Black and White in Summer

The dining room, the space I declared finished in January 2006 and that we decided to add to the kitchen renovation, finally got its new clothes thanks to some design help from the Awesome Designer and a shopping trip to Kravet's Bethpage, NY showroom one rainy day back in April.


The drapery fabric Solarte from Kravet Soleil, is a retro-vibe indoor/outdoor fabric that should stand up better to dog affection than the Dupioni silk that hung there before.


Although it looks black & white in the stock image, there is a lot of subtlety in the shading - ebony, stone, mocha and a silvery pewter.


The rug, Cap Ferrat, is, like the Chinese Chippendale now in the den, a design by Windor Smith for Kravet. The seafoam color marries well with the grey-green Benjamin Moore Titanium walls and the dark brown ovals are almost the exact shade of the beams and the mocha shading in the drapes. (Black, seafoam and the sun seem to have been a big part of this recent renovation. I think I'll have to invest in some black and white tea towels for the kitchen!).


All we need now are those pesky baseboards...

Sleeping soundly

The Hoffman bed arrived Saturday so we happily traded crashing on a mattress on the floor for a real grown-up king-size bed. Paradoxically, the huge bed makes the room seem larger. I have no idea why this should be but I'm happily embracing the bonus. Better still, switching the furniture around allows me a fabulous view of the white magnolia from my side of the bed - at least until all the leaves on the beech tree open. More importantly we've been sleeping better for the past four nights than we have in the previous four years.


Apart from the art piled up in a corner - and a place to put the BeoSound1 - this room is DONE. For those who need to know how it compares with the original inspiration and the The Guy's updated design, here's the rundown:

Bed: Room and Board Hoffman in Teton, Ink
Bed Linens: ikea Andrea Satin
Media console and Bedside Tables: Room and Board Grove
Rug: Kravet custom
Sofa: ikea (no longer available)
Drapes: Habitat Pixel (no longer available)
Cornices: Custom (Awesome Designer)
Blinds: Smith and Noble Dark Mahogany
Paint: Benjamin Moore. Walls: Titanium; Ceiling: Cloud White; Trim: Bittersweet Chocolate
Original Abstract Art: Jamie Geller Dutra

The entire before and after timeline from Muenster Cheese to Bittersweet Chocolate is available for your delectation here.

Keeping your friends

Interwebs regulars to this blog are aware that we lucked out when we signed up to take over The Cool House. Not only did we get a rock sold house in need of a little TLC and a piece of uniquely modern architectural history but we gained two of the best neighbors we could ever hope to have - the Awesome Designer and the Loyal Blog Reader. The former is the hands-on person in that partnership/ Furniture needs re-arranging? She'll move it fifty different ways until she gets the effect you're looking for (or the one she persuades you is best - trust her, it will be). Bulbs have to be planted? Give her a couple hundred and a dry weekend and the following Spring your garden will be carpeted with pretty flowers. Ask for a fabric swatch and she'll visit half a dozen showrooms and bring you swatches of undreamt deliciousness - and then spend hours pruning them until you have just the right palette to make your room perfect.

On the other hand, the Loyal Blog Reader is more cerebral and prefers to let the pros (like his wife) tackle things. Only rarely does he get roped into the renovation process, preferring to bask in the glory of the finished effect.


Which is why he is probably kicking himself this morning - or dreaming of kicking me maybe - when, after I plied him with wine and salumi, we persuaded him to take a hands-on role in the renovation and move a rug, or three, in and out of the car and up a flight of stairs - in the name of the beautification of The Cool House. To add to his nightmare I made him weigh in on the design discussion of some fifty pieces of fabric to determine the one that would epitomize our uniquely modern design aesthetic. So, I would like to heartily thank the Awesome Designer for all her help and hard work yesterday and to the Loyal Blog Reader I offer both my gratitude and profuse apologies. You can send the chiropractor's bill to me...

Chocolate and Clouds...

...with a glint of metal... After all the selecting, culling and final editing and the twenty 12" x 12" squares in 7 different colors I painted on the master bedroom walls we have finally (maybe) come up with a paint palette* that pleases both The Guy and picky me.


