Fire Restoration Update: Drapery Installations Begin in the Kitchen!

The project I've been working on for the clients who suffered a house fire last summer has finally started installing this week, and everything looks amazing.  The client's objective was to take this tragedy and use it as an opportunity to make her home "even better than before," and that's exactly what we've done.


Kitchen as decorated by Previous Homeowner



 I'm just going to post a few snapshots for now, just to whet your appetite.  This first shot is of the kitchen as it was when the client purchased this home several years ago.  The drapery treatment was from the previous homeowner, and my client hated these pendant light fixtures with a vine detail that reminded her of serpents.



Same Kitchen, Redecorated Prior to Fire

This is a view of that same elevation after I worked with the client the first time around. We replaced the serpent pendants with Quadralli pendants from Fine Art Lamps, and I designed this kimono-inspired medallion swag treatment to give the kitchen more of an Asian contemporary aesthetic while indulging the client's love of exquisite drapery textiles.

Same Kitchen, January 2011

Now, here's what that same kitchen looked like a couple of months ago, when the custom built, solid tropical wenge wood cabinetry installation began.  The cabinetry was built by Bill Truitt Wood Works, Inc. of Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Same Kitchen, April 6, 2011, 9 AM

...And here's what the kitchen looked like yesterday, when the drapery installations began.  The cabinetry and gorgeous art glass backsplash tile have been installed, all the appliances have been replaced with upgrades, and the remaining bit of crown molding around the new range hood installed later on in the day.  I recovered the client's bar stool seats in Lee Jofa Jasper Velvet, and we have a swivel glider chair for the adjacent keeping room area coming that will be upholstered in the same fabric.  The Fine Art Lamps pendants have been replaced with identical fixtures, and the drapery installations and furniture deliveries are about to begin.

Brian Installs the Iron Drapery Medallions

In this picture, the builder has already installed the remaining crown molding around the range hood, and my drapery installer is putting up the iron Artigiani medallions for the kimono swag valance that was recreated to be identical to the treatment I originally designed.  The Pyramid medallion drapery hardware is from Helser Brothers, the company that sent me to Paris last January to cover the Maison et Objet trade show for their Why Helser? blog.  Just for the record, I loved Helser Brothers' beautiful products and outstanding service even before they sent me jet-setting to Paris.

Debra & Brian Finessing the Swag Valance Installation

...Ta da!  The first of many drapery treatments installed.  After taking this picture, I had Brian turn the medallions so they would be squares instead of diamonds, which I like much better with the new cabinetry.

I'll be posting more photos of this installation over the next few days.

Design Tragedy or Design Opportunity? Even Better Than the First Time, Baby!

If you missed my earlier posts about this project I'm working on for a client who had a house fire, you can catch up here.  This client has such an amazing attitude about the disaster -- instead of moping about everything that was lost, she's made up her mind to rebuild and redecorate, not just in hopes of making things look the way they were before the fire, but taking advantage of the opportunity to change things about the home that she had resigned herself to before the fire, and the rise up from the ashes -- literally! -- even better than before.

So her walk-in closet will be enlarged, appliances and cabinetry in both kitchens will be upgraded, an elevator may be added to facilitate visits from the clients' elderly parents, and lighting will be added and/or upgraded in several areas.  I brought my client in to Fine Art Lamps' High Point Market showroom a few days ago for a private showing of the line, and we both fell in love with this enormous oversized pendant fixture from the Mid-Century Inspirations collection to hang over the pool table in her Game Room.  Pictures do not do this line justice at all.  The fixtures are all made-to-order in the U.S. and the company is wonderful about accommodating designers' customization requests whenever feasible, but beware -- the pricing is not for the faint-of-heart.  The photo above is from the manufacturer's web site, and I took the photo below myself in the showroom the other day.  The finishes are all hand applied, and this piece combines two gorgeous art glass styles.  The larger pieces of glass are smooth on the outside and textured on the inside, with a mesmerizing metallic shimmer that perfectly echoes the wrapped metallic bead trim from Kravet that we used (and are using again) on the black silk velvet drapery panels and the little door valance.

 Here's what the almost-completed room looked like before it was destroyed in the fire.  Virtually everything in this room has been written off as a loss.  I'm going to be campaigning hard to paint the vaulted ceilings a darker color this time, especially now that we're considering this dramatic, sculptural light fixture. 

