chelsea-sparks

Now we are standing in the basement hallway looking back up the stairwell. I wanted going into the basement to be a pleasant transition, so we installed flexible white track lighting. Two separate tracks bend and curve there way down the sloped ceiling of the stairwell leading to the Man Cave.

This view is of my husband's man cave looking back towards the hallway and stairs. I designed the space, while my hubby did all the work to the basement. It was shiny-sided insulated walls and concrete floor before he took this project on.

He installed a pocket door, so the room could act as a guest room as needed with the sofa being a sleeper sofa. The long wall has three built-ins: one is a bookcase and the other two are glass display shelves with puck lights to accent them.

The main ceiling lights are copper mesh and have white plexi bottoms, so you don't look up and see a bare bulb. At the far end of the room is his salt water aquarium, built into the wall. His feature item is clown fish and anemones.

We used Ikea over the refrigerator cabinets stacked for the storage unit along with a few kitchen drawer units. The countertop is a beautiful granite with a large scale earthy pattern running through it. Molas that were Dad's treasures from his stay in Panama are all around the room. My husband also installed wall washer lighting all around the room as well as a surround sound system. It is a man cave afterall.

The other feature of the room, a 47" flat screen. Given the narrowness of the room, it would have been overkill to have gone any larger.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

A Tour of Our Lovely Home, part 2: Visit my Studio

Now we travel up to my studio, which is on the third floor. I found these great shelving units from either Crate and Barrel or CB2, which are fabulous storage for glues and paints. Since they are so shallow, they use the stairwell space efficiently. The wall hanging on the left is actually three 2'x3' satin cord rugs that I found on sale at Pier 1, just hung end to end.

Looking from the studio down into the stairwell to my IKEA display cabinet. I am a miniaturist fan, so it houses all my collectible mini chairs by famous designers. I also like objects shown in the wrong scale, like the oversized tennis ball next to the cabinet. The flowers on the wall are magnetic from Umbra. Large circular magnetic boards are great places to display inspirational images.

This is my paper desk with an very active inspiration board above it. I used clear cd pocket sleeves to contain the smaller items towards the bottom. The top I leave open for larger inspirational pieces.

Lots of reference materials!

I am so thankful we had a rough in for a sink up here. It makes messy projects so much easier to clean up.

I like to keep fun, eye catching goodies on the windowsill. I am sucker for shiny objects!

I have 16 feet of counterspace on one wall with 2 workstations and my awesome papercutter. The bookcase houses more inspirational and how-to books.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

A Tour of Our Lovely Home, part 1: 1st Floor

It is my dream to one day have our home shown in a design magazine. I know there is a lot more to be done before that could happen, but I think I am on the way. Please enjoy this tour of our home over the next few posts. The only rooms not shown are the main bedroom, which is in limbo, and the laundry room & storage room.

We live in a cohousing community, which are typically less formal homes. As you come into our home there is a small vestibule and then BAM, you are in the kitchen.

To find out more about cohousing, visit our website www.libertyvillage.com . The kitchen is mostly builder grade materials at this point. We will redo it at a later date. We are currently building a screened porch addition, so kitchen remodel will have to wait.

View looking back towards entry. I am a huge fan of Tiffany style lighting. This particular design is a copy of a design by Clara Driscoll, who worked in Louis Comfort Tiffany's studio. So her work got his name on it. I have an opinion about that, but that's another post if I ever chose to address it.

We have a somewhat open concept plan without actually having a great room. This it the view from the kitchen looking into the first part of the living room, which a long narrow room with two seating areas separated by the bar (armoire).

View after having stepped towards the living room.

I have such a fondness for circles in design, that you will see them repeated throughout the house. This wall has a custom handpainted circle pattern on it. I put different color paints on the end of a brush and then rotated the brush to create a circle. There are 4-5 layers of circles all in all.

Now we are looking back towards the front of the house standing by the back sliding glass door that will lead to the screened porch.

Next to the living room is our dining room. I LOVE the leopard patterned rug!

I wouldn't subject my husband to this magenta in a large room, but what fun in a little powder room!

On the second floor are the main bedroom & main bath. Here is the guest room. I am now remembering that I didn't photograph the guest bath either. Oh well, it isn't that exciting yet. The paintings on either side of the bed are my work.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Update on Marketing Rendering

I still have to work out the text that is needed for the front of the cut sheet, but here is what I have so far for the design. The floor plans will we on the flipside of the cut sheet.

New business card design

I am almost out of business cards and need to order some new ones. I thought it would be a good time for an update, especially since I have refined my business scope since printing the first ones. I have a small modest business, so it doesn't need to be an executive design.

Some kind, but constructive comments would be welcome.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Start of Year of the Collage - 2012 Birthday Collage - Sara

Earlier this year, I made some declarations for myself. One of which was that 2012 is the year of the Collage. What I am doing to honor this is create a collage in honor of of someone's birthday. Then I send it to him/her via snail mail.

Sara (pronounced Sar-rah, not Sair-rah) was the first recipient of a birthday collage.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Marketing Illustration

I work on such a variety of creative jobs. I thought I might share the process I am using to do a rendering.

This week besides getting ready for an invitation assembly in my studio with a wedding party, I am working on a rendering for my community's Marketing team. We now have buildable lots for sale and need to have a shiny cut sheet for the basic model home. Here's the progression:

First I took a photograph of an existing home that is the same as the model.

Then I loosely draft a line drawing of the house.

I scan the line drawing, print out a copy on textured paper and start testing out how my design markers take to the paper. After this I will be adding colored pencil details.

After I get all my color "recipes" figured out, I will do one more print and apply all the design marker and colored pencil with greater care and detail.

I hope you enjoyed this little creative share!