Decorating questions answered

Welcome to the second OY VEY!! Q&A!! answer post.

Boy, did I get more questions this week!!!
I'll try to get to all of them, but I'm not promising nothin'!
The ones I don't get to today, I'll continue answering tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next Tuesday at the start of the questions party. I'm figuring this out as I go.


Just remember you get what you pay for, and this advice is free.......


First I need to put up a pretty picture, so that when folks get thumbnails of my blog, they'll want to stop by.
(Amy Chalmers of Maison Decor told me to do this, and I do everything she says. Her husband is a cop, so I don't mess with her.)

'cuz if I start with a picture of a problem room, then that's what shows up on blogrolls, and NO ONE will ever come see this @#$ blog.


While I'm at it, I'm occasionally going to vent a pet peeve, and today is the FIRST one. 
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH DRAW STRINGS ON STRETCH WASTE BANDS????
It's bad enough I need to buy pants with elastic in the waste band.....I mean....we know our tummy ain't flat.
So then they go ahead and add a drawstring as if to say......."some skinny person may have to borrow your pants someday, but you're so @#$ fat that they'll need help keeping the @#$ pants up!!!"


OK, now I feel better, thanks for listening.
ON TO THE Q&A!!!


Question #1
 Amy @MaisonDecorJan 18, 2012 03:31 AM

Me again! Love this party~I am link #6. I got a comment saying the rectangle shape of the new painting doesn't look right under the carved arch thing on the mantle. I thought it looked fine, but I understand what she meant. You put the round wire basket there~do I have to get a framed art in a curved shape?

The issue isn't whether the painting is round or square, but all about proportion in the space under the carving detail. The negative space (space around an object) is just as important as the positive space (the object itself). You need something vertical; that was why I loved the mirror you had leaning there before it broke. If I were paranoid, I'd swear you broke it on purpose, because you could psychically feel that it was my favorite mirror in your house, and you know my issue with all your millions of other mirrors.
Think of the way you would arrange furniture in a long narrow room (like the space over the mantle), you wouldn't want to line the sofa up along the wall, but have it jut into the room to help with the spaces proportion. 
p.s. I love the vases on the top shelves of the bookcase!


Question #2

Hi Betsy,

I'm one of your blog followers and absolutely love your sense of humor.  OK, now that I've tried to butter you up a bit, I'm going to ask for your help :-)

After seeing your latest post of your cottage and how you changed the exterior, what would you suggest for this house?  This is our new house and it needs "something" done to the front...not just landscaping.  I've got several ideas rolling around in my head but wouldn't mind your expert opinion...and I don't want to influence you...in case we might just happen to have some of the same ideas. 

There are lilies planted in that sad,dormant flower bed in front and that awful bark covering on top of the soil. (It always looks dead and it gets everywhere! It is going as soon as spring arrives in North Dakota!)  I've got lots of perennials I'm planning to retrieve from our old house this spring/summer...just to let you know I've got access to some beautiful flowers.

Thanks :-)

Connie Nikiforoff

P.S.  I absolutely hate that red door and mailbox!  I mean, since the house is a pale green, it looks like a Christmas-wanna-be color scheme!  Ick!  As soon as the weather allows, the color will be changed!

I have a ton of ideas, and they would absolutely trash your budget......
So I'm going to rein myself in, and try to think along the lines of helping someone who has a life other than just fixing up houses way beyond their neighborhood price-point.
It looks like you have single pane windows, so you could do what I did and install removable wooden window grills to give the house more of a cottagey look. It will make them look like they have mullions.
LIKE THIS

The way the little overhang is added is really cute too.


Next I would add shutters, not the plastic screw on kind, but I would save up for a decent quality wood pair, just for the big window, and hang them like the old fashioned shutters are hung, overlapping the window casing, not installed outside the casing.


NOT LIKE THIS...

Like THIS....

These look like you could actually build them yourselves, and save yourself some moolah!

I could spend a lot more time on this, going into landscaping ideas, but I need to get to some of the other questions. 

If you want, post some follow up questions next week.

