Design Crew
Sat, 1 Sep 2012
Got a problem? Need some help? Just standing there shaking your head? Don't know what to do? You're not alone. Send us a link to photos of your design quandary and let the Desire to Inspire design crew help you .... that's you lot ... the readers! This week's problem is from Kylie.
Help me I can't take it anymore! I hate my kitchen and the family room is just BLAH. We live in a rental and I can't paint the walls or damage the kitchen in any way (the landlord's words not mine). The furniture is all hand me downs and the room is where the two older kids do their homework while I get dinner ready. We like to keep an eye on their computer activity as well. My youngest uses it as a playroom. I don't have much money to spend. I really need your help. I want something light and bright and beachy. Can I do beachy in a room like this?
Reader Comments (18)
That´s interesting! I am looking forward to see what you propose her!
I would change the courtains and cover the sofa with a nice fabric INMEDIATLY :)
A big sisal rug in the living room (bordered to bring in a color that isn't beige)
Change the drapes to something lighter in both color and fabric...linen maybe? Ikea sells great basic drapes that you can dye yourself or use as is, plus low cost
Cover the sofa with a slipcover in a pale color (Pottery Barn sells a type that isn't fitted, basically just a big sheet that you knot and adjust to fit whatever shape, could be easy enough to sew yourself or have made)
Rethink some of the plastic storage bins by moving elsewhere or hiding
Kitchen looks pretty good as is, maybe just rethink all the stuff on the fridge, push it closer to the cabinets, beachy accessories.
Paint the barstools (I'd do black), as there's a lot of natural wood/wood tones/grain in the room already
Pops of chintz fabric in pillows and drapery tie backs or trim or stool cushions to bring in some bright colors.
First thing is first - if you want light and bright, remove the heavy window coverings! This includes the shade in the kitchen. Put up some nice light curtains (maybe white sheers or some colorful geometric curtains). I would clear the fridge front and top off because they give off a cluttered feeling.
I would also hang a new clock or revamp that one with some spray paint and a new face. If you google printable clock faces you should find something the right size and maybe less formal or more fun!
Paint - paint a nice fresh color on the walls. I would stick to something light but not tan or antiqued. Perhaps a sunny (but not primary) yellow or a cool blue.
Slipcover - Slipcovers are a great cheap solution for covering outdated or "blah" fabrics. I would check out some fun, colorful patterns and a few throw pillows.
Beachy is very easy with these rooms! Think modern vintage with a kitchen like that. White pottery with a subtle nod to nautical. Baskets with white liners. Add some blues or maybe soft greens in your fabrics, accents, and art work. Keep the window coverings light and textural like the blinds. Looks like you have lot of sunlight to control? You might need to add more layers to control the light.
Get rid of the floral. Look for real wood desks to replace what you've got. Reclaimed teak table for a desk would be great. Baskets for clutter control bring a beachy feel.
Paint the primary colors of the child's table and chairs white or a blue.
Loose the clutter on fridge or at least move it to the side. How about large chalkboard or chalkboard removable sticker on fridge if space is an issue?
The best way to start is to clear everything out and only bring back what will enhance your beach look.
1. shop your house for any items you can repurpose that has a beachy feel to it.
2. I am thinking anything pale blue, white, and pale green.
3. If you bring enough of one color into a room the eye will then focus on that color and not notice the others as much.
4. Sheer curtains are a good idea but you likely need the heavier ones for privacy at night? Hang the sheers inside the window and then just close the heavier ones when needed.
5. Shop the dollar stores for cheap but nice baskets, boxes and containers to store all the clutter in (we all have clutter, no insult intended)
6. Use the major part of your budget to buy paint to paint any furniture that can be safely painted a nice pale, celery green or maybe a soft white. But only if you are comfortable doing so. Again filling that desk area with white baskets, boxes and containers may be enough to erase the brown of the furniture from your eyes.
7. A nice white framed cork board would be a better choice than the fridge for all the important fridge art our kids create. Maybe hang a couple of cork floats on the cork board as well to emphasize the the beach look.
Can't wait to see what you have done.
