Living in Your Living Room
This inviting seating area in the sunny bay window looks like it has always been here, but truth to tell, it just happened last week. That is, the completion of the room happened last week, but was actually year in the making. Let me back up to show you what the living room of this […]
Realizing Dreams: Master Bedroom Makeover
A few months ago Helene Cogen moved from Miami, Florida, to Portland, Oregon, because her children and grandchildren live here. She had owned a home here for years, but only used it in the summer, so it was furnished like a beach house–very casual, with lots of white wicker furniture. With a permanent move, she wanted […]
The Doctors’ Decorating Dilemma
When I first met Drs. Lainie and Jon Yarris, both emergency room physicians, they had been raising their three children in this charming Craftsman home for eleven years. When they weren’t working at their demanding jobs, they were doing activities with their children and with friends, who also have children. Their dilemma was how to arrange the […]
Room Service
This year we changed up our master bedroom. It went from earthy, Tuscan colors–sage, gold, and red–to spa blue with crisp white linens to echo the white trim, now more prominent than ever with the draperies removed. Never mind that the bedroom in its previous incarnation had been published in a magazine in 2007 […]
Chew on This!
It’s not often that I design a room around a dog, but Samoa is a very special dog. She’s a Bernese Mountain Dog, and it was her chewing behavior as a young dog that prompted her owners, Sue and Bob Van Brocklin, to ask Emery & Associates to redecorate their family room. Eventually we worked […]
Make Your Living Room Come Alive
It’s a sad story–hardly anyone “lives” in their living rooms anymore. This is a tale we hear over and over, and here is one example of how we fixed it. The “AFTER” detail above shows a small slice of the adjoining living and dining rooms featured in this post. When the homeowners called Emery & […]
Combining Households–How to Make It Work
Susan Bach and Doug Egan combined their households some years ago. When they asked Emery & Associates for help redoing the entire house, it was apparent that what they needed help with the most was integrating Susan’s family pieces and whimsical country style with Doug’s more formal, traditional French style. We began in the TV […]
Redesign–What does it mean?
Emery & Associates did a major remodel of a client’s living room fireplace several years ago (see my previous post “Hot New Looks for Old Fireplaces,” February 24, 2011). The clients liked the remodeled fireplace so much that this year they rearranged their furniture so that the sofa faces the fireplace, which has become the […]
Winter White–A Budget Makeover
When it comes to interior design, most people think of me as a colorist. Fact is, I think of myself that way. But recently we needed to replace the flooring in our guest room, which is on the lower level of our home. After consulting with my good friend, interior designer Jamie Devlin, who works […]