Material Boards

Colors and materials make up 50% of the design of a space and are often the most difficult ideas to get across to a customer. An easy way to sell a space and get a customer on board (without modeling and creating renderings) is to make a material/finish board. Here is one that I have recently completed for a client...

The board is arranged by room and shows how materials and colors can be different from room to room, but can still flow together throughout the entire house.

TTFN ;)

Au Naturale Colors

Here are two color palettes that I recently came up with for a client using Valspar paints. She loves natural cool colored tones and has a slightly masculine interior style. Hopefully someone else out there can use these calming color palettes!!

Fun Updates

Going green....and saving some too.

First order of business...I passed my LEED Green Associates exam a few weeks ago and can now officially add LEED GA to the end of my title. (LEED is the internationally recognized green building certification system-more info here)

While studying for this exam, I started thinking about how wasteful wedding invitations are...both for the environment and for my wallet. Why is it necessary to have an outer envelope with a stamp, an inner envelope with just names, and then ANOTHER envelope for the RSVP return? Just because our grandmothers did this doesn't mean we should still be doing it. Some people take their solution to this issue to the extreme and are actually sending out completely virtual invites. Instead, I decided to streamline tradition and do what I think (hope) will work for the best. I eliminated the inner envelope and the RSVP envelope alltogether and I created an RSVP e-mail. Everyone I plan to invite lives in civilization and has access to the internet. If they don't know how to use it, they can find someone to help them. If they can't find someone to help them, then they either call, or I end up calling them. NOT AN ISSUE and totally worth saving $100 bucks on envelopes and $50 in stamps!

I got the idea for this lacy design off the internet, so I can't take complete credit. I think it blows my other two (original) ideas out of the water. What do you think?

Designer Spotlight: Molly Frey

Molly Frey's design style in 3 words: Clean, Cool, Comfortable.

They are the types of spa-like spaces that you want to come back to after a long day on the beach. This Massachusetts designer was recently named one of the 20 Young Designers to Watch by Traditional Homes magazine (where I hope to be one day....) so take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy these images ;)

You can see more of Molly Frey at her blog.