Another Bachelor, Another Reveal

This light-filled apartment with a killer view of Miami, belongs to my second bachelor client of the year, Mr. B. 
Well, he does have an amazing girlfriend, so technically, he's not a true bachelor. Anyway, I digress. Mr. B owns a home in Spain but works, lives in Miami and travels the globe for work. Renting, not owning a place here was his best option. 
This little cave of an apartment on Miami's Brickell Key is a prime location, but oh, the apartment was so gloomy it felt mildly depressing.
Since it's a rental, we couldn't knock down walls, change light fixtures or gut bathrooms, but we could surely purchase some solid pieces of furniture that will transition well to his next home, add some fresh paint colors to the walls (we'll paint it back to the original color when his lease is up), and give the space some gosh damn style. Here's where we started:

Yes, yes, when will I learn to remove handbags from my before photos? Anyway, handbags aside, pretty gloomy looking no?

Mr. B wanted the grey wall gone and some more fun colors introduced. Once we'd settled on the large items like this very comfy sectional from Z Gallerie, he left me to my own devices to purchase other items. I scored this rug from Home Goods and thought it's rust tones added color and warmth to the space. 

As always, I try to mix high tickets items with more budget friendly options so scored these end tables from Overstock. 

He swooned for this swing arm lamp from Crate and Barrel. Can you blame him?

He is an avid reader, so his book collection served as great accessories on this Overstock coffee table and throughout the condo.

This little nook needed some special love and attention.

This Ikea table is a favorite of mine because it's so versatile. It fit perfectly here. The Target lamps add extra lighting and the Nate Berkus baskets serve as both extra storage and seating for additional guests, and I love their amazing texture.

Y'all know I loves me some grey paint, but it admittedly made this apartment feel exceedingly gloomy and he hated it so much that it had to go. 

Since this is a rental, we only painted accent walls, and not the entire apartment. Here we added a warm beige with a brown banding, which added some visual detail on the wall in lieu on spending loads of money on art to add to this very long wall.

The accent wall is also the perfect backdrop for this walnut and white media console which we all fell in love with, but lost out to another buyer who'd purchased the last two! I cannot tell you the anguish I had over that, but luckily the buyer decided she only needed one and now voila, this splendid piece now sits very pretty in this space.

Around the corner from the living room is the first of two bedrooms, a tad smaller than the second bedroom but since it had an en suite bathroom he preferred to have it serve as the master.

Mr. B entrusted all paint choices to me (love those clients!) so I decided to use the color of the living room rug as inspiration for the accent wall color in  the master bedroom. We splurged a bit on this bed from Crate and Barrel. I loved the mid century modern lines of the nightstands from West Elm and our

Our Instagram followers voted on the lamp shades (so glad y'all picked the one I wanted!!!) 

He already had this amazing duvet from Pottery Barn and it was the perfect finish for the bed.

A very longggggggggg hallway connects the rooms to the living room, so to add some interest without breaking the bank, we framed inexpensive prints of some of his favorite cities and used the water view he sees from the apartment as inspiration for the striped detail on the wall. 

We carried that blue into the second bedroom which he does double duty as his office and guest room. 

 

An inexpensive day bed from Ikea takes up minimal real estate in the room while providing seating and a comfy place for guests to sleep.

He fell in love with this desk from West Elm and we paired it with this a stylish yet comfortable chair from Modani. A gallery wall of maps of his hometown and other cities that he loves offers a sense of connection to Spain and Europe, even as he now calls Miami home.

A huge thanks to Mr. B whose emails kept me royally entertained. We often got lost in translation, as English is his second language. We had a blast sending photos, emails and text messages back and forth, since he was not here for much of the project, and we needed to make sure he understood all that was happening. A bigger thank you to his amazing girlfriend Paula, who trusted me enough to recommend to Mr. B that I take over the reigns of this design project, so he could live in style.

 

Source Guide

Living Room:

Zgallerie - Sectional

KMP Furniture - Media Unit

Overstook - Coffee Table, End Tables

Crate and Barrel - Floor Lamp

Home Goods - Area Rug

Curtain panels - Ikea but customized by Titan Decor.

Sheer panels - Titan Decor 

Bedroom: 

Crate and Barrel - Bed

Overstock - Rug

West Elm - nightstands

Lamps - Target

Guest Room/Office:

Home Goods - Rug

West Elm - Desk

Ikea - Daybed

All Artwork: Art.com and Allposters.com

Chair - Modani

Pillows - Target, Ikea and Home Goods

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A-Efendy accent walls, Bedrooms, before and after, Living Rooms, master bedroom

A Week in Weston - Bedrooms Finale

Hot dang it's Friday. I'd do a dance and celebrate like nobody's business, but if you're in the design business, you probably gotta work tomorrow so TGIF is really a smack in the face. Of sorts. 
Anywho, lord Jezus it's been a hell of a week. 
Thanks for indulging us as we took this week-long blogging fest to showcase our biggest project of the year. If ya missed it (how could you?!) then feel free to hit rewind and check it out here, here, here and here.
This has really been one of those projects in which I really connected with my clients, got inside their heads and was so grateful that they gave me so much free reign to turn things up a bit and take a few risks in my designs. On this final day we say hello to bedrooms upstairs.
We're starting with the master. Oohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Weeeeeeeeeeeeee it's come a long way.