By the way I don't know if this will ever even post to your blog because that darned word verification is almost impossible to read. You would be better off not to allow anonymous comments and to be notified of any comments made at which time you can delete any that are spam. I sure hope I can get this posted. Aaarrrrghhh.
how about some beachy-looking indoor plants, too?
I love this kitchen!!! I wish mine kitchen were modern and sleek like this one. The furniture is a different story but a can of paint and sometimes fabric go a long way in helping fix that problem. And shopping for furniture at garage sales can be an inexpensive source of better furniture.
The light wood you've got is great and the bones will totally work for you.
First things first - slip cover that sofa! Either pale white or a light beige in an easily washable canvas will help a ton. Also, you've got to get rid of those curtains. Make sure you buy 2.5 times the width of the window or door for a professional level fullness. Hanging them to the ceiling will give you the illusion of more height in the room. If the commercial curtains available are too short, pick up an accent fabric and sew it on to the bottom for a cute accent. Make sure you don't try to match it - make the color and/or texture intentionally different to make it look purposeful.
DEFINATELY add a rug. A nice big one would be great.
But - better specify which kind of beachy you mean? North-East coast sailing style or West Coast relaxed? I am praying you don't mean Miami beach, because I refuse to help you with that!
North-East coast:
Paint the walls either a cool white or a very pale blue. Or if you're feeling bold - supersized navy and white horizontal stripes on one wall would be awesome! Replace your window coverings with "sail like" white canvas and use the ones with the super-sized grommet holes for a industrial ship look. Perhaps try these from ikea: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90155002/. For the rug, if you go with subtle walls, go with a bold navy and white stripe. For the striped walls, go subtle with a sisal or tweedy, one or two shades darker than the sofa to ground the room.
North-East coast beachy is all about casual materials in a preppy kind of way. Pick up some naval based accessories, like a brass clock, anchors, shells, and perhaps add a pot full of wispy grasses to complete the look.
West Coast:
Paint a cool white or grey-tan color. Curtains should be a loose and breezy open weave, perhaps a cheesecloth type or linen would work well. Instead of navy accents, go with mostly whites and pale beiges, and pops of greens, blues, yellows, and even pinks if you like them. A patterned funky rug would be perfect. Perhaps something like this one: http://www.cb2.com/pixel-rug/f7305 or this one: http://www.cb2.com/keys-rug/f7687.
West coasters prefer their beach to look washed out and clean, casual elegance is what my professional designer friends call it. I would pick up a collection of large shells, water color paintings with blues and greens, and feel free to add either soft colored succulents (easy care) or the classic Fiddleback Figs (nice and big) for interest and a bit of freshness.
Here are some old posts on my site that feature beachy things:
http://designindependence.blogspot.com/2012/03/seas-are-calling.html
http://designindependence.blogspot.com/2012/02/8211.html
Good luck on your transformation!
Hi, you can achieve quite a lot on a small budget with all this great advice!
A Hamptons style beach look - Blue and white broad horizontal sripe rug under a white wood wash coffee table or wrought iron table with glass top. Add some neat piles of coffee table books with a wicker serving tray diplaying large shells, blue and white china, an artifact from an exotic part of the world and a white orchid or leafy greenery.
Art - find some beach themed art, tear pages out of a good quality magazine and create a gallery wall with cheap, uniform frames or better still paint an abstract on a large blank canvas in coastal colours - pale blues, greys, sunset pinks, sandy beiges and whites. You needn't use oil paints, acrylics finished with a gloss varnish does the same job!
Add some palms near the windows in neutral clay or seagrass pots.
Cover your sofa in a neutral linen-blend fabric and add an array of luxury, beachy cushions in neutral stripes and texture whites - add a chunky knit throw.
Add some clear and coloured, vintage, blue and green glass bottles and vases in the kithen (find them at your local thrift store). Avoid kitchy nautical accessories like life savers, compass, boats etc. Shells are as far as I'd go. If you live by the coast or on your next trip to the beach collect some driftwood and once dry, create some rustic frames for a mirror or photo with a glue gun, or buy a glass bowl and display your souvenirs - pebbles, shells, feathers and driftwood.
