Designing Gender Neutral Nurseries

Gender Neutral Nursery Design via Vivint Neighborhood Blog

It has been quite awhile since I have had to decorate a nursery of my own, and back then there were far fewer choices to design gender neutral nurseries without a traditional theme. My recent post for Vivint Home Neighborhood blog shares my thoughts on designing a gender neutral nursery inspired by both color and the latest design trends. It’s so much easier these days to create a welcoming environment for both baby and parents that’s unique, not expected. Below are my design plans that didn’t make it into the Vivint post, featuring custom furnishings and carpets from Bassett Furniture paired with limited edition prints that I selected from Minted (such a great site!) I love choosing art for interiors, and nurseries can be such a fun place to try out cool pieces by non-traditional artists.  

{Pink + Blue Nursery}

Grapefruity by Katie Craig

via Minted

{Gray Nursery}

Sea Fever by Dean Street

via Minted

{Nature Inspired Nursery}

All is Quiet by Jenni Kupelian

via Minted 

{Black + White Nursery}

Falling Stitches by Bethan

via Minted

And below is one of my favorite nurseries of late, designed by Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent for their little one, Poppy. Read my related post on celebrity design for Vivint here.

design: Nate Berkus + Jeremiah Brent

photo credit: Douglas Friedman

image via Architectural Digest 

More of my posts for Vivint here.

Magic Carpets + Makeovers

New home with new furniture plus one of my favorite carpets from Bassett.

After spending the last year recommending sofas, ottomans, chairs, accent tables, and more, I am very certain of one thing: anchoring the space with the right carpet is the best way to achieve a well designed look. The carpet adds visual harmony, often bringing in the colors of the fabrics, incorporating the shades of the wood furnishings, or adding an additional layer of color, all while presenting a feeling of luxurious comfort to the space. Even with all new furniture, a room just does not look “right” if all the legs are on a naked floor.

My best interior makeovers have always included a new carpet to tie our selected design elements together. Below are some of my recent favorites ...

Handcrafted dining furniture paired with host chairs and carpet from Bassett.

A large scale geometric carpet adds a modern touch to this classic bedroom.

– Simple With Elegance –

A floral and lattice style carpet lightens up the heavy black dining furniture.

 A simple stair runner from Karastan paired with a wool carpet from Bassett.

This stairway is adjacent to the dining room above. All colors and patterns had to work together in this open and connected space. Likewise, the colors on the second floor pulled from the same palette of soft blues and warm neutrals so that each room would flow from one to the other. The small square below shows a fresh, organic style area rug that we selected to coordinate, yet contrast, with the traditional patterned carpet that the homeowner was using in her walk-in closet.

– A Modern Victorian –

For this makeover, the homeowner had already chosen her furnishings, but was at a loss on how to choose the right carpet to work with her jewel toned fabrics in her traditional Victorian-era home. We looked at a number of different carpet choices, from wool geometric patterns to solid shags. The key was finding the right color and pattern that could hold its own with the saturated palette of the pieces in the room.

  

Along with determining the right carpet for her space, we also had custom pillows made in fabrics that worked with her bright colors and bold patterns. This may have been a small project design-wise on my part, but having this type of professional guidance at the end was just what the client needed.

“I finally unrolled the carpet (busy week) and wow, you were brilliant with this one. We were working with difficult variables, and this final piece pulls it ALL together. Thank you so much. It is the happy room I want!” – Lynn P.

Finished room with new carpet and pillows.

Custom bolster pillows in citrus-bright geometric pattern from Bassett.

– A Pink and Green Prepped Room –

I loved working with this sweet, and traditional, client on her new downsized home. She was very confident that she wanted to incorporate her favorite color, pink, throughout. These photos show how the custom furniture that we selected looked in her brand new space soon after she moved in. Notice how the carpet is not to scale? Choosing an appropriately sized one was next on the list, along with accent tables, window shutters, artwork, and the hanging of a pretty chandelier over the dining area. The room will not be as inviting as it can be until these last pieces of the design puzzle are in place. 

Follow my Instagram account for future updates on my design related projects. This year I will be working at Bassett by appointment only. I will also be working on some large scale creative projects for corporate, retail, and even pop-up spaces via White Light Visual in Beverly. How I ended up there is a story for another day ...

Winter’s last breath ...

The snapshot above was taken last Sunday. I was so excited to see these crocuses making their way out of their frozen slumber! Today we are buried under a foot of the white stuff again. 

While a monochromatic canvas exists outside my window, my thoughts drift to colorful bouquets and flower shows ... 

Spring on my mind ...

On Monday night, the annual Art in Bloom exhibit at the Lynnfield Library will be opening. I am hoping to find some pretty spring-like blossoms this weekend to use in my floral interpretation of a local high school student’s artwork. Last year was the first time our garden club opened up the show to student artists. The collaboration was really inspiring and brought a youthful energy to the exhibit. This year we have even more students participating. I promise to share some favorite photos after the event.

“Pastorale” by Beth Aaronson // floral arrangement by Bootie Stevens
View Art in Bloom 2012 here

If you are in town, stop by the library between 7:30 – 9 pm to join us for the opening night reception with the artists and members of the Village Home and Garden Club. Refreshments will be served and there will be some raffle prizes. Last year someone took home a gorgeous tree from Northeast Nursery to plant in their yard. Art in Bloom is open to the public through Friday, March 15th.

Boston Flower and Garden Show 2011
Stone gate and garden by New England Land Artisan of Stratham, NH 

featured in New England Finery, April 2011 

The ultimate interior landscape ...

I just realized that the Boston Flower and Garden Show opens next week and runs Wednesday through Sunday at the Seaport World Trade Center. I hope I can make it over there before it ends. Like many of my New England neighbors, I am in serious need of brightly-hued flowers, warm sunshine, and the smell of fragrant blossoms to beckon me back outdoors.

