yholland's ideas
Love the coach Milo Baughman’s Design Classic 825 Sectional reflects his affinity for a relaxed style that fosters an aura of gregariousness and warmth. In a 1971 lecture at Oregon State University, Baughman asserted, “The structured environment must offer significant social and emotional benefits; it cannot simply look good. In discussing the importance of environment, we are discussing primarily the quality and importance of human life.”
Curbed-shower enthusiasm. A curbless shower makes a bathroom feel bigger and look cleaner — plus, it's very practical for aging-in-place homeowners, since it adheres to universal design principles. This look is fairly easy to achieve in a new bathroom or a remodel — just make sure you mention it to your architect or contractor prior to construction.
Display only the important stuff. A room that's moderately complex visually doesn't have to be devoid of things you love. There are multiple objects on display in this space, but it is only moderately complex visually, because the items on the shelves are simple shapes and colors and are symmetrically arranged. If they were more complicated shapes or in multiple colors, fewer could be presented at any one time.
Skip the shower door. If your bathroom is about 5 feet wide, that's just enough space to squeeze in a toilet and a 30- by 60-inch tub. With tight conditions such as these, consider a glass panel instead of a glass shower door. It will keep most of the water in the shower and will free up needed elbow room.
Contrast. Combine straight and curved lines for contrast. If the furniture is modern and linear, throw in a round table for contrast. If the furniture is curvy, mix in an angular piece. Similarly, pair solids with voids: Combine a leggy chair with a solid side table, and a solid chair with a leggy table.
bathroom lighting Task Lighting This is the light by which you can best see yourself. “Proper task lighting at the mirror is important,” says lighting designer Randall Whitehead. He recommends using a pair of sconces mounted at eye level on either side of the mirror to provide shadowless illumination. This creates the best scenario for makeup application, shaving, tooth care and so on.
Tip: Change your sofa. As the sofa is the largest piece of furniture in most living rooms, swapping it out will result in the biggest style change. Traditional and modern decorating styles may be polar opposites, but they do have one thing in common: fussy sofas! Whether it's a trad sofa that's tufted and trimmed within an inch of its life or a stiff, low-slung minimalist piece, trading in a fussier sofa for a comfy yet sleek sectional, chaise or simple tuxedo sofa is a great way to update your space.
What Is a Daybed? Daybeds have experienced a great surge in popularity in recent years — you can find versions everywhere from West Elm to high-end showrooms. Daybeds usually have a regular twin-size mattress, a low back and two raised ends. You can use the piece as a couch during the day and, when it's cleared of extra pillows, as a bed at night. Because daybeds (unlike divans) have backs, you can position them anywhere in the room — not just against the wall.
What Is a Divan? Originating in Persia, a divan has a tufted mattress-like seat, either directly on the ground or on a low wooden frame. It is usually pushed against a wall, where pillows can be piled up to create a daytime seat — at night it can be cleared off and used as a bed. Think of the divan as the daybed's older, more lounge-worthy sibling.
Be bold. The typical strategy for a bathroom in a basement is to hide it, but sometimes there's just no way to pull that design move off that isn't boring. The reason: Basement bathrooms need to compete for space with the furnace, water softener, hot-water heater, stairs etc. And sometimes after I lay out the bar, bedroom and whatever else makes the space awesome, there's no place awesome left for the bathroom.
The firm's in-house carpenter created custom bookcases, cabinets and the electric fireplace's surround. Using painted pine and premade glass cabinet doors helped trim costs. The glass cabinet doors, lit from above, mimic windows and reflect light. They also conceal media equipment and toys. The fireplace surround is California tumbled slate in 1- by 2-inch tiles, which add warmth and texture.
: "When it comes to basements, you can never have too many lights or too many ways to control it with dimmers and switches," Moore says. The pot lights in front of the cabinet doors add ambience. He also used some clever tricks to give the illusion of natural light. If you look closely at this picture, you'll see that the only real window is the small one to the left of the built-ins (there is one more small window on the other side of the built-ins). However, using glass on the cabinet doors and a windowpane mirror lends the illusion of natural light in the underground space. In truth, the ground is just 6 inches below the bottom of the exterior window, and the glass door leads to a new laundry room.
