Project Update: Beach House

I'm back from my weekly meeting at a new house that I've been working on for over a year now. It's at the stage now where finish work is being done and it's wonderful to arrive each week and see great progress - tile has been placed, built-ins are being installed, doors and windows are getting cased. And now the painters have arrived and it's so refreshing to see the wood moulding get covered in a nice coat of white.

This is one of my favorite parts of my job - it's thrilling to see all of the details we've been discussing come to reality and you really start to get an idea of what the finished space will be:

Project Details: Living Room

This is a sad story with a very happy ending.  These homeowners returned home from a trip to find a pipe had burst in an upstairs bathroom and completely flooded their living and family rooms.  It was devastating to see this beautiful old home with high ceilings, original detailed mouldings and great ocean views destroyed by water damage.  

The rooms had to be gutted down to the studs and almost all of the furniture thrown away.  Luckily, a good contractor was able to save many of the original mouldings and details, including 8' pocket doors that open to the adjacent family room.  

During the construction the homeowners went all out and updated small, sliding doors with French doors and classic double hung windows with a cottage sash.  We decorated the space with beige, white and pops of blue in a large scale pattern that ties in beautifully with their antique blue sideboard.

The result is a very light and airy space with a great focus on the views.  The moral of the story - make sure you have good insurance (and a good designer!).

Want a similar look?

Living Room Chairs by Old Hickory Tannery

Design Details: Powder Room Mirror

I was just doing some online shopping for a client and stumbled across a good find.  I'm working on a powder room design and, unlike other bathrooms in a house, I like a powder room to feel more like a furnished room and a little less "bathroomy".  So I like to choose fixtures and finishes that are interesting and special and that can be dramatic in the small space of a powder room.

A while back my client and I had seen this mirror and fallen in love with it:

However, with a price tag of $2,895 it wasn't in the budget for this project.  You can imagine how excited I was when I found this mirror online today:

While it's not exactly the same, it invokes the same feel as the more expensive mirror and at $199 it's a very affordable way to make a powder room special.   In fact, I think I like the clean lines and simplicity of this one even more -  what do you think?