Tranquil Traditional

This Traditional living room was destined to become a relaxing, inviting space.  The client wanted a place where she could read a book, relax and enjoy her time in a formal living room and we gave her exactly what she wanted.

When the room was initially started it was almost a blank canvas to work from.  Granted the house had been lived in for many years, but in design terms there was nothing holding us back from creating a beautiful space.  When I first saw the room all of the existing furiture was cleared out and it was being used as a storage place while another room was being remodeled. I looked past the stored items and got down to work.

First thing that needed to change was the 9' wall with one post at the end of the wall leading up to the 14' vault. We built up the wall A. to close off the openness from living to family and dining room and B. to add updated recessed lighting above where the sofa was to be placed. Plus, this gave us a nice full wall to add decorative woodwork and showcase more of our gorgeous wallpaper.

Since the client loves traditional homes and all of the gorgeous wood working that goes in them. Adding wainscoting was definitely the way to go. We saved money by adding only a chair rail and pencil moldings to shape the panels.  By adding the wainscot the room now had two directions it could take, paint everything walls and wainscot OR use a different wall covering above the wainscot to add more pizazz and then paint the wainscot.  Wallpaper was chosen for a more elegant, traditional feel as well as adding a different visual point of interest.  Also since our client was a big fan of wallpaper in the 90's we let her indulge in this since it's in style again.  Because the living room is open to the rest of the home a beautiful floral gold wallpaper was chosen for it's Traditional motif as well as the color to coordinate with the golden paint in the adjacent rooms. 

Next it was a matter of selecting furniture.  The furniture came in stages because we and the client wanted to get just the right look for the room. Plus, this was quite a tricky room because although you can't tell in the after pictures, no part of this room is symmetrical, plus there's an angled wall by the sofa which makes it that more difficult. An elegant petite ivory sofa was selected to bring neutrality to the room and not compete with the wallpaper.  This was a difficult piece we almost had to custom build since it needed to be small enough to work on the angled wall and balance the two chairs sitting opposite in the room, while still being cozy enough to sit and read.

With a fabulous cocktail table and console selected later we were ready to finalize chairs.  We found these wonderfully shaped chairs with an okay fabric but it wasn't perfect.  We took the client to the fabric showroom and sorted through about 30 different options, well we narrowed the 30 down to about 5 for the client and from that she picked her favorite with our guidance.  Custom upholstery on the chairs took about 8 weeks to have them fabricated, but man do they look fantastic in the room.

For a change of pace instead of a traditional wood end table we selected a gold basket table with a glass top.  It's fun, different and works amazing in the space.  We added various accessories and lamps to bring the room together.

Let me present you with the finished project (the befores have wandered away, but we will post them soon).