Living A Colorful Life

Upon entering the home, a living room/dining room combination runs to the right of a long open hallway.   Here was the dilemma:  the front “living” room had little purpose, except as a holding place for furniture that didn’t fit anywhere else.   Because my clients love bold color, they had painted these front rooms dark orange.  Problem was, the black furniture gave it a Halloween-all-year-round kind of feeling.  And obviously, the pink and white dollhouse seemed a bit out of place.  The only two chairs in the room didn’t exactly call you to sit down and sit a spell.

 ”Living” Room Before

Did I mention this was the first room you saw when you entered the house?  The most use it saw was when it was used for practicing dance routines, but that’s another story altogether . . .

 Living Room/Dance Hall Before

Anywho, here was the task for The Decorologist:  make this space a fun and inviting space for family and visitors to use for more than just dancing (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Living Room After

Obviously, a new paint scheme was introduced, furniture was furiously rearranged and repurposed, and a few new accessories were added to the colorful mix.  The punchy yellow is Benjamin Moore’s Citrus Burst 364.  It’s still fun and quirky like the homeowners, but now it’s functional and inviting as well.

Living Room After

 This is a view from the other side of the room, before the makeover.  You may remember this before-and-after of the former dining space . . .

 Dining Room Before

that was repurposed into an office area . . .

 Office Space After

So now you can see how these spaces came together.

 After The Decorologist

Even the entrance/hallway got a little sprucing up.  It felt a little too country before:

Entrance Before

but now it’s a fresher, more contemporary space filled with the homeowner’s personal art and treasures.

Entry After

Did you notice how the bannister is now painted black and the country-style ladderback chairs are now a bold yellow?  Both color moves served to make dated elements more modern.

Hallway/Entry After

I’m not saying that this design/color scheme is right for most people.  But it was right for these homeowners, and my goal was to make their home feel like their own – full of their personality, but pulled together in a way that anyone can admire and appreciate.    If you are looking for a Nashville decorator who can help you realize your dreams for your own home, contact The Decorologist to schedule an appointment.

SuperNeutral to the Rescue

This is the color the builder chose to coat the interior of my client’s new home.  The Decorologist was called in to intervene.

Living Room Before Color

We had to work with the undertones of several existing elements:  the wood cabinets and floors, the carpet, and the granite countertops. 

Kitchen Before Wall Color

As a Residential Color Expert, it was obvious to me that a superneutral was needed to save the day.  Enter Benjamin Moore’s Winterwood. 

Benjamin Moore’s Winterwood

We went through lots of my bag of “on-trend neutrals,” but all of them seemed to fall flat.  So I called on my superneutrals and eventually found the one that worked perfectly with the orange and yellow undertones of the cabinetry and the green flecks in the granite.

Painted Kitchen

The client’s seated furniture was dark brown leather and she wanted red accents, so the wall color had to complement those choices, as well.  This superneutral is subtle enough to let the other colors in the room to take centerstage, yet it’s not so neutral that it bores. 

Living Room in Benjamin Moore’s Winterwood

Notice how we wrapped the entire room – walls and ceiling – in Winterwood.  A stark white ceiling can be so . . . stark.  Wrapping the room makes it all the more peaceful and enveloping.

Winterwood Walls

Contrary to popular belief, this actually makes the ceilings appear taller since the boundaries between planes are erased.

Kitchen with Painted Walls and Ceilings

If you need help choosing a superneutral for your home, contact The Decorologist to schedule your Color Consultation today!

Kristie Barnett

You might recognize the living room from an old post of mine called “One Day Makover.”  That one day makeover was the beginning of my relationship with this client who has been working toward making this new home her own.  This is the before of the living room:

Kristie Barnett

That first day, I rearranged my client’s furniture and helped her re-think how she was going to use her public spaces.  You’ll see more about that in a bit.  Remember this family photo wall I created?  Since then, my seamstress made custom pillows to fit her style exactly.

Kristie Barnett

Here’s another before of the entire living room:

Kristie Barnett

After creating a new furniture arrangement throughout the house (no new furniture was bought), we started interjecting the turquoise color in carefully selected spots.