As Porky Pig would say, "That's all for now, folks!"  :-)

Refusing to Accept "Discontinued With No Stock Available:" Custom Embroidery to the Rescue!

I posted a few weeks ago about my client's house fire and showed you some photos of the destroyed home office and game room.  All of the upholstery and textiles (including my custom drapery designs) on the main level of the home were destroyed as well, including these embroidered silk Kingston swag valances in the master bathroom.  If you're on my mailing list, you'll probably recognize this room from one of my postcards:

This master bath ended up being one of my client's favorite rooms in her whole home.  This is what it looked like when I first saw the room in the summer of 2008:

Stark white painted cabinets, partially marble-tiled walls that blended into the builder-blah pinkish neutral paint color on the rest of the walls, and builder-grade light fixtures in a much more traditional style than what my client had in mind. 

My client had already purchased plantation shutters from someone else before she brought me in, and was auditioning various rug options in front of the tub area.

The client wanted something contemporary, something with an Asian feel, but very restful and not so contemporary that her traditionally-styled mahogany furniture in the master bedroom would look out of place.  The first thing we changed was the lighting, choosing a dramatic Asian-inspired lantern pendant and coordinating sconces from Fine Art Lamps' Singapore Moderne collection.  The window treatments came next.  I didn't want to drill into the marble tile on the wall above both windows, so I knew I wanted decorative ceiling hooks for these swag treatments.  When I couldn't find stock ceiling hooks with the right look for this project, I designed these geometric wrought iron ceiling hooks to coordinate with the light fixtures and had them custom-made for this client.

And then there was this fabulous embroidered silk fabric from Pindler & Pindler.  The little chocolate brown square embroidered medallions were the perfect complement to the client's silk oriental rug.  We trimmed the swags with this square veltet bead trim from Kravet and papered the non-marble portions of the walls with a chocolate brown grasscloth wallcovering.  The cabinetry was repainted and warmed up with a brown glaze as well.

The textured brown and gold damask wallpaper in the water closet was just a fun little hidden surprise that repeated some of what was going on in the master bedroom. 

So, fast forward to today.  The grasscloth wallcovering needs to be stripped and replaced, and the window treatments were most likely tossed into a dumpster because they were so badly damaged by smoke and soot.  It's sad, but at least with good insurance coverage everything can easily be replaced, right? 

WRONG!!  The embroidered silk fabric has been discontinued from the mill in our colorway, it was exclusive to Pindler & Pindler so I can't source it anywhere else, and there is no stock available.  I begged P&P to custom order another bolt for us from the mill, but the answer was no.  I was told that this fabric was still available in Hot Pinkish Red colorway (no!), Sickly Mint Green colorway (no!), or Weirdly Orange-Yellow Gold colorway (no!).  I searched the designer showrooms for hours, with the assistance of the showroom staff, and we could not find any acceptable substitute for this fabric.

Then, between sobs of desperation, for some reason I thought of my poor, neglected embroidery machine, waiting patiently for me in my studio beneath a dust cover while work and family life pull me in opposite directions.  I started looking critically at the sample of unobtainable fabric in my hand.  The embroidery motif was a simple satin stitched design, very similar to a traditional monogram motif.  The stitch density was pretty light.  It was a single-color design, about 3 1/2" square; I could digitize the motif myself with my Artista embroidery software, and stitch it out in the medium-sized embroidery hoop, marking the motif placement carefully, repositioning the hoop, stitching the motif out about 350 times...  Yes, for a short, crazed moment, I considered attempting to personally embroider evenly-spaced medallion motifs on 16 continuous yards of silk dupioni...  Then I came to my senses.  Princess Petunia's pettiskirt is still exactly as I left it the last time I blogged about it.  Yes, I could probably digitize the motif with my software, but I'm not exactly a professional digitizer, and the thought of rolling out all that fabric, marking it, embroidering it, and re-rolling it without any catastrophes is a bit overwhelming.  Or so the local commercial monogrammer told me when I asked whether she might like to tackle this job.  "You want me to do WHAT?" she stammered, backing away with a look of fear in her eyes...

