On the Fringe. » Draperies

Good To Be Home

toddrichesin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:29:29 +0000

The new basement mantle. Still waiting for the glass top for the vintage lucite cocktail table.

Seating by the new basement doors overlooking the pool

Basement entry/laundry room

The basement cabinet filled with our treasures.

Our antique desk in its new home, along with a souvenir painting from Antwerp. The Russian sideboard was from the living room.

A re-purposed desk in the new office space

The new office space is amazingly comfortable. TRS made the sofas for us. The rug and zebra hide were repurposed from the living room.

New vanity, bowl, and plumbing.....as well as the wool plaid walls, in the basement bathroom

A simplified grouping of accessories on the foyer chest

The new dining room window looks fantastic from the foyer

Sideboard from the bedroom really gives us extra serving space in the kitchen

Kitchen looking toward the living room. Notice the counter top we honed, as well as the gleaming floors!

Chairs from the living room rest beautifully in the foyer.

The painting over the fireplace, a souvenir from Venice, adds new energy to the den

New floors in the den

Close up of the new den painting, and a couple of our favorites....hand made Staffordshire cats by a contemporary English artist

The den

The dining room from the living room

Chairs from the foyer look fresh in the living room

A new Louis XV lacquer desk and pair of antique Chinoiserie lamps add weight and drama to the living room

A new display cabinet holds treasures in the living room. John McGilvray built the pediment to add a little history to this room.

A new cocktail table continues the ebonized theme in the living room, and the re-positioning of some artwork adds a new look

The new rug provides a unifying backdrop for the room, and the addition of the cocktail table with a shelf helps to hold a collection of books.

Navy lacquered walls and a repurposed desk from my office add depth to the master bedroom

A simplified bed in the master bedroom. Still waiting on Sferra to complete our linen order.

New Sferra linens add brightness to the yellow bedroom

The green bedroom

A repositioned console and painting, as well as the addition of draperies really soften the green bedroom. The Scalamandre' linen was a perfect color match.....12 years after the original fabric was used for this room.

It has been a full four weeks since my last update on the progress on our home. After many tedious punch list items, we are fully complete inside, and have moved back in.

Home Choice came through! Marvin Windows sent one of their factory technicians to go through the entire house and tweak everything. They worked on every window to make sure that they were working easily and smoothly. All the screens work great now, and locks work perfectly. It is amazing the difference that this tweaking had. Home Choice has our replacement doors for the basement on order as well as one window that was not as ordered, and those should be here and installed soon. We are really happy with the finished product, and are glad that we have had a happy ending with the issues we were having with the windows. Schmid and Rhodes needs to be commended on their efforts to get all of this coordinated and making sure that it was all perfect.

The process went really smoothly….with a few minor hic-cups. The biggest time waster was the final coats of floor finish. The floor finisher did not ask what sheen level we wanted…..and considering that they installed our living room floor when we moved in 8 years ago, I didn’t think to tell them. The antique floors we have are finished with tung oil. I had put a touch up coat on the living room floor and steps a few years ago, and just used the basic Minwax tung oil finish. It renewed the floors beautifully, and gave them their original glossy sheen. Bobby and I, at the advice of Schmid and Rhodes, planned a short trip to Asheville duing the time the finish was to be applied so we would be out of the fumes. Well, the plan did not work as planned. When we came home, our floors had a matte finish on them, so ALL of the floors had to be re-coated with a glossy tung oil. Who knew that tung oil came in sheen levels? It was always shiny before, so I never thought about asking. Just goes to prove that the only stupid question is the un-asked question.

The wallpaper was installed in the basement, and it is lovely. Bill Armstrong did an amazing job on this. The stripes make for a really casual look that is perfectly appropriate as an area just off the pool, and the grasscloth texture makes it feel really cozy.

The new glossy navy paint in the master bedroom is amazing. It is one of my favorite rooms now. The paint, coupled by several re-purposed pieces of furniture, and a new grouping of art in this room have really given it a facelift.

Dan Border and his crew were diligent painters, and in the end re-coated every piece of trim in the house. Everything looks fresh and pretty…..but this is one of the things that added days to the process. The floor finishers got the tung oil finish on the base boards and stair risers, so then those had to be re-coated. Things like this just really slowed down the process. The paint is silky smooth, and now that it is complete, our door detail really pops.

Shoe molding was another pain that took time. You can’t put down shoe molding until the floors are fully finished….and since they all had to be re-done, we were late with that. The finish carpenters did a great job though, and the molding looks great now, and you cannot tell that the floors we just put down were not original. Even the trim around the kitchen island proved to add a beautiful detail to the island itself. Another molding detail was the mantle in the basement. The “wall” had been installed for a couple of weeks, but the installation of the completed mantle really dressed up the space, and gave new life to the fireplace. John McGilvray did an amazing job with this. It looks amazing.