Greek taverna. Most times when I see white and blue, with white dominant, my mind wanders to Greece. I start thinking lamb souvlaki and baklava. The tufted banquette is supersophisticated. Yet the wood and wicker bring it into casual territory.
Metro dining or upscale tavern. This feels exactly like a private booth — the most romantic seat in the house for feasting on beef carpaccio and Kurobuta pork chop. The pendant light is a nice touch, as are the vertical lines in the back cushion, wood overhang and chairs.
Look for balance. Interior designer Jay Jeffers knows his way around an accessory! I like the way he used the sculpture to balance the lamp on the console table here, and the art grouping to balance the tall photograph and help bridge the distance between the furniture and the ceiling in what is obviously a tall space.
Don’t forget the anchor. The tall candles on this coffee table anchor the arrangement and are surrounded by objects of descending size. Small items are grouped on a tray, so they have a collective presence. The bowl of apples works like fresh flowers — it makes this feel like a "living" arrangement and not something that was put here two years ago and never touched
Unless you live in a library, mix accessories with books. (Just keep the paperbacks in the bedroom or someplace inconspicuous.) If you don't own books, buy some at a yard sale or library sale — they do wonders to warm up a room and are one of the cheapest accessories you can find.
Avoid placing like items at opposite ends of a fireplace mantel. (Imagine how dull this mantel would have been if one candlestick sat on each end.) Instead, rely on clusters of objects to balance one another. Propped and overlapped photographs feel more casual and curated than art that's hung, and in this instance help unite the vignettes on either end of the mantel.
vanity
nice vanity
great day bed
Mason jars. If those heirloom candlesticks are too fancy for your relaxed dinner party, get out that 100 pack of tea lights from Ikea and pop them into mason jars. These also work well as hurricanes outdoors.
Rulers and yardsticks. These charming little wooden rulers used to be given out as freebies at businesses such as hardware stores and banks. The great typography and signs of use make them wonderful items to display today
Love the paint technique
Put up wall shelves. A nightstand can take up a lot of floor space in a small bedroom, and using just one with a double- or queen-size bed means that someone won't have a spot for an alarm clock, phone or beverage. A wall shelf on one side of the bed — or on both — can give a small bedroom a more open feeling and extra floor space, while giving you all the room you need for nighttime essentials.
very nice room, another good daybed Paint the ceiling. Painting the ceiling the same hue as the walls can help to erase the shadow lines that visually define a space. A white ceiling against a darker wall immediately shrinks a space — your eye can sense the room's size right away. When the walls and ceiling are the same color, it's harder for your eye to tell where the room's parameters start and end, so the room looks larger.
Beautiful Daybed!!!! Use a daybed. A daybed can help create the illusion that the room is more of a small sitting area, instead of a small bedroom that's been taken over by a bed. Daybeds often have storage built in underneath too — another bonus for a small room.
nice look with the builtins
With many design icons, almost immediately or years down the road, spin-offs happen. The Arco led to the Nova Arc Floor Lamp. Its drum shade bridges the gap between ultrasleek and traditional, making it well suited to just about any style, and by virtue of its shorter arm, less of a bold statement than the Arco lamp.
Consider keeping connecting spaces neutral. White, beige, greige and the like are fairly foolproof choices for halls and landings, and they give the eye a place to rest between areas of more saturated color. On the other hand, if you have decided to stick with white or soft neutrals in your rooms, the halls and landings can be a great place to experiment with a richer hue. It doesn't need to be a big departure from the other colors you are using — just a shade or two darker is enough to make an impact.
Build your palette with shades of the same hue. Once you have a paint color picked for your first room, one simple way to move on is to choose shades of the same hue for adjacent rooms or walls. You can choose a hue from a nearby paint chip, pick the next color up or down on the same paint chip, or even have the same color mixed at the paint store with white added to make a lighter version. The beauty of this method is that, while it will give your home interest and depth, you also can rest assured that the colors will go well together.
Or start with the room you want to paint the boldest color. If you love color and have a certain hue in mind for a specific room, you can start there instead. Looking out from the bold-hued room, choose a softer, more subdued color for the next rooms. You can, of course, put bold colors next to each other, but that does carry more risk — painter, beware!
