Tag: interior design

Inspiration for a Bright and Cozy Loft

Earlier this summer, a friend of mine let me know that she and her husband were moving to a new city. They’d already signed the lease to an open-concept loft in a converted building. She reached out to me for some inspiration in arranging the floor plan and some jumping-off points as to decorating the new place.

I simply love putting together inspiration boards, so I was eager to help out! After a few emails back and forth I got an idea for the space and for a few looks that she likes.

inspiration

Given this information, I put together a rough floor plan (I couldn’t be totally detailed since I didn’t have measurements to work with) and an inspiration board to be used to start furnishing the living room and dining bar. I provided a list of links for items to buy, but oftentimes it’s just as useful to look at an inspiration board and purchase similar items things along the way.

tegan-loft

Sofa | Leather Stools | Media Unit | Pillow 1 (similar) 2 3 | Art Prints 1 2

Since the brick wall was already painted white, and the wood floor was finished in a light-to-medium tone, I decided to bring in color using a vibrant sofa and cool accessories. This isn’t really surprising considering it’s my usual design strategy! Not knowing if the lease allowed for hanging items on the brick, I picked inexpensive prints that could fit in light frames and attached using extra-durable 3M hooks. I love TV, so I don’t shy away from including TVs in inspiration boards, but I do like to make the area a little more interesting. I thought a media unit with a shelf up top could be accessorized in a way so that the focal point would still be attractive even with the big black box turned off. I also included a lighting solution involving a long white cord and paper lampshade (the kind found at IKEA or World Market) so lights could be hung from the ceiling without being hard-wired.

I didn’t have a lot of detail to go on regarding the bedroom and bathroom half of the loft (behind the amazing sliding barn door), so I just imagined what the layout might be like.

basic loft layout.jpg

I don’t have any afters since the couple didn’t move in until fairly recently. I am confident that however they decide to decorate, it will look great, and I’m so happy I was tapped to lend a helping hand.

If you are ever stumped for design inspiration you can always email me for some brainstorming! I would be happy and honored to help out. 

Curtain Call

There are two things I have found that quickly turn a house into a home: hanging art on the walls, and adding the finishing touch to windows by way of curtains.

Lucky for us, we had a plethora of curtain options at our disposal for f-r-e-e thanks to our many-windowed Kansas bungalow (seriously, that place had no less than fifteen windows, most of which were dressed), so we pulled many of them out of storage and put them to work.

First up, the bedroom. This addition was one of the first things we tackled after moving in last May. I don’t want the neighbors spying on me pulling on my PJ’s every night or getting ready every morning, thankyouverymuch.

Bedroom Curtains

I like waking up with the light (getting out of bed in a dark room is almost impossible for me) so I thought going light with the curtains would be a great strategy. The heavier black iron-look curtain rod (here) helps polish things off, and the simple ring finials are so chic. The masculine rod balances the subtle feminine flower pattern in the curtains. We previously used these in the guest room in our Kansas house. Discontinued IEKA; we got these on clearance over two years ago.

Secondly, the living room. I wanted something navy to go go across the room of our dark teak credenza. The carpet and walls in the living room are really light and I thought that dark curtains would look really chic.

Living Room

These are the only curtains that we didn’t already have. I found this great fabric at IKEA that had an interesting pattern that I liked, and was pretty masculine so Doug was pretty excited. I flexed my long-dormant sewing muscle and whipped these up in about two hours. I’d like to add a lining and they are currently hemmed with pins, because I am debating if I like the one-to-two inch pool or if I want them to be a touch shorter. What do you think?

The office. Or guest room. Or catch-all room. No photographic evidence, sorry! We recently installed organizational shelving in here and it now houses all of our books and media. Curtains will protect them from the UV rays which can/will yellow the pages. This room gets amazing afternoon light and will be where I shoot most of the items for my Etsy store. I don’t want anything with a strong color distorting the sunlight, though. We grabbed a pretty silver rod from Home Depot’s Home Decorator Collection, which proved to be much easier to install than the Lowe’s Allen + Roth curtain rods we’d bought previously (note to self). We slapped up two cream-colored Chesapeake curtains from Target that we already had on hand from our old bedroom. Perfection!

Dining Room Curtains

The dining room was the last room to be curtain-ed, but I’m really, really happy to be able to use the now discontinued green vine IKEA panels. I didn’t even realize it until we hung them up, but the tree outside has red berries on it just like the pattern in the curtain panels. We used the KVARTAL system by IKEA which was surprisingly easy to put up. I was worried about sturdiness but I’m happy to report that it’s really much more heavy duty than I expected. We don’t close these much anyway, so it’s really mostly for looks, and the room seems much warmer with them up.

That Target Lamp

Last Wednesday, I went ahead and spent some of my birthday on that Scandinavian-inspired floor lamp from Target that popped up in lots of blogs this summer (here, and here, for example). Overjoyed at my luck that they had one left, and stoked that it was now on clearance– $20 off! I nabbed it up and rushed home to assemble it.

The box was slightly torn at the opening, which should have been my first clue. The lightbulb that was supposedly included was missing, clue number two. Nonetheless I unwrapped, assembled, located a lightbulb (much too bright of one– gotta go shopping and get a gentler one), and set it up just so in a dark corner of the living room.

Target Lamp

Looks great, right? Good location, the gray goes with the frame and the couch… And makes a nice “triangle” with our entryway light and the other one that’s across the room near the other, green couch where we watch TV. (click here for bearings within the living room).

Target Lamp

Cue the sad sitcom sound effects… The wood is curved! See how it leans!!

I should have known something was up, like perhaps someone already discovered it was curved and returned it to the store! Oh well. We have some ideas for a DIY fix. I’ll let you know how it turns out!