Sally and I covered some of the hidden costs of construction in our most recent post about our bathroom renovation. In that post we discussed why you need a contingency budget, which is intended to protect you from two major sources of hidden renovation or construction costs. Unforeseen conditions Scope creep There are other hidden...
Sally and I have been selected as one of four interior design firms from the US and Canada to be members of #DXVDesignPanel 2018 and will be posting periodic updates of our collaboration with DXV. Please follow us on our journey, starting here. Seriously, we are on Cloud Nine and are still wrapping our heads around...
I know what you’re thinking. “Argh!” Not another *Best Kitchen Planning Tips* post!” But perhaps you’ve never seen an actual case study that shows you how an interior designer actually applies those tips to one of their own projects? If that’s the case, read on, while I illustrate each of the 7 best kitchen planning...
Sally and I are celebrating the arrival of summer (finally!) and the delightful story in Northshore Home magazine’s Summer 2017 issue about the classic white kitchen we designed for a young couple and their family in their newly purchased Colonial Revival style home in Newbury, MA. Previously, this couple lived on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, but chose to move to the country to...
This past Thursday, Sally and I went to Design New England Magazine’s May/June issue launch party, which featured the family friendly kitchen we designed recently for a client in Milton. The well attended event was held at Lucia Lighting, one of our favorite lighting vendors on Boston’s North Shore. The video below is one I took at the event, showing Lucia...
This coming Saturday, April 22, the Manchester Historical Museum will be featuring a restored 1804 Federal home, the Forster Leach House, on a historic home tour. This beautiful home is one Sally and I helped the current owners lovingly restore and we were delighted when they asked us to assist them in the guided tour of...
You can always find someone willing to tell you about their renovation disaster. How bad the contractor was. The sub-contractor leaving the job to grab a cup of coffee, only to return two or three weeks later. Worse yet, the story about the house being completely torn apart and the contractor disappearing with all the money! OY!!!! If you’re reading this, you may...
As an interior designer, seeing the face of a client light up when I show them hand renderings of the room or space Sally and I are working on with them is one of my greatest pleasures. At some point, they will look up and ask, “How do you do that?” Better yet, “Can I keep this?” These are precious...
I am always happily surprised, delighted and inspired when something happens that triggers a connection between seemingly disparate thoughts and moments in time. Such was the case when I visited the display of #BlogTourKBIS sponsor Wellborn Cabinets during #KBIS2107. The trigger was twofold. First was seeing a fabulous wine bar vignette, (see the actual picture of...
I had never thought to associate the word jewelry with the word bathroom, but there I was, with two projects in mind, thinking that very thing as I walked through the DXV display of one of my#BlogTour2017 sponsors at #KBIS2017. I realized what I was seeing and thinking was completely consistent with today’s trend towards...