Spring Is Coming

Dear Readers:

I am cautiously optimistic that spring is around the corner; I even heard a rumor of the appearance of crocuses. Of course this time of year inspires people to behave irrationally, often concerning their homes. Take spring cleaning, for instance. Personally, I like to avoid this at all costs. There are, in fact, some things that seem like a really good idea, but which one should never do. Here are a few of my favorites:

o     Never take off your cushion covers or slip covers and throw them in the washing machine, (unless of course your daughter wants to use them in her Barbie house);

• Never refinish an inherited piece of furniture unless you are sure it’s not valuable;
• Never wash mini blinds in the tub;
• Never wash prefinished wood floors with water,(the cracks between the boards have not been sealed);
• Never spray clean fabric flowers;
• Never deep clean good upholstery yourself -- get a professional;
• Never scrub laminate countertops will anything stronger than a nylon scrub sponge; and
• Never repaint walls and woodwork when all they need is a good cleaning.

On the other hand, now is the perfect time of year to:

• Straighten all of your cockeyed pictures;
• Rearrange the furniture;
• Roll up and store your heavy carpets;
• Purchase a cheerful new bed ensemble;
• Indulge in some potted spring flowers;
• Lighten up your window treatments;
• Wash your patio furniture and BBQ grill;
• Switch around those tired old accessories;
• Change your throw pillows;
• Consider summery slipcovers; and
• Purchase thirsty new towels, a wonderful shower curtain, and pretty new table linens.

It’s also a really good time to get outside and just forget about your house. Enjoy the warmer weather. M.A.K.

For the Weekend Warrior

Designate a room to be this weekend’s challenge. Try one or more of these projects:

For $100 and under …

…Remove all clutter and clean the room until it sparkles. Pare down the number of accessories. Do not forget to wash the windows and all the bric-a-brac. This is already a huge improvement.

…Rearrange the furniture around a focal point. It’s free and I guarantee you that at least one of your rooms can use it. “Shop” your other rooms to gather the most interesting pieces of furniture, rugs, and accessories. Group them for emphasis in this room. Go for IMPACT.

…Create tabletop vignettes with accessories or collections. Start the collection you’ve always wanted.

…Paint anything and everything in sight that needs refreshing, including pieces of tired furniture. Go on, go a little crazy and add some color.

…Lower the artwork on your walls. Proportion also matters, so add artwork to your large walls and remove some art from your small walls. Reframe any picture that needs it.

…Set out fresh flowers.

…Go flea market shopping.

…Increase the wattage in all of your lamps.

…Replace your shower curtain and ratty old towels.

For $500 and under, do all of the above, plus…

…Wallpaper the room.

…Buy a new lamp.

…Add a large plant or tree, with an uplight behind it.

…Splurge on fresh flowers for every room.

…Slipcover a piece of furniture.

…Refinish the hardwood floor or install a new carpet.

…Replace the bed linens with a new ensemble.

…Have a decorator create a plan and timetable for you.

…Paint your front door, replace the porch light, set out some colorful planters, and sweep the path.

…Now that the entry to your house is inviting, throw a party and fill the room with people and foods you enjoy. You won’t even notice the room anymore.

For $2000 and under…

…Replace your kitchen set.

…Reupholster some furniture.

…Buy a piece of investment furniture.

…Copy the ideas in a magazine picture.

…Install new window treatments. Install a fabulous new window.

…Hide your electronics in a new armoire.

…Purchase a great piece of art.

…Go away to a spa for the weekend. When you return nothing will have changed, but you won’t feel so bad about it anymore.

Buying Quality Furniture

Dear Readers:

With so many furniture stores coming and going lately, a lot of people have been asking me about buying quality furniture. Okay, here are some basic guidelines to consider:

1) What do you need furniture for? How many people must you seat? For what activities?

2) What size will you need? Can you fit it through the doorway? Up the stairs? (I can’t tell you how many people forget these last two.)

3) Do you need built-in or movable furniture? Built ins are neat and efficient, look more contemporary, and can be very versatile. On the other hand, where you place them is where they stay.