Start by picking a color for the biggest, most centrally located room. This will most likely be your living room or kitchen, and it's a great place to start working on your whole-house palette. If picking colors has been stressing you out, choosing a soft, neutral hue for the main room will make picking the other colors easier. And you really can't go wrong with white.
The cabinet swings open for easy access to the plumbing. Ross cut a hole in the back to fit the pipes through. He used a basic gray Krylon spray paint and finished the piece with Minwax's Polycrylic clear coat.
The Rosses had already experimented with using a dresser in their master bath as a vanity. An old sewing machine cabinet found on Craigslist was just the right fit here. Ross added a custom 1-inch marble slab with a bullnose edge to the top to create an elegant counter and backsplash.
Replacing the linoleum floor with black and white tile made a big design impact, as did using subway tile in the shower stall. Both are classics that will match many styles and never go out of fashion.
Add to ideabookby swanky couch "When I got the estimate for the glass enclosure, it was more than the whole renovation had cost me up to that point," Ross says. He came across the French pocket door at architectural salvage dealer Orr Reed in Dallas and knew it would be a great fit. To protect the door from the water, Ross sealed the wood with many coats of an oil-based primer and paint, and added a shower curtain inside. "We also liked the romantic Parisian look of the French door with the curtain on the back," he says.
An undercounter composting unit like this one means you can just wipe all of your food waste off the counters and into your bin before it goes out to the garden. Put one in your countertop where you do most of your prep work to make composting easy to remember and do.
another cool idea A handy step stool. It's always great to have a leg up for extra-high upper cabinetry, but where on earth should you store the step stool? An ultrathin model can slip right inside a discreet drawer. This homeowner managed to sneak one inside a toe kick. A specialized step stool drawer like this is offered by many cabinetry manufacturers — if you're designing a new kitchen, don't forget to ask about this feature.
great idea A mobile butcher block island. A built-in butcher block top makes prep easy — but some cooks prefer it out of sight when it's not in use. A mobile prep cabinet like this can be pulled out when needed and pushed away when not.
like the bathroom nooks over toilet
Mix up your lighting in the bathroom. Getting the lighting in bathrooms working effectively can be tricky. Usually a mix of several types of lighting will give the best result. Recessed lighting works well when illuminating the vanity area. Try using at least two gimbal downlights, fitted close to the mirror. Space them so that the light output from one overlaps the other's. Tip: Lights exposed to moisture need to be rated accordingly. Make sure you're using bulbs that are damp rated.
recessed lights Space your fixtures evenly. You now know your wattage and the number of can lights your room needs, but spacing them evenly is just as important. Measure at least 2 feet off all your walls onto the ceiling to start. Aim to divide your can lights around the room evenly and leave at least 2 feet between each fixture. Of course these are general guidelines, and you may need to do some tweaking depending on the space. Focus on balance and don't worry if you need to remove or add a can light to get it right.
nice
LOVE the narrow sink By adding subway tile from floor to ceiling, we brightened up the space," says DiCaprio. The vanity is from Ikea; DiCaprio splurged on the custom-built medicine cabinet
Add to ideabookby Stephanie Sabbe AFTER: Sticking to a strict budget, designer Stephanie Sabbe transformed the room with an Etsy wall stencil and bright Benjamin Moore paint. A new custom vanity with a marble top, and classic floor and shower tile balance out the on-trend elements.
No space for a guest room? Consider a Murphy bed. There are a lot of really sophisticated designs on the market now. And while a good one isn't cheap, it would still be cheaper than adding a guest room that would get used only a few times a year.
An area feels bigger if there's nothing to stop the eye. In this example a pair of daybeds is used instead of sofas. Because the daybeds have no backs, the eye can see past them into adjoining spaces, making the room appear larger. The same theory applies to coffee tables. Because the coffee table in this room is transparent, it takes up less visual space. And to make the room appear taller, curtains were mounted near the ceiling, drawing the eyes upward.
Recycled tile. Whether salvaged or containing recycled material, recycled tile can add a unique element to your kitchen that's easy on your conscience.
nice lights over bar area
Love the french door to separate rooms to keep things open. Double custom 8-foot-high French doors open between the landing and the main lounge. The trim throughout is dark-stained alder.
love the chairs
Side lighting doesn't have to be traditional wall sconces to work successfully. Consider decorative pendants like these.
bar stools. good height and profile
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