Where is Marie?

I am on vacation for my Christmas celebration....Can you guess where in the world I am?

Heaven on earth...

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. I will be back January 5th, 2012...Oh my gosh 2012 already...Wishing you all a fabulous new year!!!!

Ahhh Spa

A client I have had for a long time was ready to tackle/update her master suite....We decided on a spa blue color and went from there....

First things first....Here was her bedroom before....That Ralph Lauren pattern was soooo popular for sooo long but it was time for it to go....

My client loves toile, so I was very excited when I found this for her...

As you can tell she loved her swags so we kept them just like they were but did them in the spa color.

Then we tackled her loveseat that is in her master bedroom...She said that all her grandkids while they were growing up always slept on this loveseat when they stayed the night.

But now the kids are older and braver to sleep upstairs and so we can do a more adult color on her loveseat....This fabric is sooooo soft and luxurious, I wish you could feel it from your computer monitors.

So the bathroom was all cultured marble and I had a pretty tight budget on this bathroom but we needed to add more than some paint to really make a difference....So the first issue I had to tackle was this SILLY cultured marble area of the floor I guess that was to protect the floors originally...Not sure?

I was told that the floors had to stay BUT of course I couldn't find a perfect match, so I recommended we enlarge the shower and the tub deck and bump it up to the original tile floors...And it worked, they love it!

I was able to find a tile that was close enough for the vertical tiles that bumped up to those floors, can you tell?  None of us could.

Oh and by the way that is an air bath, which my client has already have several baths in and is in love.

Before:  Not horrible, just boring right?

After:  Fresh!

Before: Close up of cultured marble shower

After...See any differences? 

Can you really have enough shower heads and body sprays when building your own spa?

Before: Vanity

After: Vanity...My client repainted and upholstered the vanity chair herself, nice right?

So my client has always loved polished brass but I convinced her to go with the Moen Antique Bronze for a more updated look...She loves it.  

In person it actually has a bit of silvery tones to it, can you tell from my photos?

We got this job done right in time for Thanksgiving and her house full of 25 guests!  She later told me her master suite was a huge hit with the family...My work here is done.

What do you think?

Sit(s) & Stay A While

Today I am being featured on SITS...For those of you who don't know what the heck I am talking about, well SITS in a nutshell is a group of very supportive women, whom I love. :)

If you are new to my site, welcome!  My goal is to share, inspire and guide in all things design, one time a week.  I am heavy on the pictures and less about being overly wordy, because I am not a writer like most of you out there.

I post a lot of my clients' projects.  I also post about design products that I come by, often before they are available to the public.  And I guide....meaning, when I hear the same question over and over from clients I post about getting those answered.

Here are a few more of my blog postings....The ones with lots of "before" and "after" photos.  For the rest of you who follow me already, consider this week an update on some fun past posts.

Here's a clients powder room with the most gorgeous blue...
Powder Room with Pop

Just recently turned a small, underused hall closet into a wine cellar...
Wine Cellar For a Fellar

There is a way to update your staircase, check this out...
This Stairway is Heaven

Here is a really small master bathroom I made feel all sparkly and pretty...

Jewelry Box Bathroom

I love comments.  I love followers.  I love subscribers.  You are what inspires me to continue on this journey.

Well I am honored for you stopping by and reading my blog, thank you for visiting and I hope you come back.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for all of you, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

We celebrated a day early since my Mom came for a visit.  Of course we made a bunch of yummy food and ate too much but had a wonderful time.

After spending all day cooking yesterday...I would love to know what some of your signature/special dishes are.

Drifting into Driftwood

Light woods are back and for lack of a more interesting name I am calling them all "driftwood" though I don't necessarily mean real driftwood....It seems to be the best way to initially describe them to my client, everyone knows what the color of driftwood is right?

Have you noticed lately that the trend of dark wood is fading and lighter woods are back?

Everywhere I look I am seeing reclaimed woods, natural woods, bleached woods, limed or do I dare say pickled woods and even painted woods.

They range in color from almost white to a rich taupey color with variations of shading.