The electronics installation proved to be more complicated than anyone imagined. We are using the RTI remote control on some of the lights, and we discovered that since we live in an older home…..not every switch was grounded, so we had to do a considerable amount of re-wiring to get the lighting controls to work properly. Now, we can control lots of lights in the house from the iPad and from the iPhone. It is great, and super convenient. The television in the basement works on these same iPad controls, as does the 7 Sonos systems that were installed to give us sound throughout the house and pool and deck areas. The sound is amazing, and the fact that you can control it from your phone is just….well….cool. Paul McKee and his crew at Audio Video by Design did an amazing job putting this system together, and it was a real trick to do in a house that was built as ours was.

Final installation of lighting trim kits was another punch list detail. It just seemed like that nothing was getting fully complete. The workers would do 90%, and then move on to something else. Maybe there was some logic in it somewhere, but it was hard for me to see. We got the counter top in the basement bathroom, and the sidesplashes could not be installed until the wall fabric was applied, so that was one more little detail that had to come later. The sink was installed with the Toto label showing…..I didn’t like that, so it had to be re-installed backwards to cover up the label. Lighting in the new cabinet was installed….but the color was wrong so it had to be re-ordered. Shelves were installed in the cabinets, and we discovered that with some of the electronics, we needed some modifications so those had to be made. John McGilvray did a great job with those final details, and everything is now fitted perfectly. A missing vent cover, a missing switch plate cover, a missing door handle…..all these little things just took time to take care of. We were 98% complete on Friday, February 17.

The next processes went very smoothly. I had scheduled Duct Doctor to clean all the ducts and HVAC systems in the house on the 17th. It had been 8 years since they had been fully cleaned, and with all the construction dust, I knew we would never get rid of the house dust if we did not do this. They did an amazing job, and at this point, we have little to no house dust. Over the weekend we started cleaning. We had the entire upstairs complete by Sunday, and on Monday I started working with our house keeper Janette on the main floor. We cleaned all the kitchen cabinets fully, and re-organized in the process. It is amazing what we were able to eliminate, and just pulling everything out lets you really see what you have so it can be put back together in a better way. We polished floors, washed walls and trim, and had everything on the main floor cleaned by Monday afternoon. The window washers came on Tuesday…..and were here for two full days. They say it won’t take so long next time…..just the construction clean was really involved. The windows are shining now, and they really look great. On Tuesday, Janette and I worked again and this time cleaned the basement, starting in the laundry room and storage closet. Those areas are also well arranged now and more functional. We washed all the moldings and floors. Carpeting upstairs was also cleaned on Tuesday.

Wednesday is when the house started coming together. The rugs that had been out for cleaning and repair all were re-installed, along with the new living room rug and repurposed sisal rug in the basement. Randy Vaden took care of the rug installation, and as always did a perfect, pristine job. Pads fit perfectly, and everything is perfectly square. He also did an amazing job applying the velvet border to our living room rug, and leather to the re-purposed sisal rug in the basement. Prestige Cleaners had taken our draperies out when we moved out, and stored them for us. I didn’t have them “cleaned” but they did thoroughly vacuum them and got rid of all the dust. They came on Wednesday and reinstalled them, so the rooms really started to look complete. Paul McKee and his crew spent all day Wednesday working on the audio video system tweaking it for final install. They worked until about 8:00! Less than 15 minutes after they left, we had a power surge, and the entire system went out in the whole house. No cable. No internet. No phone. This was just typical of the construction process……and it seemed like it was all related to the new system, but it wasn’t. Thursday, I had to spend the afternoon here getting the problems fixed with Charter Cable and TDS Telecom.

Friday, February 24, was really a great day. We started loading the trucks with everything that had been stored, and had the first load here by 10:00. We had 5 box truck loads and about 3 van loads to get everything back in the house. Mike Croft and his delivery crew were amazing. They are so careful with everything, and I don’t think we scratched one piece….or dinged any trim in the move in process. We knew where most things were going, but this was our opportunity to really think about where things would end up, and we did a fair amount of “trying out” on items to make sure we were getting them in the best place. As a result, there are lots of pieces with new homes within our house.

Saturday, Bobby and I spent all day working on the art. We pulled all the art that had been stored in the upstairs bath and powder room out, and started playing with where everything would go. There were certain pieces that went back exactly where they were before, but many others moved around. We hung, and hung, and hung. We tried things in different places….and edited the collection in the process. What we ended up with looks really great, and it showcases our collection better than it has been before. During this work, we were also placing lamps and a few key accessory pieces….but the main focus was art.