Kristie Barnett

Here’s a view of the right side of the room before:

Kristie Barnett

We traded out the piano for an airy console table and a pair of lamps from the bedroom.  I stacked a couple of mirrors to reflect light and add a little glamour.  My client painted this wooden dresser stored in the garage according to my instructions. 

Kristie Barnett

I chose a fun Benjamin Moore turquoise called Spirit in the Sky.  One of my all-time favorite songs, by the way!  Here’s another piece we decided to paint turquoise:

Kristie Barnett

This fun dresser makes a great spot for keys and such in the entry of my client’s beautiful home.  We found the gorgeous lamp in downtown Franklin, TN.

Kristie Barnett

Here’s a before as you enter the home – the door is to the right.

Kristie Barnett

Now the entry is warm and welcoming.   It’s really important to my client to only use accessories and art that have specific meaning to her family – we used lots of family photographs and things passed down from her family of origin.

Kristie Barnett

Now, if you follow my blog you already know I like to shake up a floorplan if it isn’t working for the family I am decorating for.  This was formerly a living room, but it was adjacent to another living room (which seems redundant, no?).  The previous owners of this house set their home up in a similar way, which influenced my client in how she set up hers when her family moved in.  See how the dining room is at the back of the space in front of the french doors.

Kristie Barnett

We moved the dining room into this space, which is directly next to the kitchen.  And we exchanged the crystal light fixture with this large burlap pendant from Pottery Barn to better-fit my client’s style.

Kristie Barnett

While this area was formerly for dining:

Kristie Barnett

Now it’s a sitting area where my client can read a magazine as she watches her children playing in the backyard.  The bookcase (formerly dark green) was also painted in our Spirit in the Sky.   I really love the pillows – I came up with the design and my seamstress from Ruffled Linens brought them to life.

Kristie Barnett

My goal is always to take the things that are important to my client and make it all come together in a beautiful and cohesive way.   I hope that’s what I’ve done here.

Kristie Barnett

If you need help making your decor dreams come true, contact kristie@thedecorologist.com to schedule your appointment today!

Kristie Barnett

Suppose you lived in a home that looked about the same as it had for the last 50 or more years?  Same paint color (or lack thereof), same finishes, same old groove.

Before Makeover

This mid-century ranch needed to find a new groove.  It was kinda like a Sleeping Beauty, just waiting for The Decorologist to pucker up and . . . well, you get my drift.   Anyway, for very little money this space finally looks (and feels) like it belongs to the current homeowners.

Living Room After

You see, one of the current homeowners (the husband) actually grew up in this home.  And after all those years, he had a hard time seeing it any other way.  His wife and young kiddos are  living here now, but they didn’t yet feel like it was THEIR OWN.    This home felt like a hodge-podge of his father’s old things and the apartment furnishings from the couple’s single days.

Living Room Before

The wife decided it was time to add some color, try something different.  And she knew that “admitting you need help is the first step . . . ”

Kristie Barnett

We did a lot of shifting around furniture and brainstorming about better storage solutions.  You can live with what you need without sacrificing beauty.  And you can live with what you love without sacrificing function.

Dining Area Before

We moved out the smaller, shorter table in favor of this larger one that was just sitting under the carport collecting spiderwebs.

 Kristie Barnett

Now, THIS is a groove you can dance to . . .

Kristie Barnett

This room is finally living up to it’s potential as a fun, contemporary living space for a lively young family.  We incorporated some bargain finds into the decor – the futon slipcover and LACK side tables are from IKEA (check out my post devoted to those awesome little tables by clicking here). 

Kristie Barnett

The slipper chairs are from Target.com.

Target’s Avington Slipper Chair 

This awesome shelving system was made by the father that previously lived in the home.  The couple had been using a few pieces of it along with a large tv cabinet.  We moved out the bulky cabinet and reassembled the mid-century marvel, creating a better home for their tv and a great area for display and storage.

 Kristie Barnett

Now the home is as cool as the family who lives there.   How do I know they’re cool?  Well . . .

I’d say their White Stripes obsession is a dead give-away.

Contact kristie@thedecorologist.com for a make-over of your least favorite room.  I can help you change its groove!

