Wallpaper- The New World Order

I cannot tell you how many times I see a client wince when I mention the word wallpaper as a design concept in AZ! I can't believe how distant everyone has become from the possibility of enhancing their home's interior with such a luxurious product that has proven, over the ages, to be a sturdy and long lasting material. Perhaps, it's because the product of yesteryear WAS such a sturdy and long-lasting product that took 2,000 years to peel off of a living room they once had. Or maybe it's because it reminds them of the hideous selection of wallpapers from the 1980s or avacado green prints of the 1970's? Whatever the reason, there is so much to learn about the many ways that wallpaper can become a stunning part of your home remodel. Long after Wallpaper 101, our initial experience with wallpaper, here is Wallpaper 102- A Reintroduction To Wallpaper...

Fact: Wallpaper is much easier to remove than it use to be. It is not a permanent fixture on your walls. Don't let that fool you into believing, however, that it will fall apart over time. It is made to last on your wall untill you remove it, by pulling it down without

breaking a sweat- even if it is 10 years from now.

Papers come in hundreds of thousands of varieties from faux finishes to prints, stripes to jaquards, natural weaves to bricks and tiles. The sky is the limit with wallpaper. Although many take a steady eye and a bit of skill to put up, due to the pattern repeat that must be matched and the tight seams that look best when hidden, there are many ways to accomplish a simple do it yourself project with wallpaper. I have used my own living room as a show and tell example. Take a look!

So this is the wallpaper that I am in love with at the moment. I originally ordered it for my showroom, before I downsized due to the economy. I am a firm believer in recycling and I had the perfect room to use this paper in my new home, the problem is- I ordered enough to fit the original space, not my living room, which is significantly larger (yet still a tiny space to me!).
My plan for this space is a great concept for using a fabric or wallpaper in short demand, yet still is a stylish solution in a pre-planned interior. I first painted the side walls a light shade called Perfect Greige (Sherwin Williams- of course). Greige is a designer's term for a combination of the colors gray and beige. I envisioned the wallpaper in my center wall- my focal area. On this wall I used a darker paint- Sherwin Williams Garret Gray. This color is a gorgeous and rich brown- gray with a plum undertone. It is a versatile neutral and goes well with many coordinating accent colors. I painted the left and right sides of my center wall around 3' in on each side.

Now that the wall is painted on either side, I find the center of my wall and cut my first piece to fit on the wall. I have decided to highlight the

center of my darker wall with three width's wide of this damask print paper. I also thought I might add decorative molding to either side, as I have at a past cleint's home, to further accentuate this area. However, once I put up my paper, I really liked the look without any molding at all. To finish off this wall, I hung my Don Blanton signed print- one of my favorite paintings called The Roar Of Silence. The custom wooden mats on the print are in plums and deep lilacs, pulling out the colors in the print and they go well with the wallpaper and paint choice here.

All that you can do with wallpaper-

Don't just think of wallpaper as something that must cover the entire room. It can be used in smaller scale in many ways. Trimmed out in small squares or rectangles, a great paper can act as paneling in an upscale study or dining room.

A small printed or animal print paper can be used in combination with a paint to create a horizontal or vertical stripe in a kid's room.

Use a bold print on one wall of a powder room to add drama. The room is small enough to experiment with and requires a smaller amount of paper- cutting expense and risk!

Want to try a little accent of wallpaper? Hang a chair rail 3/4 of the way up on your wall and just paper that upper section all the way around your room to get your touch of print.

Or- for an even smaller area of paper, use it as the backdrop for your bookcase shelves or in a niche.

If you live somewhere where applying paper to the wall is not an option, such as an apartment- buy large canvases and apply your favorite wallpaper to the canvas and hang three as art on a large wall behind your sofa. It's a great way to add paper without christening your walls!

The fact of the matter is, regardless of where you live, wallpaper is back in a major way. It really never left, we just grew scared of it. If you think about it, you will realize that wallpaper is in every business from your dentist to your favorite restaurant and that model home that you loved has wallpaper in every corner. With proper planning and application, your home can have the same model feel!

more pictures of that Oak Kitchen Remodel...

What started as a bland, old fashioned natural oak kitchen, soon became a sleek, modern update of its former self. We refinished the cabinets to a dark, espresso stain, added a larger crwon molding, swapped the white appliances for stainless, traded the corian countertops for granite and added large corbels and faux travertine backsplash tile.

Beat Recession Depression Part 2- Update Your Kitchen

OK, you have oak kitchen cabinets... I'm sorry- it happens to good people all over America! Unfortunately, even in new builds of today, most stock cabinet companies still offer the oak kitchen cabinet as their standard or least expensive choice. When faced with so many other upgrades, the oak looks pretty good. Now they are in your home and you hate them. Oak cabinetry is quite outdated and any good designer will tell you this. This doesn't mean that you have to be stuck with them. There are tricks to removing the natural or ill stained oak look from your cabinetry and updating your kitchen, without the actual expense of a costly gut and remodel. However, I strongly advise that you seek a professional to do them, and I mean a REAL professional, not your neighbor down the street!

