Month: May 2016
Zero to One Hundred in 5 Days
I met my client Julie though a mentoring group and became friends. She appreciated my work and told me it was her personal goal to work hard and make enough money to hire me and my team to redo her beach side apartment! She met her goals and we made her dream come true by flipping her apartment in 5 days!
I collaborated with another designer I love on this project because I knew I needed a great eye for shopping. We painted, shopped, and organized her home to get it the sophisticated and updated space it is now.
In those 5 days we managed to flip work our magic, check out the stunning results below:
If your home is a design flop or you need help getting a beautiful space, ask for a consultation. I can help you get the space you love and desire. Let’s create!
I hope you all stayed inspired and creative,
Kari.
The point where you need to pull out the design guns
Starting out fresh is a great feeling. Moving into a new home is one of those feelings. but what happens when you’re stuck with a home still left with a previous owners design? What are your options? Where do you turn to?
My client Debbie reached out to me for a paint consultation. The homes color scheme was very yellow. Yellow walls, warm colored tile, and orange cabinets. Super outdated, and I could see that she was super lost. This was not her style but she didn’t really know where to go. I picked out a color for her walls to update her home, but I could tell she wasn’t going to be as happy if she didn’t give her new home the best design. Painting walls and picking floors is a great start for great design, but sometimes you need to bring out the design guns when you can. I called out a designer I work and came up with a color pallet. I then used that color pallet to repaint large furniture pieces in her home that were focal points in her home. I stained a table, plastered a beautiful fireplace, and repainted a console.
The transformation started with taking this table and turning it way darker. Dark stains can add a certain richness that some vacant spaces may need.
Next, I wanted to tackle her fireplace. This is an architectural piece that needed to not be so plain and basic. We took the plaster all the way up to the wall making the room feel a lot taller and spacious.
I repainted her sideboard/ buffet in her dining room to match the dinning room table I stained. I also painted it to go with her new color pallet and fabrics a lot easier.
You can watch how the transformation and see how I painted this in my quick little YouTube video below:
After everything was refinished, painted, fabrics put into place, and her new decor all set in, the home was looking incredible!
If you are feeling a little overwhelmed in a new home or space please don’t hesitate to get the best design! A new home is the perfect place to start because there is so much room to grow into.
Stay happy and creative friends,
-Kari
Okay you can seriously stop waiting now..
Have you been stuck with built in pieces you wish you could just redo without the expenses of ripping out walls, fireplaces, and having your home feeling destroyed? Have you been putting off a project too long? If it involves a fireplace or built ins, consider refinishing with a plaster.
My Client Lisa called me out to look at her family rooms built in. It was painted black and the contrast of the room because of the built in was not working with her home at all. She was always unhappy with the color but kept putting off repainting it, ripping it out, and refinishing it, because of the high price of the quotes she received and because it really wasn’t going to make the room happy like she wanted it. She lived with this black paint on her built in for seven years until I touched it! She had to stop waiting.
Lisa actually purchased the console from my “Kari Caldwell Studios for Tah Dah” video and turned it into a fabulous bathroom sink! So when she knew it was the time to make changes in her home, she asked Tah Dah and they sent her to me!
I decided that my grey plaster finish (from my tutorial video here ) would add the perfect look and mask all that dark color. I painted it, put the beautiful stone plaster on using my technique from my video twice and waxed it down. The only black I decided to keep on this wall was the inside of the fireplace. This is a look that makes the messy dirty black fireplaces look clean, elegant, and masks off that sooty inside.
Lisa was so amazed at the end results. I took away that old traditional fluting and filled it with the plaster to get a solid strong yet soft look. It really matches her home and is such a beautiful stone look.
If you want to learn how you too can change a bold built in, consider learning how to do it yourself with the help of my tutorial! Watch the trailer below, you can buy this tutorial by clicking here.
You can always fill out a consultation if you want me to do it for you too 😉
I hope you all make the changes in your home so you are always happy.
-Kari.
You Can Never Repaint Too Much
Have you painted a piece years ago and fell out of love with it? Does it hide in your storage or basement? Get those potential projects out of there! I know once you paint a piece it’s really hard to feel motivated to paint it again, but guess what? You can never ever over paint a piece of furniture. You can always bring life to something you used to love.
My wonderful client Libby had this bottom of a hutch that was painted years and years ago blue. She updated, moved on, and revamped her home recently and this was not fitting in with her home. She was using this as a television console which is an important piece to many. This is a furniture piece that you will most likely look at every day so you want it to make you happy.
I was called in to change things up and bring Libby’s new home style and say bye-bye to this baby blue! I painted the hardware brass to bring it to life. Then I went over all the paneling, drawers, and sides in a chalk paint to get a earthy finish. I also did a faux wood top with a stain and also did the outlines of the piece in this stain to bring it together.
So easy, so doable, and so sophisticated at the end! My client Libby was so thrilled that I could take something that used to be in her home and bring it back out with a brand new face. This is functional and beautiful once again in her home. All I had to do was repaint over a repaint.
You can never repaint too much. If something is useful but ugly to you, paint it! Start solving problems and what bothers you about a piece one brush stroke at a time.
I hope you all find motivation to repaint things in your world,
Kari