Feb 09, 2012 | Posted in How To & Decorating Tips, Starr Spotlight |
Thank you to Houzz for feauturing Kimball Starr’s contemporary design in Finding Your Window Treatment Style. Here’s an excerpt of the article highlighting Kimball’s San Francisco contemporary living room design, with an example of loft window coverings.
Kimball Starr Interior Design. Contemporary.
“Structured shape combined with at structured fabric give these drapery panels a clearly defined role in this living room. For me, contemporary window treatments focus either on the simplicity of the structure or the pattern of the fabric used, but rarely both in the same treatment. While pattern and texture play a role, the architectural nature of the vertical lines of the drapery enhances the contemporary living space, drawing your eye up and highlighting the height of the room.”
Thank you Jason! To learn more about different styles of window treatments, read the full article at Finding Your Window Treatment Style.
San Francisco Bay Area interior decorator, Kimball Starr, provides commercial interior design and residential interior design . Kimball works to “change lives one room at a time” through designing creative and innovative interiors across the country.
Labels: contemporary, loft, window treatments
Dec 12, 2011 | Posted in Starr Spotlight |
Thank you to Home Design Lover for feauturing Kimball Starr’s modern San Francisco dining room design in their article 15 adorable contemporary dining rooms .
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“Versatile seating arrangements can cater both intimate gatherings and large parties. Colorful chairs reflect the playful mind of the designer.”
Designer:Kimball Starr
Playful, yes! Rooms should be fun and full of life. Where we eat, live, and play nourish and inspire us whether it’s at home, work, or out on the town. Thanks to Home Design Lover for recognizing this.
San Francisco Bay Area interior decorator, Kimball Starr, provides commercial design and residential interior design . Kimball works to “change lives one room at a time” through designing creative and innovative interiors across the country.
Labels: color, dining room
Nov 01, 2011 | Posted in Starr Spotlight |
I want to thank Homeportfolio for featuring me as their San Francisco interior designer today in their article about Decorating your Mantel.
The fireplace mantel is always a centerpiece, even in San Francisco where some fireplaces don’t even work! Adding large photos or artwork on top of the mantel is a great way to balance out the “black hole” of the fireplace.
In the article below, the industrial fireplace design for this SOMA San Francisco loft has a simple, uncluttered style. The Asian sundial acts a rounded counterpoint to the hard corners of the fireplace insert, as it balances on this custom floating fireplace mantel with hidden mounting hardware. The dark patina porcelain tiles blend with the dark fireplace insert, and the items on top of the mantel are kept light in color, with just a little bit of black to complement what’s happening below the mantel.
Below is the excerpt from the featured design article:
Kimball Starr | Decorating a Fireplace Mantel
The 18-foot ceiling height in this San Francisco home dictated keeping the mantel items fewer, but larger, for greater visual impact. The Asian sundial is the focal point. Black antler candlestick holders, with black fan coral tucked behind, complement the color in the porcelain tile fireplace surround. These elements are balanced on the right with the Chinese foo dog and a black base filled with red holly, which saves the whole composition from being too matchy-matchy.
San Francisco interior designer, Kimball Starr, is a commercial design and residential interior design firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kimball works to “change lives one room at a time” through designing creative and innovative interiors across the country.
Labels: fireplace mantel, loft
Oct 28, 2011 | Posted in Starr Spotlight |
I’m so excited to share with you the featured designer story today on Design Shuffle. As a daily blog that covers interior designers throughout the country, I’m honored that today they have chosen to highlight a Kimball Starr interior design project.
In the featured story, every room in this home has a splurge item and a budget item. I call it “democratization of your home interior”, where every piece has a say regardless of its background or price tag!
Here’s the the full story below:
Living in the City by the Bay, San Francisco interior designer Kimball Starr understands how expensive owning a newly-purchased home can be, especially furnishing one of this size. To keep the design budget-friendly, some of the existing furniture was updated and complemented to work into the overall style the homeowners wanted, rather than purchasing all new pieces. Located on a hillside in San Francisco, this 4-story home is a retreat that overlooks downtown and the San Francisco Bay. As a first-time home purchase by young successful newlyweds, this couple wanted a vibrant colorful home to match their outgoing personalities.
The colorful poufs that sit on the deck outside the living room are lightweight and can be brought inside for additional seating or used as cocktail tables.
In the living room, the white leather sectional was pre-existing, and by adding colorful pillows, artwork, and a curvy patterned rug, the living room was transformed from all white, to a cheery social space splashed with pops of color.
The airy Mooi chandelier and the reupholstered colorful chairs make this dining room pop.
Using the Brazilian cherry floors as inspiration for the color, an orange Moroccan patterned rug set the tone for the tangerine walls, and Kimball tempered the color with white and a budget splurge on the hand-blocked raw linen curtains.
Every room in this home has a splurge item and a budget item. The splurge items are pieces that will retain their value and/or have a high quality of craftsmanship to them, and the budget items were pre-existing pieces that were repurposed, or purchased items that were a great value for the look. It keeps the rooms balanced budget-wise, but also produces a more interesting and imaginative space. Kimball calls it “democratization of the space”, where every piece has a say regardless of its background or price tag!
Craving more of Kimball’s design creations? Check out her portfolio for some inspiration!
San Francisco interior designer, Kimball Starr, is a commercial design and residential interior design firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kimball works to “change lives one room at a time” through designing creative and innovative interiors across the country.
