green design

road trip :: nyc edition

21 August 2013 by Andrea Leave a Comment

View of the Empire State Building from my hotel room

This past week I spent some time in New York City for work. Stayed at the Element on West 39th between 8th and 9th, an “eco-chic” hotel with fabulous green design. Here’s how they describe their eco-chi-chi-ness:

Created to be an oasis of natural light, experience a new kind of NYC hotel with Element New York Times Square West.

With space to live your life, our eco-friendly New York City hotel is fully devoted to helping the environment. Floors feature carpets made from 100% recycled content. Artwork is mounted on bases made from recycled tires. Low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints improve indoor air quality for guests and team members. In the bathroom guests can choose between a half or full flush and wash up in our low-flow sink faucet.

Not a bad place to stay, all in all, especially for New York.

View from my hotel during the day

Thought I’d share a couple of my fave design elements…

The sink! God, how I loved this sink! So simple, yet so cool! I completely and totally covet this sink! And so much nicer to use than a traditional oval basin – so wide and open. My only complaint would be that I would have liked more counter space, but I was in New York City after all, where space is a luxury.

I probably would have enjoyed the sink even more if the faucet were properly affixed, not leaving a space large enough for a giant sewer rat to climb up and kill me in the night…

Rats are notorious for climbing through small spaces

Fortunately, I was neither wounded nor killed by any rodentia, but seriously? Affix the faucet properly, people!

The room, while small, did have a lovely little kitchenette…

So cute and stylized! Very New York. Upon first look the tile looked awesome! Totally in and stylish. But by the end of my stay I had already grown bored with the look of the glass tiles.

It’s an important thing to consider…how stylized and “in” do you want your more permanent fixtures to be? Seeing this kitchenette was a lesson in erring on the side of classic for me. Make your more stylized pieces the things that are easy to change. Unless you have a lot of money to make frequent updates or a husband who likes to replace tile annually. I have neither. Lol.

All in all, it was a great stay in New York. Made me appreciate all of the space I have at home. While I do feel like I could downsize and get rid of a lot of stuff and square footage, I don’t know that I’m quite ready to move into a studio apartment!

ottoman before & after

8 January 2012 by Andrea 11 Comments

About a year ago, I found this ottoman in my neighbor’s trash…

It was in pretty bad shape, but sturdy nonetheless…

Obviously trash picked, since there was even garbage in the springs…

Gross, but salvagable!

So, I let it cure in my garage for a year.

Eventually I picked up some zebra faux fur, which I bought from Joann, using a 50% off coupon from the Joann app on my iPhone. I bought a yard and a half, which cost me around $12 with the coupon.

This weekend the moment of inspiration finally struck!

I already had high gloss black spray paint, so I cleaned up the ottoman and spray painted the legs.

I didn’t worry a whole lot about getting paint on the original fabric, since the faux fur is thick enough to cover any discoloration.

The legs weren’t looking too bad…

It’s amazing how much of a difference just the black paint makes.

And now for the faux fur…

I began by stapling the prewashed fabric in the middle of the wider side of the ottoman.

As an aside, if you’re in the market for a staple gun, let me recommend that you consider an electric staple gun. They’re just a couple bucks more than a manual one, and totally worth it, because the electric one won’t kill your hands the way a manual one does. It’s still a workout and you’ll still break a sweat, because you need to press firmly to release the safety and you’ll need to pull the fabric taut as well. But overall, it’s much easier to use.

After stapling several places in the middle, I stretched the fabric taut and stapled similarly on the opposite side.

I stapled my way out from the middle, and then did the same on the shorter sides of the ottoman, working my way to the corners.

When I got to the corners, I folded them like I was wrapping a present, tucking them in and under as flat and tight as possible.

So that it looked like this on the side after stapling…

And like this underneath…

I wasn’t terribly concerned about how things looked underneath, just as long as it looked good on the visible surface. And I think it turned out looking pretty darn good!

Isn’t it adorable? I love it!

Best of all, it was a super inexpensive project. Only cost me $12 for the fabric, plus the spray paint I already had on hand (approx. $4), and my time an effort. Can’t beat that!

I’m not sure if I’ll keep the ottoman with the red and orange chair, since they’re both pretty bold, but the combination is growing on me, and boy do I love the zebra faux fur ottoman!

Would you keep the chair and the ottoman together?

Showing off my new ottoman at Funky Junk Interiors and Kammy’s Korner. And jumping into the contest over here…

cleaning mania

22 May 2011 by Andrea Leave a Comment

I’ve been M.I.A. lately. Lots going on here. Super busy at work, plus this week my daughter graduates from high school. So there’s a party next weekend, which means that I’ve been trying to clean 5 years worth of dirt & grime in just one short weekend.

You see, I’m not the world’s most obsessive compulsively clean individual, so then I’m stuck with cleaning mania before I have an event.

Hence my blogging absence.

Every time I do this, I swear that next time I won’t let things get away from me, yet somehow, they always seem to. Oh well.

So I’ve spent the weekend with my trusty Oreck and Magic Eraser.

Now in general I’d say that I have no business giving cleaning tips, however, if you’re a cleaning procrastinator like me, you’ll love this one.

Method Wood for Good Wipes.

These bad boys do the trick, even if said trick should have occurred at least a year ago!

They’re moist, they clean, shine, and condition wood products, plus they were less expensive than Murphy’s Oil Soap wipes. And I like them better.

And they’re compostable. Now in the spirit of full disclosure, I haven’t been composting them yet, but in my Martha Stewartesque fantasies, I will someday be composting.

Now that I’ve procrastinated with a blog post, I really must get back to my cleaning & grad party preparations.

getting a fresh start

10 July 2010 by Andrea Leave a Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on my decorating blog.

And a lot has changed, both in the world, and in my little corner of the world…

Most notably, the economy has changed dramatically, and many of us have felt the pinch. For me, it manifested in going back to work full time – not in the field of design, but back to my previous career as an editor. I was very fortunate to find a good job as an editor, since decorating jobs in a bad economy were getting more and more scarce.

Also, I’ve gone through a divorce, which has further tested my personal finances.

Why am I sharing all of this?

Well, to tell you where I’ve been, but also because many of these changes have influenced who I’ve become as a decorator.

I’ve always loved a bargain, I’ve always loved junk and dumpster diving for trashy treasures, and I’ve always loved found objects.

But now, with my personal finances very different than they were a couple of years ago, and with many people in the same boat as me financially, decorating with bargains and junk and found objects has a new meaning and has become even more inspiring than it used to be.

While all of this financial mess was unfolding, I was also becoming acutely aware of the problems of climate change and over-consumption, and realized that I can no longer advocate consumption in the way I used to as a decorator. Simply put, I’ve gone green.

(I’ve even started blogging about learning to live small, both financially and ecologically.)

So, the color of this blog has changed to green as well, and I will be sharing fun decorating ideas that won’t take much (or anything at all) out of your pocketbook, and will take advantage of reusing and recycling and other clever decorating ideas.

Hope you’ll enjoy the fresh start!