Archive for the ‘Storage Solutions’ Category
Pangaea’s Spin on Powder Rooms that REALLY Preform
Friday, December 2nd, 2011
The Holiday season is in full swing and with guests pouring through the door, your powder room will seriously be put to the test. Set your powder room up to pamper your guests and see how to spend your party time enjoying yourself instead of refreshing the supplies!
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Tags: Ambient lighting, Bathroom, Colors, Design Tips, design trends, guest bath room, Interior Design, interior design portland, Lighting, modern design, paint, powder room, secondary bathroom, storage, Storage Solutions, task lighting
Posted in Bathroom, Colors, Cool Ideas, Cool Stuff, Design Tips, Furniture, Mistakes: Avoiding & Fixing, Storage Solutions, Top Ten, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Pangaea Interior Design’s 20 Alternatives to Fine Art
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
So you’re telling me that you can’t spend half a year’s salary on original art work for the hallway? That’s okay. There are many alternatives for great wall decor without breaking the bank. Get creative with fabrics, found objects, natural elements, texture and even fish — oh yes, I did say fish! — to add your own personality and charm and fill your home with your unique style.
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Tags: Art, Bathroom, Bedroom, color, Design Tips, design trends, Dining Room, fabrics, Fireplace, found objects, hallway, Interior Design, Kitchen, Living Room, loft, Lofts, modern design, natural elements, texture, wall decor
Posted in Achievements, Art, Bathroom, Bedroom, Cool Ideas, Cool Stuff, DIY, Design Tips, Dining Room, Fireplace, Home Office, Interior Design, Kitchen, Lofts, Mistakes: Avoiding & Fixing, Pearl District, Shopping, Space Planning, Storage Solutions, Top Ten, Uncategorized, Upholstery, Wall Treatments | No Comments »
Pangaea Interior Design’s Fall Premiere Season: Where to put your TV
Friday, November 4th, 2011
If you are a TV addict and you want to make sure you don’t miss a minute of your favorite shows, there’s always a way to sneak a TV into any room, whether you want to watch your soaps in the Kitchen or bath tub, sitcoms in the living room, or sports in your man-cave.
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Tags: bath tub, Bathroom, Bedroom, Design Tips, Dining Room, Fireplace, Flat screen, furniture arrangement, home theater, Interior Design, Kitchen, Living Room, Lofts, man cave, modern design, Space Planning, storage, tv, tv placement
Posted in Bathroom, Bedroom, Cool Ideas, Design Tips, Dining Room, Fireplace, Home Office, Interior Design, Kitchen, Live/Work Spaces, Living Room, Lofts, Mistakes: Avoiding & Fixing, Seating, Space Planning, Storage Solutions, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Getting the Room Right: Avoid the Top Ten Decorating Mistakes – Part 2
Sunday, August 28th, 2011
It’s fun to check out all the beautifully designed rooms we see done by the interior designers on Houzz.com. They make it look so easy, don’t they? But there are lots of ways to make mistakes — oh yes, I’ve made some too and learned the hard way! I’ve compiled a list of the Top Ten Decorating mistakes — see Part 1 here — and hope they help you with your design dilemmas.
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Tags: Bedroom, built-in cabinet, color flow, color palette, Colors, Dining Room, Furniture, Living Room, storage
Posted in Colors, Design Tips, Interior Design, Storage Solutions, Top Ten, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Where to Put the TV When the Wall Won’t Work
Saturday, August 20th, 2011
Finding a great spot for the TV is a challenge in many homes. For people with open plan homes or lofts with few walls, placing the television can be even tougher. You can float the TV away from the wall if you follow these practical design tips.
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Tags: furniture arrangement, hide tv, IR repeater, open floor plan, placing tv, Space Planning, television, television placement, tv, tv placement
Posted in Cool Ideas, Design Tips, Furniture, Interior Design, Live/Work Spaces, Living Room, Lofts, Space Planning, Storage Solutions, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Custom Furniture: Form and Function Just for YOU!
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
I hope you have a sense of humor today. You’ll need one for this!