Sunday, Bobby and I worked on accessories. We really tried to limit the number of pieces that were on display, and what was left over, would go in either the new cabinet in the living room, or the new cabinet in the basement. This worked really well. We got to showcase some of our most favorite things, while at the same time being able to display virtually all of our treasures.

The process of installing rugs and draperies one day, furniture the next, then artwork, then lamps and accessories was really perfect. It allowed you to see the rooms develop. In a typical move, the house gets cluttered with empty and full boxes, art and accessories sitting everywhere, as well as things that should never be “on display” sitting out. By doing this move the way we were able to do it eliminated all of that and you could really see what you were doing. As a result, this project came togehter really quickly.

It was rewarding to do this for us. We install jobs all the time, and get to experience the joy that clients have with the finished product, but it is truly rewarding to do it for yourself….and when you are complete, be able to call it home. One of my clients told me a while back that her builder gave her words of advice years ago on the building process. You will forget how messy it was. You won’t remember what a pain it was. You will forget what the headaches were, and you will forget the things that had to be done two or three times. You will even forget how much it cost…..but you will never forget if you like it……so it is really important to LIKE what you are doing. In retrospect, I’m not sure there is anything I would do differently.

Now, the final phase of the project. The slate roof. We are having a bit of an issue in matching the existing slate, so it has been decided that instead of trying to match it, we will replace it. This has brought up an entirely new concern in that our custom color clad windows were designed to coordinate with the roof we currently have…..so color is very important. Schmid and Rhodes is working to find a solution to the problem, and hopefully tomorrow we will have the perfect sample for the slate.

Time For Change

toddrichesin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:30:27 +0000

My former office.....now a giant chunk of square footage we don't need

So after 7 years, our home, Casa Real was ready for a little facelift. Thanks to a horrible hail storm in April of 2011, we ended up with a long list of things that needed to be done. The major projects were to replace all the windows and exterior doors, as well as the slate roof. Our contractors, Schmid and Rhodes in Knoxville, TN, asked us if we would clear out some of our “stuff” to make the process a little easier for them…..and we thought that was a fantastic idea in order to provide the most protection for our artwork and antiques. It also opened the door for the list of things that needed to be done.

: The Den….all empty

The list grew, as most projects do, and now includes the following:

*Reconfigure the former office and create a media room, office, and entertainment area that services the pool

*Create a new storage and display piece for the new media room that will house part of our collection of antique accessories as well as new components for television and sound

*Create an updated mantle and overmantle for the new media room

*Eliminate the horrid track lighting in the office, and in so doing, create a sensible lighting plan, and install a new wooden ceiling

*Replace the marble floor in the kitchen….which continues to crack despite our efforts to correct it….with antique heart pine, and while in the process, replace the parquet floor in the den with the same flooring; thus unifying the entire main floor.

*Replace interior door hardware with lever handles appropriate to the style of the house, and add detail to the door painting

*Fresh paint colors for the green guest room, master bedroom, and laundry room

There are probably other things that will pop up along the way, but this is the bulk of the list. My goal is to document the project as it goes along, and provide before, during, and after photos of the work.

Our goal is to give our home a fresh look. As a designer, it is easy for me to look at a client’s home in a fresh light. Since I am so attached to this place, and spend so much time here…..it is really hard to do that with my own home. The repair work forced us to remove the majority of our “stuff” and it is giving us an opportunity to “re-think” exactly how we want spaces to function, and to really look at how things can be put together differently. We are adding some new pieces into the mix as we go along, mainly with the goal of creating more storage space for a growing collection of antique accessories.

Foyer into dining room

One of the first things we did was to remove all of the artwork and accessory pieces. We packed many of them, but there were two bathrooms that were getting no work at all other than fresh paint on the doors and trim….plus the new door hardware. A few weeks before we started on the major project, we had those areas completed, so we could start packing them with “stuff”. Next, the movers came and packed up what was left and we carefully moved everything to a climate contolled storage facility. Then, up came the rugs which have gone out for cleaning and any needed repairs, and finally, Prestige Cleaners came to get all the draperies to get them back into tip top shape and to store them for us until we are ready for installation. The process took time, but it was a well organized plan, and we worked on it a little bit each day for about a week, it became a manageable task that way, and it did get completed.

The above photo is of the upstairs hall bath filled with paintings and lamps. It is best to store paintings vertically, and when you can, put them back to back and front to front. This really helps minimize frame damage from hooks and wires rubbing on the finished part of another piece.

Today was the first full day of work, and most of what happened was protection for the surfaces we were not changing. The upholstered walls in the dining room were covered, floors were covered, and the few pieces of furniture we were able to leave in the house were covered with foam board to protect them. This will be an exciting process, at least for Bobby and me, and I hope that you enjoy reading about our newest adventure.

