SLIPCOVERED KITCHEN BAR STOOLS

I did the slipcovers for the bar stools in November or December.  I had one of the chairs at my house and when I delivered them, only one of the other stools could be located.  The house was still being renovated, and we all knew that there were three stools originally.  Eventually, the 'lost' chair was found, and the kitchen was finally finished.

The fabric is a dark gray Sunbrella with a contrast flat welt and banding on the skirt in an aqua check.

At the bar in the kitchen.

With one of the paisley throw pillows, just for a little more color.

  The nice thing about the slipcovers is since they are made with Sunbrella, the wear and tear will be minimal, and they can simply be wiped down if food is spilled on them.

'FORMAL' CASUAL LIVING ROOM DRAPERIES

I have tried and tried to get good pictures of these draperies, and this is the best I was able to do.  

The above picture was taken before the furniture was even in the living room.  The fabric is from Designers Guild Limited through Osborne & Little Inc.  The pattern is called Orsoglio and the color is Azure.  The panels have inverted pleats, puddle on the floor, and to make them even more luxurious, they are interlined.  Though the fabric looks and acts like silk, it is a cotton/polyester blend.

In the next two pictures, you can see why I had trouble taking pictures.  When the draperies are open, it is too bright outside, and all that really shows up is the street.  It seemed I was always at this house during the middle of the day, which meant the sun was always an issue.

Short of going over at night to take pictures, I did the best I could with what I had to work with.  And why I did not take a shot from further back, I have no idea.  The sectional is full of pillows that I made, but for some reason it did not occur to me to put both pillows and draperies in the same picture.  Actually, I just looked again and there is one:

And it's a great picture of the street outside the window, but not so much the draperies, or even the pillows on the sofa.  Oh, well, I think you get the idea!

BALLOON VALANCE OF SORTS

I delivered these balloon valances (the other is not visible in pictures) a couple weeks before Christmas.  When my client saw them up, she said, "I don't like them.  I don't like khaki."  Well, that upset me greatly, though I did my best to remain calm.  It would have been very helpful to me if she or the designer had mentioned this kind-of-important fact to me before I made them.  And when I saw the picture of it, I thought, 'she's right, they really don't look that good.'

The solution was to unmount them from the boards, which would involve removing the million staples I had used to make sure it was nice and secure,  and reverse the pleats so that the turquoise that ended up inside the poofs would be out and the khaki that she did not care for would be inside.  I literally thought, and worried, about this all through Christmas.  And when I got back, I texted her and said that, of course, I would happily fix them.

Turned out, though that the designer had fooled with them and was able to somehow pull enough of the turquoise out of the pleat that the client was happy.  I had to admit when I saw it that it wasn't bad.  Yes, the khaki is still prominent, but at least the prettier color is now showing.

Although it is not so evident in the pictures, this fabric is really quite lovely.  And incredibly expensive!  It is from Designers Guild and, at wholesale, it is $250 a yard.  The fabric alone for these two windows was $1000!

  I learned a valuable lesson on this job...make sure the likes and dislikes of certain colors are communicated clearly to me.  I make what I am told to make, but I do not want a client to be unhappy with something that I've done, whether my fault or not.  And while it would have been a huge pain to 'fix' these balloon shades, I would have done it.  Even though my client was not initially happy, in the end, she was.  And that made me happy!

EURO SHAMS AND DOUBLE FLANGED THROW PILLOWS

More pillows for the master bedroom...

The same fabric as the balloon shades was used on these Euro squares.  Because the fabric is not an even pattern, there is no way to center the stripe so that it is a mirror image.

But they can be turned so that either the black stripe is in the center as in the previous shot, or the white/silver is.

The double flanged pillows in the front add color to the room.

In the wider view of the bed, the roman shade is visible.  Both of these fabrics are Designers Guild.

BOXED PILLOWS AND MATCHING ROMAN SHADE

The job with Cara Clancy continues...

These boxed pillows turned out great, but as with most everything else on this particular job, they were a big, fat pain to make.

What made them difficult was the pleated linen welting.  The linen was much too heavy to pleat.  As always, though, I did it anyway.

I like to tell myself that I get the jobs I do because I CAN to them, even when they are not simple or easy.  (Sounds good and makes me feel better.)

This is the guest room.

And in the guest bathroom, a roman shade made of the same fabric.  It is always a challenge to photograph shades when it is really sunny outside.  And since I do not normally deliver items at night, I frequently run into this problem.  This is sunny Southern California, after all!

The shade pulled up.

EXTRA LARGE CHAIRS

This is the same chair I did back in the spring for the home of the designer on this job.  At the time she had me make a permanent pattern because this is a chair she likes to use in all the homes she does.  It is super big, but then again, the homes she works on are super big.  Perfect fit!

The fabric, a heavy linen, is photographing as aqua, but it is really a much more teal green than it looks here.

