Home Design Archives - An Eye For Detail

TAKE A LOOK AT THE NEW PASTELS

By Libby|2014-04-27T20:07:59-04:00April 27, 2014|Color, Home Design, Inspiration|

If you think you have been seeing more and more pastels
out there…you’re right!
They are appearing on all sorts of home accessories from dinner ware to furniture to organizing items to fabric.
I’ve been filing images away for a few weeks now and here are some ideas for you.

1. bowls 2. lamp 3. wire basket 4. water bottles
5. scarf 6. recipe cards 7. star vases 8. liberty fabric 9. trays 10. towels

These are only a small, small sampling of what is out there!

While I am not generally a fan of pastels on the wall, I like this one. The gold flecks make it interesting and add some texture:

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And how about one of these mid century tables? love, love…

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What do you think of this? Like or not?
A giant canvas as headboard, and lots of pastels!

COLOR IN THE BEDROOM

By Libby|2014-05-15T11:01:01-04:00March 9, 2014|8 McDowell, Home Design|

We spend approximately one-third of our lifetime sleeping, so why not make it the best experience possible?

Please….. come on in to my bedroom!

When we looked at this then-empty house the master bedroom had white walls and white Levolor blinds and one very cute bare light bulb in the room….along with thick, beige carpeting. Needless to say, it wasn’t my style and, as we bought the house almost six months before actually moving in, I had lots of time to work in here. The very first decision to be made was the paint color. Is that the way you do it? Where do you start? Anyway, for me, it’s the walls.

I’ve always loved yellow. Any yellow. It’s cheerful, bright, sunny and can make any room look great. So yellow it was to be.

You can see the tester on the wall. There were many, many other huge splotches on the walls but this one won me over

Benjamin Moore Marblehead Gold

It’s a deep yellow, not too clean, with a lot of body and style. I really do like it…husband still isn’t sure. Ah well, it’s there, and it will be a while until I reconsider!

This is […]

OFFICE/STUDIO RENOVATION (CON’T.)

By Libby|2014-05-14T21:55:03-04:00September 3, 2013|Home Design|

Let’s take a q u i c k look at the “before” pictures of my office/studio. I say quick because we don’t want to dwell on them, and the mess, too long…

It was a mess.

The bulletin board of homasote looked either forlorn or lost or somewhere in between!

The black horizontal file drawers didn’t add a lot of appeal or character to the room with my

(read all about it here) new desk.

Those two shelves on the wall, suspended over the chair, did nothing either visually or organizationally (is that a word?). I’ve had those shelves for years and years and like them because those metal end brackets mean I can actually put books there and they don’t fall off. But they had seen better days.

Take a look at my Pinterest board for ideas I have been collecting for many months. You can see the white cabinet/dark top theme half way down on the left there. It was very helpful to have these images and “see” if they would work for me.

One of the main problems was how to create more surface area. I didn’t want to have an art table (anyway, I had just […]

BEFORE & AFTER: LIVING ROOM

By Libby|2014-05-14T22:18:29-04:00April 26, 2013|8 McDowell, Home Design|

Thank you, Angela!

Angela at UnexpectedElegance asked if she could feature me and several specific posts about my home, on her blog. Why yes, of course!

As I began to gather the appropriate posts I realized I had never quite finished the story of our living room area.

Some of you may remember these posts I did about the renovations: front hall, living room, and dining room transformed to a study. For those of you newer to the blog, read on and discover.

When we bought this house almost three years ago (REALLY??) there was an ample sized dining room open to the living room. Fine and good. But, we really did not want or need a formal dining room anymore but we did want and need a study for my husband.

Long before we moved in:

#1. Looking downstairs into what was the open dining room

#2. Dining to right, living room to left

#3. Dining room

#4. Front hall and stairs

The “real” before, and as it looks now; I tried to get just about the same view.

The wall between the two rooms under construction. The transom […]

WRITING A THANK YOU NOTE

By Libby|2012-01-11T02:00:00-05:00January 11, 2012|Hand Crafted, Home Design|

I happened to see a sample of President Obama’s thank you note “etiquette” on a Twitter post today, and began thinking about this almost obsolete nicety.

Do you write thank you notes? I mean, do you actually take out pen and paper and write a real note? When? After you have received a gift? What about after a dinner party? Or an interview?

Or…. gasp…. to say hello and thank someone for a small gesture?

Here’s something to think about:

From JobSearch site: “Account Temps Survey reported that 88% of executives said they consider a thank you note influential when evaluating candidates.” More prefer hand written to email and many recommended doing both.

I was brought up in the age of pen and paper and thank you notes were ‘de rigeur’. Always. No exceptions.

It doesn’t matter what your handwriting is like; no, it’s the act of writing… of taking the time to
t h i n k … that is important here.

And there are SO MANY great designs in cards to choose from.

Some on-line stores that I like:
TinyPrints
InvitationBox
FineStationary
PaperFancy

These are some of my personal favorites from PaperSource

To get you started […]

OUR NEW HOUSE: MY OFFICE/STUDIO

By Libby|2010-10-07T20:30:00-04:00October 7, 2010|8 McDowell, Home Design|

Take a look at my office space

Here are the stairs with the office/studio straight ahead:

Everything was white…walls, woodwork, and the carpet is beige. Time to change it up!

So, I have chosen Benjamin Moore “Pale Avocado”.

It’s also one of the Pottery Barn Fall 2010 colors. Love it, love it! I tested, I started to paint. Ah no…one coat will not do, so now I’m about to begin the second coat.

So far, so good. The room gets lots of Eastern light, so the mornings will be wonderful (my best time of day!).

And for the carpeting:

It’s called “Vintage Sterling”. This picture makes it look so dark, but it’s actually a grayed silver. does that make sense? Well, it’s beautiful. I think the combination is stunning. I have an upholstered armchair that I will recover. I’m thinking of adding a bit of red to the room, via the chair and maybe window trim of some sort…

Lots more to follow!

I’m linking up to Pamela’s most wonderful blog, BeColorful!

and today’s “Motivated Monday”