What I love about wallpaper

When we think of wallpaper, some of us may think back to the 1960’s colors of pea green, saffron and bold floral patterns. I love how the colors and patterns of wall coverings can tell a story of a time and place and invoke memories of our childhood. I also love that wall coverings are now available in so many colors, patterns, textures and materials, offering the ability to completely transform any space.

My favorite rooms to use wall coverings are in a foyer, a powder room, a dining room, hallways and a child’s bedroom, but of course wall coverings can be installed anywhere! When working with wallpaper, I like to first start by choosing the appropriate material. In wet areas, like behind a sink, you definitely want to use an option made of vinyl to ensure your beautiful wall covering lasts.

The wall covering you choose is going to set the feeling of the entire space. If you’re going for a space that you want to feel really “moody”, something dark and heavy on the texture like a velvet would be a great choice to get you started! If you want to create a feeling of calmness, lightness and serenity, a wall covering with natural movement, subtle pattern and light coloring is a beautiful upgrade from a painted wall. If your goal is to create a space that feels timeless, a grasscloth is one of my go-to wall covering textures. With grass cloth available in so many different weaves and colors, it’s an easy choice for any home and design style!

You can have lots of fun with wall coverings in a powder room or a child’s bedroom, depending on the mood you want to set. I love getting into large scale and bold patterns like geometric patterns, florals, botanicals and murals in these spaces!

Another thing I love about wall coverings is that it isn't just for walls! Installing a beautiful metallic wall covering in the tray of a ceiling creates a sparkle if you have the right lighting! Or, an edgy and textural reptile-skin inspired dark wall covering on the tray of a ceiling in a dining room or office can fashion the room into this dramatic and sometimes even masculine (depending on your texture, colors and surrounding elements) space.

The options with wall coverings truly are endless and whether you’re doing a whole room or just a single wall, it’s the easiest and most fun way to transform a space with a minimal amount of work!

5 Common Design Mistakes & How To Fix Them

Everyone makes mistakes, right? Here is a list of the 5 most common interior design mistakes that I find when I enter a client’s home for the first time, and my solutions for fixing them:

Furniture Scale

Too often do I enter a large space and find that it has been sparsely arranged with oversized furniture. Scale and proportion can do wonders to your space; making small spaces feel large and making overwhelming large rooms feel cozy. Furniture should have a combination of sizes and scales, creating hierarchy and mixing items of different sizes to strategically fill a space, while keeping your natural circulation in mind.

Hanging Art

From gallery walls to single large pieces, I’ve seen all kinds of interesting ways to hang art! With large pieces, you really want to keep the proportion of the wall in mind, consider your “head space”. If you have a long corridor and want to hang art pieces throughout, instead of aligning the top or bottom of each frame, find the center of your largest piece and hang that first comfortably at eye level. From here, use the same center measurement for all pieces, creating a cohesive and easy trail for your eyes to follow.

Paint is Always Last

I love a client who has a favorite color, or multiple colors, they want to see in their home, but so many times do I find these bold colors painted on their walls with no real connection to their tile, floors or textiles! With so many paint color options and shades, choosing the perfect shade of your favorite color can be really overwhelming; shades of white alone are endless! If you’re working towards a beautiful color palette, select all your textiles and hard finishes first, then pull common or complementary colors from your palette to narrow down your paint options. From here, the endless options of neutrals or bold colors won’t be so overwhelming and your answer will be much easier to find!

Too Many or No Focal Point

Every room deserve a purpose, and the eye needs a place to rest when it enters a room. A room without a focal point can sometimes feel like a treasure hunt for your eye, finding endless new features throughout the space. In a Living Room your focal point may be a fireplace or TV, with everything else in that room oriented around the focal, supporting it. In a Bedroom, the headboard could be your focal, with lamps and and draperies guiding your eyes to this resting point. In a Kitchen, it may be your range and range hood that defines that space and captures your attention first.

Show Your Personality

At the end of the day, this space is your home and should be not only inspired by you, but be a reflection of you. I have never met a client who I would consider beige-on-beige-on-blah. Everyone has been gifted with a personality and a story to tell; and their guests should see that when they enter your home. Whether you want to bring out your personality in color, patterns, found items or custom architectural features, there is no wrong answer.

