Holiday Seating

The weather is getting a bit chilly here in Arizona...funny, huh, seeing as though it's a mere 80 degrees instead of the 108 it was just a week and a half ago. The other night I was driving home in 57 degrees and thought I was going to have to go buy a parka! Lol. But seriously, cooler weather is ahead and so are the dreaded holidays, which I normally enjoy, but I have to admit I've been down about thanks to this economy. There's so much that I would already have done by now and yet I have no energy to begin. Maybe this venting will help!

One thing that I am always mindful of when planning my interior spaces, is the accommodation you must make for visitors. Especially living here in the Valley of the Sun, where everyone typically wants to come and visit; are you prepared for company? Whether you feel your home is just way too small to handle an overnight guest, or you have oodles of space but don't know how to plan it out, we all have room to make sure that visitors to our home can be comfortable.

Maybe you don't have a guest bedroom in your home and you feel- as I do- that sofa beds are uncomfortable (cuz they are!). How about adding a trundle bed to one of your kid's rooms. They are not expensive, are attractive and when guests leave they tuck away right under their bed. They help when your son or daughter has a sleep over guest or when your aunt and uncle come from the east coast.

One of the most common mistakes that people make when buying their dining room table, is not ordering extra chairs. Your are a family of 6 but during every family event you expand to a family of 8. Why not purchase 2 additional chairs, or even 4 and store them away in the garage until you have your large dinners? It will certainly look much better than using the card table chairs for your formal affair!

My favorite room to add additional seating is in the family room or living room. I prefer ottomans to coffee tables because they serve as extra space to cop a squat. And nothing says that you have to use one in the center of your room. If you have a decent length of sofa, like 90" or more, try using 2 42" ottomans or even three smaller, square ottomans. They help break up to space and provide 3 seats for extras that might not want to sit together. If you often drink in this room, make sure that the ottoman you choose is sturdy enough to place your cup yet not too hard that no one would want to sit for an extended period of time. You want every aspect of this room to be warm and inviting. Also, when deciding on fabrics for this piece, choose something that can take a spill, not a silky fabric or something you can't wipe down.

Have space in your master suite for an attractive piece of furniture? Add a daybed positioned under your window. In a pinch you can always throw a sheet on and have a small child stay in your room with you, yet give you enough space on your bed to roll over, and your guest can stay in their room. Plus, you now have a great space to sit and read or just escape within your own room.

Another thing you can do, rather than a full sleeper sofa, is a sleeper chair and a half. They make sleepers that pull out of a chair that you can use as an accent in any room that can fit it.

There are so many options that can help you say welcome to your future guests and not bombard your home. Try one them today and look forward to your holiday visitors, on their way soon!

Color Mistakes...and what do I do now!

I have a great new addition to my client list. The unfortunate situation I am faced with, is that they hired me after they had already made key choices for their new custom build. They didn't realize that most homebuilders actually hire a designer at the very point they have their blueprint, sometimes even before they go to the architect.They had so many questions along the way that a designer could have solved. Most people do when building a home, there are so many decisions to make, so many steps to achieve that look that you want.

One of the largest initial decisions is what style of home you want. The typical new build home in Arizona is a "Tuscan" style, like an old Italian villa- yet three times as big! The craziest thing that I find when dealing with my clients, is that the majority of them do not like Tuscan, yet they end up building this style of home, without the knowledge that the exterior style can be altered at the drawing board, to reflect their taste.

My wonderful couple here made all the wrong decisions when making the primary selections for their home. They started off selecting a roof tile blend of two different mexican tiles with very different variations in their hues. One tile has a brown base with creamy, yellow, almost green areas. The other, a brown with a purple base to it. (Browns have many different undertones that comprise their end result color, so you must be careful when combining it, or any neutral, with other colors) They then found a home with a color they loved, Dunn Edwards Madera- which is a very yellow, yellow. It is a creamy, warm toned yellow, but very striking. To add to this, they had a local stone company create a sample of stone veneer to apply to their home. The paint was not yet done when they were choosing their stone, yet they already had selected the color, so it should have been a major factor in the selection of their stone. Now, in this instance, I blame the stone guys because he saw that they just didn't work together and didn't make a blend that better complimented the colors of the home. The husband fell in love with the sample and the rest was history. Most men are color blind; that's not an insult to anyone reading the blog, it's actually a fact. Most men also tend to choose colors with a charcoal or ash base. That was the case with this home. He really didn't see much wrong with the stone and it went up beautifully. The two issues that occurred were that the stone that went up did not have as many creamy beige stones as in the sample, and the grays and blacks that went up ABSOLUTELY DON'T MATCH THE HOUSE, NOR THE ROOF!!!!! Disaster.

Color is not an easy thing to figure out. Some people are naturals at selecting colors that work well together, some use the color cards provided by the paint companies- which is a good idea. Most of the general public needs help when working with warm and cool colors in combinations. Certain combinations of colors can fool the eye to see all sorts of things that aren't there. We can use light and dark colors together to make a room seem larger, smaller, lighter, darker. We can make one color look like an entirely different color by using a second or third color in combination. What happened here is two things. The yellow paint on the base of the house, is not the right tone for this roof. Secondly, the stone is too cold a color for the yellow and too busy for the roof variation. The roof and stone compete with each other. On this home, the paint color is more of a tint ( a color with white added to it) and the stone is a shade ( a color with black added to it). The stone could still have thes darker, charcoal shades, but should have had something to tie them to the roof and the paint. Now the combination of the cool gray and warm yellow makes the roof look purple. OH BOY! What do we do... we must correct the color.

