(Before & After) My work to renovate the lobby at Appalachian Christian Village, Sherwood Campus.

I love being a commercial designer.  I am blessed to, once again, get to work with Appalachian Christian Village; this time to renovate the lobby at their Sherwood location.  I have put some "before" pictures with similar views underneath the "afters".


"After", I love the new feature wall with the "3-form" poured glass panel




"Before"

"After", Fabrics on Upholstery from "Momentum"
Carpet from Shaw Contract: Bloom Tile



"Before", Column support aka "Tornado" and closed-in reception. Faux skylight was removed in lieu of new "hint of blue" ceiling with "Quatrefoil" hanging lanterns.

I would love to hear any feedback from those who visit this space. 

Have a great day!

Laura

A Gallery Wall

 

My new family photo gallery wall.  (photos of my children purposely blurred)

For years I have admired the  "gallery walls" that I've seen in magazines and idea houses.  One of my all time favorite installations is the "gallery wall" at the "Southern Living" magazine's "Tucker Bayou" idea house from 2007.



Source: Southern Living Idea House 2007, Tucker Bayou

The  installation in the HGTV's 2013 Smart Home is also pretty amazing.

Source: www.hgtv.com

Here is what my stair hallway looked like before I added the gallery wall.



Bare & Boring
  

In order to hang the (9) pictures straight, I first cut paper to the sizes of the frames and taped them to the wall.  I marked the location for the hangers right on the paper, and then I just nailed my hangers right into these marks.  Out of all (9) frames, I only had to adjust the location of one hanger.

Taping up Paper Templates of the Frames

(Photos of my children purposely blurred); I don't share these on the web.

 Always being budget conscious, I found my frames at "Michaels" on a buy one get one sale.  The cost of each matted frame was $20, but with the bogo sale, they were just $10/each.  I also waited for my favorite online print shop, "Winkflash", to have a sale on their poster prints.  I got all (9) of my 11"x14" black and white prints for just $38 shipped.  All and all for less than $150 I now have a chic wall of memories.

To finish the upstairs hallway, I am still searching for a new rug and light.

For more "gallery wall" inspiration, you can check out my "Pinterest" board, click here.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Laura



A Nice Place to Play

Last weekend my family made the short drive to Asheville, North Carolina so my husband could play in the "Banana Open" tennis tournament at the Asheville Racquet Club.  I thinks this makes our 7th year in a row to attend this tournament.

This year it rained a lot, so some of the play got shifted to the ARC's downtown location.  The  Asheville Racquet Club's downtown location is newer than the ARC's south location, and had a nice lounge area that I thought I would share some pictures of.

I love the furniture selections, the Citron green lamps/accents, and the fun little rock climbing wall art. The space also had nice stained concrete floors throughout.

Both of the Asheville Racquet Club's locations are very nice.  If you would like to learn more, click here.

Hoping you are enjoying your weekend!

Laura

"The Land of Nod" giveway on "Olioboard"

Voyage to Nod

Dream of Nod Room



Dream of Nod_2

I have been playing around again with "Olioboard" for a new giveaway sponsored by "The Land of Nod".  Olioboard is a site that allows you to visualize various design elements in a "mock-room" before you buy.  They have images of products from numerous retailers that you can plug-in to a "room" of your choosing. 
 

Below is a sample listing of some of the vendors featured on Olioboard:

Crate&Barrel

One Kings Lane

CB2

The Land of Nod

West Elm

Anthropologie

Wayfair

Layla Grace

Right now "Land of Nod" is sponsoring the "Imagine, Design, Dream Contest".  The challenge is to incorporate at least five (5) items from "The Land of Nod's" collection in a room setting.  The prize is (3) gifts cards totaling $1K.  The photos above are "Olioboards" that I created for this competition.  You can check out these boards and/or vote for my entry by clicking the links below:

Vote for "Voyage to Nod"  here.
Vote for "Dream of Nod" here.
Vote for "Dreaming of Nod_2" here.

To check out all of the details on the "The Land of Nod, Imagine Design, Dream contest" and/or create your own entry click here.

New Life for an Old Chest

 

 

For the last several months, I have been on the hunt for a small dresser/chest to house my fabrics, patterns, and miscellaneous items in the sewing/guest room.  Two weeks ago, I found the perfect antique chest of drawers on Craig's list.  For seventy five dollars, the chest was ours.

Here is what this little beauty looked like before.

It appeared that at one time this chest had been painted green, as evidenced by the remnants left on the back.  I lightly sanded the chest all over and then gave it a good final cleaning.  I used "Valspar's" primer and paint in one from "Lowes".  The color is called "Ocean Voyage", sounds nice doesn't it.  I tried to paint the hardware that came with the chest, but it didn't turn out well at all....disastrous mess.  I was very lucky to find that the drill holes in the chest were a standard size.  I found these nice bronze pulls at "Walmart".  A set of six pulls was just a little over $13. 

I also got lucky and found some black toile "Contact" drawer liner that I liked at the "Dollar Tree", which was of course just a dollar.

Things are starting to take shape in the sewing/guest room.  Just for reference here are some before pictures of the space.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.....Catch all disaster room is finally starting to take shape.  So far we have:

1.  Cleaned out a lot of junk
2.  Painted the walls Sherwin Williams' color:  "Taupe Tone".
3.  Purchased the "London" print and frame from "IKEA".
3.  Found and refurbished a chest to organize all of my sewing materials.
and
a couple of other projects which I will show in follow up posts.

On my list of to-dos for this room are the following:

1. find a rug
2. find/build a daybed....this will help with the "guest bed" part of the "sewing/guest bedroom".

If you want to check out some of my inspiration for this room you can see the "Pinterest" board I created for this project, click here.

Last but not least here are more photos of the new chest.  Having a place to organize and store makes me very happy!

Has anyone else been refurbishing furniture finds lately?

Love to hear about it,

Laura