And finally, change the curtains to a lighter fabric with black wrought iron style rods.
I think beachy will work really well with the apartment without changing the paint or kitchen!
Suggestions: (Low budget) for clean ocean breeze look.
*Paint the wood furniture you already got white
*Use a sand beige cover on the sofa
*Sisal rug
*Sheer white curtains, linen
*Rope for tying the curtains back
*Old barrel or driftwood small coffee table
*Wicker baskets for storage
*Wicker chairs as office chairs (like the ones at Ikea)
*Ocean maps from your area, sea birds or fish fact posters or photos from your family on the beach (black/white or sepia) on the walls.
*Silver details, like on picture frames
*Beach blue childrens furniture
*Beach blue fabric for bar chairs and sofa cushions
I would not change the kitchen much, just soften it a bit, perhaps with
*Details like fish refrigerator magnets, sea grass place mats and wicker basket for fruits. A wicker basket on top of refrigerator for stuff.
*Bring in some beach blue accessories like canisters, baking bowls etc.
*A white wooden magazine collector for bills and magazines to hang on the wall beneath the clock.
Oh, and pebbles!
Hi, This room looks very much like my living room before I remodeled it. I know why you have those curtains up--is it because you are kind of close to your neighbors and you need privacy? This is why I had curtains up and closed all the time, but it made me feel clausterphobic. What I did was get white curtains that let light in but still gave me privacy.
I got a pair from Ikea like these: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00237880/
Cheap and did the trick. During the day we opened the curtains because people couldn't look in in broad day light and at night closed them but they still added a nice soft white feel to the room.
The other thing I noticed about your room was that the "office" area is scattered throughout the room. We had the same problem. So create a section of the room where the desks will go and try to divide it from the rest of the room with the couch or a room divider or something. Once we did that there was a natural flow to the room that made it easier for us to clean and navigate and decorate and easier for guests to figure out where to sit and hang out.
Third, the kitchen is decent but there is a lack of flow in it. Specifically there is a big gap of space between the cabinets and the refrigerator. Add something like these free standing shelves: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40103727/
But don't put clutter on them. You can food stuffs and kitchen ware on them if they are neatly organized and nice to look at in either baskets or see through containers. Plants on the shelves would also be nice.
Like everyone else says, a rug would be nice too. Use this to define the living area vs. the office area. I chose a nice "morroccan" style one from World Market. I find WM to be much cheaper than West Elm but with similar styles. Also if you sign up for their online club, you can get an extra 10% off their stuff.
Finally, sometimes what helps the most is not deciding what to buy but what colors to focus on. Everyone tells you to cover your sofa, but with what? and in what color? I found the easiest way to update my living room was to start with a color palette I would stick to--once you have your color palette, then you know what color to get everything. And everything pretty much falls into place. I started by looking at the different colors in my room and I found a vase that I really liked the color of, in the light of the room (important that this color looks good in the room), then go to Benjamin Moore.com and figure out what this color is or what it's close to. The Web site will then give you its complementary colors. You can use the complementary colors to be the colors of one of the walls, the color of the boxes/baskets you can get, the color of the pillows in the room, etc...Once you have a uniform set of colors running through your room it will be easier for the eye to travel through it and it will seem more "together" and pretty.
Good luck!
Kylie, you are in Australia aren't you....just guessing from the power outlets, the plaster cornices and and a few other clues....for a rental, that kitchen is AWESOME! Learn to love it - the bones are really good for you to work with and the veneer on the cabinets has a nice tone. I agree with one of the other posts, start with a nice big rug, get rid of the office furniture, plastic tubs and try and get some cleaner-lined furniture in there. And some pot plants. But I understand, all landlords in Australia give you NO leeway to do anything substantial. Most of the time you can't even hang pictures up......
With a landlord that controlling and inflexible, the first thing to do is admit that your deposit is gone, baby, gone. Then you won't worry when you put a pinhole in his precious walls.