Benjamin Moore Titanium to be precise. A warm pale gray with a greenish undertone for the master bedroom walls


Benjamin Moore Cloud White a cool creamy white, soft and billowy on the ceiling and inside the closets


Benjamin Moore Bittersweet Chocolate brownish black. Tasty on the trim to match the dark vanities.


By the way designers and decorators, Benjamin Moore has just launched a couple of exciting projects- new showrooms in New York and Chicago that have variable lighting to mimic those pesky north and east facing windows I'm currently dealing with and huge color blocks so you can truly imagine your finished design. The NYC showroom is painted in Cloud White, a shade I've used very successfully at The Cool House that provides a neutral background to the color chips.



Additionally, the "Designer's Colors" Virtual Fan Deck, a design-tool launched a couple of years ago with Kravet fabrics and furnishings is now available online making complimentary color choice a snap.


Benjamin Moore has also added an e-commerce section to the website so you can buy all the supplies BM offers, plus the sample pots in 600 colors, without stepping away from your computer. Shipping is free on orders over $75 and for 4 or more Color Sample pots. My local paint store is only offering pint samples these days - great for touch-ups or small areas, not so economical if you want to try out 3 or 4 colors on the wall. If you have any painting dilemmas there is a problem solving section too: Learn How that incorporates tips on faux-painting techniques and a calculator so you know exactly how many gallons of paint to order.
*For those keeping count - during the master bedroom project I have spent countless hours using BM's Personal Color Viewer, made innumerable trips to the paint store, bought 5 Color Sample pots, three pint size pots and 50 chips - all to find that what works best is a color scheme I used here, here and here. Ironic, no?

Design Inspiration

It looks like those umbrella stand pendant lamps in the great room are working their magic again.


Today they inspired the Awesome Designer to pull this fabric, Delineate in Malt from the Couture Collection by Michael Berman for Kravet. Also available in Foam (light blue) and Oyster (creamy beige). Not sure where we'll use it but I think we have to find a place - it was meant to be...

Gold toned papers

The white tone on tone wallpaper samples that I sent for from Graham and Brown were a bust. The tone on tone Checker looked dingy and the Curvy didn't read at all, its beautiful geometrical swirls simply disappeared on the foyer walls. The black Checker looked better but was still too one note - not the play on shade I had been expecting.



So, if the tone on tone is too boring and the terracotta and gold papers are just too much of a statement what, I wondered, if we went with a less bold color and pattern but a brighter, more metallic hue. Especially, as you can see in the photo above, we have more open spaces than solid walls in the foyer. What do you think?


Luna in Gold/Tan from Cole & Son via Lee Jofa


Muse in Champagne via Lee Jofa


Carlu in Nickel


or Gold by Designers Guild


Finally - grasscloth is very mid-century modern and it's making a comeback. W3043-24 is a 50% grass/50% paper blend in a real golden tone available from Kravet.

Fabulous Fabrics

No porn in the title, but an almost orgasmic delight here at The Cool House; moaning and sighing over fabulously rich fabric samples on the table. Silks, damasks, chenilles, and velvet; modern, vintage, retro or art nouveau inspired, they all scream 21st Century uniquely modern style and at least one will be trimmed and turned into pillows for the great room sectional by the Awesome Designer and her team.


Silk Empire Vol III - Cinnabar colorway, pattern 800187H-551 from Highland Court Fabrics.


Also from the Silk Empire Vol III - Cinnabar from Highland Court Fabrics circles of gold on brick silk 180740H-113.


Kari in Cayenne from Kravet's Basics line.


Nocturne in Tomato/Gold 100% linen. By G. P. & J Baker through Lee Jofa.


Mint Flower Sil in Salmon designed by David Hicks, Groundworks through Lee Jofa.


Magic Circles Velvet in Terracotta by Mulberry via Lee Jofa.

All fabrics to the trade only. Favorites, anyone?

Big Blue Sectional Reveal

Ta-da! Drum roll please for the stunning reveal of the formerly pink super-sectional sofa


After: Original to the house 1968 Harvey Probber sectional re-upholstered with Kravetsmart in blue chenille by awesome designer Julie Napoleon Brown and her team.


New rug is Chinese Chippendale design by Windsor Smith, also through Kravet, a 9' x 9' square terracotta silk and wool blend with a gold design and border. It's amazing what an appropriately sized rug does for the scale of the room. The sectional floats on the rug just as if it were made to measure.


