Sometimes you just meet some really great people. When I think about some of the homes we’ve done over the last couple of years, I often remember the person or family more than the home. Okay, I do think about some of the great little details of the design, but the sentiment “It’s not what you said, but how you made a person feel” rings true. I’ve been blessed to have met many great people in my life, and Donna is one of those who inspire me. When I think about Donna, the one word that comes to mind is “Grace.” To me, she embodies graciousness and gracefulness. I aspire to be graceful and more gracious as I grow older, wearing a hat and kind smile everywhere I go.
Donna lives in a townhouse in downtown Washington D.C. and at the time we met last March, she had recently lost her mother. She wanted to fix up her home to help her heal in some way, and to have a home she would enjoy. For some reason, the thought of doing something that would help someone through the loss of a loved one did not stress me nor did I feel a sense of sadness, though I could tell Donna missed her mother very much. In fact, there was something about Donna that just put me at ease, everything just felt right.
Our first step was to get to know Donna better and what she liked and wanted to accomplish. She had great artwork and a basis for me to determine which color direction to take, especially with the color swatches she had painted on various walls!
Color swatches on the wall, whether painted directly on, as shown here, or taping up paint samples, is a great way to see how a color will look on the wall
Here is how the living room looked when we first met:
Donna's living room before
another shot of the living room before
See that artwork above the sofa? There’s a story behind that as well.
After getting the walls and trims painted, we set out to get the perfect accessories and great STUFF.
Living room after
Living room after
The wall color is Benjamin Moore HC20 Woodstock Tan, the trim OC100 Palace White, and the ceilings OC11 Clay Beige. We found the awesome rug at Home Depot. As we shopped for the other great items for Donna’s home, we needed to find a replacement for the sofa table being used as a TV stand…
TV stand before
I’m not opposed to shopping online, in fact, 95% of the time, most of what I find is absolutely perfect for what I need. If it’s not, I’ll just make sure that the companies I shop from have a reasonable return policy. In this case, I found this AWESOME media cabinet from Home Decorators.com
media cabinet
The Dining room, kitchen and den are all one room. Here are the before photos…
Den before
Dining room before
When I saw the tray ceiling in the dining room, I thought it would be beautiful to paint a darker shade (if you’ve worked with me, I’m CRAZY about painting ceilings – LOVE IT!) The colors we used were Benjamin Moore 2158-30, and HC-19 Norwich Brown inside the ceiling tray.
Dining room after
Den after
Remember the repurposed artwork? It now hangs beautifully to the right in this room. The color for this room is Benjamin Moore HC-13 Millington Gold, and the area rug is from Home Depot. Okay, I’ve got a confession - I think of myself as a Lowe’s chick – I’m there so often I should be wearing a Lowe’s smock, but when it comes to finding the right item for the project, I’ll shop where I must.
Den after
I’m not sure about you, but we LOVE this redesign. It turned out so beautiful and uniquely Donna. She loves it as well and we’ve visited again to complete her upstairs and again to decorate for the holidays. Donna has become one of those people I’ll think about every now and again and remind myself that I was lucky to be part of her life, even if just for a few hours. Thank you Donna, you are truly one of those people I feel blessed to have met.
Kate
