It takes time for you and your designer to discuss ideas,  to plan and select your furniture, fabric, accessories, and then place the order for your outdoor living space. After that the manufacturer has to process your order, get the order in the manufacturing que, procure fabric from another manufacturer if it’s a COM, produce the furniture, and finally ship the order. Every week you delay starting your planning, your options and choices diminish.

Don’t panic, Sally and I are going to share our Top Five Planning Tips for Outdoor Living Spaces to help you on your way. Shall we get started?

1. FURNITURE PLAN: Start by thinking about how you want to use your outdoor living space. Will it be for entertaining? Large or small group?  Or for quiet contemplation? Is there a fire pit? Will cooking be a part of the area? Make a list of all the activities you can think of happening in your desired space. These questions and answers will begin to tell you how much space you need and how to plan your furniture layout.

2. SUN AND SHADE: Is sun or shade important? This could affect the orientation and/or location of your outdoor living area. In many instances, given a home’s orientation  to the sun, space limitation of your land and house lot and/or what you want your outdoor living space next to (kitchen, living room, etc.) an alternative solution may be to integrate a pergola into the space’s design.  For an older or historic home, it’s a perfectly appropriate solution. If you have a new home, a pergola adds charm and value to your property. A pergola can also give a sense of enclosure to an otherwise wide open space, making it feel more like a conversation area, or a dining room.

3. FURNITURE SELECTION: Okay, you’ve thought about sun and shade. You have a furniture plan. What’s next? Selecting the actual furniture for your outdoor living space. There are many considerations.

Teak is classic, weathering to a soft silvery gray, if you leave it unfinished, which we like best. You need to understand that teak comes in several grades, with the best being marine grade teak. It’s worth the investment in the highest quality teak you can find.  A low price on teak can mean that it is an inferior grade, which will deteriorate much faster. A big plus is teak is rot resistant. To keep it looking its best give it a little TLC every year. See our post from last year:   Summer Classics Outdoor Furniture 2017 New Introductions

Metal furniture, such as Summer Classics Provance Collection is more durable and is available in styles ranging from traditional to contemporary, allowing you to do your outdoor living space in a look that expresses your own style.

Woven wicker is another terrific option.  If you live in an older or historic home, you might consider furniture done in a classic old style, such as we used in this three season porch by Lloyd Flanders

Conversely, changing it up with woven wicker with modern lines, can bring a sense of freshness to a patio or terrace.

4. FABRICS: Fabrics for your outdoor living space need to be fade and stain resistant, such as Sunbrella brand. The sun protection comes from the fabric being solution dyed acrylic, or polypropelene. This means the dye is an integral part of the yarn. Today there are so many possibilities and weaves, you don’t have to limit yourself to a solid color fabric.

5. FIRE PIT: Increasingly, our clients are including a fire pit in the design requirements they give us for their outdoor living spaces. A fire pit, and outdoor lighting, will extend the season of your home (especially here in New England) plus add a great deal of ambiance and charm. People LOVE gathering around a fire pit and chatting late into the evening.

I hope by now you’re psyched, and ready to start planning. Let’s re-cap our Five Top Tips for Outdoor Living Space, to help get you started.

1. FURNITURE PLAN: List and describe the activities, needs and intended uses of your outdoor living space. These requirements are the organizational framework that will help you plan.
2. SUN AND SHADE: Understand the impact of sunlight, as well as shade, and take that into account as you plan .
3. FURNITURE SELECTION: Understand the pros and cons of each product. Your final decision will be a combination of style, aesthetics, function and budget.
4. FABRIC: Make sure your fabric is a solution dyed, fade resistant product. And don’t forget water resistant, too!
5. FIRE PIT: You can power it by gas for convenience, or use wood for character and charm. This will extend your outdoor living season. No matter what you choose, we know you’re going to love it.

So get out your pencil and paper, gaze out upon your yard, or walk the property, and dream big. And don’t let another day go by! We want you to have lots of options open to you, so start early. If you use the above planning points, you can put together your new outdoor living space with the confidence it’s going to be a winner.

Enjoy the coming summer, my friends. It’s wonderful to be outside!

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If Sally and I can help you with any aspect of the design of your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form on our website, here:

www.wilsonkelseydesign.com/contact

Or, if you’re not sure if you need to hire an interior designer, please give us a call. We’d be happy to chat.

We also invite you to connect with us on:

Instagram  |  Houzz  |  Pinterest | Twitter | Facebook

Thank you for reading our blog, Design Cognoscenti. We appreciate you!

The post Planning Your Outdoor Living Space – Our Top Five Tips appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

The room makeover is composed of three parts:

1. Floor Plan
2. Furniture and Finishes
3. Interior Architecture

FLOOR PLAN: First, Sally created  a restful environment, suitable for creative thinking, by designing a floor plan that was visually balanced and whose elevations had symmetry.

FURNITURE, FABRIC AND FINISHES: The second challenge was creating a calm, relaxing look. Since Sally had worked with this client on several other rooms in the house, she knew our client loved all things French. So she proposed a “Champagne and Snow” French styled salon, bringing in many shades of champagne beige fabrics, with touches of white, To add the necessary touch of glamour, Sally wanted to frame the lovely evening view through the windows in a twilight violet color, which she used for the drapery panels. She added some toss pillows in a violet silk satin, too. Notice all the trims which were used on pillows, as well as framing the upholstery pieces. The details augment the whole.

The drapery, framing the west facing windows, is a violet silk tone on tone stripe, with 2 layers of French silk trimmings. The drapery was made larger than the windows required, and offset, to fool the eye into thinking the room is more symmetrical than it actually is. See how the wall space, to left and to right of the drapery is the same? The drapery panels themselves are not the same size, but they frame the window in the same way.

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE: Finally, while Sally was working with our client on the room plan, furniture and fabrics, I worked on the architecture of the room. With budget in mind, I carefully selected panel trim and combined a White River frieze with a new crown, creating a delightful French style interior that complements and enhances the French style furniture and finishes Sally and our client had selected. (To learn more about creating French Style Crown moulding, click here.)

Every room needs a focal point. The piece de resistance” is the plaster relief hung on the wall over the sofa. Sally selected this for its drama, and the simplicity of the white colored plaster, giving oomph to the room by its three dimensionality.  Sally often says a piece of sculpture in a room can really elevate the space. See our casual in progress photo below:

Let’s recap the three important elements of a successful room makeover.

1. FURNITURE PLAN: Make sure the plan meets the functional needs of the user(s) of the room via the furniture layout.
2. FURNITURE, FABRICS AND FINISHES: Know what the look of the room is going to be prior to making your selections. This can be done via idea books, creating Pinterest boards, etc. This establishes a framework and guidelines for you. You can then “test” your selections against the guidelines. The questions, “Do they fit?” and “why? or why not?” are easily answered.
3. INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE: Idea books/Pinterest boards are very helpful here, too. The objective is to create a room/space in which the architecture of the room complements and enhances the furniture/decor and vice versa.

Sally and I hope you have found this useful. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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If Sally and I can help you with any aspect of the design of your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form on our website, here:

www.wilsonkelseydesign.com/contact

Or, if you’re not sure if you need to hire an interior designer, please give us a call. We’d be happy to chat.

We also invite you to connect with us on:

Instagram  |  Houzz  |  Pinterest | Twitter | Facebook

Thank you for reading our blog, Design Cognoscenti. We appreciate you!

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The post The Three Elements of a Successful Room Makeover appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

Years ago, TV’s were too bulky, so we’d design built in cabinetry for the TV and stereo components. Now all this can be done and controlled via your computer or phone. Amazing stuff, this technology.

Today, four options are worthy of consideration.

1. Our FIRST SOLUTION (and most recently introduced to the market) is the Samsung FRAME TV. It is available as 43″, 55″ and 65″ display.

When not tuned in to a channel, the TV displays a piece of art work, from which there are hundreds to choose. You can even use your own images and photography! Around its edge, it is trimmed with a minimalist contemporary frame.

For further information, you can read a review of the Samsung Frame TV here.

Here is what this TV might look like on the wall above the fireplace, in a room we are currently designing.

2. For the SECOND SOLUTION,  we looked at the Seura Entertainment TV. The TV is placed behind a mirror and when turned on, the mirror is transformed into a TV.

Available in display ranges of 42″ to 65″, as well as custom sizes, we found a great deal of flexibility.

We learned there are additional considerations. Because the TV is behind the mirror, you will need to have an amplifier and speakers, either in the wall or ceiling. Otherwise the sound is very muted. Another point to consider is the mirror continues to reflect to some degree, even when the TV is on. You might want to consider an installation with this unit that faces away from windows and the view.

I prepared a quick sketch  to show our client what this installation might look like.

3. Our THIRD SOLUTION hides the TV behind a custom framed art print on a motorized retracting canvas. Your TV is disguised as a painting. VisionArt, whom we looked at with our client, provides the entire package – TV, frame and artwork and is built to order.

Offering three different collections of frames and artwork, your choices are endless, as are your budget options.  Once again, an amplifier and speakers in the wall and ceiling will be necessary to truly enjoy your TV.

This sketch shows a 65″ TV, so we could get a sense of its scale on the wall. It was quickly decided 65″ was too big.

4. For a FOURTH SOLUTION, if you and/or your carpenter and electrician are handy, purchase a flat screen TV and make your own DIY FRAME. The image below is a schematic detail showing the TV mounted to the wall with the picture frame attached to the plywood with straps of velcro. The reason I am using the plywood is a wall is never smooth and you need to maximize the “stick” of the velcro, nor will the velcro attach reliably to a wall. A heads up – depending on the speaker configuration of the TV, you will probably need to invest in a speaker bar or a separate sound system, which will require an amplifier.

I hope you find one of these solutions to be the right one for your home.

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If Sally and I can help you with any aspect of the design of your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form on our website, here:

www.wilsonkelseydesign.com/contact

Or, if you’re not sure if you need to hire an interior designer, please give us a call. We’d be happy to chat.

We also invite you to connect with us on:

Instagram  |  Houzz  |  Pinterest | Twitter | Facebook

Thank you for reading our blog, Design Cognoscenti. We appreciate you!

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The post How to hide a flat screen TV above a fireplace. appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

John posted some photos of this process on his Facebook page, and now people are asking for the recipe of the cookies they saw. I’ll share it with you here, along with some instructions on how to make, and why we do this holiday recipe every year.

What really caused my head to turn, was when John posted the early photos and his friends wrote back, “Is Sally from the South?”  I thought, “What does THAT mean?” I should tell you up front that these cookies are fruit cookies. And I AM from the south – Memphis to be exact.

When I was growing up I remember dreading the fruit cakes that my Dad would get at Christmas-time from his customers. I never could see the fascination with fruit cakes.

However, my mother made the following recipe for fruit cookies, and they were as yummy as any young child could want. Warning: they are a lot of trouble to make, but it is surmountable. They keep very well. They are delicious with just the right mix of spices. It is, in fact, the spices that make these cookies memorable. I think we could do just the dough, with no fruit, and come up with a great spice cookie.

Every December we children would enjoy these spice and fruit cookies, along with an assortment of sugar cookies made into stars, trees, angels, santa and reindeer, and perhaps some almond-sugar crescent cookies.

We also had pies and special breads. I think we were not wanting for sweet treats! As we grew up, we moved to far off places and we no longer had these fruit/spice cookies, unless my mother sent them to us, which she did from time to time.

About 10 years ago I began to make these cookies from my mother’s recipe, and give them to my brothers and sister at Christmas-time. Their reaction was memorable – “Sally is making THE  Christmas cookies! Aren’t they really hard to make?”  They wanted more! It was like a tug of the heartstring – not only were they delicious, but they evoked so many memories of hearth and home. Isn’t that what Christmas does?  Evoke our childhood memories? I was able to bring our childhood Christmas memories back to my siblings.

Where did this recipe come from? It comes from an old fashioned church bazaar! Does anyone remember church bazaars? We had them at our church and school, and one lady would bring these cookies, and they were so loved that my mother asked for the recipe. She gave it willingly, in the spirit of Christmas. Ever after, we had these cookies at Christmas.

Now I will share them with you. (Thank you Gaggenau for our wonderful new oven!)

Christmas Fruit Cookies         

• 1 stick butter
• 1 ¾ cup sugar
• 2 beaten eggs
• 3 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon soda dissolved in ½ cup warm water.
• 1 ½ lbs. chopped dates
• ¼ lb. candied red cherries
• ½ lb. dried pineapple, chopped
• a small handful of dried apricots, chopped
• a small handful of dried cranberries or dried raspberries
• 6 – 7 pieces candied ginger, chopped
  (You can add chopped nuts if you like, but I don’t)

First, sift together the flour and spices and salt in a bowl and keep handy. Second, in a mixer cream together the butter and sugar.

Then add the beaten eggs and vanilla. Third, add to the beaten mixture a little of the flour and spice mixture, followed by a little of the warm water with soda. Continue adding these alternately until all the flour and all the water mixture is blended into the creamed butter/sugar mixture.

At the very end add in all the dried fruits and mix. At this point the batter will be very stiff, sticky and a little hard to handle. Even our KitchenAid mixer is put to the test!

Have your oven preheated to 300 degrees F. Prepare your cookie sheets by greasing them, then putting a layer of wax paper over the cookie sheet, then grease them again, on top of the waxed paper. Then you can drop the cookie batter in large chunks onto the cookie sheet. Bake at 300 for 30 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet immediately upon removal from oven. Replace wax paper with each baking, and grease again. You can tell by the slow cooking temperature and long baking time that these are like little cakes! Makes about 3 dozen.

Enjoy!

You may also enjoy reading our recent post with Holiday Table Setting Tips.

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If John and I can help you with any aspect of the design of your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form on our website, here:

www.wilsonkelseydesign.com/contact

Or, if you’re not sure if you need to hire an interior designer, please give us a call. We’d be happy to chat.

We also invite you to connect with us on:

Instagram  |  Houzz  |  Pinterest | Twitter | Facebook

Thank you for reading our blog, Design Cognoscenti. May you and your family have a wonderful Christmas and Holiday Season.

The post How to make the best Christmas cookie ever! appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

We  hope you’ll be inspired for your own homes and enjoy this video we created of some of our favorite holiday decoration projects!

It was hard to narrow down our favorites & below are a few that didn’t make it into the video, but that we wanted to share with you for inspiration:

We here at Wilson Kelsey Design would like to wish all of our readers a bright and joyful holiday season!

We also invite you to connect with us online on our other social channels:
Instagram  |  Houzz  |  Pinterest | Twitter

Cheers!

The post A Christmas Video For You – Happy Holidays! appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

Our rules are simple, and time tested.

1. Table centerpieces need to be either low, or high, so as to not interfere with dinner conversation (and song  . . .)

This was a historic home that Sally decorated for the holidays, in which the scale of the room allowed her to create tall festive floral arrangements for the dining table. She used glass beakers filled with fresh cranberries for color, and greens, lilies and ivy cascading from the top. Note that white linen placemats were used in lieu of a formal damask tablecloth. This was so the warm color of the wood could show itself to best advantage, and a white cloth might have made this room too white, with all the white trim.

I snapped this photo while at a holiday event hosted by The Trustees of Reservations at Castle Hill, Ipswich. It is a terrific example of a low and long centerpiece. I particularly love how the evergreens are accentuated by the gold runner.

2.  Candles follow the same rule, for the same reason. Keep the candles short or use a tall candelabra so the candle flame isn’t flickering in your eyes.

Votive candles can add a wonderful soft glow right at the table surface.

Sally set this client’s Christmas table with both a low centerpiece and tall candelabra, with the room’s color palette inspiring the overall theme for the room. This centerpiece is an easy one you can create quickly. Have on hand a very large cache pot, and then fill it with pots of cyclamen, and cover with moss. Done!

3. Serve the Christmas meal informally, so you can go to the beautifully set table and savor the time with family and friends.  We gave up on the formal carving and passing dishes at the table a long time ago. Consider serving buffet style on the kitchen island or table, allowing the crowd to serve themselves from both sides of the table. Then retire to the dining room, away from all those serving dishes and enjoy the conversation. The below table shows a late morning Christmas soup set up, saving room for the big dinner later in the day.

Set up a separate serving station for drinks and cocktails,  as Sally did with the eggnog station shown below.

Serving with your polished silver makes your guests feel special. They always comment upon it to us when we entertain.

4. “What about the Christmas place settings?” you ask. Use that china and silver you inherited from your parents or grandparents, or your wedding set! There is no sense in saving it for later. It will help establish your own Christmas traditions that your children will remember. Over the years, Sally has inherited 4 sets of china and 4 sets of silver, in addition to our own. We have been able to pass along some to the next generation, but we still have more than enough, which we use every day.

5. Last but not least, part of Christmas at the Wilson-Kelsey Ranch is ritual. The ritual of preparation, which of course, heightens anticipation. Polishing the sterling silver is one of those rituals. I know, you’re thinking, “Really? That’s a TON of work!” We pour ourselves a glass of wine, play Christmas music and tackle the worst of it. The end result is so worth it!One of our clients let us in on a little secret this past year about polishing silver,  that makes us want to try it. She uses tin foil, hot water and baking soda. Add a mixture of water and baking soda to an aluminum store bought baking pan and simply drop in your silver. Essentially, through a chemical reaction, the silver is re-plated.

Here are a few points we learned as we researched this technique. For most silver, you don’t need to immerse it very long. Be sure the water us hot and there is good contact between the silver piece and the tin foil. If you have old ornate silver that has built up tarnish in the grooves of the decorations, you may not want to use this technique as it will remove this patina. We read cautionary tales regarding sterling silver. The reasons were somewhat unclear to us. Our advice, proceed with caution.

We’re going to do a test piece before we drop several pieces in the”bath”.

Let’s take a few moments to recap.

1. Make your table centerpiece low or high enough that it will not interfere with table conversation.
2. Use short candles on the tabletop or tall candelabra to keep the glare of the candle flame out of dinner guests’ eyes.
3. Serve the Christmas meal informally. Keep the day relaxed.
4. Use the family china and silver! Consider using it every day as well. That’s what it’s there for.
5. Identify your rituals. Savor them – even polishing silver.

With these points in mind, you can sleep easy, knowing your Christmas table and meal will be a success!

May you have a wonderful Holiday Season!

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If Sally and I can help you with any aspect of the design of your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form on our website, here:

www.wilsonkelseydesign.com/contact

Or, if you’re not sure if you need to hire an interior designer, please give us a call. We’d be happy to chat.

We also invite you to connect with us on:

Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Houzz

Thank you for reading our blog, Design Cognoscenti. We appreciate you!

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The post Our Top 5 Christmas Table Setting Tips and Traditions appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

Seriously, we are on Cloud Nine and are still wrapping our heads around it.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s rewind the tape all the way back to January of this year, when I was participating in #BlogTourKBIS, and Sally and I were introduced to DXV for the first time. Upon seeing their displays, I can clearly remember telling Sally how much their product reminded me of jewelry for the bathroom. (I think this short video clip we produced makes the point quite nicely.)

It was at KBIS that we learned about DXV’s commitment to the interior design community, and their DXV Design Panel. I remember thinking, “That would be cool, to be on The Panel.”

Fast forward to mid-August, to DXV’s announcement seeking designers for their 2018 DXV Design Panel. Their requirements?  Submit concept drawings for a Paris inspired bathroom by September 20.

Sally and I looked at each other and said, “Paris is our favorite place! We can do this!”

I can’t tell you how many hours went into our effort, because we lost track. Lets just say, . . . “many”. I can tell you that we started out with 8 different floor plans and concepts that we narrowed down to three. We then developed each of those schemes further. After much discussion, we decided upon The One, which we submitted for DXV’s design competition. Here is a sketch of it.

Then the waiting began. . .

That was the worst. . .

Not knowing. . .

In mid October, we received an email from DXV congratulating us as being one of four design firms selected for their 2018 #DXVDesign Panel. On behalf of DXV, Veronika Miller, CEO of Modenus and Creative Director of DXV’s Design Panel, posted a brief video on her Facebook page announcing the 2018 panelists, who are: Jonathan Legate, Jonathan Legate Interior Consultation, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Laura Muller, Four Point Design Build, Inc., from Los Angeles; Alan Tanksley, Alan Tanksley, Inc., New York; and us, Wilson Kelsey Design, Boston.

Included in the email from DXV was our new assignment: Design another bathroom, with finished construction documents due by mid November. . . YIKES!!!

The upside? It’s going to be built!!!

So, early last week, Sally and I, and the other 2018 design panelists, met with the DXV Build Team in Minneapolis to review everyone’s proposed designs. We can’t reveal anything about what we saw, other than these new designs will blow your doors off.

Let’s take a few moments and look at the four bathrooms designed by DXV’s Design Panel 2017. DXV’s product line falls within four design movements – Classic, Golden Era, Modern and Contemporary. Each year a design theme is chosen and each designer is assigned a movement upon which they base their design theme. 2017’s design theme was “Cities of the World”.

The Classic Movement and Corey Damen Jenkins were a perfect match. Corey is a traditionalist whose designs always have a twist to them. He says about his design, “Florence being a destination really mirrors what I tried to achieve for DXV. I want every space to feel like a destination. It’s timeless, it’s classic, it has no expiration date. I don’t want to have any expiration dates on what I do.”

Kati Curtis drew from her travels to Morocco, choosing the city of Casablanca and hammam, an ancient bathing tradition, as her Golden Era Movement inspiration. Of her design, she said, “I love imagining Humphrey Bogart lounging with his cigar in this room. But I can also see someone using it today. It’s the contrast that I love—the glamour and the grit, the old and the new, the rough and the refined.”

Mid Century Hygge and the city of Copenhagen inspired Michele Alfano’s Modern Movement Bathroom. Hygge – pronounced “hoo-ga,” is a Danish concept that cannot be translated into one single word, but encompasses a feeling of cozy contentment and well-being, expressed by enjoying the simple things in life. Michele says of her bathroom, “It heightens your senses, whether you’re soaking in the tub, standing on the fur rug or sitting on the bench with a warm cup of coffee. I love clean lines, but overlay them with bold graphics, texture, and pattern, so there’s fusion between the clean and the tactile.”

Toronto based interior designer, Alison Habermehl, created a contemporary bathroom she describes as “for a creative woman whose daytime life often rolls into the nighttime social. She loves the best of the best and is very particular. In the future, I think we’re going to see a softer, more feminine style—curvaceous design, no sharp corners, everything is very sensuous.”

As you can see from the above four photos, the 2017 DXV Design Panel team has set the bar high. Rest assured the 2018 #DXVDesignPanel maintains their level of design creativity and quality.

Stay tuned for periodic updates and the big reveal in June 2018!

The post The Story of #DXVDesignPanel 2018 and our Collaboration with DXV appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

Our client’s kitchen is about 5 years old and to remove and replace their existing kitchen cabinets doesn’t make financial sense. There are other areas of their home that need greater attention, such as a fresh coat of paint, a redo of the floors, upgraded lighting, bathroom renovations, etc.

Here’s the plan we came up with for their kitchen, that will help you get oriented as we begin discussing how you can upgrade your kitchen cabinets on a budget, too.

Their current kitchen layout is pretty straightforward, with a large island located in front of builtins behind. We are designing a new pantry immediately behind the kitchen. The symbols B and D are called elevation symbols. Later in the post I will be referring to those elevations by those letters. (An elevation is a drawing that illustrates what something looks like when looking directly at it.)

Drawing from REV-A -SHELF‘s extensive selection of cabinetry storage products, we were able to upgrade virtually every cabinet drawer box and drawer with ease. The schedule below is keyed to the elevations so you can see exactly where and what was selected to upgrade each cabinet or drawer.

Lets start with ELEVATION B, the kitchen island.

1. UNDER SINK PULLOUTS: To correct the lack of storage under the sink at the left end of the island, we turned to their handy (and portable!!!) caddy that fits nicely to the side of the sink. Their under sink pull out will need further evaluation, primarily because of dimensional issues.

2 & 3: SILVERWARE DRAER AND KNIFE STORAGE:  Adjacent to the refrigerator and dining area, it makes sense that the area to the right of the cook top should be for food prep. The drawers in this area are a perfect place for cooking utensils, knives, silverware, etc. Currently, each drawer is empty, so as a drawer is opened, whatever is inside that drawer can slide about, get all jumbled up and scratched. We will be taking a close look at using REV-A-SHELF’s organized knife, utensil and silverware storage components (LOVE the cutting board!!!)

4. FILLER PULLOUT The area around our client’s cooktop was disorganized so we found a nice filler pullout to help organize their cooking oils on the left of the cooktop.

5. PEGBOARD DRAWERS: The drawers below the cook top are the perfect place for pots and pans, etc. If your pots, pans and lids are loose and stacked willy-nilly in a drawer, you know how difficult it can be to get to that one you need that you put in the back of the drawer. Outfitting each drawer with cut to size pegboard inserts  will make life so much easier.

6. FOOD CONTAINER STORAGE PULLOUT: It made sense to locate the plastic food containers for leftovers immediately to the right of the cook top. ( if we had this in our kitchen, there’s be no more lost container lids!)

7. RECYCLING:  We’d like to see recycling happen in the two remaining base cabinets on the right side of the island,  to support the food prep area. The left end of the island is dedicated to cleaning and washing dishes, etc.

8. Spice Drawer: Immediately above the filler pullout will be a spice drawer, consolidating oils and spice into one easy to reach location.

Now,  let’s shift to ELEVATION D below, where the fridge and double ovens are located. I like the landing zone on the fridge’s left, which make it easier to put groceries away. I do wish there were a landing zone to the right of the ovens, too, but we have to work with the hand of cards we’ve been dealt.

9 ADJUSTABLE BOX DRAWERS: The top drawers will be devoted to silverware storage while the cabinet below will be upgraded with adjustable box drawers on full glides, making it easier for them to pull them all the way out to reach what is in the back.  (Note 2 & 3, silverware and knife storage.) Everyday plates, soup bowls, cups, etc. here with pegboard inserts (#5) might work in several drawers.

The drawer below the stove will be equipped with the pegboard dividers (#5), keeping baking sheets organized. The upper cabinets are good to go with their existing adjustable shelves.

THE WALK IN PANTRY

The client is moving from a home that had a substantial amount of kitchen storage, hence the need for designing the walk in pantry. Given how narrow the space is that we have to work with, we created a deep full height cabinet at the end of the pantry shown in ELEVATION A.

10. SWING OUT PANTRY: We could do standard pull outs here, but in such a small space access would be awkward. This area is a perfect application for REV-A SHELF’s swing out pantry. I love how easily you can access every corner of the unit.

11. BROOM CLOSET: If you look at Elevation C above, you will see I’m thinking of squeezing a small broom closet int the pantry, if we can’t find space for it elsewhere. (Time will tell…)

12. RATTAN ORGANIZERS: We need to be sure the view into the pantry is pretty, so below the coffee maker, instead of cabinet doors, we thought these rattan organizers would look terrific!

We have not had time yet to have a full upgrade priced, but I can assure you that to demolish and replace the cabinets and countertops in our client’s kitchen, in our area of Boston, would be well over $60,000, far more than simply replacing the guts of the cabinets, as we are doing.

For those of you considering a kitchen renovation, assuming your kitchen cabinets are in good shape, this is an inexpensive strategy to upgrade kitchen cabinets and improve the functionality of your kitchen. Who knows, you may even find money left over in your budget to refinish the cabinet doors! VOILA! Brand new kitchen!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post!  If you have, please consider pinning and/or sharing the following image in order to save this blog link for future reference!

Thank you!

~~~~

If Sally and I can help you with any aspect of the design of your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form on our website, here:

www.wilsonkelseydesign.com/contact

Or, if you’re not sure if you need to hire an interior designer, please, give us a call. We’d be happy to chat.

We also invite you to connect with us on:

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The post How to Upgrade Kitchen Cabinets on a Budget. appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

But perhaps you’ve never seen an actual case study that shows you how an interior designer actually applies those tips to one of their own projects?  If that’s the case, read on, while I illustrate each of the 7 best kitchen planning tips in this post with a kitchen we designed that was recently published in  the March/April 2017 issue of Design New England magazine.

By way of background, the home owners were empty nesters who felt they could finally have their dream kitchen, now that their children were launched. They wanted a soft warm aesthetic using colors and materials that reminded them of where they had traveled with their children.

They wrote in our Kitchen Planning Questionnaire that they wanted their kitchen to say, “You will find good food, conversation and company here.”

So, are you ready for our 7 Best Kitchen Planning Tips? Let’s begin!

1. THE PLAN: Make sure the Cook’s Area works! Minimize the size of the Work Triangle. Plan landing zones next to Work Centers.

The existing kitchen plan/work triangle worked reasonably well. Appliances needed replacing,  landing zones by work zones needed improvement, no double sink we were told, just a big deep single sink, more storage (pantry?), better island seating and fix the corner cabinet, where things “go to die” (translation, if something is put in that cabinet, it is never seen again…).

We improved the plan by addressing the above issues with new appliances, sink and custom cabinet/drawer accessories, moving the fridge/pantry and creating landing zones for groceries, etc. where you enter the kitchen.

2. THE ISLAND: Keep island seating out of The Cook’s Area!!!

The island was extended and a round table was added at it’s end.

In the image below, you can see the consolidated fridge/pantry with landing zones at each end, perfect for when you enter or leave the kitchen.

By stretching the island and making the seating area round, we accomplished two important design considerations. We keep guests seated at the island out of the cook’s area, yet both cook and guests can be part of the same conversation! The round table is more conducive to conversation and a creates sense off intimacy.3. THE LIGHTING: Lighting is the most critical aspect of a successful kitchen design and typically poorly done. There should be three lighting zones in a kitchen – task lighting (where you work),  ambient lighting (general lighting) and decorative lighting (eye candy).

I will preface this by saying Sally and I overlight a kitchen. We put the lighting on dimmers, giving the home owner the ability to control the level of lighting they desire in the kitchen, depending on task, mood, etc.

In this before image, you can see the lighting is generic and not task specific. Even though the kitchen is white, it feels dark.

In the renovated kitchen, you can see how I have placed down lights over the kitchen counters and island. These lights function as both task and ambient lighting, while the pendant over the round glass table is both functional and decorative.

Typically I locate down lights about 12″ away from the face of the upper cabinets. I like to use lights that have adjustable heads, because experience tells me that in a renovation you will never  get every light precisely where you want them to be. The adjustable head allows you to point the lamp toward its desired location.

The decorative pendant fixture over the round table at the end of the island helps anchor the island and provides a softer level of lighting than down lights. If you look carefully, you will see a diffuser in the bottom of this fixture.

Additional task lighting was added under the upper cabinets.

4. THE CABINETRY: There are two major considerations. Aesthetics and quality. If you want complete control over the look of your kitchen  you will need to have your cabinets custom designed so you get precisely the look and finish you desire. Custom enables you to maximize every square inch of useable space in your kitchen.

Cabinet boxes should be made of plywood (ideally ¾” thick sides,  ½”  thick backs). Drawer boxes should be made of solid maple with dovetail joints. Drawer glide hardware should be metal with no plastic parts. You can find more useful information regarding cabinetry construction and quality at this weblink. Aesthetics come into play when you select your cabinet door style. Currently, door styles with simple, more modern profiles seem to be the norm in New England.

After looking at and considering several manufactured “custom” cabinet products, our client decided to have their cabinets designed and fabricated from scratch. Their reasons were:

1. To maximize storage.
2. They could get exactly the cabinet door detail, wood and finish they wanted, which in this case was limed rift cut white oak in a matte finish with a quarter round still rail detail on the cabinet door.
3. The local cabinet shop selected was able to deliver the cabinets in a shorter time frame. YES!!!

5. THE APPLIANCES: Like cabinets, the quality and price points of kitchen appliances are all over the map. Based on our experience, buy the best you can afford. Note that some appliance manufacturers such as Bosch and Gaggenau use the metric system of measuring. If you have to replace one of their appliances,  appliances whose dimensions are based on inches will probably not fit the existing opening.

Don’t let this scare you off. When Sally and I renovated our kitchen in the early 1990’s, we purchased  a Gaggenau oven, cooktop, grille and exhaust vent. We are just now considering replacement and will be contacting our rep at Yale Appliance in Boston for assistance in properly placing our order. BTW, Yale offers a number of FAB appliance “bundles” if you are currently planning a new kitchen.

Our client wanted a simple, clean modern aesthetic. We worked closely with Yale Appliance, creating the ideal combination of stainless steel appliances using a Miele cook top, exhaust hood and wall ovens, a Sub-Zero side by side fridge/freezer and  two Bosch dishwashers.

We considered a custom wood enclosure around an exhaust hood, and felt such a solution would “close down” the kitchen and push the aesthetic closer to a colonial /transitional look. The chimney style exhaust is much more in keeping with the kitchen’s vibe. (LOVE the penny hexagonal tile behind the cook top!)6. THE COUNTERTOP: Stone, wood or metal are the three basic choices. Regardless of what anyone tells you, there are NO lifetime stone sealers! So if you are installing granite, marble or quartz, it MUST be sealed/resealed on a regular basis. We’re seeing more wood countertops, although I do not recommend wood be used around the sink or range top. Sooner or later it will begin to rot around a sink. Grease stains and pan  burns are inevitable by your stove. (Some would call this patina.) We do use wood (typically a hard maple) in kitchen islands or in very specific food prep areas. (We did this in our kitchen.) Stainless steel is super easy to maintain and clean, but it will show scratches and is expensive to fabricate.

Stone is our preferred material. It turned out that the stone selection process for this project was an eventful one. Working with Cumar Marble, we first selected a beautiful buttery golden brown quartzite. Quartzite is extremely strong and dense and does not stain easily. Interestingly, it can also be brittle. Because of these characteristics, Cumar recommended we stick with a simple straight edge profile with eased edges.

We needed two slabs, one for the island and another for the countertops.

But, when  Cumar’s fabrication department began cutting and polishing the stone, it began fissuring and cracking. YIKES!!!

Cumar pulled the slabs from production and credited the money toward selection of new slabs. (What happened was highly unusual,  but it illustrates the point that stone is a natural material and anything can happen.)

This time we selected a granite. It, too, is hard and durable. Not quite as stain resistant. But it is more predictable… And it had a lovely sand swirl character our client fell in love with.

The final product and installation was beautiful!!! Oui?

7. The Floor: While we have done a few wood floors in kitchens, our preferred material is stone or porcelain tile. Why? Maintenance! A stone or tile floor is so much more durable and easier to keep clean. We often will help a home owner select an inexpensive runner for in front of the sink or oven, if they want a softer feel underfoot.

Although our preference was to specify a stone or porcelain tile floor in their kitchen because of its increased durability and ease of maintenance, in this case, our client weighed the pro’s and con’s and made an informed decision to keep the existing wood floor in the kitchen. Their reasoning was that they liked the aesthetic of wood and were willing to be more diligent in maintaining the floor. Another design factor in play was also that the wood floor connected the kitchen with the adjacent sitting area, making the entire space feel larger.

Our solution was to sand, bleach and seal the existing oak, then, using stain, apply a grid, creating a look mimicking a Jerusalem Gold limestone terrace.

I’ve covered a lot of ground in this post . Let’s take a moment and re-cap those 7 Best Kitchen Planning Tips.

Best Kitchen Planning  Tip #1: The Plan: Make sure the cook’s area works! Take into consideration the work triangle. Plan for landing zones next to work centers.

Best Kitchen Planning Tip #2: The Island: Keep island seating out of the cook’s area.

Best Kitchen Planning Tip #3: The Lighting: Three lighting zones – task (where you work), ambient (general lighting) and decorative (eye candy).

Best Kitchen Planning Tip #4: The Cabinetry: Aesthetics and quality. For complete control, go bespoke

Best Kitchen Planning Tip #5: The Appliances: Buy the best you can afford. Bundle them for best pricing. Avoid fad colors and styles

Best Kitchen Planning Tip #6: The Countertop: Stone, wood or metal (stainless steel). Stone = durability and variety. Use wood selectively

Best Kitchen Planning Tip # 7: The Floor:  Stone/tile floor is durable & easy to maintain. Wood if you are willing to maintain and refinish.

Relying on these kitchen planning tips, whether you are doing a DIY kitchen with IKEA or working with your interior designer to create a fully custom kitchen, you can feel confidant that the final result will meet or exceed your expectations

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post!  If you have, please consider pinning and/or sharing the following image in order to save this blog link for future reference!

Thank you!

~~~~

If Sally and I can help you with any aspect of the design of your home, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form on our website, here:

www.wilsonkelseydesign.com/contact

Or, if you’re not sure if you need to hire an interior designer, please, give us a call. We’d be happy to chat.

We also invite you to connect with us on:

Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Houzz

Thank you for reading our blog, Design Cognoscenti. We appreciate you!

The post Our 7 Best Kitchen Planning Tips – Illustrated and Explained appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.

Earlier this spring, I was working on a marble floor tile layout for a powder room renovation in a 100 year old shingle style home on Boston’s North Shore. It was giving me fits. As I worked through the challenges of the tile layout, I realized I rely on a number of simple rules/guidelines when I design a tile floor.

To begin, I’d like to walk you through my thought process on this particular bathroom by looking at several preliminary design sketches I prepared.

As I mentioned above, this particular powder room was giving me fits. In the layouts I tried, I kept having to “cut tile” along at least one side of each diamond pattern in the scheme.

By fiddling with the border width, I was able to eliminate the cut tile problem, but the diamond pattern in the corners was different. ARGH!!!

At some point I said to myself, “Wait a minute! What did Sally and I see when we visited Paris? There were LOTS of marble floors in Paris!” Sure enough, the solution to my dilemma was hiding in all those pictures we had taken.

Can you see it?

The border is not the same. The tile inset (field tile) is treated as an *area rug* giving you the ability to control each corner of the diamond pattern. The border is what it is…

It even works with angled walls.

Enlightened, I went back to the drawing board. Et Voila! Tile as area rug!

The photo below was taken as the J. Tribble vanity was being prepared for templating of the new marble top by our favorite Boston area marble supplier, fabricator and installer, Cumar Marble. The marble tile was sourced from The Tile Source in Beverly, MA.

BTW – we LOVE how our contractor. Premier Builders, has fussed over every detail of this project!

To give you a sense of what the finished space will look like, here’s my hand rendered sketch of the vanity elevation with high gloss painted wood paneling and a coved ceiling. (Stay tuned for a blog post showcasing the finished project shortly.)

So, what have we learned to this point?

1. That the tile border is not always what is important and at times, insisting on a tile border of a particular width may very well hurt the overall design of the floor pattern.
2. Sometimes, the better solution is to treat the tile pattern within the border as an “area rug”, get that right, and let the border be what it is.

The basketweave pattern we used for the floor tile layout in the renovation of a powder room in an 1804 Federal Period home also required that the inset (or field tile) be set first, letting the border vary. Here’s why.

The basket weave tile piece is a nominal 12″ x 12″. BUT – the tile interlocks, meaning that when it is set on the floor, the interlocking pattern is no longer 12″ x 12″. It is something less. Working with tile such as this, it is best to describe the field as being 4 tiles wide x 6 tiles long, for example. The person laying the tile should set the basket weave field first and then cut the border tile to fit.

Speaking of border tile. When should a tile border drive a tile design?

In this master bath design in a New England shingle style home, Sally used the border tile to express and reinforce an architectural feature, the shape of the tub.

This small hallway in a French Villa style home, for which we designed the interior architecture, connects the front foyer and living room and is a great example of the pros and cons of a design decision.

For this floor tile layout, Sally and I felt that it was more important to use the tile border as a means of reinforcing the shape and size of the hall. Consequently, the diamond pattern of the white tile inset did not fall precisely in the corners of the inset. The newly installed Chesney mantel can be seen in the distance.

The solution to our tile dilemma? We specified a grout color that blended with the white marble.

You can also dress up a uniformly colored tile floor with a custom mosaic tile focal point, as Sally did in the design for a master bath in a 100 year old carriage house/barn on Boston’s North Shore. (Note how the grout matches the tile, beginning to suggest a slab of granite.)

The black and white tile floor in the foyer Sally and I designed  for the same project is a great illustration of how to deal with a large irregularly shaped space.

Where walls don’t line up, it’s best to center the field of tile on the dominant X and Y axis’ of the space.

Let’s circle back and review my 5 Pro Tips for Designing Your Floor Tile Layout.

1. In order to get the same detail in the corner of a tile inset (field tile), think of the inset as an “area rug” centering it in the space and the  cutting the border tile to fit.

2. The actual installed dimension of certain tiles is not the specification dimension of the tile itself, such as basket weave.  Install these tiles as an “area rug”.

3. Use border tile to enhance an architectural feature in a room.

4. Use grout color to either highlight or blend a field of tile.

5. In large irregular spaces, center your tile layout on the major X and Y axis of the space.

With these points in mind, whether you are doing a DIY tile installation or working with your designer or contractor, you can sleep easy, knowing your new tile floor will look fabulous!

The post Our 5 Top Tips for Designing Your Floor Tile Layout appeared first on Wilson Kelsey Design.