Beautiful View from the Front of  My Client’s Home

This was the dilemma in my client’s home.  Here is the dining room in it’s “before” state – it has lovely tall ceilings and a beautiful hutch to the right.   The space above it looks a bit bare, but what to hang there????

Dining Room Before The Decorologist

Following the lines of the furniture always works for me.  Creating a vignette with much-loved china on the wall that mimics the lines of the furniture made for an interesting and unique solution for this design dilemma.  Oh, and we changed the wall color so that the wood tones would have a richer backdrop (if you have lots of wood in one room, most of the time yellow is not the best choice to paint your walls).

Dining Room After

Here’s another shot to show better show you the effect the plate grouping makes with this beautiful hutch.

Blue and White Plate Grouping

Unusually-shaped furniture often call for unique accessorizing solutions.  Have you ever had to accessorize around an oddly-shaped piece of furniture?

 All images in this post are found here

Wouldn’t it be fun to decorate it out all retro-dreamy, like a giant dollhouse?

My girls could use it as a playhouse in the backyard.

Or I could use it as an office in the warmer months.

It’d be a perfect place to read . . . or just think really deep thoughts.

We could even go on a trip in it!  Maybe to the beach – I’d feel like Gidget.

If you need inspiration for your pipe dreams, you should really be on Pinterest.   You can check out my Airstream Dreams board to see more cool trailer interiors.  Or get ideas for exterior house paint colors from my Exterior Paint Colors board.  Maybe you want to hang some art but don’t know where to start – just browse through my Wall Art Groupings board.  Join me there and indulge in your own pipe dreams!

I layed out these gorgeous plates on my client’s bed this week, working until we got an arrangement we both liked.   This is what I came up with – it’s kind of like an inverted Christmas tree shape over her dresser:

I also did a plate grouping for her on a small wall in her office.  I chose three sizes and two different patterns to create a grouping that worked with the colors in this room.

See how the colors tie into the gorgeous rug?

Of course, you may want to hang photos or other items on your wall in a grouping.  Again, you should start by trying out some variations on the floor.

I was dealing with different shapes and sizes here, but the black frames united the whole grouping.  I hung these in a client’s house over the summer:

Pay attention to the shape of the wall space you want to fill.   What can you do with two slivers of walls between doors? 

Let the shape/size of the wall space be your guide when determining how to hang your items.  Tall, thin wallspaces call for tall, thin arrangements like this: 

Make sure you gather things to hang that mean something to you.   I put together this grouping from one client’s collection of her grandmother’s art and some other items that held special meaning to her family.   When displayed as a group, your collection makes so much more of a statement than it would if it were scattered around a room. 

The most important tip I can give you is to be brave – don’t be afraid of putting a few nail holes in the wall!   Creating art groupings requires creativity, an open mind, and fearlessness – just go for it!

Oh, and if you live in the Greater Nashville area and really screw it up, admit you need help and call The Decorologist.

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The wall going up one side of the stairs is visible from the entry and the living room of the home, and it is currently bare -bare-bare.  I asked my client to gather up her favorite black and white photographs of her family.  She has an assortment of frames, and we decided to pull out all the brushed nickel ones and then spray paint all the remaining hodge-podge ones black.  Having two colors (nickel and black) of various size/shape frames will give her a good balance of unity and variety. 

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Here’s an art grouping on a stairwell I did recently.  It’s a simple but effective display, I think.

I know stairwell walls scare a lot of people – they usually leave them bare because they just don’t know what to do with them.  It’s all about gathering photos or art that tell a story – a story about your family or about the things you love or collect. 

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The arrangement works best if it the pieces are grouped close together – so they read as a visual whole.  Following the rise of the stairs is essential so that the pieces make sense in that space.

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I love this unexpected display of art – hung directly on the stair rails!

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If you want walking up your stairs to be a happy experience, schedule a Design Intervention with The Decorologist.

She had done her homework:  all the photography was ready for me and in gorgeous frames, no less.  Framing them in the same frame finish makes the grouping cohesive, but it’s great to vary the actual frame design like she did here.  I worked on the design on the floor before I started swinging my hammer.

Here’s the hallway that was just waiting for a reason to be noticed . . .

Now this hall has a reason for living – showing off the beautiful family that lives here!

Now the Hall of Shame is the Hall of Fame.  What do you think?

If you need help creating a Hall of Fame for your family photos, contact The Decorologist for a design intervention (kristie@thedecorologist.com).

What I love about salon-style groupings is that they can be added to and expanded upoon when new art comes in. 

House and Home

I was inspired by plate groupings that I had seen that felt a little rambling and abstract, like I blogged about here. 

