CHILDREN'S ROOMS

CHILDREN’S WORLDS

Abundant research has proven that children who grow up in environments with stimulating shapes, colors and textures develop greater creativity and intellectual skills. Sadly, I often see children’s rooms that totally lack any type of design, places where different ideas have been thrown together in a chaotic mix. Those types of environments hardly stimulate their creativity or give them a sense of order. In my projects I treat children as their own people, little clients with their own needs and preferences for their spaces. Each child is different and his or her room should be unique as well. A child’s room should never be improvised and a lot of thought should be placed on room layout and on each and every piece of furniture placed in their environment. Photograph #1 shows a room I designed for a girl whose favorite colors were yellows, greens and raspberry red. She also favored rich patterned fabrics so I selected over 30 different small patterns and married them together in the fabrics for the window seat cushion and pillows, draperies, her night table cover, rocking chair and most importantly in her custom quilted bedspread. The diamond pattern of that bedspread is repeated on a subtle stencil pattern of yellow on cream in a wall that provides background for naïve art of her favorite rock stars. Her room has a wicker desk where she can do her homework and an open floor play area for tea parties and whatever her imagination leads her to create in a space that can be easily cleared by placing toys in bins that are stored in her closet.

Photograph #2 is a room I designed for a boy who loves sci-fi and will be a teenager in a couple of years. For him I designed the “space-ship” steel bed with attached swinging nightstands that incorporate lamps, a mesh headboard and legs that resemble that of landed space ship. The carpet I selected has a bluish grey pile that matches the paint I chose for walls and ceiling. The strong color accents come from the red chair at his “work station” and the stripes on his otherwise black bedspread. This room truly matches this boy’s personality and interests and will easily transition to the more “teenage” environment he will need in a couple of years; it will do so with originality and a sense of innovation, the two ingredients he will need as the engineer he wants to become one day.

CONTEMPORARY BATHROOMS

"Shadows on Your Face"

I know, it sounds like the title for some hard rock band’s new CD, but what I am actually talking about is bathroom vanity lighting. Most vanities have light fixtures located either on the ceiling or way above head height; this produces deep shadows on people’s faces. It’s mostly the ladies that complain about this problem (and I don’t blame them!) because it doesn’t provide them with appropriate light to check out or do their make up. You can see my solution to this problem on this picture, where I selected a mirror with a 360 degree source of light on its perimeter; this eliminates all shadows from your face. Mirror, mirror on the wall...light my face and I’ll smile for all.

Tips for Decorating your Condo by Ernesto Garcia, ASID

The standards for space use are quite different between urban and suburban areas. In other words condos (flats, apartments, etc.) tend to have smaller square footage to work with. I started my career in big cities in America and Europe, having to learn how to fight for every square inch (or every square centimeter ) to give comfort, beauty, drama or serenity to each space. On this post, I will be sharing with you some important guidelines to make your Condo spaces more comfortable, livable, beautiful and efficient ones. Enjoy!

• Built-ins will be your best friends in a condo. They are an exceptional means of increasing storage and shelving that can be decorative and functional at the same time. Keep it simple; appliqués and overly detailed elements can make built-ins look too heavy. Ideally, built-ins should be addressed by the buyer, rather than looking to the builder to include them during construction. Designing your own built-ins to fit your needs can assure functionality and beauty. Some examples: linen cabinets that fit behind a door and home office built-ins that house the TV, computer, printers, book shelves and decorative accessories.

• Paint colors should be in a unified palette. When you use a single color for walls in the living room/dining room, for example, you “expand” the spatial perception of the rooms. This doesn’t mean you cannot have an accent wall; sometimes it’s perfect to define a space.

• Because rooms will be smaller, paint doors, trims, built-ins and closet doors in the same color as the walls. That way, your eyes will be drawn to furnishings and fabrics instead of the numerous cutouts and openings in the space.

• Keep the color contrast between walls and ceilings to a minimum; that will make people less aware of generally lower heights.

• Heavy and overly decorated chandeliers, pendants and wall sconces are not as suitable in condos as larger spaces. They can look overwhelming and out of scale. Choose clean-lined and more understated sources of light.