The Foyer

The living room

Paradise Transformed

toddrichesin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:22:27 +0000

Pool and original house

Guest house and dining pavillion

You may have read about a house we designed in Key West in the June issue of Traditional Home magazine. Shortly before the article went to press, the homeowners had the opportunity to purchase the house immediately behind theirs. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to combine two properties with such historic significance in the heart of old town Key West. On March 14, 2010, I did a blog post entitled “Southernmost Before and After” showing pictures of what is now the guest house in the following series of photos. Check those out first, and you will not believe the transformation shown in the following images. The photos are arranged as if you were walking through the space.

Our goal was to make the two houses seamless, as if it has always been the way it is now. The property behind the main house had the same size lot, but a much smaller house. We were able to remove all the un-historic portions of the house, and add on a fantastic guest house. The original part of the house is now the “dining pavillion”, an outdoor dining and seating area that is perfect for entertaining. In order to complete the picture, we added a master bedroom suite, a loft sleeping area, a small kitchen, powder room, and a small sitting room. It really is paradise transformed.

In order to maintain the casual feel the owner wanted; we used linen fabrics, comfortable upholstery, original old house details, and striped the floors with white a green paint to really enhance the cottage feeling. We also intensified the same color palette that was used in the main house. It really got punched up for more impact. The results are pretty dramatic.

Pool and guest house

Dining pavillion

Restored exterior of the guest house

Dining pavillion

Dining pavillion seating area

One of a pair of sideboards in the dining pavillion topped with French black clay pottery

Dining pavillion at dusk with the l.e.d. lighting in the pool illuminating the house

Kitchen

View through the guest house

Living room

Powder room

Sleeping loft

Seating area in the master bedroom of the guest house

Antique blue lamp adds an unexpected pop of color in the bedroom suite

Guest house bedroom with plasma pop up cabinet

Vintage key lime painted Italian chest and custom pagoda style mirror in the guest house bedroom

Guest house master bathroom

We worked on the main house some too. New French style doors were added to the master bedroom, allowing direct access to the pool area, and a former deck space was converted to an office for the homeowner.

Main house master bedroom

Main house master bath with new vanity area. Vanity is an Italian antique.

New office area

18th century Italian cabinet as a credenza in the new office

Old-World Style in a Farmhouse

toddrichesin — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:15:10 +0000

Traditional Home is one of my favorite magazines. I have had a subscription since I was in college. Their outlook on design is much the same as mine. Classic interiors that are timeless. There are ways to make them feel fresh, and that is exactly what we do at Todd Richesin Interiors! They have just published another one of my projects in the November issue. We are happy they liked it as much as we did, and hope you will enjoy it as well. This is a farmhouse I designed for a couple with grown children. They wanted a home that felt grounded. That it had been in the spot for generations. We accomplished this by having an incredible builder, and by using some beautiful and unique antique elements, including a set of antique windows from a house in Provence. It is a one of a kind home, for a one of a kind family. Debbie, my client, is an amazing cook among other things, and she loves for the entire family to be there at the same time…..enjoying each others company, and making memories in a house that will be around for generations. They also breed and raise the most amazing horses. Irish Draught Horses. These are majestic animals, and what a perfect spot to do it. The entire project fits together perfectly…..just like Debbie’s family and those beautiful horses. Enjoy.

Read the entire article at http://www.traditionalhome.com/design_decorating/howwelive/farmhouse-style-renovation_ss1.html

Laurel Magazine – “Home of Distinction”

tori — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 14:35:52 +0000

Laurel Magazine is monthly shelter magazine focusing on life in Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina and the surrounding community. They do lots of interesting stories about local happenings, new restaurants, where to stay, what to see and do, and also feature some beautiful homes in the area. For the September issue, they selected a home I designed in the Old Highland Park neighborhood in Highlands, for a couple whose main home is in Knoxville, for their “Home of Distinction” feature.

A little about the house……my clients love the mountains, and wanted a cozy retreat there. We worked with a favorite color scheme of hers….blues and oranges. The result is a beautiful interior that feels fresh. This is an unexpected color scheme in an area where most people choose browns, greens, and neutrals. Most of the rugs in the house were custom braided rugs I designed. Antiques are a favorite source of inspiration for my client, so we used old pieces wherever we could. The colors are happy, the upholstery is comfortable, and the space is relaxing. I love it, and hope you enjoy. More photos of this project are located in the portfolio section of my website under the heading “Old Highland Park.” www.toddrichesininteriors.com/index.php?page=old-highland-park

Window treatment fabrics

toddrichesin — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:58:44 +0000