4) Can you reuse any of your current furniture? Consider slipcovers and reupholstery first.

5) Must your furniture be custom designed? Obviously, built ins must be. Get references.

6) Address safety concerns - Are there sharp corners where children can be scratched? Will the chair tip over? (A possibility with 3 legs, or casters.) Will the fabric be too close to a heat source? (Especially bedding.) Can you see the glass top on the cocktail table?

7) Does the piece come with a warranty? For how long? Will the store repair problems?

8) What is the cost vs your available budget? What is the lifetime cost (initial cost + maintenance cost + cost of disposal + cost of replacement)? Often, the more expensive piece that will last for 20 years is a better buy, even if the initial cost is high.

9) Does the style fit in with the rest of the décor? Here I must interject a word of caution about “eclectic interiors”. Everyone thinks they have one, which apparently makes whatever they’ve done to their rooms okay. The definition is to juxtapose at least 2 styles in a pleasing way, while mixing old with new. Is it just me, or does that imply something deliberate? I don’t think it means: Fill a room with a hodgepodge of every style under the sun, kind of like the “Old Curiosity Shoppe”. One should use both restraint and some sort of a plan. Two good solutions are to have one style predominate, and use a second one for accents; and make the really disparate pieces more compatible by using similar colors and upholstery.

10) Are you purchasing the furniture from an established store with a good reputation or from a discount supplier with little history and no customer service (and therefore, questionable customer satisfaction)? As always, Buyer Beware.

Nuff said. M.A.K.

How Does A Decorator Show House Work?

Dear Readers:

Did you know that there is something called a Designer or Decorator Show House scheduled this time of year in most states? Do you know what a designer showhouse is? It’s a type of fundraiser sponsored by a charity or nonprofit group. You may have heard of the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club Decorator Show House, which occurs every year in New York City, or the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, in California.

For those of you unfamiliar with a show house, this is how it works. Interior designers, decorators, and decorative painters bid on rooms and spaces in a large unoccupied house. If someone has the winning presentation for a room, that person’s firm has a limited amount of time to decorate that space at its own expense, as a form of marketing. Landscape designers are afforded the same opportunity for different areas of the home’s grounds. The idea is to create something unusual and inspirational. The public purchases tickets to view all of the unique spaces in the house and gardens, with proceeds going to the sponsoring charity or nonprofit group. At the end of the allotted month, each firm must return its space to the original condition (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). It’s sort of like Brigadoon – it’s only there for a short time and then it vanishes.

It’s a lot of fun for the viewing public to compare the “before” pictures with the transformation of each space. (Although since different firms do each space to showcase their own talents, don’t expect anything resembling continuity among the rooms.) There is no better way to pick up clever ideas to try yourself; or if you’re in the market for a decorator or landscaper, you can determine just how creative the different local firms are. I should make a point about the latter, however.

As a veteran of seven showhouses, I have noticed that some visitors come into the house looking for a particular room; and only if they see exactly what they’re looking for, do they hire that designer. You have to understand something. These are talented people. Someone who does a fabulous bedroom in a show house may be the perfect person to do your family room. Or the talented designer of a dining room might be the one to help you with your living room. We are multidimensional. Every one of us can do contemporary as well as traditional rooms, dining rooms as well as nurseries. So, here’s a tip: find the person, not the room. Ask to see the portfolios of the designers’ other rooms. Talk to the designers and artists to see if you are well suited. Compatibility is paramount.

The rooms and gardens in a designer show house are spectacular. The lunches are wonderful. Often there are lectures and wine tasting scheduled on the grounds. All in all, a showhouse makes for a lovely summer’s day out. M.A.K.

Secrets to an Outstanding Room

Dear Readers:

A woman recently asked me for the decorating secrets to creating an outstanding room. There are really no secrets. A truly great room requires careful space planning, wonderful furnishings (define wonderful however you like), and if not intuitive style than at least education and training.

