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 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
Aug 01, 2011 | Posted in Starr Spotlight |
I’d like to thank the lovely Rachel Thomas over at Raenovate for featuring Before & Afters of our Pacific Heights interior design project in San Francisco!
Here’s a snippet of the article with the before & after images shown below…
“We’ve revealed so many fantastic San Franciscan transformations on Raenovate we thought we’d nearly exhausted the city’s entire cast and crew of designers! That is until we realized that we’ve never featured the one and only Kimball Starr. Known for her tremendous attention to detail and innovative money-saving DIY projects, Starr is a star.
Her recent revival of a handsome Edwardian residence in Pacific Heights beautifully highlights these qualities, after scooping the coffee table’s marble top at a thrift shop, Kimball paired it with a steel base from Room & Board, creating a big look for less. She and the homeowner also produced the 9-grid canvas piece that sits above the sofa in the living room. It was an inexpensive way to tie in the room’s color palette, fill the expansive wall, and to give the homeowner the opportunity to create his very first piece of art. With a view of Alcatraz island, the home and its designer are true San Francisco staples.”
Aww shucks, I’m blushing…
Thanks Rachel!
This San Francisco Pacific Heights home interior showcases the power a can of paint can have on a home interior. Creatively applying paint to your walls can transform your space into something fantastic. Love the look, but don’t know where to start with color? Contact us for paint color consultations where we’ll visit your home anywhere in the San Francisco Bay area.
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: before and after, color, paint, Raenovate
| Posted in Starr Spotlight |
Kimball Starr has recently been featured on the design article 10 Places to Go Bold with Pattern.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
“Lampshades. A big trend is to bring color and pattern into a room through lampshades, and this is a gorgeous example. Such an approach to bringing in bold pattern requires very little commitment, and is therefore a great place to start if not accustomed to living with bold pattern.”
Thanks Janell! We love you too!
Kimball Starr Interior Design is now on Houzz representing the San Francisco Bay Area. A great website full of ideas for everything related to designing your home interior.
The daily blog is written by a multitude of designers covering anything interior design related, and is rich in imagery for everything from kitchen and bathroom design ideas, paint colors, to designing outdoor spaces and gorgeous vacation homes.
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, color, Houzz, pattern
Sep 19, 2009 | Posted in Inspirations |
These symbols for man and woman restrooms on a door caught my eye and gave me a laugh for the obvious reasons, which started me thinking about the power of symbols.
Symbols encapsulate so much meaning without the use of any words and they aren’t hindered by language barriers. Ever notice when traveling in a foreign country where you can’t speak the language how important those simple symbols become to you?
Symbols of a train or luggage, a martini glass, or a bed can make the difference between a great vacation travel day and a not so great one.
Symbols make great personalized art in your home. If you used playful symbols that speak to your interest, what would you hang in your home interior? Food and drink symbols are a relaxed way to give personality to a kitchen design.
Personally I love being outdoors, so a trio of adventure sports symbols hung in a rec room or at a vacation home are a perfect match for me. I especially adore the surfer girl crossing symbol shown below.
If you can’t find the symbol that you’re looking for, they are simple and uncomplicated to create. Draw the outline, create a stencil, and lay it over any surface and spray paint, stipple, or fill in with a metallic leaf. So just think of what you like and then create a symbol for it…the possibilities are endless!
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: art, signage, signs, stencils, symbols
