The All New Restoration Hardware Store

RH has completely revamped their collections for fall 2009. They have turned about 360 degrees and have embraced the Belgian/French antique look which has been all the rage by top designers in places like Houston for a while. It is gorgeous, I would love the vintage french square chairs (if I didn't have four toddlers with sticky hands of course).

I wonder...now that RH is making this look highly accessible and essentially mainstream, will designers take a significant turn of their own and forge new interior frontiers for their clients?

Before & After: Dining & Den

Before

Middle
This is a bit of a random photo, from the triplet's baptism party at our home. But you can see where the windows were, now there are french doors in their place.

After
Dinning room, peaking into the den. The new french doors give us access to our side yard and are flanked with Windsor Smith's Riad fabric in ming that she used for her sofas and chairs in her own living room. You can check out Windsor's gorgeous home in this month's Traditional Home. The lime green booster seats were not part of my design plan, but are a big improvement from our plastic high chairs.

A snapshot from the den *sigh*. The Thomas the Train table is not part of my design vision, but is part of my plan to survive a record hot summer with four kids under three years old. Notice the colorful paint on our white sofa? I'll be holding on to my white slip covered (aka bleachable) furniture at least until the kids are all over five. My pretty pillow with fabric from Raul Textiles made it out of the study just for this quick photo. Again, not a great photo, but the kids are in bed!

And finally a view from the dining into the kitchen so you can kind of get a feel for the floor plan. I have dreams for a lovely painted antique hutch here in the future. Something blue-gray or green-gray, not matching my drapery, but complementing.

Before & After: Front

I went way back for this one. Here is a photo of our house when we first purchased it. Initially we just repainted the trim and the door. We replaced the hunter green and purple with a more mossy natural green.

The homes in our neighborhood tend to be eclectic and I am all for the fun colors but they work best on the wood homes. Our stone house calls for more earthy Hansel and Gretel colors.

After remodel:




We added a second story, increased pitch of the roof and added dormers in the front and sides.

We used BM Fairview Taupe for the woodwork trim, which I adore. The siding is BM Manchester Tan. We were trying to go with a color that would blend in with the stone. But if I were to do it over again I would go a tad richer darker, or paint all the woodwork Fairview Taupe. Overall I'm still pleased with the results. And I am very happy with the mossy gray shingle color. This isn't the best photo, taken in the middle of our record setting hot summer. It is not even 9am and the sun is too bright for a good shot. It is surprising that anything is still green.


You can see the colors a bit better in this photo taken later in the day.

Before & After: Library

Entrance/Library Before

These are photos from when we were about to purchase the house...we lived in the house a couple years and changed all the paint colors before remodeling.




After our remodel.
Our front 'library' - totally real life here. The kids have pulled down all the books so many times we don't bother arranging them, we just toss them all on back on the shelves. I'd still like a new front door, the one we have is cute, it's just that the Victorian style doesn't fit with our English Cottage home. And while I'm on wish lists, I'd love to have two more chairs to create a set of four around a round coffee table, instead of the small sofa.


We had actually repainted the shelving when we first bought the house, during the remodel half the shelves were destroyed to put in a gas fireplace, then we rebuilt and repainted the same dark grayish brown BM Black Fox.

Before & After: Kitchen

I've been wanting to post some 'before and after' photos of our house remodel, but it has been challenging to find time to take photos with four tots underfoot. I decided to go ahead and post what I have, even though my photos aren't that great. Over the next few days I will share different areas of the house.

Kitchen Before


Kitchen After