FROM START TO FINISH: The Coastal Contemporary Home

This project gave my clients a chance to really establish a space that felt like their own! Updating layers of beige to a clean coastal contemporary look with navy, white, and gold accents, this main floor renovation truly changed the feel of this client's house.

When these clients first called me, they wanted to update their existing carpet, choose some new paint, and build a cabinet to house their TV. They thought they might want to replace existing carpeted areas with tile, but weren't sure about how to make everything work together. What we embarked on became a 4-month long renovation of their entire main floor, which now genuinely reflects my client's style and lifestyle!

Check out this before shot of the family room (right) and the paint swatch samples on the dining room wall (below):

Choosing a paint color was our first task. These clients knew they wanted to change from beige to light gray, but the question was: WHICH GRAY?! This is something many people have faced in recent years, with the uptick in gray walls throughout residential interiors. With limited light, we needed to stay away from the cool-undertoned bluish grays and silvers in order to brighten the space. We settled on a very clean, slightly warm toned gray from Sherwin Williams called Roycroft Mist Gray. I had it custom blended to a 75% tint, just to insure that it wasn't too dark for this client's home.

Next: flooring. When B.W. Tile was able to give us a competitive bid for replacing the flooring throughout the main floor, my clients decided to proceed with having all their flooring replaced. No longer did we have to worry about matching existing cherry hardwood with square bathroom tiles and beige carpets in various areas! Wood-grain tile planks now cover the entire main floor and open the space up in a coherent and classy way. In addition, the durability of this material means that this family's indoor/outdoor lifestyle is now easy to support and maintain!

The demolition process for their glued-down hardwood floors was fierce! A few days of noise and dust had to be endured, but when the wood-grain tile planks were laid in place, it was all worth it! Check out the in-progress shots below:

While this demo and installation was happening, I was busy refining the design for the family room media built-in cabinet. With a SuperBowl party deadline, all aspects of this task needed to be ON TRACK! Thankfully, Girelli Designs was at my side and able to deliver exactly the piece I had drawn up to meet my client's needs -- down to custom cutting 5-inch wide tongue-and-groove planks for the beadboard-style background we were looking for. The pedestal was installed early to allow for optimal flooring placement, and the remainder of the built-in cabinet was finished it to our specs in Girelli Designs' shop before being installed on-site. You can see the bare subfloor below, with the cabinet pedestal lined up in it's future home:

Custom cushions were designed for the tops of the storage benches, and I was thrilled to be able to finally use Maxwell Fabrics' Hip Squares (in Marine colorway) for a project. A sample of this fabric has been sitting on my desk for a year now, waiting for just the right home, and this was IT! I'm so glad that the clients loved how the navy and white square textures helped to offset the white molding of the built-in and the warm sand tones of the floors.

New lighting was chosen throughout to enhance the coastal feel of the home -- open chandeliers in orb and square shapes, seeded glass pendants over the island to expose Edison-style bulbs, and ambient accent lights to brighten up the the family room.

In addition, window shades in the kitchen and powder room were customized to meet these client's precise needs -- seagrass style with a durable continuous loop chain provide some privacy while allowing light to filter through and carry on that coastal vibe.

As finishing touches, area rugs, wall art, and decorative accessories were all chosen to show this space off as a Southern California retreat for this busy family of four. In conclusion, my clients said it best: they feel like they live in a new home! It was a pleasure to work with them on this project, and their joy at being surrounded by a space that truly reflects their style is exactly why I'm in this line of work!

Here are the final reveal photos:

(1) After: Family Room

(2): Custom-designed built-in cabinet and curated accessories