Restoration Hardware, Wisteria and Ballard Designs are all top of mind companies that are embracing and spreading the love on this "new" look.

To keep your house timeless I would recommend combining all woods in your house.  I think a house all done in dark woods is too much and a house done in all "driftwoods" is too much too.  But mixing them together can look quite stunning.

What do you think of the "new" light wood trends?  Have you embraced them yet?  Most of my clients have NOT, but it's just a matter of time I think....

Blingy, Bling, Bling

I have been having sooo much fun with one of my clients lately.....She loves bling aka anything shiny and pretty and isn't afraid to decorate with it either.

(clients daughter, added another layer of bling to her chandelier)

In strategically placed spots throughout the house are bits of sparkle to make her smile.

I recently had a leather sectional delivered to her media room and the delivery guy, all sweaty and gruff actually said to me, "are you the designer of this house?  I love the foyer chandelier, it's beautiful"....How random, cool is that?

My contractor was skeptical through it all, since he was the one who had to put all the lighting together and let's just say that was not "standard procedure"...

 But the other day I was getting window treatments installed and he texted me on his own, "looking great!"...Whoa, he is a man's man and doesn't like ANYTHING "girly".

Sooo I would say mission accomplished by those 2 remarks alone...But on top of it the client is thrilled and that makes me very happy! :)

Sooo the above pictures were all the crystal lighting we put in her house but check out the formal dining room hardware for her window treatments....

An unexpected surprise don't you think?  Remember "shiny and pretty".

Paris Time

 

I have decided to not fight jet lag and instead embrace Paris time...The problem with this though is most of my clients don't want to have meetings at 5am....Sooo I am hoping that within a few days my jet lag will have worn off and I will gradually go back to USA Central Time, I know this weekend we'll be falling back so that should help.

Sooo anyway, the trip was fantastic....Want to hear about it???

My Mom and I arrived in Belgium and of course immediately had to taste all that they are known for....Chocolates, beer, french fries and waffles, almost in that order and you know what.....They are all better there! :)

We walked around Brussels and of course had to see the Mannekin Pis statue...He was sooo much smaller than I pictured him being...Oh and the picture on the right is a day trip to Brugge, beautiful, quaint town.

Next we trained it over to Amsterdam, where anything goes, and I mean anything!  I didn't buy the cannabis starter kits or buy a woman from the red light district either, though I saw them....Oh and if you want coffee go to a Cafe, Coffee Shops are NOT what they appear...

I haven't ever seen sooo many bicycles in my life!

We departed Amsterdam for the Rhine and Moselle rivers via a river cruise, through Germany...This did NOT suck!  This was my Mom's first cruise so she was VERY excited...

We visited some great towns along the way, such as Cologne,

 Rudesheim,

Heidelberg,

Koblenz,

Cochem,

Bernkastel,

(Even on a foggy morning it was beautiful!)

and many other charming sites along the way....

If you haven't done this part of Germany don't hesitate to consider it for a future vacation destination area...Especially if you like wine, which my Mom and I do.

We then disembarked...

 And went on to Paris...My Mom left and my hubby had flown in for 3 days of romance, which was bliss, though he had jet lag when we met up, ha!

(This is where I met up with him but he was posing for this picture, I didn't really find him with his tongue out, ha!)

We walked ALL over Paris, as in over 8 hours, only stopping to eat occasionally...It's truly the only way to see Paris up close and personal.

The next day we rode bicycles all around Versailles.

We stopped at a local outdoor market and stocked up on must-haves including wine, cheese, baguette, olives and of course some french pastries...

 and picnicked right here on the grounds....

(At the other end of this lake is the Palace)

You could bike around this forever and just get lost in all the beauty around you...

Then of course you see this, the gold gate....

 We were shocked with the opulence of it all, and now I think I know what those women must have thought when they arrived to take down the Monarchy...

I will blog more on the Palace of Versailles at another date, I promise.

It was a fabulous trip and yes it's hard to be back, and yes I wish I was there still...If it wasn't for my baby dog here in America, I would still probably find a way to be there, for work of course. ;)

Hope you enjoyed a peek into our trip aboard.