If the stone company makes an error such as this, which in this case is their responsibility because the stone on the home does not match the sample too well; don't let them tell you that they can't repair it. In this case, as it is all already up, they would need to cut out random stones every 4' or so and add a creamy beige stone, like what's on the board. This would help tie in the color on the house. This will not solve the problem of the roof. Unfortunately, this will now cost them money. The three options in this instance are to:

1. Paint the roof a solid charcoal color to match the stone and tie in the combination
2. Paint the facia, which is the trim area that separates the base of the home from the roof
3. Stain the entire base of the home, by applying a dark shade of a wash coat over the Madera, which she will absolutely not allow- because it will alter her yellow and further bring about a Tuscan style.

We have not yet completed any of these actions... So stay tuned to see what they choose. I am using this situation as an example to show that we can (most of the time) correct a color error. In a home of this size, the correction will not come cheap! This makes me feel bad for my clients because they just didn't know that their choices could impact the end result so drastically. Now that they have me on to oversee the crews that come in and out of their home and assisit with their choices, we'll make better progress towards the completion of a fabulous high-end home.
Color is not always your friend... sometimes she's a stranger that you have to get to know first!

TO UNDERSTAND THE PREVIOUS TWO POSTS, READ THE LAST ONE FIRST.

brown leather sofa continued...

This is how the floorplan would work best. The sofa, still as bulky as it is, is in use. Let's just say it's not brown, not leather and they do not want to part with it because they just bought it for $10,000 in Brazil. We have replaced the loveseat with a wing back chair that allows more space in the room and we've given the same amount of seating that the loveseat gave us by redistributing the second seat to the opposite side of the couch. The chairs DO NOT HAVE TO MATCH!!! Break out of the thought that a well proportioned room has a sofa, a loveseat and a matching chair. You don't even have to have a sofa and two matching chairs. You can use a strong wing back and then a less formal accent chair on the side. Round side tables allow another illusion of space, while still delivering the platform you might need to set down a drink or place a decorative vase. Our traffic pattern has now been taken away from interrupting Grey's Anatomy and placed behind the sofa, where it is less distractive.

Other issues, also important to your selection of a sofa is the form and function. By form, I mean the style of particular elements of the sofa... Do you prefer a skirt or to see a leg? Do you want a loose pillow back, for a more informal look, or fixed back. (I'll tell you this. I have two beautiful, recenly reupholstered contemporary sofas in a copper chenille that my husband and daughter are absolutely destroying because they squish the back cushions under their arms and reposition them as bed pillows while they watch tv. IT BURNS ME UP!!!!!) Do you want a straight arm, curved arm, roll arm, the choices on most custom sofas are endless and can create a unique piece to fit your taste.

Function: now this brings us back to our brown leather sofa. Mostly chosen by clients that like a little color but are scared of it and those who have dogs and cats or a combination of all three. Sure, if you have a good grade of leather it will scratch less and a leather sofa can be as comfy as an upholstered. It can also be cold when the air is blasting and hot when the heat is on. It will wear and show distress in time just by sitting in it on a daily basis. The world of home fashion has provided us with so many pet friendl alternatives to leather, like a nice, tight linen weave that can be soft to the touch, a chenille in a texture, not just a flat. There are even some rugged poly- wool blends that provide a soft sexy look with the strength needed to withstand those well clipped doggy nails.

There are so many possibilties if you take the time to plan your room for your needs, or have a professional do it for you. Measure twice, buy once!

The brown leather sofa!

Been so busy lately chasing clients that I haven't had much blog time. I very recently visited what must be my 100th brown leather sofa. Why does everyone looking for a pet friendly, comfy couch go for a brown leather sofa? It is not the be all, end all perfect solution for a great room.
Now, I agree that you must consider a few factors when looking to purchase a nice sofa. Let's discuss them in detail, so we're all on the same page:

1. Size Matters- You not only have to make sure that your couch will fit your wall, but you have to take into account positioning and traffic flow. Sure, your wall may be 10' wide and your sofa is just 8' wide, but where is your tv? How do you enter the room or exit to the adjacent room? If your sofa is facing your television, you do not want traffic to have to pass in front of you while walking in the room. You also don't want them to have to walk by you as they go to the kitchen. Try to position your seating so that your traffic can walk behind the pieces. If your pieces are too large in scale to push them forward, perhaps a shallower sofa is needed in the space, or a way to break up the traffic pattern. Let's look at the example in the upper right corner.

What's wrong with this floorplan? The television is in the ideal spot for the room, but the bulky, heavy furniture setting is overcrowding the look and the traffic flow from the room on te right has to pass in front of the sofa, even the coffee table and around to exit to the next room behind the sofa. I think it's instictive for people to automatically want to align a sofa against a wall. And there are times when this would work, just not here.