I just completed a semi living-room makeover for my dear friends in Toronto, and while I didn't do a whole Marie Kondo cleanse (despite my best wishes), we did go through some things, rearranged furniture, gave purpose to spaces and found some way to organize all of the collectables. This is probably one of my favorite services I offer - I get to come to your home, chat and discover what makes you feel alive. I then get to show you all the ways you can do that with a lot of the things you already have! There's another designer/stylist (Emily Henson), who I love, and she has a phrase she uses repeatedly: "Creativity before consumption". I LOVE the idea of not having to run out and buy a ton of things that are new. I fully believe that you already have some great decor pieces that just need a little pick-me up and dusting off.
This was the case with Deb and Gary's place. They LOVE comic books and super hero movies but their place didn't reflect that at all! When you get into collecting things, sometimes you can focus on the accumulation and forget about the showing off of some of your prized possessions.
After taking a quick survey of the space, I spotted some really neat Wonder Woman artwork that had been tucked behind a pile of other things. I found a few more pieces that fit into that same realm and put those aside to be placed with purpose later after we had painted.
Ah, paint. Such a lovely simple thing that can change an entire room and mood. Before flying up to Toronto, I knew Deb was hoping for a shade of blue in the peacock realm. She had cream colored walls so what we had to take into consideration was that we couldn't paint all the walls, but needed to find the right shade that would still complement the cream color - creating an accent wall to the entire living room.
Once I arrived, we chose 3 different shades of this "peacock blue" to try out as samples on the chosen wall and we left the swatches up for 24 hours - that way we could see it in all the different types of lighting throughout the day. Not only do I choose to do this for seeing how the color looks in different light, but also because I over the course of the day I will see which color draws my eye and gives me joy.
After the 24 hours, the lucky chosen hue was "Galapagos Blue". It was the richer darker of the three swatches and at first we worried it would be too dark - but that was the one we kept going back to and trusted our gut instinct. We were not wrong, the color was perfect! We had picked out a few new pieces of furniture (Deb had saved for this little make-over and purchasing a few new pieces were in the budget) that were lighter than her previous book shelves - this would pop out a bit from the new dark wall.
The new shelving we chose was a great find! We had passed by a discount furniture store on our way to the paint shop and on our way back stopped in. Two matching pieces jumped out at us. What I loved most about them was the different shapes of see-through cubbies it had. All too often a book shelf can look boring because of the repeating horizontal lines (and vertical lines of books - however, this can be a great change-up if you have contrasting shapes around the room). Anyhoo - we loved it, bought it, and had them deliver it a few days later after we could get all the painting done. Score!
Ok, ok, I know, now you're thinking: "Nice, but where did all their stuff go!?!?"
I moved the original bookshelf on the left to the other side of those cream doors. Organized the books by genre/author and moved all the cooking books to a location near the kitchen. All the games and dvds... well, as far as I know they may still remain in the hallway and back room (Sorry Deb and Gary!!) - to be gone through or placed back on the shelves. If I lived closer or had been staying longer I would have loved to help them continue on with the going through and creating more designated spaces for all their neat things. Gary does longboarding and how cool would it be to have a place to show off that collection?! Maybe by adding racks on a wall to show and store them! The back room is perfect for an office/library for all of their comic books and overflow books. Like I said before, I didn't have enough time to continue on to another room. But what my overall goal was to get the wheels in motion, to make their place inspiring and to show that we can create a "grown-up" space that still shows off how super cool they are. I LOVE that they love comic books and superheroes. And although most of the arty things I found were Wonder Woman (Deb's favorite), I wanted to show Gary that this place was his too - so I found a few other collection pieces of his and had them out on display. By a super cool happy accident, even the colors that we picked really complimented those hanging pieces! We painted the entry wall a wine red that also tapped into the Wonder Woman colors!
My favorite part of this was all the happy accidents. I start a project with a direction and a handful of ideas and then I let inspiration, improvisation, and a little luck take over (a big thanks to all my years doing improv in LA!). I come ready for a journey and I want to take you along with me. I hope to help you finally take the plunge you've been thinking about for forever and say "Oooh! Let's try it and see what happens." Because, you know never know unless you try.
Thanks Deb and Gary for inviting me into your home and going on that journey with me. I'm sorry I couldn't continue on with you longer, but now you have a little map of where to go!