Tap into Marin designers’ good tips
As Marin residents have found themselves at home a lot more this past year, some may be looking around their space and considering small tweaks or larger improvement projects in the future.
Designers can be wonderful sources for ideas and often save their clients time and money, simply because of a designer’s wealth of knowledge and wellhoned experience.
While discussing the subject of tiles years ago, one design industry professional told me she figured the world was divided into two camps — those who want as many choices as possible and those who feared being overwhelmed by too many choices.
Do you know into which camp you fall? Do you want to see every option available or do you prefer being presented with a curated selection?
Knowing and accepting this will help clarify your search and make it much more enjoyable and fruitful.
Recently, a San Rafael homeowner told me that because her beloved grand piano took up much of the dining area in the combined living and dining spaces, she had to rethink the space without rebuilding it.
Her living and dining space is now just a living room, and the family room, adjacent to her kitchen, has now been repurposed into a perfectly suited dining room. Sometimes, reinventing a space opens up lots of possibilities.
She also said she liked the idea of the granite kitchen countertop continuing up the wall as a backsplash and over the windowsills for a more streamlined look.
Heather K. Bernstein of Kentfield’s Heather K. Bernstein Interior Design (hkbinteriordesign.com) has a great suggestion along those lines.
“Whenever you are introducing multiple materials in a kitchen, make sure it carries over somewhere to tie it all together,” she says. “To make a bathroom feel larger, carry the floor tile into the shower pan.”
Another talented designer, who liked to integrate a home’s interior with its landscape, repeated her mantra to me often, much like her design approach — “when you plant, plant in masses and repeat.” This will help you get a nice line in
the garden and avoid a choppy look.
You can also use this successfully in your home to create a cohesive look. Repeating a color in accent pieces across a room allows the eye to follow a pleasing flow without awkward stops.
Some designers like to take their cue for a room from a favorite rug or sentimental item and then build the room around that. Do you have a favorite showcase piece? Highlight it by carefully introducing pieces that support it.
Designers and home staging experts often remind clients to maintain a well-edited space.
This is especially important if you want that gorgeous magazine spread look for your home. Some stagers will remove every item in a room and then carefully reintroduce only the pieces that work well.
Since we can’t always be objective about our own homes, a helpful suggestion is to take photographs of a room from different angles, print them out and then edit extraneous items out of the image. This visual trick can help create an aesthetically appealing look.
And if color stumps you, veteran interior designer Jo Ann Hartley of San Rafael’s Jo Ann Hartley Interior Design (joannhartley.com) has a clever trick up her sleeve.
“I had a client once with the most beautiful clothes, exquisite skin and red hair, but her living room was all gray; it was like a mausoleum,” Hartley says. “I asked to look into her closet and there were all these beautiful colors, so I knew she was ready to take a chance and be more exuberant.”
Now, she says, “when I work with a client, I look into their closet and see what colors they are drawn to.”
This small observation can help make a room spectacular, she says.
Show off
Since so many of the popular home tours are off the calendar this year, please consider this your invitation to share with fellow readers the images and description of your newly designed or remodeled Marin home.
We’d also like to see pretty images of your winter-dormant Marin garden and any wildlife you happen to photograph in or around it.
Please send an email describing either one, what you love most about it and a photograph or two. I will post the best ones in upcoming columns. Your name will be published and you must be over 18 years old and a Marin resident.
Don’t-miss events
• Author and gardening aficionado Toni Gattone will share her tips in a free virtual program, “You Can Garden for Life: Gardening With Ease at Any Age,” at 1 p.m. Thursday. Register for the event, sponsored by the Outdoor Art Club, at outdoorartclub.org.
• Join JC Miller and Reuben Rainey from 5 to 6 p.m. Thursday in a virtual illustrated presentation as the two authors discuss post-war modern landscape and the subject of their new book, “Robert Royston: Landscape Architect,” the designer of Marin Art & Garden Center’s Pixie Park. Admission is $10. Call 415-4555260 or register at maringarden.org.