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Our Master Bath Plans

Posted on April 11, 2012 by opticals

We're redoing our master bathroom in the next few weeks & have finalized our plans. Here's a photo of the how the bathroom looks now, split into a vanity area & a shower/toilet area:?

{Toilet = current focal point = arggggg}

Here's a close-up of our green shower:

{yummy!!!}

We're combining both of the spaces into one bigger room and are adding a pocket door at the entry. The toilet is leaving the back wall (wahoooooo!!!) and is going to the left of the entry door. The new vanity will also be on the left wall where the current formica one is:

The shower will now run the entire back wall & we'll be using 2x6 subway tiles (by Subway Cermaics) on the walls. The subway tiles I've selected are vintage reproductions and I selected a warm white matte finish. They're a little different from the typical subway tiles in that they're perfectly flat & meant to be used with very thin grout lines, which I think will work with my more contemporary 70s home. You can see how flat they are compared to normal ones in this image:

They're really close to the tiles in this kitchen (below) except they're a matte finish instead of shiny:

The floors in the shower & in the main area will done in 4x4 black slate tumbled tiles similar to these below, but I'll be having them laid in a brickwork pattern instead of a grid & the edges will be tumbled instead of straight...

I want the entire bathroom (including shower) to feel like one big open space, so we're considering having a glass shower wall installed with no door & walkaround instead... (similar to the photo below except with a black metal frame.) I loooove the look & function of what it does for the space BUT I'm nervous that we'll be too cold in the shower. We have enough space that the shower heads will be placed to the left and the entry will be on the right so when you're actually showering, you won't be right near the walkway, but we're going to try it out with a temporary shower curtain first before making our decision.

In the "entry" area of the shower, we have a little window & there will be a
"dry" area with room for a small teak bench & towels. I'm excited because I think I might actually be able to get a fern to live in here too!! I'm looking for the perfect teak bench & want it to be something like this (but smaller) ...

{drawing from craftsman-style.info}

Here's the vintage-train-inspired towel rack (Pottery Barn) I got for the shower entry to go over the bench:

I'm mixing metals in the bathroom & chose to do it in polished nickel like in the photo. Most of the other fixtures will be in antique brass...

{Shower Handles by Cifial}

Here's the wall-mounted faucet by Cifial that (I'm in love with!!!) & I'm using above the wooden vanity:

{Vanity by Restoration Hardware... I'm totally crazy over the finish on this piece but the bun feet & detailed carving at the base weren't exactly what I wanted... (A little too much femininity) BUT being in such a time-crunch with the baby coming, I totally settled. Although in person, I have to say, I barely notice the base & in our small space (with no room to get far enough back to really see the ground), I think it will be even less noticeable. We're having a honed black granite countertop fitted onto the top with an undermount sink basin & we're losing a lot of storage space so we're going with a medicine cabinet flanked by sconces.

...Anyway, I'm off for the day but I'm so excited to get this new bathroom installed!! The bathroom we've been living in is full of mold (no exhaust fan!!) and linoleum and greenness so I am SO READY for a change. It'll be our little haven & I just can't wait. We're shooting to have it finished before the baby arrives but I'm not sure that it'll actually happen since we're waiting on the tile's arrival in two weeks and the baby's due in a month... Eeeksters!!

Have a good one!! :)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

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Easy Breezy Leaves

Posted on April 2, 2012 by opticals

I'm often drawn to photos of rooms that feature massive leaves. The give a room an easy breezy, relaxed feel (that's often tropical, depending upon the leaves.)

{Coastal Living}

An arrangement of massive leaves is one of the easiest to make & it has a huge impact on a space.

I have a big suppliy of hosta leaves in my yard & so they end up in my photographed spaces fairly often...

I grouped them together in demijohns on this workspace in my client's living room:

Another great source for oversized leaves is the potted plants section of Home Depot/ Lowe's. Sadly, I'm a plant killer (they die slow dry deaths at my house) but I don't feel as bad when I cut up the plant for arrangements like this one I did in a client's living room on the ottoman:

I wish I could squeeze this post packed with photos of gorgeous rooms that feature big cut leaves, but I have to run for the day!! Have a good one!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

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Our Nurseries from Babies Past…

Posted on March 26, 2012 by opticals

Our future baby's nursery has been coming together... For months we just piled all the baby stuff in here & I waited to attack the room. Its plain white walls & cream carpeting were pretty much a blank slate. I added a modern crib in a hazlenut finish by Muu Kids (amazing to work with btw) and am still working on the bedding. (For now it's just our basic sheet set which I'll use in combination with some pretties.)

I've done different things with all of my babies' nurseries. In our old house, over 4 years ago, Christian's nursey was a bit coastal with tone-on-tone pale blue stripes in semigloss & matte paint...

{My cousin & I made the seashell mobile & I sewed the quilt}

This old man thrift store painting (below) goes everywhere with us and is now in our living room...

