The Design Process

{Moodboard for my living room, from 2009}

Hey everyone….

So I told you all I would talk a little more about my design process this week.

In the RUE ARTICLE it said that I used my blog readers to help me design my apartment. Well, thats true and its not true at the same time… It’s not like thousands of people voted on my design decisions or anything like that. Its more like through my blog I accumulated a few trusted design blog friends to bounce ideas off of (this was after I exhausted all my in real life friends). I get the feeling that some of you think the design of this apartment was like some strange cyber decorating experiment.

In reality, I actually started with a moodboard. A physical moodboard where I printed out my potential purchases, pasted them on a board with fabric samples and a potential floor plan. This is a hell of a lot less glam than a vibe tray, I know.

After the moodboard, I started implementing my ideas slowly. Why slowly? Because I like to see the results of each purchase before I implement the next layer of the design.

I also made a lot of changes along the way to accommodate the things I scavenged (got for free/found), but as you can see the color scheme for the room and the over all fell remained the same. I think making a board like this will keep you grounded, especially if you like a million different styles of design, like I do.

It  allowed me to keep my original concept in mind while making the many scavenged items I found work with the design. I was VERY rigid in selecting all of the furniture in the apartment, even though some was literally found on the street.

Things I kept in mind:

1. Balancing the textures in the room. Since I used a monochromatic color scheme, I made sure that the room had a lot of textural balance to add weight to the design. That includes, velvet, flokati, linen, distressed leather, lacquer (actually the sofa table is this FABULOUS new material called formica!) rosewood, lucite, and tabacco leaf.

2. I kept to the orginal floor plan that I came up with, and I TAPED the proportions on the floor BEFORE every purchase. ALWAYS DO THIS. Seriously. It will save you a hell of a lot of heart ache. I chose round and oval tables because the rest of the furniture was very rectangular. I wanted to balance the shapes in the room.

3. I swapped out original selections for more interesting ones. If you look at the original mood board I had a Saarenin table on it, but I ended up using the wood/hammered metal version from Julian Chichester. I felt like it added much needed wood to the room and that it was more uncommon and interesting. If you notice, I also ended up with a different lucite bench than the one in the moodboard. I was never sold on the original, but I kinda liked it. It took me over a year to find the perfect design for the bench I have now. Also, originally I had a gold starburst in the moodboard. I ended up with the Shagreen version from Made Goods.

4. As I lived in it, I realized what the room needed. I adjusted things as I went along. For example, the Restoration Hardware floor lamps… I quickly realized that everything in the room was one height. It was somehow very visually and spatially unappealing. For a while, I put a tall vase behind the sofa to kind of break up the room, but I hated it. Then one night at 3 am, I impulse bought the lamps and they added the exact industrial edge + height that I was looking for. (One good thing about buying from big box retailers is that YOU CAN RETURN THEM! Also never buy anything from RH without googling a coupon code. You can ALWAYS get 20% off.)

5. I also painted the doors black, which wasnt on the original plan. This also added depth to the room. Tending to your doors is an added detail that just says- hey, someone thought about this too.

6. I originally planned to hang a mirror on the wall in the foyer and then put a bench or console beneath it. Then I saw that gigantic venetian mirror for a price SO GOOD that I couldnt pass it up. So I bought it, and it was so tall I had to prop it in the foyer. My husband said it looked like I was just propping it there so I could ship it out tomorrow… In other words- it didnt look grounded in the space. I remembered that my husband’s bachelor pad (which he bought furnished) came with those two chinoiserie inspired nightstands. They had been in storage. So I brought them in and viola. But the look STILL didnt seem complete. So I started layering an abstract, a nude, the tall vases with the moss balls, a small box, tray, little english toast rack for mail… etc. The room never looked finished until I painted the doors black. I still go back and forth about adding a rug there. (I have had to shave every door that passes over a rug …so this is a bigger decision than it seems.)

(The sofa also didnt seem grounded until I added the sofa table and the lamps. It seemed like it was just hanging out…)

7. If you notice, I barely used any products that are strictly to the trade. Why? Because its annoying to order something and wait 16 weeks for it. Its expensive, and everything is NON REFUNDABLE. I HATE going to the D&D, and I only bothered with that when I really had to. I tried to make the apartment feel less generic by incorporating vintage pieces and keeping the mix unexpected. I did custom make a few pieces.

My advice on decorating:

1. Come up with a very distinct plan right away. Search the blogs, find what you like and make a moodboard.

2. Dont be afraid to veer from the plan. You can change your mind… its ok!

3. Adjust your design as you go along… as you live in the space you will notice things need to be a little bit different than you thought.

4. Tape everything out before you buy.

5. Mix in as many unique pieces as you can. Flea market finds, personal items and art make the room.

6. Keep the shapes and heights of the furniture in mind. You want a room to feel cozy and accumulated. One height or shape furniture will make it seem boxy/too uniform.

7. Always keep varying textures in mind.

8. Take free things when you see them and conversely, don’t be scared to get rid of things that dont work anymore.

Anyway… I hope I didnt bore you all with yet another post about this dumb apartment! You can also see the sources posts HERE and HERE.

For a while now I have been getting requests and emails about my design services and after the Rue article, its been nuts!

Im sure you all realize I cant take on any full scale design projects right now, especially any that involve managing a project… although I will consider it after the baby is born.

I have decided that I will do consultations and some version of E-Decorating… You can email me Sketch42blog@gmail.com for more information.