This professional man didn’t bring much with him when he relocated to a small 1920’s Biloxi cottage just off the beach. The house itself was brimming with all the charm of an old home, including a lush, colorful garden with fountain and fish pond, and the traditional white picket fence. It also offered drawbacks of an old cottage…small rooms and little closet space.
However, the owner of this home, in his spare time, renovated old houses similar to this one. In the process of this renovation, he opened up the living room to the kitchen, and converted some space in the master bedroom to creat a well designed walk in closet and enough space in the bedroom for a seating area and entertainment armoire. In keeping with the style of a cottage, split brick pavers were installed in the living room and kitchen area, further enhancing the flow of space between the two rooms. Custom millwork and cabinetry were installed, but the kitchen lacked color. It still retained a sense of “the blahs” in spite of the quality of the materials and the shining granite countertops. It also wasn’t very functional. There was no room for a dining table. The solution: To expand the island bar’s countertop overlap to incorporate more seating around that area.
The children, who live out of state, are once monthly visitors to the home, so the primary objectives of this design installation were 1. To create a subtle masculine atmosphere 2. To incorporate decorating elements that complimented the traditional style of the home itself 3. To create a sense of flow throughout the house, beginning with the colorful garden outdoors to the master bedroom in the back of the house 4. To create a design in the minute children’s bedroom that would please both his daughter, age 8, and his son, age 7, on their monthly visits and add additional display and storage space, and 5. To select materials and designs that were as impervious as possible to the two dogs’ chewing tendencies!
Since the owner is an avid art collector, it was quite easy to establish a color scheme. We selected from his large collection the one piece that was his favorite, a large floral still life, in order to determine our color selections and to help establish both a subtle “theme” and the mood of the space. Since the living room offered no real focal point, the still life would serve a prominent role.
Our ultimate color selections for both walls and furnishings were a soft, muted light green, a smokey light blue, and soft yellows and cremes, using the smokey blue as our primary color.
We created our design presentation beginning with the living room, keeping in mind that every concept and selection had to flow…from there, to the home office, through the kitchen, the hall bath and laundry room, and into the master bedroom and bath area. Shown below is our presentation board of the items selected for the living room., keeping in mind that the room contained no furnishings other than the dog’s bed!
Follow us into the kitchen in the next blog. You’ll begin to see how this design scheme flows!
Happy decorating,
Constance & Remy
Color selection is vital to your enjoyment of the space you will be living in. Selecting a color(s) is like selecting pricey artwork; once it’s on your wall, you’ll be living with it for a long time. So how to go about it? First, color relates to the second step in good design: MOOD. (see our blog Interior Design 101) We will be discussing mood in our next Interior Design 101 blog. But let’s get back to color.