Working as an interior designer has given me an opportunity to design custom furniture for many of my clients. So with so much available on the market, why should you have a designer create custom furniture for you? My clients rarely start a project thinking specifically that they will want custom designs, but here are a few reasons that make great sense.
* Have you ever seen a chair – bed – sofa – whatever and just loved it! — except that it is too short – too tall – too brown – too whatever? Designing a custom piece can get you the exact look you want but in just the right height – color – shape – whatever. A piece of furniture that is perfect for YOU!
* Have you looked for months, trying to find a piece of furniture that performs exactly the combination of functions you want – but to no avail? Maybe you need a piece that serves as a buffet – wine storage – and display for your antique pipe collection? Or maybe you want a piece that provides storage for books, houses your media components including TV and also has a built-in ventless fireplace? Well, you could spend a year looking for those and never find exactly the right combination of functions, let alone find it all in the right style. A designer can create a piece that performs every function you want it to, precisely fits the space it is supposed to go in and works with your decor.
So, if you are having trouble finding just the right piece of furniture, we should talk.
Now, here is where you need the sense of humor. I’m all for innovation in design and creating custom furniture pieces that perform the functions that you need — but a WALKING table? I just have to ask myself WHY?? Click on the picture below to see the video. Seriously? Does anybody need to push a table around this much? Have they never heard of casters? I swear, my custom designs will be more useful to you than this!
Oh well … hope you get a laugh!
Tags: bed, bespoke design, buffet, chair, custom furniture, Fireplace, functional design, furniture pieces, innovation, Interior Design, interior designer, media components, piece of furniture, sofa, storage, Storage Solutions, table, wine storage
Posted in Cool Ideas, Furniture, Interior Design, Storage Solutions, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Taking My Own Advice: Interior Designer Deals With Her Outdated Kitchen
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Do you ever find yourself giving great advice (you KNOW what someone else should do) but not taking it yourself?
I’ve given advice to countless clients to paint outdated cabinets or unattractive brick to freshen up a space. And I have done it in past homes of my own. But for over 4 years now, I’ve been living with a kitchen that is very outdated and not so very functional because I don’t have the funds right now to do the BIG KITCHEN REMODEL. I put that in all caps because it really will be an enormous task that will require taking out a wall, moving plumbing lines and lots and lots of money.
I have done a few things. The photos above show the kitchen as it was when we bought our home and then after my first mini-makeover. It had navy blue wallpaper and a refrigerator that stuck out into the kitchen.
The first thing I did was to chop off the end of my kitchen counter & cabinets so I could fit in a wider, counter depth refrigerator. I did that with a circular saw my first week here and the raw end of the cabinet has been the same ever since because I didn’t want to put in new countertops or cabinetry until I can remodel. Not a pretty sight as you can see in the picture below. But I do have a piece of the old cabinet that I can use as a door and reconstruct the end to be functional. I also took out the wallpaper and painted colors that I like. I know – they are pretty wild. I would not force these colors on a client, so don’t be frightened!
I also tore out some upper cabinets that were between the kitchen & family room. No photos of that yet. You had to stoop to look under them and they closed off the space. But there is still the raw end of the remaining cabinets showing and a couple holes in the ceiling. But the last couple years have been … well, you know how they’ve been … so I am not buying new cabinets. Not even Ikea cabinets! Not even just the uppers! And the last improvement I made was to remove the dropped ceiling fluorescent light fixture and replace it with halogen recessed spot lights. Much better! But I’ve made no further improvements for over a year and a half now.
Then a few things happened that got me thinking I should take my own advice. Last week I sent out my newsletter and wrote about 5 Quick & Affordable Pick-Me-Ups For a Tired Kitchen. And then I read a great post - Sometimes “Good Enough” Is Good Enough by Anna at Door Sixteen. An excellent post on not requiring perfection out of yourself so that you have time to enjoy life. And on top of that, my neighbor and friend is buying a home built in the 70′s – like mine – and has asked me to help her remodel her kitchen. I have kitchens on the brain right now.
So, I’m finally taking my own advice and making some relatively small and affordable improvements in my kitchen so I can enjoy it for now and stop feeling embarrassed about it.
