So, I don't know if you guys know this, but I'm, actually, an interior designer! I can hear all of your thoughts when you visit this blog: "Uuuuhhhmmmm, what does this chick actually do?!?" "I mean, I know she can build stuff, sometimes, but does she ever really design anything...for real people...other than herself?" "Is she, really, even a real designer???" I know it's a little hard to tell sometimes from the content of this blog, but I promise that I really am a designer...with a design degree...from a real design program at a four year university.
But here's the deal. I've, actually, had at least five E-Design clients this year. And for one reason or another, NONE of them are finished!!! Sometimes, it was unexpected hits to their budgets or there was a major lifestyle change, oooorrrrr it's just taking them FOREVER to finish their spaces. So, what's a designer/blogger to do??? Well, I'm going to show the most finished space of the four...also, known as "progress" shots.
So, the project is a Dallas apartment that belongs to super cool couple that are near and dear to my heart. I got a call where I was asked my opinion on a new sofa, and I guess you can say it was on and poppin from there. They asked me to put together a design scheme around said sofa, so I got to work.
Here's the sofa that I was working with:
And after a little back and forth with the couple, I came up with this design:
Lot's of neutrals with a shot of color here and there. The little lady is quite the polished eclectic, so the room reflects just that. But, I wanted to pay homage to the man of the house by sourcing a huge campus map of his alma mater, University of Mississippi.
Since my clients were so special, I knew that I was going to make the 6.5 hour trek to Dallas to help them out. But, before hitting the road, they placed a few online orders and I hit up a couple vintage stores, Homegoods & TJ Maxx and loaded all of this into my car:
I even gave this vintage Lane coffee table a cleaning, sanding and refinishing and loaded it into the car as well.
When I got there, here's how I found the room:
Don't mind the models.
After a whirlwind day of trips to IKEA, TJ Maxx, Homegoods, Marshalls, Crate and Barrel and Goodwill, I got to work. I took everything that wasn't staying out of the room and I rigged the bookshelf so that it could actually hold the TV components. Soooo, although not complete (hence the progress shots), here's the "almost-after"...
It's still missing a few things like the huge map (hence the empty canvas stretcher), a rug and a few more accessories.
But, there are several things that I love about the space. These are still my
favorite chairs ever! You may have seen them here on the blog maybe once or twice (or 12 times). The orange side table was from
Target (no longer available).
Drapery just makes a space feel "lived in" and these are from TJ Maxx. The awesome
arc floor lamp is the Dexter lamp from Crate & Barrel. Those two
woven bins near the window are from IKEA, and now hold their millions of DVDs.
That freed up the bookshelves and gave them an opportunity to be pretty. The little lady wanted to "splurge" on the
West Elm hive vases, while the rest of the accessories came from TJ Maxx, Homegoods & Marshalls. The assorted (and still empty) photo frames are from IKEA.
Overall, I got them to a good "pausing" point. They still plan to finish this space with the few things I mentioned above, and hopefully, I'll get to go back and shoot some real after photos.
Not bad, right?
Xoxo,
Carmeon
P.S. This was aaaaaallll the way back in January! It's time to get 'er done, you-know-who!!!
P.P.S. If you'd like to hire me for your own E-Design, just shoot a quick email to
carmeon (at) nubiinteriors (dot) com.
