Happy Friday Everyone!

About the clients:

Having recently moved to California from the East Coast with his wife and two children about to leave for college. Mr. Client was in the prime of his career and mom occasionally worked outside the home for fun. As frequent entertainers and “foodies” they enjoyed having intimate groups of friends over for food and wine parties and loved gathering to watch the football games on television. With adult children moving out the time was right for the clients to reach out for help. They brought in Robeson Design to work our magic.

What they wanted:

Our clients were looking to hire a design firm capable of creating a master plan for their newly purchased home. Their intent was to approach the plan room by room in order to do it well. This would allow them to update the home to better fit their taste and lifestyle and keep the budget manageable by phases. They wanted the design plans to respect the architecture of the home and be a comfortable, family-friendly space for themselves, their adult children and frequent guests. After interviewing several design firms, they chose to hire Robeson Design to design their home using our 3D modeling program, Sketch-up. After approving the overall design plans they chose to start with the most used room in the house… The Family Room!

Challenges:

No matter what I designed, the family dog Vesper needed to keep his favorite brown leather chair! Chewed and musty as it was, I took the clients request seriously 😉
Outside the Family Room was a lovely outdoor entertainment area accessible through sliding doors around the corner. Direct access from the room was on the wish list!
The clients requested two things be kept from their previous home, a large Persian rug in red, white and blue and two collector pieces of art they loved featuring sail boats in shades of blue and cream. My gut instinct told me a typical nautical theme would not work with the home’s Spanish/Mediterranean style so I need to come up with a plan to incorporate the client’s wishes and make the home feel connected as a whole.

Changes I Made:

I decided to head in the direction of a Man’s Rowing Club … leaning toward dark woods, beams, handsome fabrics and rich textures. Even a musty old brown leather chair would look good in that type of setting, I thought!
I opened the back wall with large windows by replacing them with beautiful custom French doors, side lights providing the requested access to the barbecue area.
Adding a transom window above the doors played to great feature of nice high ceilings in the room. Remaining windows were replaced with casement type windows in the same rich wire-brushed wood finish as the doors. I then modified the existing built-in entertainment center to look more complete and function better for media equipment, changing the wood stain color to a rich dark brown.
I added new door fronts and vertical side panels to the existing built-in entertainment center making it visually more appealing and improving its functionality. I designed thick wood casing with recessed panel mold to the drywall opening creating a grand entrance to the room.
I installed a handsome hand-forged wrought iron chandelier in the center of the room to replace the existing fixture. Recessed canned lights were added per my specifications for overall light along with directional art lights to light the client’s treasured art pieces above the sofa. In addition, I selected three lamps in a coordinated iron theme. One floor lamp and two table lamps.
We kept the travertine flooring laid in a beautiful Versailles pattern as well as the large area rug the clients requested.
Playing off of the Men’s Rowing Club idea, I purchased a buttery tan colored leather sofa with hand-carved wooden legs. Two comfortable linen chairs which could also be moved around for large parties for football viewing, flanked either side of the sofa and one side table and antique captain’s chest complimented the eclectic style of the room. My favorite piece of furniture in the room is the nesting coffee table I designed and had built. The versatility to pull out small tables beneath the larger one for drinks and food during football games was genius. And Vesper, he got to keep his leather chair, which we moved in front of the entertainment center … after all, he’s not much of a football fan.
I lined either side of the new doorway and sidelight windows with four solid window treatment panels in bronzy gold linen from hand-forged twisted iron rods made exclusively for this project. I was delighted to find the perfect signature fabric for the room, an exquisite velvet with a paisley print that beautifully matched the colors in the client’s favored Persian rug. I designed custom soft hanging valances to go over the four additional windows in the room.
Customs down filled throw pillows were made from coordinating fabrics in masculine prints. I added a fabulous Ralph Lauren fabric I found in royal blue and white reminiscent of a ships map pattern to tie in the colors and overall rowing club theme. Fresh botanicals, a large fichus tree, the clients newly framed art pieces, a reproduction print of a single sailboat in sepia and candles completed the room design for our East Coast clients.