The Next Project Runway Challenge?

Those of you who live in the Central Florida area have seen by now, I'm sure, the new Fashion ads promoting Valencia Community College. The ads themselves are pure genius, and particularly fun for fashion addicts. Each look was designed to reflect a different major: criminal justice, architecture, education. The designs, although not street wearable, are truly innovative. Kudos to the team who put these ads together! You can see the entire "line", all three ad spots, along with the original sketches here. Vat are you vaiting for, people!!!

Homegoods, How I Love Thee...

I am somewhat of a Homegoods addict. The thrill is in knowing that it's never the same store twice. They are constantly getting in new shipments of housewares, beautiful china, lamps, bedding and furniture. It's a design geek's heaven, especially if you're on a budget.

My latest Homegoods score: a $400 Shine Home lamp for $79. I almost went into shock when I saw it on the shelf. At first the striking black on yellow design caught my eye, and then I realized that I had seen this lamp somewhere before. I checked the original tag that was still attached, and lo and behold! Shine Home! They happen to be one of my favorite houseware retailers who I can never afford to buy from. It doesn't even work with my current decor, but since I will be moving soon, I'm sure I can find a place for it in my new studio apartment in Manhattan. What's a Lamp Tramp to do???

Ugly Kitchen: You Have Seen Your Last Days

You know the drill: girl buys cheap condo, girl hates decor, girl renovates condo. The thing I hate the most about my condo, besides the increasingly high HOA dues, is the ugly, ugly kitchen. "Custom kitchen, beautiful cherry cabinets, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops". Sounds like a dream, right? Wrong. This is one of my favorite design mistakes that people make: throw a bunch of "higher-end" elements together and it must create a fabulous space. Not necessarily.

God, as they say, is in the details. Let's break it down shall we? You have a developer. The developer wants to renovate the apartment complex that he's just purchased with the hopes of converting it into condominium units. The developer wants to promote his units as "high-end" without spending "high-end" dollars. The result? He buys the cheapest granite, the cheapest cabinetry and the cheapest stainless steel appliances, throws it all together without giving a thought about how it works as a whole, and voila! Instant high-end crap.

The granite countertops that came with my condo are just about the most ugly species of granite one could find. Pretty much a mix of yellow with a little bit of black and brown. The edge detail is the cheapest to construct, and of course, the ugliest too - the full bullnose. Blech! A simple eased edge would have been SO much better. The cabinets are also smoke and mirrors. Advertised as "cherry stained wood", they are in fact, not solid wood at all. The doors are a thin veneered panel, about 1/4" thick, with a shaker wood band detail around the sides. The band is the only part of the cabinets that is actually solid wood. The side panels are the worst part - wood grain laminate!!! So these "custom" wood cabinets are in fact made up of very little wood. They will be painted, and fast.

The appliances are ok, although I would have preferred a counter-depth refrigerator, or at least for the millwork to surround it in a way that makes sense.

So how do you take an ugly kitchen and make it less ugly - on a budget? The answer is paint, and lots of it! First the cabinets (and those ugly laminate side panels) will be painted a lovely shade of off-white, Behr's "Popped Corn", in a high-gloss finish. Then, the lackluster hardware will be replaced with something a little more modern, Ikea's Lansa hardware. Small kitchens are great because you can invest in a few higher-end materials in smaller quantities. The finishing touch will be a new full-height mosaic tile backsplash above the range and counter, in a tile something like this. PS - sorry for the crappy image, my scanner isn't the greatest. As for those granite countertops, well, it's not in the budget to replace them anytime soon, so I have painted the walls surrounding the open kitchen a deep teal blue, which helps downplay the countertops. Stay tuned for the final results...

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! Let me introduce myself: I am a 30-something Interior Designer living in Florida and working my way back to New York City as finances permit. I am a lover of all things design! In addition to creating beautiful spaces, I create beautiful fashion in my spare time.

At 29, I was living in New York and decided that I'd had enough of working for ungrateful architects and was ready to take my hobby, designing clothing, into a full-time career. I enrolled in the Fashion Institute of Technology and received an Associate's Degree in Fashion Design. Being a student in Manhattan took a toll on my wallet - hard. After weighing all of my options, I decided the only way to get out of student debt and back into 30-something financial stability was to leave expensive New York, move back to moderately-priced Florida and take a job doing what would pay the most - working for an architect.

So I made my way back "home" to long lost friends, acquired 2 loving pups named Stella and Jacob, and somehow in the process, re-discovered my love of Interior Design. As it turns out, I don't hate the profession after all, I just hate working for architects! But it pays the bills, for now anyway.

In the future, I have a vision of a design firm: a firm based on the belief that you don't have to spend a fortune to have a fabulous space. I know some designers who would disagree with that statement (designers who lack vision and creativity, and were, unfortunately, by bosses). But being an Interior Designer, as all designers know, comes with a huge catch-22: the job doesn't pay that well, and we always have expensive taste. It pays so little, in fact, that when I was hired into my first position right out of college, I took a paycut from waiting tables - part time. So how does a starving artist outfit their own digs stylishly and on a budget? Well, a little creativity, a little elbow grease, and IKEA help a lot. So someday, I hope to be able to give all young stylish starving artists what I have been able to give myself: a fabulous pad on a shoestring budget. (Ok, well, it's in the works anyway.) Stay tuned...