First: I’m painting the cabinets. Trust me – the wood looks a lot better in the photos than it does in person. I’m using deep warm gray on the base cabinets (Benjamin Moore Dragon’s Breath) and white white white on the wall cabinets.
Next: I am replacing the cabinet hardware. I only needed handles for the base cabinets so this is very inexpensive. I went with Ikea handles. They are good enough for now.
Last: I will move one upper cabinet to the other side of the kitchen to replace the one with the raw end. Then I will put up open shelves to replace the cabinet I’m moving. This will give me upper cabinets on only one side of the kitchen. I think it’s going to feel more open and a bonus will be that I can unload my dishwasher quickly onto open shelves — well the dishes anyway.
That will be it for this mini-makeover. New countertops, backsplash & flooring will have to wait.
So, for now I am painting and re-drilling holes for the handles. I’ll post photos as I go along, so stay tuned.
What “good enough” improvements are you making in your own homes?
Tags: cabinet hardware, Kitchen, makeover, open shelves, painting cabinets
Posted in Colors, DIY, Design Dollars, Interior Design, Kitchen, Storage Solutions, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Space Saving Furniture Designs – Perfect for Lofts, Small Spaces & Live/Work Spaces
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
I am always looking for beautifully designed multi-purpose pieces of furniture that work for lofts, small spaces and live/work spaces. In my relentless searching on the internet for these space saving furniture ideas, I’ve come across almost all of these. But I just found this great demonstration video from Resource Furniture in New York, showing how these pieces work. I’m including photos of just one of their designs – but you’ve really got to watch the video to get the full awesomeness of these pieces!
Watch the video here: Space Saving & Multi-Purpose Furniture
The sofa below is beautiful! It SO does not look like your parents’ over-stuffed sofa-sleeper.
If you need extra space for overnight guests and don’t have a guest room, this sofa would be fabulous in the living room. So many sofa sleepers either look big and clunky or they look very skimpy and cheap. I’d put this one in any high-end loft without batting an eye.
If you have a live/work space or a home office set up in your guest room, the desks on the video that can be converted to beds are a great multi-purpose option. It’s all about wise use of space.With the advances in technology making it possible for more and more people to work from home, it’s nice to know that advances in furniture design are making it possible to have more flexible use of your space.
Although these pieces run more than your average sofa, desk or bed – when you think about the fact that you are buying only one piece of furniture to take the place of two, and you save all that space, they are a pretty smart use of your design dollars too.
Related posts:
Ten Great Tips to Make Your Small Space Look B-I-G-G-E-R! part 1
Ten Great Tips to Make Your Small Space Look B-I-G-G-E-R! part 2
Designing a Home Office That Works for YOU!
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Tags: bed, desk, Home Office, live-work, Lofts, multi-purpose, open plan homes, Resource Furniture, small spaces, sofa
Posted in Bedroom, Cool Ideas, Cool Stuff, Design Dollars, Furniture, Home Office, Interior Design, Live/Work Spaces, Living Room, Lofts, Seating, Space Planning, Storage Solutions, Trends, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Portland Interior Designer’s Top 10 Tips to Make Your Small Space Look BIGGER: part 2
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Are you selling a small home that is vacant? There is a bonus tip at the end of this article just for you!
Have you moved into a small home, either because you’ve downsized or it is what you felt was best for your budget? If it’s feeling a little claustrophobic, it doesn’t have to be that way. Click here to read Part 1: Top Ten Tips To Make Your Small Space Look BIGGER!
6. Paint Color Tricks of the Trade: Lighter and cool, soft colors like pale aqua, pale blue or pale green all tend to recede and help make a small room feel larger. Conversely, vibrant warm colors like red or orange, advance and feel closer to you, so opt for lighter, cooler colors. Painting adjacent rooms in the same color makes them feel visually more like they are part of the same room. This is especially effective if you have open entryways between the rooms.
7. Monochromatic Color Palette: A serene, monochromatic color palette will go a long way toward making a room feel larger. Highly contrasting color schemes and lots of pattern tend to make the room feel smaller. This doesn’t mean you have to make everything beige! Not by a long shot! Look at these three rooms in shades of lavender, aqua and neutrals.
