Design Boards: Elegant Club House

It's been quite a busy fall, my online client list has almost surpassed my local client list! Thank you so much to all of you ladies who have entrusted me with the design direction for your homes - it's been a wonderfully creative couple of months around here, and it shows no signs of stopping...

I thought perhaps some of you would like to see some examples of the design boards I have been doing up. Colour consultations have been few and far between, with more and more clients requesting design consultations. This is exciting because I get to put the whole look together, rather than just a part of the puzzle.  Many of my clients this fall have had dramatically different taste, and that is what keeps me challenged and loving this job!

Let's begin with the Elegant Club House Client. This client's home backs onto a golf course, and she would like to combine her love of the outdoors and neutrals to create a country club feel within her great room and kitchen. This home was built in the seventies, and has great soaring ceilings and a large brick fireplace  which need to be left as is. The walls, kitchen cabinetry and built-in's will be painted, and the countertops, furniture and lighting replaced. The ECH Client requested a space that was up-to-date but had a timeless appeal, with a soothing atmosphere. She liked the idea of grey, and had just purchased a white and black ottoman that she loved.

Many rooms like this were considered...

These were on the right track, now the space must be fully considered before deciding on a personalized colour and design plan...

The pale grey-white brick of the fireplace meant grey was already part of our scheme, which works against the warmth of the hardwood floors and the sun from south-facing windows.

So we had it:

Steel grey upholstery balanced by warm grey paint on the walls and cabinetry, warm wood floors and furnishings. Black accents add some crucial contrast.

A television will be placed opposite the window of the great room, and so placement of the sofa under the window works well. A matching armchairs provides a cosy corner by the fire for relaxing and conversation, while two smaller armchairs provide additional seating and define the living area without blocking off the view to the fireplace.

The dining table is placed across the room, so that the dining views are the fireplace and into the kitchen beyond. Four chairs will serve for everyday meals, and two additional chairs for guests are tucked in alongside a small cabinet. This sideboard provides a place for display or to set up a bar/buffet for larger parties. It also grounds the dining table, making it part of a distinct area rather than just a table floating in the room.

In all pieces, clean lines are tempered by graceful curves and pattern is used sparingly to keep a restful atmosphere. The board below does not show many accessories, but the china that will be displayed inside my clients built-in's will offer plenty of eye candy on our focal wall.

The ECH fireplace is a bit of a conundrum (don't you just love that word?!)

It's asymmetrical placement in the fireplace facade had my Client baffled by how to decorate this area.

Once the built-in's a painted out in the pale grey we've chosen, this will be even more obvious. 

The client is considering adding a mantle, which isn't really necessary, and may even take away from the simplicity that makes this fireplace wall work.

I suggested two solutions:

One, place a pair of baskets like these beside the opening, stacked with logs, for balance,

 and centre some art above.

Adding art above a fireplace where it may be subject to heat requires some care - 

metal sculture is ideal here, and the organic forms of these pieces work well in this space.

The second option is simpler, and my favourite. Gather some tall branches into a glass vessel like the one shown below, and place them beside the hearth. This look doesn't require any additional accessories. I think this is a softer approach, and looks less "decorated". My client has decided to try this out before making any other decisions.

For the walls we've chosen Classic Gray, Benjamin Moore 1548, in the Ulti-Matte finish, which will minimize the textured walls.  Nimbus, Benjamin Moore 1465,  will be GORGEOUS on the cabinetry in the kitchen and built-ins. Happy to say the client has tried these out and loves them :) In the kitchen , I've suggested a dark countertop, perhaps soapstone or honed marble, to draw the eye around the room and create the illusion of space. My client has said this may be a challenge for her - she usually goes for "safe" neutrals, but likes the idea more each day.

And that, dear lovelies, is the Elegant Club House I've been working on in a nutshell.

Would you like to hear about the Rock & Roll Baroque Home? How about a working to create Feng Shui Harmony in a builder home?

I'll post about those soon, promise - 'til then - a big MWAH, miss you all - x

hello friends, hello fall

Well, it's fall...

all summer I kept meaning to get get to the blog, to get to your blogs, but life just got in the way. I've missed you, friends.