Boston Flower and Garden Show 2011

New England Arts and Flowers of Walpole, MA

featured in New England Finery, April 2011

Suzani Design Rug, Hand-Knotted in Pakistan

available at Landry and Arcari

Fabulous florals in silk and wool ...

The final seminar in the Boston Home Magazine Passport to Design series was rescheduled to Thursday, March 14th (canceled from its original night on the 7th because of you guessed it, another snowstorm). I will be at the Landry and Arcari showroom in Salem, MA from 6 to 8pm with my peeps from Designer Bath and the rest of the Passport to Design team members. Registered guests will learn how to select fine carpets to decorate their homes. If you would like to attend, please email contact@landryandarcari.com to get your name on the list. This will be the final opportunity to enter to win the $20,000 Home Makeover Sweepstakes, which could easily outfit any home with a fresh new look for spring.

Rugs as art + Saturday yard sale

A carpet covered trunk from Landry & Acari


During the North Shore Design Show held at the Wenham Museum in May, I was able to sit in on a number of design lectures that were scheduled over the course of the week. While in attendance, I took lots of notes (along with many snapshots) knowing that I would share what I learned with my blog readers at a later date. Today I will discuss some
really large works of art ...

A loom was brought into the museum to
demonstrate the art of carpet weaving.

Jerry Acari holds a Chinese Art Deco carpet designed
with what looks like a Guardian Lion or Foo dog.

Many varieties of rugs were displayed from Landry & Acari’s oriental rug gallery. Jerry Acari, who has been in the rug business for over 40 years, is a noted expert on oriental rugs and often lectures on the who, what, when, where and how behind these functional works of art. Each piece is representative of quite likely a year or two of concentrated human effort, in which teams of weavers combine their heart, soul and spirit to create their textile masterpieces. It really is amazing how much cultural information can be found in each of these carpets, especially if you know what to look for ...

I like how this Sardis carpet from India and the
old-fashioned jar of marbles on a sill in the
lecture room shared the same colorways.

Persian Sarouk,
circa 1915

In general, carpets that are produced by hand are often more visually interesting than those produced to the exact standards and measurements of a machine. Sometimes there will be a change in thread color (the weaver ran out of the original choice), or different types of wool may be used depending on market availability at the time, and some carpet ends may even stop short pattern-wise because the rug makers were ready to call it a day! Modern carpet makers, like Karastan, often try to emulate these unplanned –
yet distinctive – pattern variations.


This Art Deco carpet from Turkey
dates back to around 1925

In the photo above, the rug in the center, with its symmetrical and curvilinear pattern, is called a “city” rug. City rugs are created in heavily populated areas that are exposed to the influence of a
variety of world markets.

A “tribal” rug is often asymmetrical in pattern, with a wool foundation, done in a wide variety of colors. This type of carpet, like the Karabagh from Azerbejan above, is more representative of family or tribal influences over outside markets.

This wool and silk Suzani tapestry was created by a tribe in Turkmenistan and features fine needlework and brilliant colors. Bold geometric patterns like this are a popular trend in design right now.

A bridal spread (used for a newly married couples bed) is created by village women combining pieces cut from their embroidered shawls, stitching them
together with golden threads.

Rugs often have different looks from one end to the other. On the one above, you can see how the color of the flowers in the center rectangle are lighter at the bottom, with more pinks and whites, while the top has more navy and scarlet blossoms. When you lay a carpet in your space, walk around it and take a good look from each angle before deciding upon final placement. The effect of light and dark can be dramatically different! Inquire about taking a carpet home to see how it looks in your home before purchasing ... it is the best way to know for sure if a rug will work with your design plan.

An interesting story: Synthetic red dye was often applied by hand and paint brush to the tips of each carpet strand of a multitude of imported rust colored Sarouk rugs over a period of twenty years that were originally ordered to be an oriental red (the rose colored strands unexpectedly changed to rust as a result of alkaline in the finishing process). Then in the 1990’s, these same rugs were often stripped back to their original rust colorings by a company that is still based in Poughkeepsie, NY. Trends come and go, but it seems a well-made oriental will last forever!

This carpet was custom-designed by Landry & Acari to coordinate with the colors and design of an oriental pattern. This is a good way to add a
modern look to a traditionally-styled room.

Today’s technology of communicating via the internet has considerably decreased the production time of carpets made over seas, not to mention it is easier to achieve the desired end result when images can be sent back and forth with the click of a mouse! It is not unusual to see a tent on-site with a computer set up so that the rug foreman can relay design and pattern information to the talented team of weavers. If you were to order a custom rug today, you are likely to receive it in 4 to 5 months instead of having to wait years for your work of art to arrive.
Think of the design possibilities!


To read more about Landry & Acari and their
commitment to their community, click here.




For information about the Good Weave campaign that works to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry and the companies that support the mission of
the Good Weave program, click here.

To donate to Barakatworld, an organization working in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Boston to support the education of children and women of carpet-weaving communities by building schools and providing free education, visit Barakatworld.org

And don’t forget, carpets
aren’t just for floors!

Kilim Footstool from Landry & Acari

For ten tips on choosing
the right carpet, click here.

If you are local and in the market for a new rug, head over to the one-day yard sale that Landry & Acari is participating in at the Beverly Depot parking lot (Saturday, June 19th only). Maybe you will find the perfect combination of pattern and color that you have been looking for? You will surely find some beautiful carpets worth a closer look. Also at the sale: Circle Furniture, Designer Bath, and Moynihan Lumber. I just might have to head over myself since our kitchen and bath are still gutted without anything to put in them! Click here for photos from last years sale.
Happy hunting!