Here's how it looked in it's previous life. We flipped things around a bit with the floor plan. A media center was placed against the wall where the bed now sits. The unit is sitting between two windows and it made much more sense to place the bed there to embrace the natural light and give us a full wall to place the bed against.

 Sam and Athalia already had much of the furnishings here - the bed, nightstands, chest of drawers and console table.

But what pulled it all together was the wallpaper and custom drapes. Athalia fell in love with the bird print on Pinterest and with our luck, we discovered it was available as a wallpaper and off we went.  

Here's what's happening down the hall.

This room that was once an office:

Guests now get to check in here and get some simple work done at this desk if they so choose. 

 

Emmy's room once looked like this:

 

 

 And finally, little Noa's room started out like this: 

 And now looks like this.

That's all folks. I think we've shown that there are some great ways to incorporate your existing furniture into a new home, and give it new life with the right accessories, flooring, curtains, wallpaper and so much more.  

Guess what? There are two rooms we didn't even get to highlight here! 

To see the girls playroom, and Athalia and Sam's home office, head on over to our Facebook page where you'll also see a full album of the before and after of each room. Happy Friday and cheers to a great and safe weekend.

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A-Efendy Bedrooms, before and after, girls room, Guest Rooms, Inspiration to Reality, Kids, Kids Room, master bedroom

A Seductively Sexy Master Bedroom Reveal

This femme fatale of a master bedroom belongs to our very own client fashionista, Ms. Janeka. Remember we chatted about her fabulous tufted sofa here. 
Well, we just wrapped up her master bedroom and bath this weekend and it was a doozy, as in a major whirlwind with even Xavier pitching in to help (more of that to come next week)!
This should have been one big reveal to include the main floor of her home and her bedroom and bath, but she had a bit of a rough patch to endure last week and so I decided to fast track the bedroom reveal to lift her spirits and surprise her when she returned from the inauguration festivities. And I do mean fast track, as in expediting delivery on some key items which THANKFULLY arrived a few hours before we finished installation. Huge shout outs to Fed EX and UPS for taking my pleas via Twitter very seriously!
Anywho, here's where we started:

Three words for all this: blah, blah, blah. Let's just say the space had zero personality.

I knew off the bat that I would need to infuse her fashion sensibilities in the space. She did after all, have a rolling rack smack dab in the middle of the room with her favorite jackets and clamored for a dress form mannequin to display some of her favorite outfits. She also wanted it to be vintage glam, with lots of mirrored furnishings and a bed that made a bold yet feminine statement.
Debbie and I sourced all over but Janeka and I got lucky on our shopping excursions as we found many amazing pieces in the clearance room of City Furniture. Word to the wise, stalk the clearance rooms and be nice to the folks who work there. They'll sometimes give you a heads up to what's about to hit the floors.
Some more background: we weren't hired until after the home had been painted so I also knew that while the grey walls were fine I needed to add a punch of color. The coral color we used was a color match of the bathroom towels my dear friend Tamisha and I spotted one Saturday afternoon while we were out sourcing for items. It would become a key color throughout the space.
Okay, enough chatter, here is the full reveal:

This room was a fun opportunity to showcase how to blend various patterns and textures: a houndstooth rug, striped wall and curtains, herringbone lamp shades, floral pillow, geometric shapes on the nightstands, a headboard lined with nail heads all topped off with a sparkly vintage inspired chandelier.

I'm a big fan of using personal art in a space. In this case, Janeka had taken some flirty photos which she knew she'd want to incorporate in the space. I emailed the images to Kinkos, picked em up an hour later and framed them with these inexpensive black frames from Target.

Playful pillows and pillowcases from Anna's Linens, Overstock and Target add some fun and color to the bedding.That amazing hat, jacket and jewelry were pulled from her closets, notice I said closets!

 

Well, you all know how I feel about fake flowers so of course I had to add some fresh flowers in the bedroom/bath. Tulips were just the soft floral touch needed here. Grabbed a few bundles at Target, I swear I love that place, what don't they have?

Every fashionista needs a fab full length mirror. These mirrors can be pricey but we again scored this one at City Furniture. I gotta say that they have really stepped up their game in their furniture offerings and they are hella budget friendly.

We were on a tight budget with this project and therefore couldn't do much with the master bathroom. To bring some life to the space, I decided to frame the mirror and paint it in the same coral color we used on the accent wall in the bedroom. It immediately takes your eye away from the other shortcomings such as the outdated lighting and faucets, all of which can be replaced at a later date.

And there you have it folks, another whirlwind transformation done in the nick of time. 
As usual, I was not there for the reveal. I think I mentioned to y'all that I've been shying away from that in recent years. When Janeka asked why, I told her it was simply too stressful! Honestly it can be a bit. But most importantly for me I think not being there allows the client/clients to soak in all the changes and make an honest assessment without me hovering nearby. 
When she got home that night and saw the transformation she admits to "bawling" like a baby. After waiting over nine months to purchase her home, it was everything she'd dreamed it would be and it was extremely emotional and guess what? She was glad I wasn't there to see her completely unravel! Thanks again Janeka for allowing us to transform your home into everything you'd hoped for. Can't wait for round two, which we'll complete in a few weeks.

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A-Efendy bathrooms, Inspiration to Reality, master bedroom, Projects