Living area -- start with the curtains. New double mechanism, the landlord won't object to being gifted with an upgrade. Alternate panels of blue and green semi-sheers, with a lightweight, textured sand-colored curtain in front -- you should be able to find something 2nd hand. Dump all the little pictures, and ebay or 2nd hand an *oversize* beach scene. If you want to switch things around a bit, consider setting up a cozy seating arrangement in the corner, with a bright striped rug, canvas couch cover and large, patterned cushions.
Just a suggestion -- if you really need extra storage space, consider getting a captain's or daybed for the corner, and set it up with cushions and coverings to be a family-friendly seating area. A glass or white taller-than-ordinary coffee table would replace the children's table, give the little one more room to spread out her toys, and help anchor the space as a living room. It's a bit different, but a very stylish problem solver. Plus, kids grow out of those little tables so quickly -- a taller table and a couple of slightly taller, wooden children's chairs will keep the area useful for play for years longer than the plastic.
Go with an Ikea plank-style or glass desktop on sawhorses; depending on your family's habits, you might consider bringing a table-sized desktop out to where the loveseat is and making the table into an open, multi-task zone with free-style seating (nothing matches, each chair is a wonder ;-). You need wood/colored glass-based, much more evocative mood/task lighting in the living area. It shouldn't be difficult to arrange for an old-fashioned, squat lamp in the middle of the new work table -- you'll need to set up a power strip, which isn't difficult at all, hiding the cord under a neutral rug under the table.
There is a 'dead zone' under the sink area -- that would be a good place to put up-classed toy storage, wicker baskets in a frame would work -- I've found that an antique-style lowboy chest of drawers can hold every hand toy, barbie and set of crayons/legos that a family really needs. All other storage in ONE spot -- again, go with an old-style piece of furniture for that beachy, cast-off feel, a hutch or a rough-cut armoire. 2nd hand rocks.
Hand a beach picture behind your cooktop -- use as much of the space as possible. Maybe put blue and green LED or christmas-style light ropes into the top of the cabinets, for off-set lighting, and put a few unusual, large colored glass thingies up for the shadows. The main thing is, keep to one or two beach colors, and ruthlessly remove all others. Lose the clock (you have ten other objects telling you the time!) and find something large and textural... a nautical flag or a kite with it's long tail artistically looped about, perhaps? for the wall above the counter. The sleekness of the kitchen is really very nice, don't try to change it so much as emphasize it with a few spare, nautical color touches. Declutter, you'll feel better!
I don't think anyone, ever, has sent us a picture of a re-do. /sob! sob!/ But I live in demented hope -- please, send us a piccy when you're done?
You know, the TGIF post right in front of this one? Well worth looking at for beach-style ideas!
Chile,
You are in a rental, with no money to decorate. What you need to do is save your money to buy a house or your own apartment and you can do what you want. You are already strapped for cash, why would you want to spend it on a place that is temporary?
If anything clean up and organize. That will save you a lot of money and put your mind at ease.
Broke people have the most demanding requests.
Lots of good ideas. Mine would be:
Leave the curtains and the walls as is. But if you can swing a rug, maybe a flat, indoor/outdoor type, that would help a lot.
Either find a new sofa (Ikea?) or cover that one maybe with one of those stretchy, washable covers.
Rearrange the furniture by trial and error to find better placements. Paint some a fun color that goes with a color scheme you like, or even black.
An inexpensive shelving unit or tall cupboard, something with height would be good.
Maybe change out the clock on the wall for a large framed graphic poster. Or even a mirror.
Find something to go between the fridge and stove area (shelving or a cart on wheels?) Or maybe move fridge next to stove unit and do something on the other side of it. (No photo to go by.)
And clear off the fridge top and bottom. Maybe display one child's artwork a month on front or something.
Check out thrift stores, trash pick, etc. to find fun stuff to hack, like frames, etc. Look at magazines and on line to see what other people have done.
Have fun!
Your kitchen would be far more tolerable if you just swap the existing stools for something sleeker and more modern (white or silver tolix?) Also, change the timber blinds to white ones, get rid of the clutter on the fridge and put a lovely big bowl of green apples on the bench or a huge vase of green palm fronds etc. It won't cost you a fortune.