Archive for the ‘before’ Category

SLING

Friday, January 13th, 2012

One of the big design type projects Laure and I have been working on so diligently is a very stylish (come on, obviously) salon in Laguna Beach that’s just recently opened up called Morrison Hair. Located in an older Spanish style bungalow, Rachel and James wanted the space to remain cozy, comfy and inviting like a great house, but still be stylish and modern for getting your hair did.

A particularly important and big need furniture-wise for the waiting area was a pair of chairs that were unusual, comfortable and made you desperately want to sit in them. So of course my first thought was these slingy bad bays that I have always wanted to reupholster.

Yup.

THOSE slingy cantilever bad boys. Pictured above in the BEFORE situation of upholstery hell.

For sure these were living in Ugly Town, USA and must have seemed like a complete stretch, so trust that it took a lot of convincing and begging to get anyone to believe they could be comfortable and stylish and awesome and not just a hot mess of browntown disgusting.

BOOM.

Reupholstered and reimagined.

I always knew they had a kind of Max Gottschalk or Paulistano type vibe buried deep inside their tubular chrome frames.

For the new slings, I decided to go with a bit of an unusual material. Any guesses? Hmmmm?

Screw that nonsense since I can’t shut up about it and am way too impatient. So, these slings are actually made with vintage wildfire tarp! I know. What?!

These tarps are used by my local Park Rangers and Firefighters in the San Jacinto mountains – located just a few miles from this Brick House. When the forest catches on fire, these giant heavy duty waxed canvas tarps are used to move burning brush and burnt up timbers or whatever else is on fire and needing moving. Eventually they get beat up and decommissioned and end up in retirement with this local canvas fabricator type guy I found.

I loved that the material already had this amazing patina and color and was this super heavy duty weight that I couldn’t find with newer fabrics. Plus, who has wildfire tarp chairs? Who?! No one.

Well wait, I guess Morrison Hair does now, BUT come on, don’t you just want to sit in them?! They turned out super sexy and are shockingly comfy to boot. Like a big hug from a firefighter.

Oh man, I can’t wait to show off the rest of the salon. Sorry about these few quick snaps I tried to grab.

We have a few finishing touches and a photo shoot to do, but I’m desperate to post the rest of the space. It turned out pretty much spectacular with a few custom features that are killer and was an overall great project to work on with some truly outstanding folks.

MMMmmmmmmm. Slingy time. Sneaky sling peek. Sleaking.

Now I totally want some slings for my house again. That is not how this works, right? I can’t be jealous.

Dang.

More soon.

 

FILED UNDER: after, before, brick house design, consulting, decorating, furniture, links, travel, vintage

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MAKEOVER

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Apparently this is Hazel’s house? Or maybe Hazel is a bit of a camera hog? Is it possible that this kitty likes to work it for the camera? Hmmm.

I have no excuse and will not apologize. I cannot resist photographing pets.

Anyway.

I had been crashing on Laure’s couch while we worked on the home makeover portions of Extreme Clutter this past summer. Production hours can be nuts and after a full day of creating pure magic and transforming cluttered homesteads into places that were both organized and stylish, we would stumble into Laure’s pad and pretty much pass out. So, when the second season wrapped up, it definitely felt like time to tackle Laure’s 450 sq.ft apartment – which might have suffered it’s own touch of the neglect style clutter. You know, seeing as Laure was working all day, every day for months on end and I was making myself at home in her living room.

Check out some of this BEFORE action for reference.

Now scroll back up to those afters. I’ll wait.

See? That was amazingly fun.

Over the course of a day or so I helped tackle (what my terrible with names brain is calling) a No-Cost Makeover of Laure’s living room and bedroom. We reused the furniture and things she already had in the apartment, pulled a couple things out of her storage and then fairly quickly the whole apartment functioned better and felt way more cohesive with just that basic rethinking of the floor-plan and restyling of her accessories. So, in total, we spent about $40 at Home Depot for a smattering of plants and a couple light bulbs. Cheap, quick and good-looking to boot. In the end everything came together so well that I’ve been testing out this makeover idea and love how quickly a space can transform with a couple layout tweaks and careful editing. Sometimes it takes someone with a fresh pair of eyes, ruthless ability to edit down all your crap (with fantastic taste, obviously) and style it all up to pull that space together.

The No-Cost Makeover : One room. One day. Solving those big design problems with the things you already own.

Sound like fun? Maybe something you might need at your house? I think this could be kind of amazing, but need to figure out the having time issues. I’ve been super slammed and now my house is suffering the neglect clutter. To the EXTREME.

Maybe if I can get past the shame of it all, I might share my dirty secret. The clutter. All that clutter!

FILED UNDER: after, before, brick house design, consulting, decorating, inspiration, links

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KITCHEN PLANS

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

The kitchen needs a bit of help.

After sixty odd years of use, some parts of the kitchen (*cough* countertops *cough*) aren’t faring so well. Worn out, busted up, whatever you want to call it, this not looking clean thing isn’t cool anymore.

Seen from afar? Not so bad.

In person? Kind of gross.

Here’s my idea mash-up board. Now get in my kitchen all you things.

Of course any updates need to be affordable and the plan is to reuse some stuff that’s already laying around the house.

NEED

Counters :  IKEA Numerar. Cheap easy lovely wood. Not the dream top, but sometimes budget wins.
Hardware : Brass pulls you said? Possibly.
Paint : BM Kendall Charcoal. Actually just for use inside the cabinets.
Faucet : Still working on that. Something simple. Something affordable.
Backsplash : Kismet Tile – C4BW S17

HAVE

Floors : Black VCT
Lighting : Danish copper cone
Chairs : Eames wire chairs
Sink : Our sink

Laure shot an incredible floor installation of Kismet tiles at Jon and Tyke’s new place. I’m in love with Tracey’s patterns and colorways and just the finish in general with these Moroccan-made cement tiles.

Hey now. This is the Kismet tile patten I’m currently digging.

Our black-splash area and the space behind the stove is pretty petite; we really only need about 60-ish sqft of tile to do the whole kitchen. I’m hoping that a nice dose of graphic black and white might just be thing to bring the wowser factor into what would be pretty basic overhaul and tweaking of the current kitchen…since the gut and rebuild strategy isn’t ever going to be an option.

FILED UNDER: before, inspiration, kitchen, links

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