Project Brownstone has wrapped up, except for a few key delinquent pieces, whose absence have prohibited me from taking proper photos. Now that the family has returned, it may not happen, but I'm happy to say they were delighted with their home... It was few months of crazy, and somewhere along the way, summer passed me by. It's time for a much-needed slow-down at work, with only a few clients on my mind at the moment.

I love this time of year, with crisp days requiring cozy sweaters and the return of crackling logs in the fireplace, apple cider and fresh bread warming up the kitchen. While I'm not too keen on the traditional muddy earth tones associated with fall, orange always has a special place in my heart, and I've just come across two very beautiful spaces that feel very au courant.

first, it was this room  um... can you say perfect? I literally gasped when I saw it. I love every single piece. For those of you who love interiors as much as I do, you know how rarely that happens.

then, this room caught my eye... a more relaxed take, but the vibe is very similar.

a little swagger, a bit of cool, a lot of cozy... and there it is again, perfection. That, lovelies, brings us to my first fall palette: 

Caught up, I went digging around to find more of the same...want to see them? (of course you do! We're all in this for the eye candy, aren't we?!)

What do you think? Are you feeling it?




picture sources 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Project Brownstone: The Dining Area

So you've seen the foyer and the wee "brownstoners" rooms, so how about the living space? What about the heart of the home: the kitchen, dining and living area's?

This home has a lovely large area across the back where the kitchen opens up to light-filled eating and and family room area. This is where life will happen :) as the formal living and dining spaces are being used for other purposes. These homeowner's put family life first, and entertain casually. Thus they have opted to use their formal living space at the front of the home as a gorgeous library/home office, and their formal dining room, which closes off nicely with french doors, as a large main floor play area for their young children. This leaves us with a smaller than normal dining area and main floor living area, and so we have had to be a bit creative with our use of space.

Let's look at the dining area first. It is narrow, and also serves as a passageway to the rear entry of the home. As this is the most used entrance, and the home owners are frequently passing thru here with heaps of luggage, we need to leave a wide path clear. But since this is the only dining area, we also need to be able to accommodate a larger crowd here occasionally for dinner parties, etc. There is a large built-in island separating the dining area and living space, and a breakfast bar separating the dining area from the kitchen.  I measured and measured, and decided a slim rectangular extension table was our best option. It can be placed against the wall for everyday use, leaving plenty of room to pass by, but also can be pulled out and the extensions added for larger crowds. This will also give them the option to move this into a larger space in their next home, if they have it.

My client loves trestle tables, and so I found a fabulous local company who are going to custom build a trestle table to our exact specifications. They are called Provenance Harvest Tables, if you are interested, and they have had their work featured on the hgtv show The Property Brothers. Here are the drawings for my client's table, which will be built in the next few weeks. The builder is scaling down the leg of the royal trestle table model, pictured below, and adding some square detailing, a la the Balustrade table from Williams Sonoma, pictured.

Before we chose a finish we needed to decide on chairs, and again we wanted a smaller scale leggy chair, to create visual and actual space.  Four bistro chairs in a smoky oak stain work perfectly.

Two side chairs upholstered in a steel grey linen will live in the upstairs hall on with side of a console table most days, but can be brought down to accommodate extra diners when needed. The grey upholstery and nailhead trim will also work really well with our sofa on the other side of the room - but I'll save that space for the next post!! These people love neutrals, so blue-greys will serve as our colour in this home, balanced by warm woods and soft white walls throughout. A built-in bulletin board is getting dressed up with some striped linen and a special trick, which I'll show you when it happens :), the existing art shelves above the table will hold family photos, and a clock will fill in a blank wall that you'll see upon entering.

My design goal is a space that feels relaxed and classic, just like my client's, and that is flexible and will serve them well in many homes to come. What do you think so far? am

keeping a masculine office welcoming

A friend of mine is moving into an office space after many years of working from home. The space is very small (150 square feet), but has a window and plenty of light. He purchased an antique bankers desk, and an ultra-modern black leather chair. Then he stopped buying, stepped back, and realized that the two styles are drastically different.  Feeling stuck, he e-mailed me and asked if I had any ideas to move the design along.

