Design: The Direction

I've had a vision for SIX TWELVE from the day we looked at it. A blurry vision. Nothing really jumped at me, other than our curved doors and archways. There wasn't an immediate furniture layout playing through my head or an overall design scheme just unfolding before my eyes.

It just felt right.

As a designer, I'm a mess of left and right brain. Architects are very left brain. Designers are very right brain. I am the result of a left brained individual (an architect) and a right brained individual (creative prodigy in her own way). I'm thoroughly logical and expect a sequence or for the "math" of it all to work out correctly. But I am also very right brained and can sometimes just "feel" it. It makes for some pretty intense internal debates. I'll spare you the details.

The house has so many upfront concerns (structural repair, tree removal, asbestos abatement, demolition, electrical wiring, etc.) that I've been lost in the construction and the "design" has been on the back burner. Luckily for us, the overall design of the house is somewhat already there. I just need to enhance it. So, once I was able to really sit down and start thinking about the actual feel of the house, there was a lot of that internal debate I mentioned above occurring.

We live in Oklahoma. I'll leave that as it is. It opens so many different cans of worms.
We are young and in the design industry.
We have a child and possible future children.
We have a slight taste for the modern and a slight taste for the traditional.
We have taste.
It's an old home.
We are a mess of interests and a well done design in any style appeals to us.

The worst of it all is that we are own worst nightmares when it comes to "clients". I would have already fired myself by now. And I seriously considered enlisting a friend to select everything for us. But let's be real, I just couldn't give up that much control.

With a completely blank slate, I started with this:


Kravet's Kosovo Jacobean Print

I love this fabric. It's a huge pattern repeat and has just enough of the right colors for me. And in almost ten foot single pleated drapes on a french gray wall, it could take me places. I didn't have a horrible time convincing Paul, at all actually, and so I was on my way.  
The rest of the house is going to stem off of this color palette. It'll be fresh in the spring and the summer, a little off for the fall, but can be seriously jazzed up for the winter*. It allows us to stay neutral on items like the walls, with punches of color in the furniture and casework (just wait until you see what we're doing in the kitchen) and when that one day comes (in the far off future), when we've had enough and we're ready to adjust, it won't be that difficult to get an entire new look.

*I started with silver Christmas decor when we first got married. But because the direction our last home took and the warm oak woodwork all around our Christmas tree and fireplace, we ended up going with gold and deep red, giving that "old world" Christmas flair to our holidays. Don't tell Paul, but it looks like we might be going back to the silver. Hobby Lobby and their half-off-sales and after Christmas clearance better watch it this year.

More design plans to come when I've got some time. We're seriously swamped around here with the house work, our jobs, teaching preparation, future travel, two professional tests coming up and an 18-month-old with an attitude of a 16-year-old. All of it is keeping us on our toes for sure!