• Don’t get rid of everything from your previous home. Rescue pieces that are well proportioned to their new spaces. Heirlooms and antiques can become focal points in specific rooms.

• With art, address scale first. You want to make sure that your furnishings will serve as an “anchor” for your artwork. It’s fine to use art as a focal point; just make sure a piece doesn’t completely overwhelm its surroundings.

• Mirrors are a consideration, particularly floor-to-ceiling mirrors. They expand your perception of the size of a room. Place them in foyers, dining rooms, bedrooms (the headboard wall preferably) and don’t be afraid to back furniture against them. You’ll be surprised how dramatic a console or a chair can become. Or, try anchoring a framed painting against a mirror. It will look like the art is floating.

• When in comes to condo window coverings, less is more. Stay away from overly detailed rods and finials and heavy swags. Few condos have the scale to accommodate such treatments. Keep fabrics un-patterned and stay close to your wall color. If you must use a pattern, go ahead and make a statement but keep everything else in the room close to monochromatic.

CONTEMPORARY ART IN TRADITIONAL INTERIORS

I I work as an Art Consultant, helping my clients put entire art collections together. A lot of my projects are either traditional or eclectic styles, and my clients are often concerned with how a contemporary piece of art will fit in their traditional interiors. Regarding art, this my philosophy: “If you love it buy it! I will find a way to integrate it into your home”. The most important thing in these cases is to create a harmonious dialogue between the old and the new. First you address scale, you want to make sure that the existing furniture serves as an “anchor” for the new piece, you don’t want your new painting or sculpture to overwhelm its surroundings. The next thing to keep in mind is the palette of the new piece; try to find some color association, unless you want the new piece to completely stand out (which is a fair objective, I must say). Finally, if the new piece of art isn’t abstract, make sure the subject is suitable to the room, you might not want to wake up to the view of a still life of vegetables every morning. I used all these guidelines when putting together the interior space you see in this picture.

Eclectic Interiors

It seems like lately everybody wants to hear my definition of “eclectic” interiors...Half of the clients who hire me want me to design such interiors for them; as for the other half, we tend to start with a definite stylistic direction and we end up with very eclectic spaces anyway. An eclectic interior is one that derives its generating ideas, style and taste from a diverse range of sources. I have studied too many styles, visited too many cities, walked too many museums, seen too many movies not to be eclectic. How could we possibly be any different in such a “globalized” world? I have this bank of images and experiences in my mind, a well from which I am constantly tapping for inspiration. There is so much that is so beautiful about every style. So… What is the key to a well-designed eclectic room? My short answer is: a harmonious dialogue between all the parts; it seems simple at first but in fact it requires extensive editing and evaluation. Comparatively speaking, staying within the boundaries of a specific style is much easier.

Consider the dining room I designed on this picture, the columns came from a late 18th century English estate, their rich texture surface frames the room and gives it importance. The rosewood dining table is a French Deco reproduction, its clean lines and rich graining give it the anchoring weight required in the center of the room; the stylized Regency chairs in a dark mahogany display their graceful frame against  the bone colored walls giving the room movement and interest. Table and chairs sit on a wool and silk rug that I designed using the undulating lines that characterized Art Nouveau. The contemporary chrome chandelier with Murano glass pendants was my boldest move in this room (just think how overwhelming a wrought iron chandelier would look in its place!) it is its lightness that allows all the other pieces to reveal themselves. As I mentioned before, a lot of thought goes behind every detail in order to achieve the perfect mix of styles. Eclectic interiors are by far the most complex and challenging ones.

CHALLENGING ROOMS

This is a frequent, sometimes inevitable, occurrence in secondary bedrooms: The headboard wall is flanked by a door to a closet and a door to the bathroom. After you place the bed you realize that there is no room for a standard nightstand, let alone two! Worry no more…small tiered tables can accomplish most of the functions of a nightstand. On the top tier you need to make sure that the lamps you select are in scale with the tables and provide enough light for reading; on the other tiers you can use boxes for things you don’t want exposed or need to keep organized (such as prescriptions, stationery, pens, etc.) or you can use them to pile the latest novels you are reading, display florals or accessories. Unfortunately you don’t find many of these tables in the market; I had to custom design the ones you see on this picture.