Check Out this Chair!

We are currently working with a client that needed custom stained chairs and was looking for leather upholstered seats.  For her modern space we selected these sleek ladder back chairs and chose to have them stained a deep espresso to match her chocolate table. 

This is before the final coat of stain, but how pretty does this chair look?  The seats are at the upholsterer as we speak getting upholstered in a fabulous ivory leather.  I cannot wait for you to see the final product, it's going to be gorgeous!

Spring has sprung!

I'm sure most of you like myself, are ready for spring to be here even though we're still dealing with the gloom of rainy days and the melting snow.  One great way to start bringing spring inside while we wait for it outside is by introducing fresh colors and florals.

Floral art like these are a fun and great way to bring the outside in.  They have subtle but vivid colors that are refreshing after a long winter. 

These are just a few examples but there are endless ways you can use them.  You could place a cluster or collage of them in a kitchen, family room or even up you stairway.  Placing a single piece on an easel in the kitchen or on a side table would add that perfect pop of spring to any space.

All of these prints are available at The Design House Boutique and come in various sizes.  Swing by and see all of the other fun products perfect for spring.

Design Give-Away!!

Thanks to all of those who came out and saw us at the Spring Home and Garden Show in Sandy and entered our $150 Interior Design drawing.  It was great to visit and chat design with everyone.  Congratulations to Eric Von Stomberg! He's the winner of our $150 drawing to use our interior design services however he likes.  We're excited to get started Eric! 

Spring Home & Garden Festival meets Mark Brunetz

We had such a great time at the Spring Home & Garden Festival last weekend at the South Towne Expo Center.  It was so awesome to see past and present clients come and visit the booth as well as meeting new clients.  We were even lucky enough to meet Mark Brunetz from Style Network's "Clean House."

Mark Brunetz was super fabulous and had two amazing talks; one about de-cluttering your life and the other about design style and tips to find yours.  The talk about de-cluttering brought a new light to the subject.  It's easy as a designer or third party to come into your space and tell you what to purge from  your space because we aren't emotionally tied to it, but you may very well be.  His point on the topic was that it's not so much the object that you are tied to but the story about the object; how you got it, who gave it to you and the years you spent using it.  You shouldn't let the story keep you tied to an object, you will always have the story and the memories.  It was really inspiring to hear and we bought his book on the subject. 

His second talk had more to do about discovering your design style.  As an Interior Designer we are taught to ask questions and lots of them to determine what is best for our clients, and he reinforced that with a few of his favorite questions to ask clients.
1.  If you could go anywhere in the world tomorrow where would it be and why?
2.  If you were a piece of furniture what would you be and why?
3.  If your house was burning down, what would you save? (assuming family, pets, photos etc. were already safe.)

These are just a couple questions he asks his clients to better determine which direction to take their space.  They help you get in touch with the inner you and find out what's important to you and stylistically come up with a color palette etc. for you.  Now keep in mind that many more questions are also asked in the process to really determine your needs, but these are just a few of his main questions.

It was so great to meet him, hear his talks and see his work.  We had such a fun time and thanks to everyone for swinging by the booth.  :)

Mr. Mark Brunetz and The Design House Designers

Spring Home & Garden Festival Tickets

The Design House is proud to announce we'll be at booth #918 at the expo center for the Spring Home & Garden Festival in Sandy this weekend!  We would love to have you come down and say "Hi" and check out some of our new decor items from The Design House Boutique.  To entice you to come join us and check out all of the fun new trends, products and ideas that we'll be showcasing we are giving away a handful of free tickets!

To enter to win a prize of 2 tickets you have to do one easy thing:  become a follower of the blog. See, it's way easy! For another chance to win you can also enter by leaving a comment on one of the rooms in our portfolio about the space.  Good luck!

Mid-Century Modern Finds

Today we were shopping in downtown Salt Lake City for furniture and décor items for a couple clients.  While downtown we stopped by a couple vintage/antique shops that were so much fun and had many retro and Mid-Century Modern items.

In case you’re not familiar with “Mid-Century Modern” it is the architectural and design style from the 40’s – 60’s.  Think of the sets from Mad Men and that’s exactly what Mid-Century Modern is. 

One of the stores we happened to pop into was the Green Ant.  They only deal with the sale of Mid-Century Modern furniture pieces.  We found a great Eames Lounge chair that turned out to be a knock off, but it was still a fabulous piece of furniture.   Sitting in it, even though it wasn’t the real deal, was like a slice of heaven.  If you ever have the opportunity to buy and Eames Lounge chair, do it!  They are so fantastic.

For those of you "House" junkies, Dr. House has one of these babies in his office.

One of the other fantastic chairs we saw was a Womb Chair.  It looks nothing like it sounds.  It was surprisingly one of the most comfortable chairs to sit in.  It’s slightly on the firm side, but the way it cradles you is amazing.  

It doesn't look like it, but it is comfortable!

We also popped into Retro Rose which is just a couple doors down from the Green Ant.  After selecting your furnishings at Green Ant head over to Retro Rose to pick up your retro accessories.  They have everything from mirrors and clocks to vases and dinnerware. 

It was so much fun to take travel back in time for part of the afternoon.  The best part of the day, aside from seeing these fantastic pieces, is knowing that we have such great local shops in Salt Lake City.