Labels: bedroom, dining room, living room
Oct 02, 2011 | Posted in How To & Decorating Tips, Starr Spotlight |
Kimball Starr Interior Design has been highlighted in 21 Ways to Arrange Carpet Tiles Like a Pro, where FLOR carpet tiles have been used for the pattern shown.
Here’s an excerpt from the article by Becky Harris at the online design blog, Houzz, showing a San Francisco dining room done by Kimball Starr Interior Design.
“Carpet tiles are one of the biggest “I wish I’d thought of that” ideas I’ve ever seen. The possibilities for creating custom patterns and sizes are endless, or would at least require using that pesky factorial (!) thing from pre-calculus, or trig, or one of those high school math classes I still have nightmares about. But we don’t need to figure out the equation, we just need some inspiration for how to arrange ours.”
“Try orienting patterned tiles in different directions. Here the stripes run both vertically and horizontally throughout the composition. If you look really carefully at the pattern here, you’ll see that the stripes on each tile vary from top to bottom, and thus the variation not only goes 90 degrees but also 180 degrees…oh, I’m having high school math class flashbacks again…”
Hold on Becky, Kimball to the rescue! I actually like math…a lot! Especially geometry and proportions, and algebraic equations, oh don’t get me started.
It’s true. I have a penchant for carpet tiles. Specifically FLOR carpet tiles. I love to use them as an inexpensive floor covering option for heavy traffic areas. When a carpet tile becomes soiled, remove, recycle, and replace. FLOR squares are made with varied degrees of renewable and recycled materials—e.g., 100% natural, un-dyed wool and post-consumer waste like plastic soda and water bottles and they are designed to be among the lowest VOC emitting products in the residential flooring industry.
FLOR squares are non-toxic and contain an antimicrobial that inhibits the growth of bacteria, mold and mildew, so no unpleasant smelling off-gassing. Consumers are able to return their old squares back to FLOR so they can be recycled into new products, ensuring that none of their carpet tiles end up in a landfill.
On top of good for the earth, you’ll find names like Toy Poodle, Housepet, and Parakeet and in every color imaginable with capabilility to mix and match patterns to create your very own personal style. What’s not to love?
San Francisco interior designer, Kimball Starr, is a commercial design and residential interior design firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kimball works to “change lives one room at a time” through designing creative and innovative interiors across the country.
Labels: carpet tile, Houzz, recycled carpet
Aug 05, 2011 | Posted in How To & Decorating Tips |
How many times have you looked at a piece of vintage furniture in a shop and thought “Geez, that’s ugly”, or “It would have been such a nice piece if they hadn’t done THAT to it.” Or what about your own furniture; you’re just tired of looking at it because you’ve outgrown the style. As an interior designer, I can tell you this happens a lot.
Well, we can’t turn back time on design atrocities or interior design styles we’ve outlived. What we can do is tweak pieces into something that’s great in both look and price. For many of us, interior decorating tastes change as we grow and this is an easy way to update your home interior furniture without breaking the bank.
Roaming through San Francisco interior design shops, I find vintage pieces at great prices that perhaps offset other luxury design pieces I’ve selected. Below are a few examples of San Francisco Bay Area interior design projects where I’ve shown some furniture examples of pieces of recycled and made new again.
Here’s the finished product of a vintage coffee table I updated. The beautiful Italian marble was there, but it was glued to a painfully ugly base of heavily scrolled wood.
Knowing the marble was a find with its round shape, I took a simple steel base that was a stock purchase, and replaced the wood base with a contemporary steel frame. Bringing together traditional and contemporary interior design fit the homeowner’s aesthetic perfectly.
Super easy, super results!
You can also feel good about purchasing vintage furniture or re-purposing your existing pieces because you’re creating a green and eco-friendly design interior for your home. Less consumption means less waste. It also means a healthier interior as new furniture can have highly toxic off-gassing depending on how the piece was made. But older pieces have had years to dissipate any harmful fumes.
This desk started out as a black metal army desk. I took it to an auto body shop and had it sprayed with chocolate brown automobile paint for a hard-wearing durable finish. The homeowner loved sailing, so I decoupaged images of sailing and the San Francisco Bay onto the desktop. After varnishing and sealing, the images on top were protected from moisture and wear.
Now he has a desk that not only is functional and inexpensive, but also a one-of-a-kind piece that’s very personal. It’s a great conversation starter and nobody else will ever have one like it!
Here I updated the homeowner’s existing dining chairs. Originally, the set of 6 chairs were covered in brown vinyl. Certainly durable, but not very attractive with the overload of brown vinyl, dark brown wood table, and brown chair backs. So, I set about creating a cheery color palette and upholstered the set of 6 dining chairs into 3 different colors.
This is a great way to turn a set of ho-hum chairs into something that’s unforgettably unique. A great solution that matched these newlyweds’ youthful style while designing with what they already owned.
Now that I’ve shared some of my interior designer secrets, take a look around at the endless possibilities sitting in your own home or the nearest antique shop.
Do you like the ideas and want something fantastic and unique but not interested in the legwork? Contact me and I’ll be happy to help!
Happy hunting!
San Francisco interior designer, Kimball Starr, is a commercial design and residential interior design firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kimball works to “change lives one room at a time” through designing creative and innovative interiors across the country.
Labels: creative interior design, recycled furniture, vintage furniture
