Design With What You Have

A large part of Jace Interiors is focused on "Designing With What You Have". This can come about in two ways. The first option is to use what the homeowner currently owns to create a new room and the second option is to design a room that they can, overtime move pieces to other rooms in their house. Most often this starts with a color scheme that flows throughout the home. Below is a perfect example of 2 rooms which can share accents and furniture.

The blue Christopher Spitzmiller lamp is shown here in the Living Room but could also be used in the guest room as seen in the image below. The accent pillows on the chairs could also be easily moved to the bedroom to give a new feel to the space!

 

It is difficult to see the full scale of this round table but I would bet I could find a new home for it in the living room! It is fun to look at your current accent pieces in a new way. Living Room and Bedroom accents are often interchangeable! 

When was the last time you moved a piece from one room to another? Window panels, wall decor and area rugs are easy and quick change to make a room feel new again without spending a penny! Give it a try!

(images from House Beauitful - Leslie Klotz)

An Affordable Sun Porch Design

A motto of Jace Interiors is "Design With What You Have" quite often clients call me saying they don't have the budget to buy all new furniture but still want a new room feel. How do we accomplish this? We mix what they currently own with a few new pieces, it's like one big puzzle and I love the challenge! This photo is a perfect example!

Dust off that old picnic table from the side yard and bring it inside. Maybe give it a coat of  high gloss white paint if you are looking for a more modern scheme or leave it natural for a rustic feel. To create the look above pair the table with a few metal chairs from a budget friendly place like Home Decorators Club. Use the existing picnic bench propped against a wall with a long cushion from HomeGoods and you will have a similar room! If you really want to take it up a notch purchase Sunbrella accent pillow covers only and recover the pillows that you are not using (maybe the ones that are sitting on the guest room bed that no one ever see)! Finally you will have a sun porch that you will be happy to entertain in and you didn't spend a ton of money!

(image from Steven Gambrel House Beautiful)

Design With What You Have - Holiday Decorating

When you are starting out in a new house you might not have too many decorations for the holidays. Instead of going out and buying everything in sight why not start with what you already own? At Jace Interiors we call it  "Design With What You Have" or "shop your home"!

As I wrote in today's Monday Morning Happy, I was over at Vog's house and decided to do a quick mantelscape with a few pieces around the house. This is what it looked like before the "designer" took hold of it!! Here is what I found:

I knew we he had these sparkly ornaments in 2 sizes large and small (you can get them at Target right now for $1 a pack!!) so all I needed was to find something to display them in. The key was to find a piece that was tall enough but still narrow enough to fit on the mantel. This tall hurricane worked perfectly!

Next I asked for a pair of cutters and took hold of the fern tree in the front yard. Snip Snip Snip and there I had some greens for the mantel top and to add to the hurricane.

First I wanted to create a little nest with the greens as a bed for the first ornament to sit in. This meant my pieces needed to be small and bendable.

Next I layered in one ornament at a time than a layer of greens, a few smaller ornaments, a green one to add unexpected color (working with what we had..) than I continued with the greens. Towards the top I placed a few smaller bulbs which went in the opposite direction! The layering created some depth and textured. If I just threw in the ornaments, it would have looked to sparse for me.

Once I placed it on the mantel and stepped back I realized I needed to fill it in a bit more and add some sprigs coming from the top for a more natural feel. Than I placed the remaining greens around the mantel and nestled in the extra ornaments. I also added a little fire station I found on a bookshelf by propping it up with a few natural colored coasters to give it height. Just make sure to camouflage the "lift" with your extra ferns!!

This is the other side of the mantel. I am going to sift through my own stash of holiday decorations and fill in the empty spots but this is a good start, especially since we started with a blank slate!!

Do you shop your own house for the holidays?

(images from Jace Interiors)