.

Lots of paint…lots of furniture…lots of fun.

As always, more to come.

For now, don’t forget to enter my Lisa Curran Swim giveaway- draw happens tomorrow!

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

One Room Challenge- Week #1

Holy balls…I’ve got a big ‘I feel like I’ve made it to the big blog leagues/it’s time to pull up the proverbial granny panties and do this’ announcement… For those of you who might not be familiar with what this is…

Let me briefly explain. Organized by the fabulous Linda over at Calling it Home, this 6 week event challenges 20 bloggers…

…to completely transform a room in either their own space or a client’s one. I’ve been a fan of said challenge foreves so when I got an email a few months ago asking if I’d like to participate, well let’s just say I might have jumped up and down a bit…theoretically speaking…I didn’t really jump up and down but I did smile large…and then panic…and then smile…and then panic…you get the idea. Within a few minutes of the initial correspondence with Linda, my mind immediately dove into a tailspin of of ‘what the flying Myrtle pants room am I going to do?’ Peeps who already read my blog, know that my house is pretty much completo…with the exception of my master bedroom, ensuite and upstairs landing. And to be honest, when confronted with the option of working on one of these spaces, I just didn’t feel super inspired so instead, I turned to the home of a local client of mine…one known around these parts as #projectwholehouse and in my portfolio, as ‘Barringham‘. This project actually belongs to dear friends of ours who, through the design process of their home, have become people my family delights in knowing. We’ve been working room by room and have so far, we’ve completed their:

Daughter’s bedroom…

…son’s room…

…and foyer…

And for this challenge, they’ve agreed to let me tackle an amazing space that’s right through those double doors in the shot above, otherwise known as ‘the piano room’. As of now, if we spin around the space clockwise styles, it looks a little like this…

I’m sure you can already see the crazy good potential here. My designing brain is sort of dead over the octagonal windows, angled walls and the fact that it’s a piano room in the first place…I mean how blinkin often do you get to design a piano room? Not very…hence why I’m SO excited that I get to make this one over for this big giant challenge…the fact that I have 6 weeks to do it in though…well that’s a bit of a mother fudge scenario but where there’s a will, there’s a way right?!?!?

So…with all that in mind, this is the quick initial plan…

…which basically centers around some kind of amazing patterned stone floor, black moulded walls and lots of furniture goodness.

As a whole, my goal for the room is to create a design that somehow manages to straddle that illusive balance of traditional formality and modern cool…with of course, a healthy dose of whimsy.

After a few revisions and discussions, and mostly because the gods have gifted me with the bestest clients in the world who are letting me unleash my inner Kelly Wearstler in the form of a version of this marble floor utopia…

…the original plan has morphed into this…

And everyone is happy pants.

A few quick notes:

1. Sofa is from Stellar Works and I want to lick it because it’s perfectly awesome in every way.

2. The piano is going to be stained…we can’t paint it because it will change the sound and it’s a really old amazing piece with it’s own fabulous history (it’s appeared in movies y’all) so we can’t wreck it…thankfully, stain will allow it to turn black and glossy.

3. The coffee table is vintage from one of my fave local haunts for amazing furniture and lighting, Patina…pretty excited about how it’s an octagon and how it references the windows etc.

4. The sconces are from the ever fabulous Black Rooster Decor and well, they’re 42″ tall…that’s all I’ll say on that.

5. The pretty swank chairs are from 219 and well, they’re swank.

6. Side tables and console table are TBD at this point.

7. We’ll be applying moulding to all the walls and re-building the fireplace surround to look something like this…

8. Art…this deserves a whole post and is something I’ll definitely talk about more in the coming weeks…for now, I’ll say that if you were to ask me what the most important element in any space is, I’d definitely ALWAYS ANSWER ART…so stay tuned to find out how the selection of pieces evolves here…choosing art for other people can be tricky-Mc-trickersons and with this project, my mandates are: no flames, people under water, close ups of strangers and preferably as many animals as possible…crossing fingers.

For now, we have a definite plan in place for the overall feel that has PS, taken a giant curve ball to the left with the decision to drop the black and instead, go balls to the wall in my most favouritist way…

…with Farrow and Ball’s Pink Ground slathering all everything.

Yup…we’re going pink my friends and I couldn’t be more freaking excited…to get to do those floors and then envelope them my favourite hue…well it’s officially a design lottery win for this catarista.

Demolition will be commencing tout suite and by next week, I hope to show you an empty room with the fireplace removed, curtains down, carpet up and furniture gone…maybe painted…we’ll see how it goes as it were.

For now, I’ll sign off and again say that I’m more than just a little thrilled to be taking part in this amazing challenge and so hope you’ll follow along for the 6 weeks. I for one, can’t wait to see what my fellow ORC’ers come up with…

Abby M. Interiors

Copy Cat Chic

Design Manifest

The English Room

My Sweet Savannah

…not that I’m a intimidated by the talent on that list or anything…yikes…as a first timer, I’m going to have to lady up as it were.

Stay tuned my friends and if you want to join in the fun by throwing design caution to the wind, you can take part in the weekly linking party that starts up tomorrow…the more the merrier as it were and I’d so love to see your transformations as well!

Let the 6 week decorating frenzy officially begin…and with it, prayers to the gods please…positive thoughts…positive thoughts…I think I can, I think I can…