inner sanctum

Before and After

My house is finally done, and on the market! I’m just real excited. And pleased. And proud. Please have a look at my flickr set.

photo by mytoday

stairwell with skylight

I made up a family to design this house for. Keeping them in my mind at all times really helped me to develop a consistant theme for my improvements and decorating.

There’s a wife and husband, a baby, and a girl who is 12 or 13. Pretty much everything I did was done to appeal to the woman of the family. She’s the one I’m selling to.

Photo: nursery

The townhouse is 98% finished. I am listing it in about 2 days and my first open house is this Sunday. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I have learned in these past six months. I’ve learned about construction, managing people, decision-making, project management, and so much more.

And now, a whole new phase of learning begins, namely marketing and the selling process. After working so hard on this place, I can’t wait to hear the feedback. First thing I’ll have to do is figure out how to eavesdrop discreetly during the open house.

So mytoday graciously came and took some pictures (she did these for me last year). So far only the upstairs. I’ll be posting them as I get them over the next week.

Please give me any comments, good or bad, or any suggestions. Seriously, I would love to hear from you.

Photo: master bedroom

The townhouse is almost finished. Photo tour in about a week.

Natural Color Match

One of my favorite aspects of design is color. I’m going with the same curtains in the living room of this house as I have in my own apartment and I had already decided to use a soft gray for the walls. But I was really having trouble finding a good gray.

I know I’m not alone in this — I’ve seen quite a few things written about finding the perfect gray. I tried to think of something I could use for color inspiration and then I remembered a plant I had seen growing in a pot out front. I ran outside (yeah, I was excited), plucked a piece off, and voila! I found what I was looking for.

photo: dusty miller leaf on Ralph Lauren Lamp Room Grey.

For that alcove at the back of the kitchen, I designed a butler’s pantry. Two big, deep drawers, with heavy-duty runners, will fit very large serving pieces. On the left is a cabinet outfitted with dividers to store trays and baking sheets upright. And on top, glass door cabinets to display pretty serveware, vases, etc. The empty space has become super useful.

The breakfast bar now stands where the wall between the kitchen and dining room was. You can see a bit of the beadboard, too.

This painting is by Carl Larsson, one of my favorite artists and considered to be the father of Swedish interior design. His paintings revolved almost exclusively around his home and family life. He and his wife, Karin, designed and decorated their home themselves. I made a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the house, which is now a museum, in the Dalarna provence of Sweden, and it was pure magic.

Anyway, I was looking in my Carl Larsson picture book for inspiration when I first started working on my house, and I came across this picture. I decided to take down part of the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and build a breakfast bar in that spot. I also decided to put beadboard on the walls to tie the two rooms together.

photo: “Old Anna” c.1895, Carl Larsson (1853 - 1919)