City TV Segment: Alfresco Dining Outside the Box

"What's Hot For Summer" on City TV's Breakfast Television

All products provided by:   Whimsy;  280 Gower Point  in Gibsons BC

City TV Breakfast Television

Watch my segment on City TV about "Designing with Style"!

Outfits Provided by: Coco's Closet (Gibsons)
Tile & Flooring samples provided by: Custom Carpet  http://www.customcarpets.ca/
Counter top samples provided by: Apex Granite & Tile  http://www.apexgranite.com/
Phot of yellow room taken by: Ingeborg Suzanne  http://www.ingeborgsuzanne.com/

Hotel Chic Bathroom

 Who doesn’t love to stay over night at a fantastic hotel? The luxuries of room service and chocolates on your pillow are divine but the fabulous bathroom all ways takes the cake. The chance to relax and pamper yourself in a pristine spa inspired bathroom really makes you feel like a Queen/King. This same feeling and look can easily be achieved right in your very home. This can be done on a small cosmetic budget right up to a wonderful complete renovation.

Sticking to a smaller budget –there are many things you can do to add a luxurious feel. By changing out a few elements such as your faucets, hardware and fixtures can update and beautify your bathroom instantly. Also think about replacing your boring old mirror with something more decorative, this alone will make a dramatic difference. Replacing your miss-matched bath linens with high quality neutral ones will bring the spa feeling home. Reduce clutter and clean, clean, clean, eliminating visual obstacles will create harmony.

If your budget allows for a renovation and you have the space, than use it. A free standing tub emphasizes the feeling of spaciousness and always looks more impressive. A decent shower is also a must, any size shower can be fabulous.

We took this bathroom from old and dank to luxury hotel chic. Taking advantage of under-utilized space, we not only made it look beautiful but also made it very functional for the entire family. By keeping the plumbing in roughly the same place made it much easier on the budget without sacrificing the client’s wish list. This is the main bath in the house, so keeping the color pallet neutral was imperative in making it appeal to everyone and adding the punchy green paint color keeps it fun for the kids.

Hotel chic does not have to come with a high price tag, you needn’t spend a fortune to get an expensive look!

Haute Couture Interior Design

Fashion has influenced interior design since the turn of the century. Coco Chanel is first and foremost an iconof fashion, her bold and forward thinking designs have and continue to inspire and influence the world of interior design. With the lines blurring between fashion and design, fashion designers and globally established labels are naturally turning to couture interior and product design. Many labels have been doing this for years such as Christian Dior, Oscar De La Renta, and Armani. “Home Has Become Fashion”, Rosita Missoni.

My love for fashion and interior design inspires me everyday! To foresee what trends are coming to our interiors, take a look at what is hot on the runways. We may not see these trends until the following year but that is quickly changing with the speed of manufacturers and the global reach of the manufacturing agencies. We are now seeing these trends appear in our home designs quite quickly. Fashion trends usually change much faster than we want to change our interior design so pick your trends wisely. Focus on timeless instead of trendy for the over all scheme, and accent with the trends. Fun and trendy accessories and paint colors are not a huge investment and easy to change out when you tire of them or want to try the new “it” design.

I have some clients that just don’t know what style they like or what colors they really want to incorporate, so an easy way to find out what they like is by taking a look in their closet. You can easily tell what colors people are drawn to and what they feel comfortable in. You want to be just as comfortable in your home as you do in your clothes. So take a look in your own closet and see if there is a color you love that you would like to incorporate into your home. Take a pair of fabulous shoes or an incredible bag, and work an entire room around them. To me a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes are a work of art, these are simply to provide pleasure in their gorgeousness, so make them center stage.

In this photo shoot, I took a fabulous, inspiring outfit from Coco’s Closet and worked an entire room around it. The style and color of the outfit is mirrored in the design of the room, taking the timeless furniture and punching them up with black and white accents and bursts of yellow. So take that dress that you love and drool over or the shoes that are just too beautiful to wear and incorporate them into your home! “Fashion fades, only style remains the same” Coco Chanel.

Furniture: Kern’s Furniture

Outfit: Coco’s Closet

Photography: Ingeborg Suzanne

Beautiful Lighting

This George Kovacs chandelier I used on a water-front property is outstanding!

I love the modern feel of this light and the way it works in perfectly to this transitional space.

Oh how I love Designer Guild

Tricia Guilds bold colors and textures amaze me with delight.