Continuing our tour of spectacular traditional front doors from December of last year, here are some great modern-style entrances from around the web.
I adore the center knob hardware look, so crisp and clean, especially with bright orange.
A custom glass pivot door looks inviting and impressive, simple and technical, all at once.
This entrance has a lot going on but keeps it tidy by maintaining 90-degree angles and clean lines that gradually reduce down in prominence to the sidelights and front door handle detail.
I enjoy the feeling you get from a mid-century modern design sensibility, here created with simple door numbers, warm wood cladding, clean lines, and a bright yellow door that says, “Welcome!”
If you would like a special front door design that continues on the interior, I’d be happy to consult with you remotely or socially-distanced in person! Contact me here.
Continuing on with the new project from the previous post, I’m especially excited to share the living room with you.
I’m really enjoying working on rooms with more furniture recently. Kitchens and baths have their place in my heart, too, but I especially love creating a sensorial space with textural finishes and a restrained color palette on fabrics and flooring, something that’s easily expressed through furnishings.
One of my most favorite features of this room is the chandelier. It imitates the shape of the molding on the arched windows and ties in traditional style with this family’s modern sensibilities.
Another great touch is the built-ins. This family really loves books. You could also display sculptures, framed art, or a treasured collection and it all looks neat and pulled together contained on these elegant shelves.
The drawers below and the side cabinets contain home electronics, games, and media, a satisfying balance of display and conceal in stylish living room storage for a modern family.
Kimball Starr designs for transitional homes throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Lake Tahoe. Contact her today for a remote or socially-distant in-person consultation.
One of my most popular posts from last year looked at a great example of a laundry room/mudroom combination. Today I’m sharing my latest fresh and clean laundry room design!
The light and airy feeling is accomplished with bright whites and pale blues. White cabinetry, pale blue subway tiles, and a simple circle pattern for the porcelain floor tile creates a space that’s crisp and playful.
White as a color lends an air of total cleanliness and sophisticated taste, while practical finishes keep surfaces easy to clean and maintain.
In addition to laundry, this space serves as a utility storage room, and as a drop zone for coats, shoes, and handbags when you enter the house. Tall cabinets flank both sides of the room, with cleaning supplies stored on one side, and coats and jacket storage on the other side, all concealed behind tall cabinet doors. This laundry room is a hard-working space!
Dedicated shelves and bins are for storing shoes when you enter the home, and the additional counter space above is for folding clothes or setting up a drying rack for delicates.
Drawers store small house utilities and tools that would normally clog up a kitchen drawer, and pegs accommodate quick-grab jackets and bags, mounted at two different heights for children and adults!
Every item has a thoughtful place and has been designed around durable finishes with a cheery twist. After I finish designing a space like this for your home, you’ll look forward to doing laundry! Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves… LOL
Kimball Starr designs for contemporary homes throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Lake Tahoe. Contact her today for a remote or socially-distant in-person consultation.
I just love a good before-and-after story, don’t you? Here’s a great one:
A doctor wished to have a more glamorous feeling in her basic Oakland condo with good bones. She also wanted it to feel welcoming to people of any gender. Her beige Before space was plain and boxy.
Voila! After my redesign to a Hollywood-regency-inspired dining space with plenty of light, color, and texture. The layered glass chandelier is the perfect accent above a heavy, dark wood table and masculine dining chairs with ring backs, while the more delicate head chairs are resplendent in mod purple floral and solid fabrics, balancing the space.
Before, the living room and the dining room are one big open-plan space, so the materials and finishes needed to relate closely to each other. The armchair the homeowner had before was over-scale for the size of the space.
After, what a beautiful result! A chandelier as overhead pendant lamp really bounces light off the gold textured wallpaper. Soft fabrics on the sofa and chairs plus the layered blankets and pillows create a space that’s really touchy-feely, sensual and glamorous, yet practical and easy to use.
Natural light streams in through the gauzy, colorful curtains, matching the bright, more streamlined armchairs in the living room, and complementing the dining room chairs. Magnifique!
Kimball Starr designs for glamorous homes throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Lake Tahoe. Contact her today for a remote or socially-distant in-person consultation.
Houzz surveyed homeowners about their bathrooms, and the results are fascinating!
76% of homeowners upgrade their vanity cabinets during a bathroom renovation. This is often due to either upgrading bathroom systems, or the bathroom’s style. Natural, unpainted wood is the most popular vanity finish material, currently.
Transitional is the most popular bathroom style, with modern and contemporary tied for second place. This is a change over previous years, where modern was the most popular. Curbless showers are very popular now also, when looking at bathroom renovation trends, such as the one above I designed for a San Francisco couple.
Hiring pros remains popular, with 85% of homeowners choosing to use a professional on a renovation, up from 84 and 83% the prior years. This is an important choice, because going it alone can result in overspending as well as an extended timeline. Eek!
Finally, relaxation in a bathroom after a renovation is complete is often a project goal, with 2 in 5 homeowners wanting to rest and relax in their upgraded bathroom. Among the many contributing elements are cleanliness, lack of clutter, soaking in the bath and taking long showers.
In addition to being the top relaxation aid, cleanliness also saw the biggest increase in popularity, up by 10 percent. Natural light, dimmable lighting, and greenery gained popularity with homeowners seeking bathroom tranquility as well. So, whatever your heart’s desire, you should follow that rather than trends in your bathroom renovation, with guidance from a pro.
Kimball Starr designs for bathrooms throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Lake Tahoe. Contact her today for a remote or socially-distant in-person consultation.