Beautiful Brick Home for Sale by Realtor Jim Allen with ReMax in Brentwood, TN

This is how the entry looked prior to staging with The Decorologist:

Entry Before Staging

In the after, the buffet from the dining room was moved into this space and topped with an antique mirror from upstairs.  The mirror makes the entry look sooo much larger!

Entry by The Decorologist

Here is the great room before staging.

Great Room Before

I focused on pairing down the distracting accessories and creating a welcoming conversation area clustered around the room’s focal point – the fireplace.  Now there’s an open walkway to the kitchen, without walking right through the conversation area.

Great Room After Staging

Here’s another before of the living room:

Before

And the after from the same angle:

After Staging

From the other direction:

Before

And then, of course, “tah-dah!”  NOW you notice the amazing fireplace and architecture, don’t you?

Living Room After Staging

Here’s an arial shot of the space before staging:

Before Living Room

Even a cavernous room like this can be made to feel cozy and welcoming with the proper furniture arrangement.

After Staging

This is the dining room before staging:

Before

For the after, we removed several plants and the buffet.  We also updated the artwork a bit and “loosened up” the formal dining area by pulling the chair out as if a casual dinner party was about to begin.

Dining Room After Staging

Another angle of the dining room before:

Before

People can be easily intimidated by formal, fussy dining rooms.   Here I just simplified the window treatments and added a pretty table setting to make the space more welcoming.

Staged Dining Room

Shall we check out a couple of bedrooms?  This was the master bedroom before staging:

Master Bedroom Before

Everything matched in the bedroom, but I wanted to give it a slightly more contemporary look.  No major changes here, but the ones we made definitely took things up a notch.  Everyone wants their bedroom to feel like a luxury hotel suite, so posh bedding and more significant lamps were required.

Master Bedroom After

You know I love a good pillowscape, and a few special details!

Staged Bedroom

Now here’s the guest room before staging:

Guest Room Before

A few little changes make a big impact:

Guest Bedroom After Staging

Couldn’t you spend the night here?

Staged Bed

No new furnishings were needed for this staging;  in fact, this is a great example of how less is more.  Maybe this makeover will inspire you to make some small changes that make a big impact in your home!  Of course, you can always contact a Greater Nashville home stager like The Decorologist to do the work for you.   (If you want to view more of this house, check out The Decorologist FaceBook page this weekend.)

We talked about what kind of look and feeling she wanted for this room.  She has young children and spends lots of time at home.  She wanted a place that was comfortable and welcoming, but not a free-for-all kidzone.  And for the time being, she only had what she had to work with – so no shopping elsewhere!   We “shopped” from around the rest of the house and found some pieces that worked together in a more interesting way, adding personal photos and decor to warm up the space.  I decided to use a sofa she currently had in a different room, so that the living room could be a sophisticated retreat for the grown-ups.  Here’s the after:

When installing an art or photography grouping, here’s how I determine the placement of the pieces:

And, of course, I determine where the grouping will be placed.  In this case, I wanted to cluster these family pictures above the sofa in the living room.

And here’s how it looked once I installed the grouping:

Here’s a before shot of the other side of the room.  The wall between the windows was really too small for the piano that was placed there.

Using a slender table and a pair of lamps in place of the oversized piano adds balance and warmth to this side of the room.  And the stacked mirrors reflect the light from the lamps.  This shot is a bit dark, but here’s the more sophisticated after shot:

What a difference a day (and a different perspective) can make!  If you want to make your house feel more like a home without breaking the budget, schedule a One Day Make-over with The Decorologist.

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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This is the living room in its “before” state.  Not a lot of color or contrast going on in this room.  This is where the couple watches television, works on the laptop, and reads the paper.  And it’s the room you see when you first enter this home.  This was a concern as they will be entertaining many guests for the holidays, and they want to show off their new house to their friends and family.

No, that previous picture was not a black and white photo!  But it looks black and white when compared to the “after” picture.  Cozy up your rooms by adding some warm colors like the chocolate brown and coral in this living space.  Now there is just the right amount of contrast against the light walls and cream loveseats.   What a difference this patterned rug made over the plain cream one that was here previously.