In Justin's nursery, 2 years ago, I wanted to go dark & be bold. I'd done the sweet thing before & was ready for a change. I wanted a dark room for sleeeeeeeping.

My husband & I stencilled a dropcloth with an allover pattern and made a canopy over the crib.
I used the nursery walls as a gallery for artwork that we'd collected & inherited over the years.

...Most of the pieces are pretty moody and I used lots of foresty type things in there.
You can see how we used the same pieces on both rooms but ended up with 2 really different looks...

Justin's nursery was featured on Design Sponge and I'll never forget that some of the commenters thought the room was creepy and one of them even said it looked like "Rosemary's Baby's Room." It cracked us up at home and so we called it that sometimes :) (I have to say, I do have a dark side & loooove scary books & movies ;)

And now... we're onto the new baby's nursery. And of course, I'm ready for more change :) This time (which we are thinking of as our last, although I'll never say never until we're sure) I decided that I just wanted to go with all of my favorite things. I've always known that nurseries are for moms & dads (and mostly moms because dad's don't usually care very much) and so this time I'm doing a total "me" nursery. Selfish? Yeah, I know, but I'm okay with that ;)

I'm starting with my Live Paisley in "mojito" for the curtains:

{I'm constantly experimenting with colorways in my fabrics and this is definitely one of my favorites, designed specifically for this room.}

And last night my husband painted the walls a paler shade of the same chartreusy-green...

{It's Sherwin Williams "Rice Paddy}
I'm working on the bedding now and a swivel glider in by Lee Industries should be arriving any week now...

{Sorry for the blurry pic... picture it in a warm oatmeal linen} I'm SO pumped for this glider. We thought about getting one with every baby and finally decided to do it. Our babies are not good sleepers and so I'm banking that we'll be gliding many a night on this new chair.

The dresser/ changing table is in the closet so we have as much floor space as possible for playing. I'll be sure to share pictures when we get it finished. (Which should be in the next month a half!)

And finally, here are a couple of belly pics from yesterday... The boys have taken to walking up to me and hugging me/ my belly saying "BIG BELLY!!!!" or "SO BIG!!!!" in their deep little voices. (It makes me feel so petite ;)

A month and half left... eeeeeeeeeeek!!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

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History of Rugs – The Oriental Gave the Start

Posted on March 3, 2012 by admin Comment

Summary: The origins of the rug can be traced back to more two thousand years ago. The Oriental rugs are the first rugs to be used by men.

In order to depict the entire history of rugs, you need a big fat book. However, we can always discuss the origins of this most fascinating product. A rug, in ancient Persia, was a mark of pride. It was made by the best of artisans of that time. Rug-making was not everyone’s job. Only a select few were gifted enough to be proficient in the art of rug-making. The Oriental rug is the earliest rug to be found till date.

The earliest one to be found was the Pazyryk carpet. It is oldest carpet known to mankind. It was found inside a block of ice in the underground tomb of a Scythian chieftain. Modern technology used in carbon dating has revealed that the rug is more than two thousand years old. No other solid evidence of rugs is found in between the Pazyryk rug and 14^th century. Only small fragments of carpets have been found that are probably from the third, sixth and the eleventh centuries.

Solid evidence of the art of rug making is only available post 16^th century though Anatolian regions do give us some clue as to the existence of rugs in the 14^th century. However, in the 16^th century, rug making was a well-established affair in Persia (now known as Iran. The Western world has expressed interest in the Oriental rugs for hundreds of years. There is enough evidence suggesting that. Take the 15^th century painting.

The early painting of Virgin Mary shows her sitting on a rug. There are many such paintings, especially of royalty, from that period that depicts expressive use of Oriental rugs. At one point of time, the trade relations was quite pronounced between the Middle East and the Western world so much so that these carpets were regularly shipped off to the West. The Dutch people had the keenest interest in these carpets and often used them as an object in their paintings. These paintings have helped the modern world have a clear idea about rug-trade during those times.

Rugs meant a world to many

Modern day Turkey and the Anatolian regions shipped the most number of rugs to the West, prior to the 17^th century. Britain favored the Persian rugs more than any other rug. Their trade relations with the Persian Safavid Empire were also profitable hence, strong. Quite naturally, the Persian rug was a prized possession for the British as they always had an artistic eye. The Silk Route enhanced trade manifold and more Persian carpets found their way to Britain. In the 17^th and 19^th century, as the middle class received more importance, the demand for carpets increased. Indian and Chinese carpets are also quite popular.

rugs

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The House in My Head

Posted on December 14, 2011 by opticals

I always have a dream house or "future" house in my head. I keep a file with floorplans that I've drawn of it and exterior & interior inspiration pics. I always find myself thinking about what would make a house perfect for me & my family. I think about it more frequently sometimes than others. When I lived in my parents' basement with my husband & our first baby a couple of years ago (to recover financially from buying a townhome at the height of the market & selling almost at the low) I used to think about it so much my heart would literally ache. (Honestly I thought about ANY house at that time, but my dream house got me excited.)  This was a bit what it looked like: (from Cottage Living)

