Front Door Fabulous

I always love to see what colors people paint their houses - particularly if they are interesting and fun.  My husband has a problem with this when I’m the one driving…he’d much rather I watch the road then stare sideways (and sometimes backwards) to get my color fix.  Sometimes you come across a house that is so fun you wonder if the mailman needs migraine medicine in order to deliver. 

There are many houses more simple in detail that don’t call for a multiple-color paint job.  I find that for these houses a fabulous front door does the trick.  You have a single focal point, an idea of some personality and a fun little zing to appreciate as you go by.

My last house was an Italianate Victorian from 1847 with tons of detail- we had fun with the colors of that house:

Melissa Gulley Style

My husband and i have gotten quite good at fixer uppers and have one we are in the middle of.  Our current house is a more simple Victorian from the 1890’s.  I will not stain your brain and risk injuring your eye’s with a photo of its exterior, but it is BUTT UGLY!!!  It has aluminum siding from the 1950’s that covers every single inch of it- even over the window and door moldings.  If that’s not bad enough we accurately named the color: Pallor.  Our house is the color of pasty English people’s skin (I can make fun of this, I’m English by descent) when they have never been in the sun, don’t exercise, smoke two packs a day and don’t eat vegetables (perhaps just minutes away from contracting full blown rickets).  There is not much that I can do to improve this until we rip off the siding and reface the whole huge place, and we have SOOOO many other things to do first.  The only thing we’ve done is paint our pretty double Victorian front doors Turquoise.  Within a week I’d gotten a positive comment from everyone in the neighborhood - they were obviously desperate for something to be done.  This little festive color upgrade did so much, I then added various turquoise planters and flowers.  Sometimes it’s just a little touch that makes it:

The best part of having fun with the front door is being able to easily change it.  It only takes about an hour, so it is a great project for the commitment-phobic!

Matchy Matchy

Should you buy art to match your room or should you decorate you room to match your art?  Or maybe you should just buy art that really speaks to you, evokes an emotional response, buy it because you LOVE IT?

(frank Ropp)

Generally speaking If you always buy things you really LOVE then they usually go together.  Have you ever heard of anyone buying a painting with colors they hate? NO!  Have you ever heard of anyone buying furnishings in colors they hate? NO!  I generally find that people’s possessions - or what they gravitate to buying - usually sit well together.

(Kelly Wearstler)

I come from a family of art lovers and collectors so i would never buy art I didn't absolutely LOVE.  But what about the piece that hung in your childhood home?  You don’t LOVE it, it’s not exactly “you” but you have a deep connection to it?  Maybe it hangs in a guest room or maybe you build a room that you do love around it, all of a sudden it shines with new life.

(Melissa Gulley)

Or what about the art collector who buys for value first, then love?  When art is bought for value, it is then an investment and often the purchaser has many pieces they have collected that need to hang together - but do not relate.  In this case, a neutral pallet for interior design might be the best foundation for an eclectic collection.  Maybe even colorless so the art can shine. By hanging art in a room in which it clashes, the art is by no means de-valued, the space is.  The piece will not be appreciated fully, nor will the room…in that way the art can devalue the space.  When art doesn't look good in a room it’s very clear that something’s wrong.  There’s no harmony, the room looks disjointed and people’s enjoyment in spending time in the room will literally be diminished.

So with this said, if your not a collector by profession, should the art match the room?  Not necessarily.  However, it should compliment the room.  Or to put it another way, the room should compliment the art.  There should be a cohesive feeling.  Often it can complete the room even if purchased first (which came first the chicken or the egg).  Keep in mind; If you LOVE the piece of art, you may not want it to blend so much that it loses its voice. 

(Melissa Gulley)

The last problem not touched on is what to do when your husband or wife has favorite art that you hate?  As I have done with many clients- give them their room to hang the art and design the room as they see fit- an office, a man cave (or woman’s version).  If this doesn't work then there’s always divorce???

Piles of crap!

Ok, so after my last posts I've been asked what it takes to organize a house effectively.  My thoughts are that you must build upon a few foundations:
1) Everything must have a place.  If you have piles of ‘stuff’, sort them until it all has a ‘place’, then continue through the whole house.  Set goals: “I will attack two piles a day until my house is pile free.”
2) The ‘place’ needs to be located right where you will partake in the activity that requires that ‘stuff’.  If you trim your fingernails in the bathroom when you exit the shower, then don’t keep the clippers in the junk drawer in the kitchen- this makes more work for you.
3) It needs to be easy to put in away (or you’ll put off putting it away).  If the phone book goes under the cookbook, that goes under the newspaper recycling, then IT’S NOT EASY!  If it’s not easy, you will not do it, or at best you’ll just throw it in the cabinet somewhere.
Think about the processes of living your life- the little things you do everyday.  How are they done, where are they done, do you have the necessary components to complete the chore?  Are you searching for stuff- losing stuff, are people misplacing stuff?
For instance if you tend to think about what earrings you would wear while looking in the mirror to apply makeup, then locate earrings and makeup close to each other.

If you make your kid’s lunch for school everyday, then locate the sandwich bags, grab snacks, Tupperware, thermos’s and lunch boxes under a counter that you can assemble on.















If your Husband trims his fingernails after the shower in the bathroom, but you do more of a manicure process in front of the TV in the family room – then buy more than one clipper (think of the arguments saved, all for under $10.00!) and keep one in each place.
Do you and your daughter share the same hair brush (you know, the really good one…not the other sucky one)?  If so, I’m guessing it’s usually misplaced for at least one of you daily.  BUY A SECOND ONE!!!  Does she brush her hair by the front door under a thunder of threats by you before going to school? 