Besides a monochromatic color palette, the lavender room above also employs a see through coffee table and a minimum of furnishings. Notice there are no side tables. The floor to ceiling curtain panels make the most of the ceiling height and pull all the way back from the windows to expose the entire view.
Although I would like to see all the clutter off the floor, this small room is enhanced by the shades of aqua.
Notice that the single large painting makes the space feel big even though it just accommodates a loveseat and two smaller chairs. The side chair and coffee table are not bulky and have long legs, allowing you to see the floor. Notice also that the pattern on the rug is on the diagonal.
8. Move Away From the Wall: When furniture is all pushed back against the wall, it feels like they are lined up like prisoners in front of a firing squad. Whenever possible, create furniture groupings that are away from the walls and that leave room to walk around them. Keep natural traffic patterns clear and avoid placing the back of a sofa toward the entry. It feels like a barrier to entry and immediately psychologically shrinks the room. In super tiny rooms, you may not be able to group furniture away from the wall, but might be able to angle a loveseat in a corner. This is another great trick to making a room feel a little bigger by directing the eye along the diagonal, which is the longest line in a room.
9. Light Expands Space: A well lit room always feels bigger. Maybe it’s because you can actually see the whole room! Provide lighting in all 4 corners. To preserve precious floor space, consider using track lighting, wall sconces or table lamps instead of floor lamps. Accent lamps pointing upwards and torchiere style lamps wash the ceiling with light and make the most of the volume of the room.
10. Stealthy Secret Storage: Clutter is the nemesis of a small room. But you do have “stuff” and need to keep it somewhere! Choose closed storage over open front storage to keep a room serene. A book case with doors will hide paperbacks & other less attractive belongings. Think floor to ceiling and wall to wall when building in storage units. The long lines don’t break up the room and give you maximum storage space. Find secret spaces like a storage ottoman to keep extra items. Entertainment units that hide all of your dvd’s, cords and audio-visual equipment are a blessing to the small room.
Bonus Tip!! Selling a Small Vacant Home: If you are selling and your property is small and presently vacant, this tip is just for you. PUT FURNITURE IN THE HOUSE!! It is absolutely true that a tiny room will look bigger when furnished than it does empty. If you are looking at the small rooms and worried that they will look crowded with furniture — potential buyers will be worrying about the same thing. A professional home stager — ME of course 
— will use all of the above tips to furnish your property so buyers will see that it can look beautiful and that furniture fits with room to spare.
For more help with any of these tips for making your small space look and feel bigger, call me today to set up an in home consultation. You’ll be on your way to getting the Look of Large! 503.816.4394
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Tags: aqua, Art, chair, coffee table, Decorpad, Design Tips, Flooring, Home Staging, Jeffrey Bilhuber, lavender, Lighting, monochromatic. colors, paint color, Rafael de Cardenas, small space, storage
Posted in Colors, Cool Ideas, DIY, Design Tips, Furniture, Home Staging, Interior Design, Lighting, Living Room, Space Planning, Storage Solutions, Top Ten, Uncategorized, Window Treatments | 2 Comments »
Kitchen Design: Modern & Minimal, “Hidden” Kitchen
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Just a minimal post today about minimal kitchen design. Saw this modern “hidden” kitchen today by Allmilmo, via 3rings (read their full post here). I absolutely love the clean, contemporary lines warmed by the use of book-ended teak veneer. When I get to remodel my own kitchen this is what I want to do! It brings the idea of closed storage solutions to a whole new level! Waaaaay better than an appliance garage! People who have lofts, open plan homes or live-work spaces would benefit by being able to hide the kitchen anytime they want. And it’s still a beauty wide open!
Tags: 3rings, Allmilmo, contemporary kitchen, Kitchen, kitchen design, live-work, Lofts, minimal, storage, Storage Solutions, teak
Posted in Cool Ideas, Cool Stuff, Design Tips, Interior Design, Kitchen, Live/Work Spaces, Lofts, Storage Solutions, Trends, Uncategorized | No Comments »