 Down And Out Chic

So I decided to ramble on across the wall, and this is what I have now. 

My 10-year-old thinks I took it too far.  She said, “OH MOM,  that is just TOO much!”  But I really love it.  I realize it IS a bit much – but if you can’t express yourself in your own home, where can you? 

So, I guess the question is:  how much is TOO much when it comes to decorating your home?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments!

Last week, I worked with a client who had lovely art that wasn’t being displayed to its best potential. 

The client and her husband had lithographs and prints from their travels in Germany that had yet to be hung on the walls.   I created this grouping and had it hung in less than half an hour.   This is now the view when you walk in the front door and into their living room.

Even though there is more art on the walls, the overall look is less cluttered and much more interesting.  The art grouping makes you want to walk over and find out more about the story it has to tell.

Here’s an architectural nook of bookshelves on the other side of the living room that needed some attention, as well.  It was filled with momentos from their travels, as well as some family photographs.

By grouping objects meaningfully and adding books, this nook is more visually pleasing.  Each grouping tells a story.  Hopefully, it puts a smile on my client’s face when she walks into this room.

Are you having difficulty making your rooms come together?  Do you keep buying accessories but just aren’t satisfied with the way they work in your home?   Stop shopping and contact  The Decorologist to schedule home styling using all your own furniture and accessories.   I can help you use the things that are important to you in a more meaningful way and save you from making more costly purchases!

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A large pine armoire sat in the cubby to the right of the table, and two matching cabinets flanked the front window.   The yellow undertones of the armoire provide little contrast to the builder’s basic wall color.

We started with a whole new wall color, Benjamin Moore’s Aganthus Green, to create a better backdrop for the client’s art.  No need to buy a thing – I shopped for art around the house.  Playing around with art on the floor is a good way to create just the right layout.

Before, my client felt that her dining room looked like they had just moved in (they hadn’t).  A new paint job and a couple of hours of restyling later, here is the final result of this dining room makeover. 

We moved the pine armoire to another room and replaced it with the matching cabinets from the other side of the room.  Rather than using them separately, I grouped them and treated them as one piece.  Original art and family heirlooms are showcased in a sophisticated way.  My client says now she feels like her house feels like a home.  I think it looks elegant, arty, and very special.  Just like her!

Photo Credits:  The Decorologist (formerly StoneBrook).

Photo Credits:   Down and Out Chic (1-4) , Discover Interior Design, My Sweet Savannah(6,7), Apartment Therapy (8, 10), I Dream of Letters(9, 11).

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In a modern home, use color sparingly but boldly – like a field of color on one wall to draw the eye to an unexpected space.   If you do this kind of color block technique, make sure you want to be accenting whatever you are accenting.  In this picture from coccozy, they are actually TRYING to draw the eye to the flat screen television, but that isn’t usually the case.

Hey, don’t be afraid to place furniture against bookcases.  Use a large wall of bookcases as a headboard for your bed, or place a sofa or buffet table up against them.  If Annie Brahler can do it you can, too!

Even in a small bedroom, a canopy or mosquito netting creates a “room within a room” and draws the eye up into the typically unoccupied space in the air.  And draping your bed with fabric “walls” can spice up your lovelife, as well!

Do as the English do:  stack pictures and artwork all the way up your walls – not only does this draw the eye up, but it gives even a small space lots of places for the eye to bounce around and enjoy.  This office space from Domino magazine is fabulous on so many levels . . .  I must do a blog article about feminine office spaces!

Have a few really nice furniture pieces?  Then edit, edit, edit.  That special chair or table takes center stage when clutter is abolished.

What if you don’t have a few really nice pieces?  For less than perfect furniture, clutter offers convenient camouflage. Decorating for profusion instead of spareness is a different kind of editing.  Filling a room with objects can be very provocative and cozy, especially if the objects are variations on a theme.  For example, hang botanical prints in multiples.  Quantity can be as captivating as quality.   Here’s an example of  colorful profusion.  It’s fresh, young, a little crazy.  If you like it, who cares!  It’s your home, your expression.

When I started out housekeeping (wow,  that sounds like something my mom would say), I didn’t have many nice things.  So I bought lots of inexpensive things that I was drawn to from yard sales, flea markets, antique malls, and clearance racks.  At that point in time, I decorated for profusion!  When I slowly acquired a few nicer things, the process of artful editing began.  I sold many of those “starter” items, which enabled me to save up for nicer ones.  Now, I have much less clutter and fewer collections – but what I did keep I truly love and believe to be beautiful.

A few final thoughts:  Are you an artist?  Then where better to showcase your art but in your own home?  Have a crazy collection stored away?  Bring it out into the light and celebrate whatever it is you love!

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