Most before and after photos shoots are pretty ambitious, usually involving a major reno, a show stopping makeover, great boob job... that sort of thing. This before and after is of a simple sitting area and to be honest the photos of this area are simply eye candy to go along with the text.
I hope you don't mind, but this is my blog and I am going to lecture to you the importance of quality soft furnishings in the home. We interact with fabrics and textiles all day long, from the moment we towel ourselves off in the morning to our climbing into bed at night we have interacted with hundreds of different textile surfaces, many of these within our home. My job is to bring this softness to people's lives, and I am getting better at it everyday. When decorating a new space I want the pieces that I offer the home to delight, to create a sense of wonder and happiness. I want them to be part of the landscape but at the same time engage in both our senses of touch and sight. I try to exploit lighting, windows, co-opting floors and sofas to assist me in finding creative ways to paint a room with textile, to bring a a sense of softness and wonder to the experience of space. I have to say that I am not attracted to trends, or "looks" or any kind of contrivance. In fact I cannot follow the direction set by today's interior design Illuminati, mostly because I find it very boring, very much the same as everything else and focusses more on trends than meaningful interaction and personal experience. A huge part of this experience for me is quality. I believe we as people can feel quality, it is very obvious to us when we see something made well, when we interact with objects that are designed well, manufactured from quality materials by craftsmen. Whether it is a car, a suit, a rug or a watch, we have an idea...
When it comes to objects like curtains and pillows, this is no less important and is often overlooked for the sake of short term savings. I am of the mind that things shouldn't actually need to change very often and that well designed, well made soft furnishings are a long term investment in your everyday comfort.
That said I realize how difficult it it for people to find quality today... especially with pillows and curtains and such. Consider that there are no schools for learning this stuff, there are no guidelines for quality. our industry "standards" are more about acceptable than exceptional and so the design community and the clients who purchase from them have no idea really what constitutes good quality. It used to be that people knew what quality was because there was an importance attached to purchase. In today's throw away world people really want quality but they can't find it and don't know what to ask for, while at the same time assuming that what they are getting is quality. How can this be? How can a factory made Armani suit even compare to a hand made suit? Why will people spend $2000 on a factory suit being peddled by a publicly traded company rather than engage the services of a tailor whose training is in the craft of suit making? Marketing probably, the importance of having new and fancy versus that which lasts and is classic. When it comes to Soft Furnishings we need to be pickier, we need to be aware of our purchases and their longevity. We need to come to the realization that sustainability is more about quality than buying "Green". Don't we want a more serious, long term and involved relationship with our belongings over a quick and dirty fling which leaves us with a sour taste in our mouths?
I guess the trick is more about learning to recognize quality in the first place.
Ok... so about 8 years ago my client had their home decorated, and it has served them well but is looking very tired. The home gets a lot of traffic and the furnishings really need to be built to withstand the abuse of children.
So my first charge was redesigning a family room, my job was to come up with a set of fabrics to compliment the interior, the furniture and their lifestyle. Below you will see a small part of the family room before I arrived....
Here's what I see.... Top heavy, dark clunky window treatments. Unimpressive rather tatty looking window seat, in a colour that doesn't inspire or engage or delight my sensibilities. Pillows in a very standard formation. This is all fine by me. I understand why I am here and what I need to do. Instantly I felt we needed to create a happy place by the windows. I loved size of the window seat, and I imagine the kids sit here when they read. The windows offer great open views into the garden and the pool and we needed to preserve that. The window coverings need to be softer, quieter, the window seat, needs to be very comfortable, and at at the same time durable, and the pillows need to offer happiness. After all there are children in this house, and nobody wants to grow up in a place that looks like their grandpa decorated it.
Boom....
First on the menu... the window seat, Alpaca Epingle. I'll say it again, Alpaca Epingle... if you know what that is then you too have drool at the corner of your mouth... Epingle is a rough, hard wearing velvet fabric also known sometimes as Genoa Velvet, not to be confused with Genoa Salami. It is woven on very specific looms and requires a great deal of expertise to fabricate well. I think it worked out just fine.
I built the window seat from a multilam of varying densities of foam, ultra high grade, so this window seat will and can be re-upholstered as many times as the client sees fit, without having to replace the foam, which I had to do because the original was made from a soft foam and it was only 2" thick which meant that with regular use and given it's softness it crushed very quickly. It is really important when designing seating that we exploit the scientific side of foam technology. In this case we were limited to an overall height of 3" This is not really enough to give a nice seat feel unless you opt for a sequentially laminated foam construction. One must also understand the crushing properties of foam and select foams which are appropriate. Although the original foam was high quality, and for most intents and purposes should have been fine, it had not been properly engineered to withstand crushing. The new seat utilizes a foam with push back technology, in other words the foam is like a loaded spring, pushing rather than collapsing. The sequential lamination also makes the foam feel much thicker than it actually is, this is a trick we use all the time. The window seat needed some texture and softness to contrast the epingle and some vivacious colour! I used Chivasso's Brilliant velvet for some of the pillows, the amazing depth of colour and soft dense pile gives you soft exciting fabricky hugs everytime you touch them... For contrast and inspiration I selected Brentano's Garden Party in a vibrant teal and orange combo. The pattern is complex yet feels easy to relate to. I selected three very different velvets, usually a taboo, not only because I have a serious fetish for velvet but because the combination of the velvets give such an incredible tactile experience. the rough firm epingle, the long pile of the brilliant velvet and the short almost flocked feel of the Brentano all contrast in a delicious melody, each standing on it's own, each totally different and totally luxe.
I replaced the window coverings with a sheer multi yarn gauze from Pollack, lovely sheen, lightness and softness, offering amazing light diffusion and an unfettered view through to the pool. The new shades have a beautiful diffuse nature and a much softer, quieter silhouette. The colours were also chosen in harmony with one another. The teal is reflected in the pool outside and the Pollack which has a blueish opalescence. The gold velvet is reinforced by a subtle gold yarn in the Pollack sheers, and in the pattern of the pillows. The orange relates to two chairs opposite the window seat, the carpet and the shots of coral in the Brentano cushions. The dark grey brown in the Brentano fabric is also represented in the Sofas and the window seat and drapery. So the textures and colours were all chosen to work in a subtle relaxed harmony while offering colour, comfort and most of all quality.
Enjoy!
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