When & why to hire an interior designer

“I'm thinking about remodeling my home, do I really need an Interior Designer? And when should I hire one?” This question is so common! The answer is simple: yes you need one, and you need one as soon as possible!

Why do I need an Interior Designer?

Many see having an Interior Designer as a luxury, we see it as a really smart and economical decision! As design professionals, it’s our job to save you time, money, provide professional guidance and act as the liaison between you and your contractor and vendors.

• Remodeling your home, or even just selecting furniture, can be really time-consuming! There are so many options available to you, but your designer will present you with only the most appropriate options for your project, saving you tons of time searching so you don’t have to spin your wheels!

• Designing is planning, and planning needs to be done well before a project is scheduled to start. The better planned out your project is, the more money you will save. This will lead into when you should hire your interior designer, so keep reading for more information!

• There are so many decisions to be made when you’re working on a home remodel or even just updating a room! Seriously, so many that sometimes even designers can get overwhelmed, and we do this everyday. There are sacrifices and gains with every decision to be made, but with professional guidance from your designer, you can live confidently with the choices you make.

• Did we mention that design is time-consuming? So much of what is time-consuming is all behind the scenes, the stuff you don’t see, the countless phone calls, meetings, and emails between us and vendors, material and sample requests, product research, etc… we take care of all this for you! A designer is your liaison and is there to communicate the design intent correctly and efficiently to vendors, contractors and anyone involved on your project. We ensure that what is built or manufactured is done the way we intended it to be, for you.

Now that you understand the importance of hiring an interior designer, let’s talk about when you should do so.

When should I hire my Interior Designer?

We see many clients who hire designers after they have worked with an architect to get their plans approved through the city, or worse, have even broken ground with their contractor! If you’re hiring a designer during one of these phases, it may be too late to for us to deliver the very best design for your project, without many revisions and costly change orders. The truth is, once you’ve decided to start the process of a remodel or update, the very first thing you should do is hire an interior designer.

We like to look at the home with a “bird’s eye view” and ask ourselves, “how can I get the best use out of the space I’m working with for my client?” Sometimes, we may relocate a wall to accommodate better circulation and clearances, or custom built ins for storage. If you’ve already broken ground, our design solutions are so much more limited to the pre-planned plumbing and electrical locations, or restraints of wall locations. Far too frequently do we find that a client never considered alternative solutions during the planning phases, and after a site walk through, they realize a different idea would work better. Unfortunately, now they have to decide: pay the costly change order, or forego the new and better idea all together! Yikes!

When Lisa takes her clients through the design process, she want them to feel as if they have had the opportunity consider every option that could work for them, in order to land on the best decision. When Lisa starts working with a client from the beginning, it’s essentially a blank slate which allows her to deliver exactly what her clients want. By educating her clients on the sacrifices or the gains of each creative design solution, she’s able maintain confidence in their decisions throughout the process.

So now you may be thinking, “That makes sense, but I’m not planning on changing my floor plan, I just want to update my home, keeping everything in the same location.” The answer is the same, hire your designer as soon as possible! Not only can your Interior Designer help you make material selections such as tile, paint colors, light fixtures, hardware and unique plan layouts (to start), they can simultaneously prepare your plans to submit for a permit. Doing these at the same time can speed up construction time and save you money! Never wait to hire a designer the moment your contractor asks you what tile to order, because he’s ready to install that tile in less than a week!

I hope you found this article helpful. Please share with friends who are considering anything from a remodel even to just a furniture update, this information could really save them! Be sure to follow on Instagram @lisamarieid!

My 5 Step Process for Successful Design

The thought of updating your home is really exciting! Whether you’re about to take on a major interior remodel, a kitchen remodel or even a small powder room refresh, the decisions can feel endless and the process can be intimidating, unless you’ve hired an Interior Designer.

I have a simple process which I developed to help my clients make the decisions that need to be made, in the order at which they need to be made! This is important, because each decision in design drives the next decision, and as you continue, your pathway becomes more defined and the options become narrowed. With these simple 5 steps, I have found that I’m able to make the design and decision making process much more enjoyable for my clients.

• Step One: Inspiration!

  That’s right, my client is my inspiration for their own project. This is huge! As I get to know my clients, I find trends and patterns in things which they’re drawn to, or not drawn to. I pay attention to their habits and take note of what is most important to them in functionality and aesthetics. Once I’ve gotten to know my client, I’m feeling really inspired by their unique personal style and I’m able to start identifying an overall design concept, geared to function in a way that will improve their lifestyle, with ease.