Espresso and milk chocolate are not just delicious... they are also HOT, HOT, HOT in the design world and are not just a trendy, but a timeless choice for a kitchen cabinet stain. In the pictures above, we took a natural oak cabinet and refinished the cabinet doors and frames in espresso- which is a dark brown. This option worked well for the husband- because he loves the wood grain, which is still slightly apparent; but masks the wild pattern and dull yellow and orange tones of a natural oak. This can also be done to any cabinet with a stain ( not just oak). The best part of this refreshing update, is it presents you with the best neutral backdrop for whatever colors you would like to add to your walls, counters and backsplash. Yes, your cabinets are still oak, but they are so updated that most buyers (if selling) will forgive the wood species for the overall look. if you are planning on staying in your space, this is a welcome look that you can enjoy and know you only spent a few thousand dollars to do it. The kitchen we show here was refinished for $3,200.00. That's a far cry from the $12,000 it would have cost to replace them. Not only that, but if costs are any issue- and when are they not lately, refinishing your cabinets can be done without ever removing your countertop, allowing you to save up for a new counter in the future yet still enjoy your cabinets now!

Happy with your cabinets but bored with their style? Update a few doors by replacing the centers with a funky glass. You don't even have to be able to see into the cabinet. There are many styles of glass like frosted or rippled that still obscure your wares but entirely change the look of your kitchen. Try a few today!

Now, what else can we do in our kitchen to improve our way of life and spend little dollars? How about...NO, I'm not going to say the obvious- update your hardware!- so overstated... look to the inside and reorganize your cabinets ergonomically for piece of mind! The first area you can tackle is the sink. get your sponges off the counter by installing tilt out sink trays in your false drawer front on your sink cabinet. Believe it or not, this is something you can do yourself and can purchase from the Big Box Store for little money- under $30.00. Simply pop off your drawer front and add these plastic bins and side rails to your drawer. Then move your sponges into this drawer to keep the clutter off your countertop.

How about that old faucet? Replace your standard faucet with two knobs and a sprayer with a single handle faucet with pull out sprayer and use the other two holes for a soap dispenser and lotion dispenser to keep your hands soft and subtle and get the soap bottle off of your countertop for a nice clean look!

Organize your pots and pans by purchasing a pull out rack that stores your lids on top and pots below. This can also be purchased at the Big Box Store for under $200.00 and while it's a pricier update, is probably the answer to one of the most frustrating problems cooks face in their kitchen cabinets. The other big frustration is the blind corner cabinet! You know, that cabinet that looks small but continues on and on into the abyss of your kitchen. What a waste of space; but there's a solution for this one too. Purchase a pullout rack that easily extends out from this cabinet for under $300.00 at... you guessed it, the Big Box Store!

I hope that these few ideas will help you to see the possibilities that exist beyond that old fashioned wood, that cluttered countertop, that unorganized drawer and gave you, yet another way to Beat Recession Depression... more to come soon!

Being An Intelligent Part Of Your Remodel!

OK, so I have to share my frustrations of the last few months with my potential clients that I DID NOT LAND! Times have changed, for sure and the jobs that us designers normally would think are "in the bag", turn out to be big, fat duds! While the client can walk away scratching their head as to why it all cost way much more than they imagined, we are left discouraged and exhausted for all of the time that we spent bidding this job that we now have nothing to show for! I say it time and time again...the general public has NO IDEA how much work and skill goes into what we do! I had a girlfriend who, like so many others, thought I had such a fun, glamorous job. I had to take her with me to the flooring store to show her just how time consuming and sometimes very hard, my job can be. Sure, it has it's glamorous moments- although not all that much lately, but it's mostly a combination of knowledge, skill, research- TONS, planning and hours and hours of time! I would swear that people think I just take the list of items that people want for their homes, grab my master catalog of everything in the world that you need for a house, and just scan pictures and type prices. How wrong they all are! And then, when you have spent 30 hours planning a job and lose the job because of price, it's like losing a race to a runner who was not even on the same track as you! This post is two fold, dedicated to both the interior designers losing this price battle and the potential clients who really don't understand that they too have a role in their remodel!

So, you want to redo your living room. You start out with your husband making a list of all of the things you'd like in that room... You want a sofa and some accent chairs and you know you want quality pieces. You hate your floor- it's old carpet- and know you want a wood, but are not sure what kind, just wide plank. You need window treatments and some accessories and would like crown molding. Ok, great- you have your list. You and your husband have never done this before and you start to devise a dollar figure in your head. So, that leatherette sofa he got before you were married cost him $599.00 and you're thinking, well, chairs must cost half that- since they are half the size! You've seen really nice curtains at JC Penney for like $50.00 a panel on sale and you need 6, so that's $300.00. Lumber Liquidators is always advertising flooring on TV for as low as $1.99 a square foot. So, you are trying to be all prepared and measure your flooring to get an idea of it all. Ooh, you have 300 square feet, that's only around $600.00 for the floor. You can do that right? How much can it possibly cost to install, a few hundred? Even if it's twice as much, that's under $2,000. No big deal! Great- your head says your remodel will cost around $10,000 at the most.