Now, as for style, I know this guy pretty well.. and his is a Ralph Lauren/Restoration Hardware/J.Crew world. I'm thinking burnished leathers and warm woods, all mixed up with a bit of tradition and luxe - and fortunately that works with his profession, which is in finance. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is the chair, and so we need to make it disappear into the design, right? Would you like to see what I am sending him back?


First,  I think the palette should remain neutral because of the nature of his business. So far we have orange-toned woods and black, so incorporating pale warm grey walls, while creating a darker wall (black or dark grey) behind the desk will allow the space to breathe while giving that black chair a home. If he would like, he could incorperate a wall of black bookshelves behind his desk, like the third pic shows - this is my personal preference.

Adding accessories that have classic appeal but feel modern are the key to linking the modern lines of his desk chair and the classic design of his desk.

How about adding a little comfort for his clients? Let's repeat the caramel tones here, with some sumptuous leather and link it all together with a hard-working sisal carpet. Architectural prints keep everyone focused on the task at hand, which involves real estate.

What do you think? Masculine yet welcoming? Professional yet comfortable?




images sources: black gallery wall vintage table open shelving
art  architectural print chevron print door print armchairs work light leather boxes desktop side table

the difference between gray, grey, warm grey, beige, greige, and taupe

Yesterday, I was speaking to a client about the difference between grey, greige, beige and taupe.

It's a conversation I have A LOT!

 I thought perhaps a post about how I explain it to my clients
would be helpful to sort through these terms more easily,
and so here we are :)

First off, for our purposes,

gray (American spelling) and grey (Canada, the UK and Australia) are the same thing.

Just like color (American) and colour (Canada, UK and Australia).

In some technical circles, gray would describe only the grays from the grayscale,
but we're not all that fancy here at 10 Rooms, are we?!
I'm trying to make this simpler, not more difficult...

Let's just start off by saying true grey is any mixture of black and white.

That means that black, white and grey are the only true neutrals.

That said, when we are discussing colour, 

we generally include more than just those colours.

Once pigment is added to a mixture of black and white (grey),

it actually becomes a colour,

although the undertone may be almost imperceptible to the eye.

Therefore, grey, as we know it, can actually have any undertone,

but only purple, green or blue can be added in larger quantities 

for the colour to retain it's title as grey, because these will all produce cool tones.

Are you asleep yet?!!

Lets' define grey as 

black + white = grey

or

black + white + green/blue/purple = grey.

Sound good?

Now let's head into the beige territory.

Beige basically describes the umpteen versions of light brown.

To make brown you add complements from the colour wheel.

When you add complements,

what you are actually adding are all the primaries together in varying amounts.

Blue + orange

is actually

blue + yellow & red.

Yellow + purple

is actually 

yellow + blue & red.

Red + green

is actually

red + yellow & blue.

That is why adding complements always makes a brown,

and why adding different complements creates different browns, 

usually ones that are predominantly yellow, red, or occasionally orange.

So, we know beige contains some red and some yellow, and some blue,

but what else is in it?

White.

White lightens up your brown to beige.

So lets define beige as

white + red & or yellow + a little blue = beige.

So where does greige fit in?

To grey down beige, you simply add black, because the white is already present.

Let's define greige as 

white + black + red & or yellow + perhaps a little blue = greige

Yes, that would be the entire colour wheel!

That's quite a colour-techy way to look at things, 

but I think it's helpful to understand the way colours interact,

and then it all makes sense, doesn't it?

SO -


 when you're looking at a colour, and trying to determine what it actually is,

you need to look at the subtle undertones.

If it's cool, with a blue, purple, or green tint, it's a grey.
(I wrote a post about choosing the right grey, here)

If it's warm, with a red, orange or yellow undertone visible, it's a beige.

And if it's warm, but contains black, it's a greige (or as so many people say, a warm grey)

source 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Does that makes sense, lovelies?

If you have more questions, please leave them in the comments, and I will respond tout de suite - x

Happy friday... hope your weekend is filled with love and laughs...

oh - and taupe?

That's just a fancy way of describing a red-based beige,

with a little green thrown in,

so that what you end up with is a slight dirty pinky-beige.

It's not actually a group of colours, but different variations of the same mix.