Question #3

HouseZenGarden Blog has left a new comment on your post "My Cottage Den":


Hi Betsy!
I have always admired your design and your former home with all the dog paraphernalia. Today I showed a client a magazine tear sheet (that I have saved for years) from House Beautiful(I think, or Home and Garden, etc.)that shows your former front porch with its trellis portico. I was hoping your blog would have a better picture of it. We have been working on an idea for their Cape Cod design house and your portico was one of the best designs I've seen so far.
Anyway... do you have more photos of the portico that you could share with us? Thank you for all your inspiration through the years!
Love your blog and your spirit too.
Best,
Mary Alice Smith

Although this was not a formal question from Tuesday, I am including it here because it sort of goes with the question just above. I will repost the picture of the front of my Watertown cottage.

photo by Eric Roth for House Beautiful Magazine

Question #4

Christine

Hi, Betsy, I just linked my pics under "french flundering" ( don't even know if that's a word :) Anyway, my link is my blog post for Christmas, so outside of the added "pink" here and there, The rooms are pretty much what you see. I wanted to send you this post, because, it best shows my futile attempts at French Country Style. I do Love the All White Shabby Chic thing that's going on with a lot of Bloggers out there, but, I just can't seem to Ditch the "Cutness" in my Style Forte? What to Do? What is the Best Way to Get to the Place you Want to Go adding in your Own Style in the Mix? My "TinCanCottage" is pretty much me, but How do I incorporated that Style in my own Home? 
Fun, but with Style????? 
Burn Everything and Start Over????? Paint everything White? What to Add? What To Take Away?

I was really wanting to add more interest to my blog, by adding more pics of my 'real' Home, not just my "10ft" Cottage on Wheels, But Maybe, I'm Scaring People Away :D

Thanx for your "Free" Decorators Advise!

Blogger is giving me fits again with the font size,


 so sorry. I had to go to a smaller font.

No, you don't need to burn everything.
But get ready, 'cuz I want to change a lot of stuff!!
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PILLOWS ON THE
SOFA???????

get rid of all the small white ones.
How the hello is anyone supposed to be able to sit down on the sofa with so many pillows?????
Pillows are to add comfort to a seating area, not to be there just for display!!!!!
And while I'm being bitchy (sorry) it would really help the room to change the window treatments. 
I would hang the draperies from the top of the transom windows and gather them tightly so that they don't cover the glass.

If you want a valence, hang it higher, at the ceiling, so the fabric is off the glass!!!!!


Doing this raises the eye and makes the ceiling feel higher and gives the room a nicer feeling of proportion.

I'd slip cover these chairs in white with a short flirty skirt.

I'd paint the china cabinet a nice chalky color.

And while I'm at it, GET THE FABRIC OFF THE WINDOWS!!!

I'd also lower the pair of prints hanging on the wall by around 10".

I know this doesn't answer all your questions, but I need to get to the next one.

Question #5

hi Betsy, and thanks! I'm "getgrounded" from previous posts, and I posted link no. 5 - my perfect living room quest. 
When you read my post, you'll see my goals of making my small builders tract home with no architectural interest look similar to a photo I found in a magazine that I fell in love with. When you see the photos, you'll see that I'm definitely not there yet. I have basically NO budget right now, so suggestions could be for DIY stuff, or feel free to lay out eventual stuff that I might someday have money for. Thanks! Robin

This is Robin's "inspiration picture"

Design by Jill Kantelberg

This is Robin's home

I think the way you used the pillows, to create the feeling of the striped sofa, is a really nice way to get the look you want on a budget, so bravo!!
The coffee table and bookcases  you found are affordable gems.(for you guys reading this, go to Robins blog to see the whole story)
OK, now on to the tweaks and money sucking ideas.
I'm not thrilled with the group of pictures between the bookcases.
The look you're going for is made up of single simple shapes.
I would hang one large item between them, maybe a mirror with a rustic wood frame in a white washed finish, (so it doesn't match the finish on the bookshelves)

I would also get rid of that clock, it is visually distracting. If you need to know the time, look at your cell phone.
However....
being a great and wonderful blogger, I came up with an idea that solves both the above problems in ONE FELL SWOOP!!!!
I found two different clocks at Pottery Barn that would work hanging between the two cases. Choose one or hang both, one above the other!! That's the kind of whackadoodle thing I would do, and then before I knew it, I would have started a collection of clocks.

Nah, looking at them together, I would just choose one.
I'm leaning towards the round one, the black metal brings in the feeling of the iron hinges in your inspirational picture. It also refers back in tone and texture to the coffee table, and isn't such a close match to the bookcases.
In the future, though, for a budget busting project, I would definitely clad the ceiling in wood; with its slant, I think it would be THE BOMB.
Just keep going in the direction you'er working, the next thing I would change are the table lamps.
I found these Caged Glass Table Lamps at Pottery Barn

I'd get two, one for either side of the sofa. If the tables are different heights, set one on books, to even them out.
Hope this was helpful.


Question #6.....
to be continued................


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