You go to your girlfriend's house and tell her about your remodel. She has walnut handscraped flooring and you love it! That would look great in your house. And if you are going to get a sofa, it's got to be 8 way hand tied for extra strength, like hers.

You go home and start flipping through your home and garden magazines and find a great chandelier to go in your space. Ooh, a window seat! Yep, that's what you want. It will fit perfectly.

Now you are ready to get your quotes. You call a home remodeling company, a contractor and an Interior Designer to give you quotes. After all, in this economy, it' s all about price. Normally designers go and meet you and establish a contract to work with you which requires a retainer. But most clients nowadays refuse to pay for something they are uncertain of. They want to know how much and then decide. Little do they realize that your designer can work with your budget (within reason) to find the right products to suit you. A contractor will just give you an allowance for each item that he has no idea how to pick. A remodeler will have the different vendors pick things that will fit your budget. They might not all work together; after all, each vendor hasn't been to your home. So, you tell them all your original idea for a budget and then give them your extra wish list little by little throughout the week. You are so excited about all of this and you have built yourself up to want all of these items. You have to have them! But did you ever stop to really research just how much all of these extra items cost? Most people don't understand the difference in quality and price from one item to another. But you do know that it looks better than the other thing you picked originally, don't you? Chances are it's because it costs more. It's made of better materials or has a special name brand and that can be the difference between your $600 sofa at Ashleys and the $3,000 8 way hand tied sofa at that showroom. There's a difference between the chandelier you kinda liked at Home Depot for $199.99 that you think almost looks the same as that Hinkley light you saw in Metropolitan Home, that costs $900.00. The cheap floor they advertised on the commercial was oak, 2" wide and it's leftovers from a company that went our of business. The floor you want is walnut- a much pricier wood and it's handscraped, which makes it more of a luxury than the normal plank that's merely run through a planer to even it out. The window seat is not a DIY project for a contractor. To do it well, you need a custom cabinet or millwork shop. And did I hear you say plantation shutters for your windows, AHHH!

Designers cannot bid a job like this AND WE SHOULDN'T! We should run away, as fast as we can; but something about us just wants to prove that we can do it (and we want to beat the pants off of that contractor!).

And homeowner- you must take ownership of your plans. Sure, this is all new to you, but you can be more proactive in getting what you want. Take a few days and scout around at flooring stores and furniture stores to see what you like and dislike. Don't base your pricing on items that you see at Lowes or Home Depot. A real contractor will not shop there. These are stores made for the homeowner who plans to do small projects on their own. They have just monopolized on the fact that you will go there, so they have made sure they have the ability to sub out the installation of any of their products to contractors who use their work to fill in holes in their schedules. Don't be fooled, those big box stores have such low prices on their products because they make a mint off of your install! You don't have to find exactly what you are looking for in these stores as you search. Just get an understanding of what you are looking at and the prices involved. You will be surprised how many times I hear "I really had no idea how much it was". No research was done. Knowing that a cheap floor costs $3.00 a square foot and the ones you like seem to average $6.00 a square will help you appreciate the process and the costs associated much better than picking a figure out of your head. If you are willing to sacrifice the quality of the items you feel you have to have, then proceed. If you absolutely can't live without these items, continue to save up for them and then approach your project at a later date with 20% more money than you now know you'll need. There are all sorts of figures that go into a remodel, and the largest one is labor.

And designers have to take back their craft. We are having the rugs pulled out from under us by these contractors and jack of all trade companies that are much cheaper than we are. We use to give them work, but now they are undercutting us. This means we have to go above and beyond to make the client recognize our worth and the value of allowing us to handle their project for our fee. We must regain the homeowner's trust. They have been wronged by the economy and the housing market, and whether we like it or not, we are representatives of that market. Save yourself a lot of time and effort by clearly defining the "AVERAGE" costs associated with a project of their scope. Let them know before hand that extra items equate to extra dollars! I pride myself on explaining every phase of the process and the quality of items to my clients, so they know the difference between all that's out there. And even still, I have been spinning my wheels over the last few months with clients that have very big dreams and very small money. I have to thank Melissa Galt from Prosper by Design for reminding me that I am an Interior Designer with over 15 years experience and I am worth my hourly fee. No one who regularly patrons a Morton's of Chicago Steakhouse ever questions why the filet mignon is $50.00 a la carte. Take credit for your achievements, your skill and your career. And homeowners, please respect us, understand your small role in your project and together we can make a beautiful home possible!