Well then, keep a second brush in a drawer in the front hall table.  Why send her back to her room to dilly-dally for twelve hours to brush her hair?
This train of thought is the basis for kitchen organization- activity centered storage areas and work spaces (and my husband insists I mention, the basis for Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing and Balanced Scorecard).  All baking supplies together, kids lunch stuff together, sink and dishwasher near the cabinet where the plates and cups are stored etc..

The more you break down all the tiny processes of your family's day and provide what is needed, where and when it is needed, life will be less stressful.  Even more important (???), your house will look better.  This is no easy task and takes a ton of time to complete, but is totally worth it.  Professional Organizer Dana Arkinzadeh cites a Newsweek magazine article that claims Americans spend an average of 55 minutes a day looking for something they know they own.  So keep in mind, organizing a house is more than just purging what’s no longer needed, being able to see everything and making all your drawers and cabinets look beautiful.  It’s about aligning your things so they match the life needs of your house’s occupants.
One last thought.  Once you go through this Herculean task, pull the family together and tell all of them where the ‘place’ is for all the ‘stuff’ in the house.  If you don’t do this and insist that everyone be responsible for keeping the ‘stuff’ in its ‘place’, the whole project will be undone in about 2 weeks.
Stay tuned for a future post on what really well designed organization looks and feels like.

Mom, no more pink!

My Daughter is turning 10 (yeah OMG!!!) and for her birthday she wanted a room redo, OK- that I can handle.  She currently has an over the top girlie pink and green room- see below:

Her room has looked like this since she was born, I’ve gotten ten great years out of this room.  When she was younger she LOVED it and certainly everyone who sees it falls in love and wants to be a little girl again for a few minutes (ok- so most of the men who see it don’t have that reaction- or maybe they do… hmmmmmmm). But at ten years old- “pink is so not cool anymore”- she is “so over it!”  My little girl who was such a girlie girl is now 10 going on 25.  She designed the new room’s color scheme as “tonal creams and whites with accents of silver”- holy shmoly who’s kid is this???  Ok- so at least she has not asked for a cave with a black light and Zeppelin posters, although maybe that's next.  She has designed a tranquil, sophisticated room with a very eclectic mix of traditional, contemporary and ethnic.  We are half done with the room and will show pictures on the blog in a week when it’s finished, as long as my husband and I can put in the extra 5 hours of work a night to get it done by then.  Stay tuned this week as I examine kid’s rooms, pink as it pertains to adults and the finale- the finished room!

Grey sucks!!!

Grey as used by Mother Nature between winter and spring.  I do like grey for interior design, it’s calming, chic, sophisticated and it makes other colors pop insanely well.  Check out a post by another great blogger: http://habituallychic.blogspot.com/2010/02/mellow-yellow-and-grey.html .  But where I'm going with this, is that I am sick of grey outside.  It has rained in New England everyday for 5 days- maybe more, I stopped counting.   My basement flooded, my hair has settled into a permanently disastrous state, my dogs do not like the rain and thus will not stay out long enough to poop (yeah, guess where they go), my kids are bouncing of the walls and outside the world at large all over New England is just ugly- no matter how beautiful it is in summer.
So here are some colorful pictures that just really make me happy- enjoy!





(Jane McGarry)

Turquoise!!!

As I begin my Blogging career most of you who are reading this are friends, family, co-workers, clients and neighbors (please comment so I know you're there and I can stop harassing you to read my blog). As I was saying many of you know me and can see I just did a post about Yellow- Pantone’s color of the year 2009.  Well you should all know that the Pantone color of the year for 2010 is (drum roll)…………………………………………………………………………………….
TURQUOISE!!!!!!!!!
http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/pantone.aspx?pg=20706&ca=10
Yeah, I know.  Can you stand it?  It really does not get better than this in my mind.  I mean after turquoise when do they go from here, it’s all down hill.  So as you can imagine I am going to take this year as my opportunity to celebrate Turquoise (my all time favorite color).  All of you who know how I dress or have been to my house know this is a whopper of a year for me and my love affair with Turquoise.  And I'm not the only one, there are entire blogs dedicated to turquoise. Check out: http://www.houseofturquoise.com/ and http://www.everythingturquoise.com/
So let’s kick off this year of Turquoise with some Fab Photos, shall we?

Let’s talk Yellow

Yellow is the color of the sun, of flowers, of happiness!  Also last year’s color of the year from Pantone (it’s ok to be “sooooooooooo last year”) When we lived in our last house my kitchen walls were the best color deep yellow with a hint of red in it.  The adjoining family room was painted a great chocolate brown with chunky white molding, and that great yellow reappeared on the ceiling- very dramatic and totally fabulous (yes the ceilings were very high) This color yellow made me happy everyday just looking at it.  
In this new house (3 years we’ve been here- still new???) I decided I wanted to be void of color and actually go beige and cream- serene, tranquil, and organic, a basic neutral pallet that could change like a chameleon with different accessories whenever I was inspired.  Maybe by that time I had done dozens of houses in every color and the colors reminded me of other people’s houses and clients no matter how dear. Like when a school teacher gives birth to her first child and

can’t find a name that doesn’t belong to one of her students past and present.
What was I thinking?  I am not a beige person, I appreciate it in hotels, in other people’s houses- oh hell I have designed completely beige houses that have been so totally terrific.  But I cannot live without color- me – beige- I don’t think so.  I started itching to change the beige blank slate to a happy yellow blank slate even while my beige drapes were being installed.  Now I have another use for the beige fabric and so I’m going yellow- not just any yellow, but that deep rich yellow that’s not mustard but still a deep yellow with a tad of red.   Why couldn’t yellow be used as a neutral- well it can!  In our fashion lives denim blue is a neutral, no one goes out in all color matched denim- it just goes with anything.  So will my yellow! Check out my inspiration: