AbbeyK — On Interior Design

I Love What I Do for a Living

I like making customers happy by making their houses look great. Actually, a client called me up the other day and said: “Abbey, that paint color that you suggested for my dining room -- I never ever would have thought that a dark, grayish-blue wall could work. It was the furthest thing from what I thought I wanted. (She wanted pale yellow.) But I decided to try it. I wasn’t sure at all, but I figured I hired you for a reason so I should test it. It's beautiful; my favorite room in my house.”

What a nice phone call! That makes me happy! I like it when people call me up and say: “It’s so comfortable and it’s more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, and it’s completely my taste.”

When your house is as you want it, it increases the "happiness quotient" of your life, and that's a good thing.

Trend Alert -- More Global Inspired

Fabu!

These are from Ironies

What's New Is Old Again and Swank-y

Oooh, a bit of found treasure.

I get a lot of emails from companies wanting me to showcase their products. Rarely do I bite.

But today I got an email from two gents in TX who have just purchased a boat load of murano glass lamps just waiting to be restored. They had them rebuilt with safe new UL Certified hardware and are now selling them to the public for the first time since they were packed away in their original shipping crates for nearly 50 years.

Their company is called Swank Lighting

Here are some examples. Can you say: fabulous!

Trend Alert -- Whimsy

Why stick to the typical when you can jazz things up with the unexpected? Who says decorating cannot be fun?

Trend Alert -- Gold Tones

As for metal finishes for furniture and hardware, chrome is moving out with more gold tones -- yes brass seems to be on it's way back. It's a warmer version though than what was popular in it's last incarnation.

From Oly Studio.

Filming Day for This Old House

Got the design boards done, found a cute TV-friendly outfit to wear, added some extra makeup for filming, showed up on time.

I had no idea what to expect, but it was a lot of fun. We talked about the design challenges and what the homeowner and I worked on. We talked it through and then they picked the interesting parts to make up a TV segment. No script, we just talked it all through.

This Old House does each segment in one take, so when the brain freeze happened as I was supposed to be talking about a stained glass windows and color and no words came out, it was "from the top."

The producers were great and Kevin, the host, kept up the flow. Everyone was so nice and helpful.

You'll have to tune in to see how it went. I might have said too many decorator terms like : "It's going to be great," and "It will be really beautiful," but think I got away without one "fabulous" escaping from my lips.

I kept telling myself: stand up straight, shoulders down, look relaxed, but being a "TV star" (yeah, right) is not that easy!

Getting Ready to Film for This Old House

Well the date is set and the producers have asked me to prepare design boards for an upcoming segment featuring the decoration of the first floor.

Of course I am happy to ablige, but it's been a long time since I've done design boards.
To prepare: we ran errands, and more errands -- got the glue sticks and the double sided tape, went to the hardware store for paint chips, got some photos made, and purchsed some fabulous color printing paper.

Last time I did design boards, you had to get catalogues and make photocopies and that was labor intensive with trips to get recent catalogues and may tries to get the photocopies just right.
Now a days, a good printer and some downloads of manufacturer's products and you are good to go. How did we ever do anything before the internet?

Here are snap shots of the boards and some close ups of layouts. You'll notice the layouts on the left, fabrics on the right. On the bottom are lighting choices, furniture and finishes. The kitchen layout also shows tile for the backsplash. (Click the images to see larger views)

Dining Room

Living Room

Family Room

Kitchen

Fabric Durability

Designers can get information about construction of fabric. We can also get information on durability rating. There's a double rub testing system which is meant to simulate a person getting in and out of a chair. The Wyzenbeek test uses an abrasive materials rubbed back and forth on fabric samples. When the fabric fibers break, or noticeable wear is observed, the fabrics rating is calculated.

Based on the number of double rubs, fabric is graded as light duty, medium duty or heavy duty. The higher the rating, the more durable the fabric with 15,000 double rubs considered heavy duty for residential applications.

Double rub rating plus a close look at the fabric's construction gives designers a lot of information on a fabric's performance. Buy retail and you are not typically able to get this information

Trend Alert -- Light wood

Forget about the dark woods you see in national chain stores. I have been noticing a trend away from that.

Hints of light toned case goods: especially a blue/grey Sweedish/French inspired look. This dining room table is from Grange.

Pickled woods and light toned case goods. This TV stand and mirrored bedside table are from Oly Studio.

Sneak Peek of the Premiere of This Old House Newton

Check it out.

A sneak peak of the premiere of This Old House Newton.