• Step Two: Collaborate!

  My first presentation to my client is a really exciting one, because this is my opportunity to show them that they have been heard. This presentation is very collaborative because we work together to identify what works and what doesn’t work, to make improvements as we move onto the next steps.

• Step Three: Fall in Love!

  Once the overall design concept has been agreed upon, it’s time to find the piece that will influence the rest. This could be anything: a faucet, a light fixture or even a color, shape or pattern that may be meaningful to my client. With this item or concept identified, everything else is strategically selected or designed to support it. As it all unfolds, sometimes this piece ends up being the focal, and sometimes it’s simply a backdrop for something greater! Regardless, this is where the pathway becomes evident and the options are less bountiful.

• Step Four: Assign & Organize!

  A well designed home is simply not just about how well it photographs; functionality is extremely important here! Now that we have the look down, we identify how it’s all going to work and be usable. Kitchen cabinet organization, mudroom and laundry room organization, vanity storage, shower functionality, lighting and electrical, etc… (the list really can go on). It’s important to me that when all is said and done, my client can move into their home knowing where everything goes and we have solved the problems which they experienced in the past.

• Step Five: Complete the Puzzle!

  At this stage in the design process, we know just about all the ins and outs of the new design. We know what everything we’ve selected looks like, how it works and we’re just ironing out the final details and finalizing those last few (now very easy) decisions. After that, we’re ready to implement!

It’s exciting for me to share this process with you because I have found it so successful with my clients. All designers have their own design processes which they follow, but really good designers build that relationship with their client in Step One and adjust their process to meet their client’s comfort level. Over the years I’ve learned that if the process works well and the experience is enjoyable, the end result will exceed expectations!

The Home Office: A New Trend

As we begin to endure another month of the Shelter-In-Place, many of us are now considering what it really means to keep working. We all have the same questions and it begins with, “what is the new normal going to look like?” We believe that we’re beginning to see that working from home will be the new trend. What does this mean for our homes? Designating an area in your home to conduct business is going to be the first step, and probably something you have already done.

As this new trend becomes more common, it will be important to make your new home office as functional, if not more, than the office at your place of work. Your key to success will be setting up in an area that makes you feel productive, motivated and free of distractions. You may first find this space at a secondary table, but it will be helpful to identify an area which allows you to fully separate at the end of a work day. Some of us may have the luxury of an extra guest room or old playroom that could be repurposed into your new home office. Sometimes, it may even be as simple as a planning desk in your Kitchen.

Creating visual interest can stimulate creativity, whether that’s literally a view out a window flooding the room with natural light, or artwork and accessories that inspire you. Either of these will help keep your focus by encouraging mental breaks. As you venture into a more permanent home office set up, having a designer is crucial to ensure your new space will inspire productivity and be a reflection of your own personal style.

Spring Cleaning & Home Organization

Transitioning into Spring is like moving into a time to refresh and reflect. Filled with sunlight and life, Spring time is a great time to refresh your home. Start by updating your color palette with fresher and lighter tones like grays, soft neutrals and pastels can easily elevate a room and your mood. Rearranging or switching out your art and accessories can easily transform a room much easier than purchasing new, larger furniture. introducing indoor plants into your space really helps to bring the outdoors in and works well as a natural air cleanser.

In your kitchen, Spring is the best time to organize and declutter your pantry. Check the expiration date on your canned goods and rotate everything to an order that works best for you. Consider purchasing sealed canisters and jars as these not only better preserve your dry foods but create a chic look and can be easily labeled.

The bedroom is one of the most important rooms of the home to refresh, it’s the first and last space that we see everyday. We want this space to feel inspiring in the morning and relaxing in the evening. One of the easiest ways to quickly refresh the bedroom is by switching out your seasonal bedding. Heavy draperies can be balanced by lightweight shears which welcome the natural Spring lighting.

If you’re like me and like to host, you’ll want your outdoor living space to be pristine! Bring out your upholstered cushions from storage and clean your furniture. Decorating the area with string lights and candles can offer a comfortable and easy way to transition to evening with your guests as the weather continues to warm.

After all that hard work, don’t forget to reward yourself! A refreshing evening cocktail with friends to show off your new space is one of my favorite rewards!