Let’s get the furnishings out of the way, since this is what everyone focuses on. There is a big difference in quality and appearance -- not to mention cost -- between the merchandise available to the trade only and that which the average person has access to. (There are ways around this, but that’s the subject of another column.) You can still have a wonderful room on a budget, because even more important than placing great items in a room, is the ability to apply the principles and elements of design to the space. Some homeowners use these rules instinctively, but professionals use them deliberately.

What are the rules? The most important is the famous “form follows function”. A room’s design must meet the needs of the persons occupying the space; i.e., you shouldn’t have to adapt to your surroundings. The space should be carefully planned to handle the activities while allowing for traffic circulation.

The other design principles are ones that you won’t notice until they go horribly wrong. One is called

unity and variety, which seem like contradictory components. Actually they complement one another, like yin and yang. While each room needs a sense of planned order, the juxtaposition of opposites in it adds visual interest. Some people unfortunately carry variety to an extreme. Without the restraint of unity, there’s a fine line between an “eclectic” interior and an insane one.

The principle of balance is another biggie. This is one of the main problems I come across, and one of the easiest to fix. Balance refers to the visual weight of objects in a room. The visual mass on one side of the space should counterbalance that on the other. All sides of the room need to be counterbalanced visually.

Rhythm creates the “movement” in the room. The placement of objects and patterns causes your eye to dance around, and the eye resting on large solids provides control of this movement. Scale and proportion deal with the size of objects in relation to the size of the space and to each other, respectively. And emphasis means that nothing should detract from the focal point of the room.

Line, form, contrast, color, pattern, and texture are all design elements that occur in various combinations in every room. While each one has several discussion points, let me just say that one element should predominate in the space.

You will end up with the last principle of design, harmony, when all of the other principles and elements have been used correctly. (Ta da! Nothing to it.) I hope you look at the complexity of well-designed rooms with new appreciation. For more information, inquire about decorating classes and interior design programs in your area. M.A.K.

Landfill as the Ultimare Organization Solution

Dear Readers:

It’s time to clean out my studio for spring. I just got back from buying a paper shredder and seven plastic organizers. What I need are seven human organizers. I really have the best of intentions, and I’ll buy anything. It’s the commitment that’s lacking. You would not believe the amount of paper and samples a design firm generates. My assistant and I are literally buried.

Here’s my latest strategy: hide everything in the bins until I have a few spare hours to sort, shred, and toss. (That should be around June.) The only drawback to my camouflage plan is the old ”out of sight, out of mind” problem. What I really need is a place for everything. Alas, that also requires time and planning, both at a premium these days.

Perhaps the best home for everything would be the dump. Throwing everything out would be very liberating. Having had a dumpster for a few months while under construction for an addition was fantastic. I highly recommend it for motivation.

Wish me luck with my spring cleaning!

M.A.K.

Spring Cleaning

Dear Readers:

It's finally spring, after one of the worst winters in memory! Of course this time of year inspires people to behave irrationally, often concerning their homes. Take spring cleaning, for instance. Personally, I like to avoid this at all costs. There are, in fact, some things that seem like a really good idea, but which one should never do. Here are a few of my favorites:                                                        

• Never take off your cushion covers or slip covers and throw them in the washing machine (unless of course your daughter wants to use them in her Barbie house);
• Never refinish an inherited piece of furniture unless you are sure it’s not valuable;
• Never wash mini blinds in the tub;
• Never wash prefinished wood floors with water, (the cracks between the boards have not been sealed);
• Never spray clean fabric flowers; and
• Never deep clean good upholstery yourself -- get a professional;

On the other hand, now is the perfect time of year to:

• Straighten all of your cockeyed pictures;
• Rearrange the furniture;
• Roll up and store your heavy carpets;
• Purchase a cheerful new bed ensemble;
• Indulge in some potted spring flowers;
• Lighten up your window treatments;
• Wash your patio furniture and BBQ grill;
• Switch around those tired old accessories;
• Change your throw pillows;
• Consider summery slipcovers; and
• Purchase thirsty new towels, a wonderful shower curtain, and pretty new table linens.

It’s also a really good time to get outside and just forget about your house. Enjoy the warmer weather. M.A.K.