Since the house is still in the process of being finished, it looks very empty.

The back of the chair, with large buttons, since the size I usually use would have needed about 20, and would have looked ridiculous.  And because the chair is very rounded, the buttons are actually needed to make the slipcover fit properly.

A couple weeks later I was back at the house delivering other items, and took these shots.  By then, pictures had been hung and accessories added so it was looking more like a lived-in home.

The window treatment fabric has yet to arrive, but once it does, there will be balloon valances on the windows that look into the courtyard of the house. The fabric is another gorgeous Designers Guild stripe like nothing I have ever seen.  I look forward to making them and posting the finished room.

BALLOON SHADES

Another gorgeous fabric from Designers Guild Limited.  This one is called Caviglia, color Noir.

This is the master bedroom of a renovation I have been working on with Cara Clancy here on Coronado.  This is the second time I've made balloon shades with this exact fabric.  The first time was for Cara's own home.

The larger shade is 72" wide, the smaller is 36".  All are lined with blackout, which make them exceptionally heavy.  I originally wanted to split the larger shade, but Cara wanted no light leakage that would have occurred because it is one large pane of glass.  I have to admit, she was right.

This is to the right of the corner window, beside the bed.

The french door got a flat-stitched roman shade.  And the window in the hallway leading into the master bedroom also got a big balloon shade.

The roman shade half closed so you can see the fabric better.  As beautiful as these fabrics are, they are quite challenging to work with as the repeat is huge and not necessarily even.  There is no centering of one stripe with a mirror image on either side.  Still, it all looks lovely in the room.  And, as always, the most important thing is the client is happy!

DESIGNERS GUILD PILLOWS

I've been working a lot with Designers Guild fabrics lately.  Cara Clancy, designer extraordinaire, uses them a lot in the houses she does.

This pattern is called Hiranya, color Fuchsia, and though I am not a huge fan of orange, the hot pink more than makes up for it.

This pattern lent itself well to the double flange style that Cara is so fond of.

One of the challenges with Designers Guild fabrics is the repeat is usually quite large and really works better in draperies, where the entire repeat is visible.  Given that, I still thought they turned out nicely.  And Cara loved them, which was the whole point.

INVERTED PLEAT LINEN DRAPERY PANEL

The width of this doorway/opening to the backyard is 180".  When the designer told me she wanted one panel, not a pair, that would stack to the far left side, I told her it was too big an expanse, that there had to be a center support because the weight of the panel would bow the rod.  And with a center support, half the rings would be stuck on the other side of that support.

That Cara Clancy is so cleaver, though!  She had a rod made with the needed center support and special rings that slip past the center so that panel CAN be pushed to one side!  I was so amazed that this was even possible, but as you can see from the picture above and below, it's all on the left side of the rod.

We chose to less fullness than normal for the inverted pleat drapery panel. The usual is 2 1/2 - 3 times full.  In this case, I made it only about 1 1/4 times full. But because the panel will almost always be open, the less fabric in the panel, the less the window will be covered, and it still looks nice when it's closed.

The stripe even looks nice all bunched up.

More of an over all view of the dining room with the drapery panel shut.

A VERY VINTAGE LOOKING FABRIC

This bed in the guest room of my client's home has a very vintage-y vibe to it.  Though it looks to be old, the fabric is new.  

I made the 3 pillows - the 2 Euro squares and the long pillow in front.  (The headboard was done by the upholsterer.)

       

The Euro shams have a flat flange with pleated corners and the long pillow has self-welting.  We used the solid fabric on the back, as well.  The green makes the black and white really pop!

The print on the fabric, not to mention it being black and white, is what gives it the 'old' feel.

SILK BURLAP ROMAN SHADE

Though I've never been a big fan of burlap...it's itchy, it smells funny, it's hard to work with...silk burlap is a whole other story.  

This roman shade is in the downstairs powder room of the house I've been working on with Cara Clancy.  To give it a little more pizazz, I added grosgrain ribbon, which shows best when the shade is closed.

The designer wanted bigger folds, so instead of six inches between tucks, I did ten.  The bigger the space, though, the more of the window the shade covers even when pulled all the way up.  In this case, the view is of the fence and the neighbor's house, so more coverage was preferable.

It is very challenging to take pictures in the afternoon of windows that face west.  Even the flash can't knock out the sunlight.  Hence the side angel shot.

OCCASIONAL CHAIR AND OTTOMAN

It's kind of hard to see, but this fabric is a light blue and khaki stripe, and goes perfectly in this very neutral home.  

The button-back is really just decorative.  When I put the slipcover on the chair, I did not even unbutton it.  This chair does float, though, and the buttons are more interesting than a plain back.

Throw pillow with self-welting

Flanged pillow

The blue of the chair picks up the blue of the swimming pool.