Saturday, February 23, 2013
Eva Suwak started designing homes last year.
Eva Suwak is raising twins, speaks five languages and previously had a career in international development and finance, but design has always been her passion. And the Arlington woman seized on that in the fall, starting her her own interior design business after her friends saw her home and asked, "Can you do that for me?" “Maybe I have something here,” Suwak remembers thinking. And so, Home Fashion by Eva launched in October. Suwak, who is from Slovakia, grew up watching her father build the family's home, and she picked up how to work with tools. “I have a natural interest in how things are made,” she said. “I want to take it apart and put it back together.” Suwak started out designing a room for a friend’s father and went from there, …
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Ballston woman brings country tranquility to her high-rise condo.
Like many professionals, Christiane Mitchell bought a new condo in a Ballston high-rise to take advantage of the conveniences associated with city living. But her heart never let go of the country, the tranquil New England place she called home in her young adult life. So when Mitchell decided to decorate her new home, she hired interior designer Charles Almonte, who helped her capture the color, serenity and delightful days she enjoyed in her youth. “Most of my young adult years were spent in the Berkshires, along the New York-Massachusetts border,” she said. “I lived on a farm with lots of open land — orchards, hayfields, pastures. I was surrounded by soft and pale green meadows and vivid forests, as well as a lot of classic traditional …
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Tufted upholstery is taking furniture show rooms by storm.
Everywhere I look I see tufted upholstery. Inspired by the sleek tailored style of mid-century modern interiors - think Mad Men - tufting is turning heads in area show rooms. Tufting is a sewing technique that results from pulling a cord through a deep cushion, yielding contrasting high and low puffs of padding. Depending on how the cord is drawn, tufting can yield diamond, biscuit or square shapes. When buttons are attached to the cords, the detail is called button tufts. What makes today’s tufting more fun is the array of vibrant colors, fabrics and styles available. Unlike grandpa’s stuffy tufted executive leather office chair, today’s tufted upholstery is funky, jazzy, even cool. Like the Rocco tufted ottoman at Mitchell Gold. …
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Depending on your personality, opening up your kitchen storage can personalize your design or enhance a design theme.
Next time you feel bored with your kitchen, consider opening things up with open shelves. Inexpensive and easy to install, these shelves are making a comeback in kitchens. An easy way to add additional storage, open shelving can be as simple as a couple of spice racks above a stove or as elaborate as a system that fills an entire wall with no upper cabinetry. Can you live in the open? As appealing as open shelves look, they require a certain temperament and personality. Remember, everything is exposed — including broken or chipped dishes and all those mix-matched beer mugs. Before installing open shelves, conduct a stress test. Open all of your cabinet doors. Are you comfortable with what you see? If so, move forward. If not, perhaps you …
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Decorating children's rooms with taste and sophistication
Anyone faced with decorating a space for kids has come across the bedroom-in-a-bag approach to interior design. Usually themed and available at big-box relatilers, these kits include bedding, wall boarders, matching lamps, wall decals, waste baskets and rugs. Yuck! Although it’s easy to give in to the whims and desires of little ones, creating “matchy-poohie” rooms is a mistake. Not only will you tire of the nauseating overkill on colors and cartoons, the children will grow out of the theme quicker than you can complete it. Instead, create timeless, classic rooms for kids by sticking with traditional themes and colors pleasing to both parents and children. I remember when my son was 4. He was obsessed with Batman. He wanted all things …
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Area designers show why gray is the new neutral.
Never has the color gray shone as bright and bold as in this year’s Washington D.C. Design House. The annual Design House, open to the public now through May 13, features the work of the area’s top interior designers. This year they transformed a 10,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom estate in Spring Valley into a showcase of ideas. While some designers went with a trendy bright orange or pale blue, gray is by far the hottest hue. Perhaps the most stunning use of gray is in the family room, designed by Daniel K. Proctor of Kirk Designs in Baltimore. Proctor created four 8-by-4-foot architectural panels and mounted them on the wall behind a charcoal gray sofa. The panels give the room a sense of depth, while concealing a doorway to the kitchen…
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Unique tables add drama to interior design.
Whether dining, end, coffee or console, too often we opt for the ordinary when it comes to choosing tables. Big box furniture retailers even offer coffee and end table package deals: three tables, all the same, boring and bland. Avoid the dull. Select a table worth talking about. Add a touch of whimsy with a Rubik's Cube-inspired table designed by Parvez Taj. The acrylic table is a 14-inch cube and suitable for indoors or outdoors. It features a socket for a 60-watt bulb, which lights up the multi-colored table. Picture this table next to a large blue sectional dotted with pillows in the various cube colors. James Dewulf, the concrete artist who brought you the ping pong dining table, created an optical illusion with his leaning coffee …
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Find interior design inspiration in area home tours, design houses and model homes
Sometimes the hardest part about redecorating is finding inspiration. Magazines, blogs and television shows offer motivation, but nothing beats seeing great design up close and personal. A tour of a design house or model home brings professionally decorated interiors to life. Like test driving a car, touring local design houses and model homes offer you a chance to touch fabric textures, feel sofa cushions and inspect kitchen cabinets. Being able to walk inside a luxury shower gives you a perspective that may be skewed by photography methods used for print or online publications. The Washington area has two prominent dream house tours in which the interior designers are on hand to answer questions. If you really like what you see, …
Monday, February 6, 2012
Innovative ways to hide technological eyesores in interior design
Seems like with every innovation comes aggravation. Technological advances in home electronics have created this challenge: How do we incorporate technology without sacrificing home aesthetics? The availability of affordable flat-screen televisions meant we had to dispose of our 500-pound tubes and find ways to mount the flat screen without ripping out walls. And what about all those chords and cables hanging everywhere? Luckily, designers and furniture manufacturers are keeping up with technology. They are designing sleek entertainment stands that hide all the components, like those available at BoConcepts. Some televisions come with stands and look great sitting on top of a credenza, which can also house components. Credenzas are long …
Merlisa Lawrence
4:02 pm on Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Good point about the mirror. I'm sure that was purely for style. But I do think because parents spend as much time in a nursery as the baby, and certainly use the furniture more, it's important to keep them in mind when selecting furniture. more ›