But after we moved into our 70s bilevel fixer-upper, my idea of our dream house started to change. (Don't get me wrong, I'm in looooove with the house above, but it's not where the house in my head is at anymore.) I started to appreciate & crave a more modern feeling for my dream house yet I still wanted the charm of an older house. I love the walls of windows in our house now, and wish they were even bigger. I know that I now want glass walls leading straight outdoors all over my future house.  Even though my 70s house is architecturally uninteresting, I started to appreciate its "plain box" qualities & have reimagined how I might have something similar in a new home one day:

{Our "box" before we moved in.... It feels like we're almost outside or in a tree house.}

I also love the easy living of its floorplan. All of our main rooms are on one level and our addittional spaces like family room, office & guest room are all on the lower level.  I love this one-floor living and definitely want to keep this easy way of living in our new place. (In our townhouse I used to leave piles of things at the top and bottom of all the stairs to go up & down... I used to feel like keeping the house neat was a series of moving things up and down the stairs.) My husband, who used to be super-traditional is now craving something simple & modern. (more than me!) He loves the Cullens' house from Twilight. (I made him watch it ;)

Every once in a while my husband & I will read a book that makes us think about architecture & we talk about what we want in a house & how we can make our own house better. When we read Bobby McAlpine's The Home Within Us I really started to think of architecture a bit differently. I started realizing that it didn't have to be something we'd seen before & that we could one day make something that was really "us." The thatched roof idea is one I can't shake.

I recently read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and it really got me excited about our "dream house" again so I decided to hit the drawing board with all of the ideas that had been floating around in my head, unformed, for the past year or so. I haven't quite finished working out the floorplan but the main living areas are all on the first floor and the back of the house U-shaped and almost all steel floor-to-celing glass windows & doors opening to the yard.   I want the front of the house to have a crazily-pitched roof that swings low onto the front door & windows & I want more privacy in the front than in the back.   And I want the look of a thatched roof:

{We did a little research on thatched roofs & probably will never be able to have one. They're hard to insure (due to perceived risk of fire) and expensive if you live in an area where they're not done.} But I'm open to other materials that I can get a similar look from. I want that old, natural & quaint feeling but mixed with a modern & seamless edge.

{Bobby McAlpine's first home built by his firm... I can't get over it or its roof. I think maybe it's slate & even though it's not thatched, it has the feeling I'm after. I wonder if you can encourage moss to grow on your slate roof without it hurting anything?? **** UPDATE: Greg Tankersley of McAlpine Tankersley Architecture let me know that the roof is actually handsplit cedar shingle, and yes, moss does grow on it!! Thanks so much Greg!! }

Like I mentioned before, I want the back of my house to be almost completely open so it will definitely be a challenge to mix these two styles without making a total mess.

{love this feeling - oh my goodness!!!!}

I want it to feel as if you're almost outside when you're inside.

I know these two styles are totally different but I think "where there's a will there's a way" and I have a LOT of time to figure it out before we can actually have a dream home anyway. ;)

... The windows in most of these modern homes are mostly glass without the interruption of the steel...

But I'm thinking I like the charm of the paned windows and I'd like a sort of modern conservatory-feeling...

{crazy over the steel windows & doors in Jill Brinson Sharp's home}

It's one detail (of many) I'm still thinking on... I don't know if we'd feel caged with an entire back wall in them or if it could work for what I want. I came across this house when searching for inspiration images:

I'd never seen anything like it & am definitely intrigued. It's not what I'm looking to do but I think it's really interesting in how it combined what reminds me of a barn with a glass contemporary house.

I was floored when I came across this thatched-roof house:

{image via klikk.com}

...It is so close to what I want in style. The back is all open just like I'd envisioned and it even has a thatched roof!! The feeling I'm after is a different though. (This is so pretty & fresh & white & modern-feeling whereas I want a more textured, natural, aged feeling. If you look to the right where you see a more private space with smaller windows... I like that a lot. I definitely want some "cozy" & private spaces towards the front of the house.)

And finally, I came across this old house which combines my windows with the thatched crazy-sloped roof & this embodies a bit more of the feeling I'm after:

{I would probably want it a little more seamless -without the diagonal bars btwen the roof & windows- but I think it shows how the glass walls can actually work beautifully with a low roofline.}

Anyway, by the time we're actually able to build this house, I'm sure it will have changed considerably, but for now, I'm really excited about getting this house in my head all figured out. (Or as figured out as it would need to be before getting an architect involved ;)   I'm always happiest when I have a dream.

What about you: Do you have a house in your head or a dream house that you think of? (And if you've written a post on yours, be sure to link to it in the comments section!! :)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

ps- I found all of these images on pinterest & listed original sources where I had them.

AND... I wrote this entire post yesterday (which took hours) & when I hit "Publish" on blogger, the WHOLE THING DELETED.... ahhhhh!!!!! :)

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