Today I want to show you a Before and After of a master bedroom. The Client had already started moving furniture and taking down photos in prep for my arrival, when these photos were taken. You can see that the room is small, but the bedroom furniture is not...
The back view, into the bathroom and closet:
The design challenges here: A large TV mounted on the wall. Beautiful but bulky furniture. Lots of artwork and photos but nowhere to display them. Paint color that the Client disliked. Two walkways that needed to stay open, limiting furniture arrangement. A tight budget. A bad view. No overhead lighting.
The biggest design challenge here was in marrying the very large, dark wood furniture set with a very small room. Often the decision, when trying to make a room feel bigger, is to use light bright colors to open the space. That is one way to go, but not ALWAYS the solution. In every consultation I ask:
How do you want this space to feel?
The Clients response was key. When I heard her say
"I want a retreat, a sanctuary..."
I knew the solution was in going with the limitations, and painting the walls one of the Clients favorite colors...a deep, warm and rich red. (Devine paints "Paprika")
When you have a small space, sometimes the answer isn't the illusion of bigger, but to really embrace the cozy factor!
Now, instead of the contrast of dark wood standing out starkly against the light yellow walls, emphasizing the tiny room? The furniture and walls are in the same tone, blending into each other and the eye sees cohesiveness. This is a great trick to remember, when you have a room element that you want to disappear. Help those edges blend and visually disappear by avoiding contrast, and the room will feel softer! Save your room wall paint and use it if you need to unify the room elements.
If you have drapery rods that bug you? Paint them the same wall color and they "disappear". An ugly wooden shelf that distracts from the pretty objects displayed there? Paint it the wall color. It doesn't have to be the wall color either, just the most dominant color in the room. For example, if the end tables in your living room stand out, paint them in tones more similar to your sofa upholstery or
flooring color to help unify the space.
The Client loves mirrors and had this large one that we had removed from the living room on a previous job. In order to reflect more light from the opposite walls' window, we hung it sideways. Since the walls paneling had a deep crack in it, we "hid" that flaw with a string of pagoda lights, adding ambiance, light and more romance to the space. Knowing that the Client works during the day and the room was mainly used at night, I added only soft lighting. There is no overhead lighting in this room, so we needed to compensate for that, but without a need for direct lighting we could go in a cozier direction. Lighting really makes or breaks a room. Almost every job I've done I've added at least 2 lamps!
In order to help the TV blend in, plus display the Clients art, I created a simple gallery wall. Leaving every other wall in the room blank so that all attention is on this area and filling it all the way to the ceiling height was key. I would've loved to have all the frames in matching colors, but this was a one afternoon--use what is here--get it accomplished kind of day! We painted the bedroom red, the short hallway cream, and the interior doors a deep black...waiting for paint to dry was the longest part of the job! I couldn't wait to get started on this gallery wall, containing artwork, a poem, reminders of past jobs, mementos from travel, colorful and meaningful items... all visible from the comfort of her king size bed. Before the job began, I had asked the Client to assemble all her favorite wall art for me. Then, as I hung items I went around her home and "stole" favorite photos of her husband, daughter, and more, to fill in the space completely. Now the big dark TV isn't a hole in the wall, but surrounded by personal reminders of my Clients very precious, beautiful life...
This corner window has an ugly view of construction equipment on the right but a lovely garden view on the left..We hung sheers up only on the right, to hide the bad view but allow light in.Design wise, I'd prefer sheers on both but the Client is happy because she can see her garden from the chairs now!
The corner is dark and is the one area the Client needs bright light to use her laptop. Knowing the Client loves her white paper Ikea lanterns in the living room, I added a corner hanging light in a similar style to those, found at the thrift store for only $2.99! I also added a small shelf table (in the same creamy tones of the chairs) to rest her laptop on and add more usefulness to the area.
This corner, previous to the redesign, didn't tie in to the rest of the room. It visually "sunk"
because every other area of the small room had very tall, dark furniture, but low, light colored chairs alone down here. In order to bring the eyes up and visually balance the space, I hung dark brown patterned fabric across the top of the windows, in a faux roman shade type style. On a tight budget and with very specific color requirements, I found the perfect pattern in, of all places, the Target shower curtain aisle! Keep your eyes open to every option, and it will eventually present itself. $19.99 for the curtain, cut in half, hemmed and hot glued...redesign in its element, here.
In every consultation I ask "what items do you absolutely want to keep?" because I recognize that very often we have personal attachment to furniture or artwork. It doesn't matter if the item doesn't "match" or relate to the room...my job is to help it flow as much as possible. The Client had two heirloom bamboo chairs with real jade inlaid into the backs. Because these chairs were old, beautiful and her mothers...they needed to stay. Now, design wise they might be too small and too light for the room, but my role is one of collaboration. How can I help my Client use what she has and loves? Its easy to say "Doesn't work. Get rid of it." I enjoy the creative challenge of "Love it. Can we make it work, somehow?" YES.
I decided to take the color of the jade and the cream color of the chairs and incorporate that into the design plan. Now, how to marry the deep red walls with jade green and keep it all from looking
like a bad Christmas card? The key was in the bedding. I searched and searched until I found the
perfect bedding that would tie it all together...Knowing my Client dislikes anything that is too country style, I found a Bohemian quilt with lots of color and almost gypsy, Indian style pattern in it. With the perfect cream background, the deep red of the walls, chocolate brown and touches of the green jade color we needed. It helped unify the artwork and chairs in such a way as to create the harmony needed in a room with so many colors!
The Client texts me every now and then, saying again how much she is enjoying her retreat.
She longed for a sanctuary, and now she truly has one and its so very HER. Success!
