Before & After: Wicker Park Master Bedroom

My clients have such a beautiful home.  Their master bedroom was the last room to be completed, and it now flows seamlessly with the rest of the gorgeous house.  Finally, it was time for the parents to treat themselves to the master bedroom they've always wanted!

Before, we had a queen sized bed that was just too small - scale wise & for their family!  Dated window treatments hung under the dormer windows, which didn't provide the light blockage needed (this room gets a TON of daylight).  Bedding & lighting were needed to add a better sense of style & design.

The only existing furniture that stayed was the dresser, bureau and mirror (which we flipped on its side in order to fit in with the scale of the room).  A new king sized bed was added, along with a great tufted, leather upholstered headboard (i.e. easy to clean with little kids jumping around!).  We wanted a combination of masculine and feminine elements and this was successfully achieved.  Dramatic, glam crystal column lamps sit nicely beside the gridded headboard, soft color blocked bedding and dark accent pieces.  

Adding a large rug was perhaps one of the most important steps in the room design.  Rugs help ground large rooms and keep it from feeling like the furniture is just floating around the space.  If that makes sense (it does in my mind!).  We selected this GORGEOUS slate Dash & Albert rug, which again fits into our masculine/feminine design.

My clients also wanted a small seating area & due to the size of the room, it was easy to find a spot for this swoop armed chair.  A pillow in a coordinating bedding color completes this corner.

Due to excessive amounts of light coming in through their wall of windows and doors, we added ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall silk window treatments the filter the light without completely blocking it.  They're around 3 inches longer than the height of the wall, which gives us this nice pooling effect.

I've featured this design on my portfolio page, but hadn't properly blogged about it.  I am excited to share another "After" bedroom design!  Check out another dramatic before & after bedroom design here.

Long Distance Design: Master Bedroom Before & After

A Long Distance Design client of mine recently posted before & after pictures of her master bedroom.  They are so great!  I love when clients email me "after" pictures and am really going to do a better job of updating the blog with them.

I'll direct you over to her blog, Running from the Law, to check everything out, but here are a couple pictures that show the transformation.

Long Distance Design is a great, affordable way to work with an interior designer without breaking the bank!  It's easy and fun - you send me pictures of your room, dimensions and answer a few questions about your design style, needs, etc.  I then come up with a virtual presentation board of selections for the room & a floor plan.  It is $250/room.  Contact me to chat about your space!

Pictures via Running from the Law

Easy DIY Picture Mats

Also known as: Why didn't I do this a year ago?

For the past year, the formal group picture from our wedding has looked like this:

More specifically:

Let's ignore the fact that this is a rather boring, unattractive frame & pretend that it is just sleek/modern/no-frills.  Either way, the picture has never fit in the frame.  The picture itself is an odd size; long & squat, hence the white band at the top & bottom of the frame.  I was so sick of looking at it that I decided to make my own "mat" (much less involved than my last foray into custom mat-cutting).

As you can see, navy was one of our wedding colors & continues to be one of my favorite colors.  The cardstock is actually a leftover sample from our DIY wedding invitations, which I thought was an appropriate use for this project.

I marked off where to cut so that the navy would cover the white bands, then cut it using an xacto knife & metal straight edge.

I told you this was laughable easy!  I then taped the picture in place on the back of the cardstock & placed it back in the frame.  

Much better!  I can now stand to look at this frame :)

Gold Coast Condo

Here are the pictures of a recently completed living room for a client in the Gold Coast.  They wished to keep their existing couches and rug, so I used those as the jumping off point for the rest of the room.  Dark, maroon chairs were instantly transformed by reupholstering in a lighter, fresh Duralee fabric.  Artwork in large, dated oak frames became more modern with resized mats and black frames.  New lighting was brought in all over the room & a mirror added to reflect more light and to make the space feel larger.  Finally, outdated end tables were replaced with tables that echo the materials in the window frames to bring everything together.