However, I found a couple of terrific resources, and I am going to have this fabric recreated on plain silk taffeta by a custom embroiderer.  Richards Jarden of Embroidery Arts is custom-digitizing the embroidery motif in a commercial embroidery format for me, working from a scrap of the original fabric.  Then Kadire Biberaj of European Designs is going to custom-embroider the silk yardage in her workroom in Virginia before sending it off to my drapery workroom for construction of the window treatments.  Kadire specializes in custom embroidery for interior designers, and her monogrammed linens are in the current White House.  She once recreated 80 yards of a discontinued embroidered silk fabric for celebrity designer Barry Dixon, who proclaimed that Kadire's version of the fabric was of even higher quality than the original. 

I must admit, I love a challenge, and I enjoyed seeking out and finding these talented individuals.  I also get a certain satisfaction from fighting back against discontinued status instead of crawling away in defeat.  But the best part of all of this is knowing that my client, who has been through so much, and lost so many mementos, photos, irreplaceable antiques and artworks, will at least get to enjoy her beautiful bathroom again, with every detail exactly as it was before. 

High Point Spring Furniture Market 2010: The Good, the Bad, and the What Were They Thinking?!

I just returned from the High Point Spring Furniture Market a few days ago, and thought I'd share a few highlights here.  If you're looking for a full-blown trend analysis, you should follow my friend Jackie Von Tobel's blog, Jackie Blue Home, because she's great at sifting through the sensory overload we get at these shows and distilling it all down to find the overarching themes and major upcoming trends.  Even after I walk through the same showrooms she did, I enjoy seeing things a second time through her eyes.

Here's one of my favorite new ideas from this Spring's Market:

Now, I'm not rushing out to buy this exact chair for any of my clients; I think the overall effect on this piece is a bit gaudy, but I like the way the chandelier fabric on the outside backs of the chairs has been embellished with actual crystal chandelier prisms for a three-dimensional effect.  It's very tongue-in-cheek.  We've been seeing these printed and woven chandelier patterned fabrics for awhile now, most cleverly used as dining chair upholstery fabric in contemporary or modern dining rooms that eschew traditional chandelier lighting, so the fabric alone is nothing new.  But now I'm envisioning using a bold chandelier patterned fabric on an upholstered cornice, with large chandelier prisms stitched onto the chandeliers like you see on this chair, and maybe some draped crystal chandelier bead trim along the lower edge of the cornice as well...  You can purchase a wide variety of crystal chandelier prisms fairly inexpensively at ChandelierParts.com, by the way.  I've used them in the past dangling at the base of goblet pleats on drapery panels, like these ones that were just installed in a client's dining room recently:

I like the subtle glimmer of the crystal prisms against the silk taffeta panels; don't you? 

So, back to the High Point show.  Here's something that amused me:

At first, when I saw this table, I thought it might be a cool idea to have a favorite family blessing or food-related Bible verse carved into the dining table.  After all, customization is huge in the design world these days, and this company will inscribe any verse or quote you want into their table for you, so it's a one-of-a-kind piece that could be very meaningful to a client.  But then I thought of my own mischievous little sons, who are already guilty of carving their names and initials into their bedroom furniture and the walls of their toy room, and I realized that this table sets a very bad precedent!  All it takes is one little boy who has chewed the eraser off the back of his pencil and, before you know it, this table would look like a desk that's been used in a middle school study hall for 25 years.  I can see it now: "Lars was here, but now he's gone.  He left his name to carry on..."  and "Star Wars ROCKS!"

I really like this new collection from Fine Art Lamps, one of my favorite high end lighting companies:

The photo doesn't do this chandelier justice.  As always with Fine Art Lamps, the finishes are exquisite and the materials and craftsmanship are unparalleled.  What I like most about this style is how versatile it is.  The bronzey-brown finish will coordinate easily with many of the existing fixtures and door hardware in many of my clients' recently-built custom homes, and there is a wide range of drapery hardware available that would coordinate with this fixture as well.  This fixture would definitely be an upgrade over a builder-grade chandelier, and the styling would lend itself to a variety of different room settings as well.  I especially love the unusual bead-shaped chain on this piece, and the aged, mottled gold finish on the acanthus leaves.  Best of all, my Fine Art Lamps rep offered to open their High Point showroom during the off-season any time I have a client who would like to schedule a private showing of their line.  These light fixtures are breathtaking in person, and you just can't appreciate their dramatic impact when you're looking at pictures in a catalog.

I hope you enjoyed those little gems; I'll try to post some more goodies from High Point in a few days.