Thanks for your patience during our website’s upgrade.  Between working on My Secret Database and doing my interior design work, it’s been pretty busy.  I figured the best way to stay in touch is to share some of my recent design work and give you some home decorating tips along the way!

The photo above is from a recently completed project which was a great deal of fun.  My clients moved down to Florida last year and were ready to make some changes so their home would truly reflect their personal taste.  They love light and bright colors and like to keep things simple.  For their living room, inspiration started with this gorgeous Thibaut print.  This is one my favorite companies when it comes to creating a sophisticated tropical look.  We created our color palette by using the beautiful aqua, pomegranate and olive green in the print.  I just added one stripe for interest and kept everything else fairly neutral.

We needed to make some changes before we even approached the furnishings.  The white tile floor was shiny and dated and the walls were a boring, chalky white.  On the windows, the dark  padded valance really made the room look small and the ceiling low.  It visually highlighted the soffit and limited the amount of light in the room.

First, we replaced the white tile floors with a warm Mexican tile.  Then the walls were painted a beautiful hue between peach and yellow (Secluded Beach).  We painted the soffits the same color as the walls so that they would blend in.  We finally had a clean palette!  Then, we added window treatments back in but kept them light and bright with bronze hardware and simple sheers.  We selected furnishings that were interesting, but simple.  An updated wing chair really shows off the fabric and a coordinating stripe really made it pop.  Plaid cotton area rugs pulled the seating area together.

I am sure you can see that some thoughtful choices really make a big difference.  My clients asked me about removing the soffit, but I really did not think it was necessary.  As you can see, paint can really help you create the visual effect you desire. 

A special thanks for Judy and Mike for allowing me to share their photos!

~Lorrie

Tags: before and after, My Favorite Things

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 4:56 pm and is filed under My Favorite Things, before and after. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.