Before: The sectional in its original rose pink fabric, faded by 40 years of sun streaming through those huge windows (and a little pet-related wear and tear); the too-tiny 5' by 8' rug we'd placed in front of the sofa as a temporary solution five years before. The pillows were hiding a huge split in the seat cushion that had been there for longer than that, which we'd originally covered with reindeer hide! Just out of view is a pink throw covering another hole and more than a few cat claw marks


During the re-covering phase the rug became a patch of carpet cast adrift in a sea of parquet. At this point I knew I had to go rug shopping. I can't say enough good things about the whole rug shopping experience at Kravet - they also have a fun blog Inspired Talk that is, as the name suggests, full of designer tips, resources and drool-worthy photos.


My greatest thanks, however, go to designer Julie Napoleon Brown without whom the project would never have gotten started, let alone turned out so spectacularly. She spent time trying to make an off-center sofa fit more cohesively in a trapezoid room; here she is considering the configuration of the 12-piece sectional


and shown here pondering the choice of pillow fabrics.


She tolerated my control issues as I vetoed swatch after swatch and sample after sample, then had to repeat the process with The Guy, who doesn't respond well to imposed change (unless he is doing the imposing) but in the end, as you can see from the photo, is delighted with the redone great room.


As Julie says, it needs a punch of the orange on the pillows and a few well-chosen accessories, which will come eventually (I can generally sneak one thing past The Guy each quarter), but for the moment - and most importantly - it has been cat tested and fully approved.

More Great Room before and after photos here

Design Day

So you know how you start with one thing, say re-upholstering a distressed pink sofa, and then because you changed the colour you have to pick a new rug and pillow fabric and the next thing you know you've picked a wallpaper for the powder room and you're having a full-on argument with your other half about who has the better design ethics - in front of the professional with the credentials, taste level and portfolio to render any disagreement moot, the Awesome Designer for instance. You know that sort of a day? Well, that was my Monday.


The Awesome Designer, who does have a real name - Julie Napoleon Brown, and whose work you can see here, here and here - was devoting a few hours of her precious, much sought-after design time to take me rug shopping. Somehow that developed into a full-on entire day, including many hours spent pulling fabrics at Kravet's Long Island showroom.



Surprisingly, it was this square Chinese Chippendale carpet that made me gasp: coup de foudre, coup de coeur. It wasn't the colour we were looking for, nor the shape and certainly didn't read updated sixties chic -but it just leapt out at me and straight into my arms.


The Awesome Designer set to work pulling co-ordinating pillow fabrics like this Barclay Butera Chinese inspired print as well as more retro weaves and blocks of bright blues and greens and terracottas that would marry the cool blue of the sectional with the warm tones of the rug.


I got so carried away I suggested we look for a kick-ass wallpaper for the powder room and foyer - because you cannot expect that a newly-waxed floor in the great room onto which you've placed a sensual gold and terracotta rug surrounded by a freshly upholstered slate-blue sectional accented with one-of-kind cushions, will distract from the primer-over-wallpaper-base walls in the entrance hall, now can you? It would be more warthog with designer pearls than lipstick on a pig.


We hauled one rug home, plus two bags containing samples for a uniquely-coloured custom rug, fabrics for both options and a dozen or so wallpapers. Then we layed it all out in the great room to see what would work and what wouldn't. When we had it paired down to a cohesive design board we cracked open a bottle of white and awaited the arrival of The Guy who enthusiastically approved the rug and most of the pillow fabrics (including weirdly a zebra print we had put aside as a no-go) and out-right vetoed our paper choice (copper, black, gold and silver elms on a dark background that looks stunning in situ) saying he didn't want to feel like he was walking through a forest every time he went upstairs. Really interwebs, wouldn't you want to trip through the trees on your way to bed?


Anyway, another contender Grasses by Mulberry, and one that I really think would be more like weaving through a forest didn't make the cut either. The Guy's choice -walking through a town - is obviously not going to happen. We brought over The Loyal Blog Reader to mediate - but he wisely refused to get involved. Right now were are at an impasse on the foyer but, concentrating on the positive, we have a rug and pillow fabrics and the sectional will be back home next week. And, more importantly, I had a "girl in a sweet-shop" sort of day shopping with the best and most patient designer around.