Here’s the “before” of the room from another angle.  The homeowners were having difficulty making their room come together – the furniture felt hodge-podge and the arrangement fell flat.

What they needed was a fresh perspective and a new furniture arrangement to make the furnishings more cohesive and the room seem more welcoming.   By floating two loveseats in the middle of the room, they can easily pass on either side to the kitchen or master bedroom.  Seating is no longer lined up against the walls with a large path down the middle of the room and far from the entertainment center.   The new arrangement makes this room feel more than a pass-through into other rooms – it’s now a cozy and welcoming destination.

There was no artwork or any height on this side of the room.  Because there is a tall entertainment center on the opposite wall, this created a lopsided feeling in the room.  You want to have peaks and valleys in a room – that is, high points and low points.

The grandfather clock and the vivid artwork pulls your eye up and gives the room visual balance.  Have you noticed what a difference lamp lighting makes in these before and after pictures?  Overhead lighting makes everything look flat.  Task and accent lighting truly warm up your space and makes everything more 3-dimensional.  Adding this sofa table on the back wall flanked with matching lamps gives some symmetry and weight to this side of the room.

Do you have an important room in your home that’s been treated like the least important?  Maybe you should go shopping around the rest of your house like I did in this home.  This was accomplished in a few hours and not one thing was purchased.  If  you need help warming up your house for the fall and you are in the Nashville area, schedule an appointment with StoneBrook Staging and Interior Styling before the holidays creep up on you!

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Today I thought I would share some Before and After pictures of a recent living room update.  Actually, it’s a living room/dining room combination.  My client wanted an update and wasn’t sure where to start.  She had nice furniture in neutral colors, so I suggested we change the wall color, rearrange furniture, and add interest with lighting and accessories.

Here’s the Before from one end of the room:

This room needed some personality, warmth, and sophistication.  We chose Benjamin Moore’s Wedgewood Gray in an eggshell finish for the walls.  Simple curtain panels soften the windows and add warmth to the room.  A new pair of lamps on a sofa table warm things up, as well.  The large black coffee table was switched out for a pair of square nesting tables.

Here’s the After:

This is the Before from the opposite side of the room.

Here is the After:

The conversation area is now properly oriented towards the room’s focal point – the fireplace.  The television is in the opposite corner than before, where it is clearly visible from the seating area but not the first thing you see when you walk in the room.

This client only uses her dining room table once a year at Christmas, so we moved it against the window on the opposite side of the room and put away most of its chairs.  Now she’ll use one end to have her morning coffee and check her email and the other to display her prized blanket from Afghanistan and a changing seasonal display.

Before from yet another angle

We all need a change from time to time.  For more Befores and Afters, check out my portfolio at www.stonebrookstaging.com.

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I’m always encouraging clients to make their rooms more functional, more beautiful, and more “them.”  This is a great example of taking an underused room and making it highly useful and true to the homeowner’s interests.  These homeowners are true bibliophiles (that means they’re readers ).  But all their books and bookcases were stuffed into a guest bedroom.  It made perfect sense to bring the books into the place they actually lived – or should I say, now actually live.  This room had little function for them before, except to hold hand-me-down furniture that didn’t reflect their own tastes.

Here’s the before:

After clearing the room, we dragged down the bookcases from the guest room and lined adjoining walls with them to create some coziness.  We really didn’t have quite enough bookcases, so we left space for artwork and topped the area with a single board.  I knew we needed a modern table and chairs.  I found the Saarinen-ish tulip table at IKEA, and the blue and metal chairs at a local consignment furniture store.  When the new room came together, the personality of the room was a much better reflection of the personality of the homeowners.

Here’s the after:

This is the perfect place to read the newspaper and have a morning cup of coffee and a bagel.  Or check email and read a novel.  Or do homework or freelance writing or whatever.  Or have an intimate meal by candlelight.   Or park the hor dourves for guests at an informal party.  What would be the perfect centerpiece on this table?  A stack of books, of course.

How’s this for a bonus?  Here’s the Before/After of the opposite side of the room.  I basically flipped the living room and dining room in this rectangular space.

Before: 

And here’s the after:

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