This week seemed to fly by!
Lisa, Maria and I had a busy week as the Penthouse project REALLY began to pick up! It feels like just yesterday that I was looking at the horrendous ‘before’ pictures on Facebook back in February. Now, the apartment has been completely demolished and a small, distant bright light can be seen at the end of an Interior Designer’s tunnel.
Lisa and I have almost all our furniture picked out for the Penthouse! OH YEAH!!! PARTAYY. The next step is to begin one of my personal favorites — fabric selections! Wednesday was our weekly trip to the city and to the Mart. We had a full day on our agenda, beginning at (hold on to your chairs folks..) 5:55am! A quick side trip to our fave store REVISION HOME CHICAGO yielded some last minute furniture recommendations for our big afternoon meeting.
Next stop was the Mart — here we visited various fabric stores and began our search. Lisa gave me a quick low-down on the different fabrics and what to get and what not to get and why. Then she ran off and left me here all by myself
At first I was a little nervous. The Mart can be a bit intimidating with its size and many showrooms, but the people there are so friendly — I felt at home in no time! There were so many options I was overwhelmed. Finding just the right fabric for an Art Deco-inspired Penthouse limits you… or so I thought. Earlier Lisa showed me some different possible fabrics. Some of them were ones that I would never have even thought to pick, but seeing these made me realize that it’s ok to mix and match sometimes. Or even to go a little bit out of your comfort zone and go for some daring options. Lisa and her designs have definitely opened my eyes to a whole different style that I never even thought about. All of her designs surprise me with the various textures and color combinations. She has shown me to not be afraid and to choose some unique items that when put together look beautiful.
By the time Lisa was there to pick me up, I had accumulated so many bags that it was hard to even stand up straight! But if that doesn’t say successful shopping trip, then I don’t know what does!
Another first — bringing rugs to a Client’s home to view! OSCAR ISBERIAN and his team showed up with 8 specially curated rugs to show our Bannockburn Client. We moved furntiure out of the way, and one by one rolled these beautiful rugs to see in the space. The sun was moving around so it was interesting to see how the rugs’ colors changed in front of our eyes.
Yesterday, I was introduced to the wonderful world of budgets and costs. Lisa and Maria gave me a lesson on how to prepare a preliminary budget based upon final selections of furniture. Some of this stuff gets to be a bit tricky when including discounts, mark-ups and various changes that were made along the way. I didn’t know how much work went into budgeting and pricing!!! After I’m through with this budget, I can handle anything!
Top Five Discoveries of The Week:
1). When looking at fabric, it is important to note how durable it is. Each fabric should be rated on either a Wyzenbeck or a Martindale scale based on how durable it is. The higher the number, the more durable it will be and longer it will take to show wear.
2). Be careful with what kind of fabric you choose and what it’s made of. Some materials include fibers that can’t get spilled on or else they’ll get ruined (hello VISCOSE). So if a fabric has some delicate materials, maybe choose that for an awesome pillow or sweet curtains!
3). If you’re picking out a rug, it is important to see if you can get it delivered to your house to see what it looks like in the space. Sometimes, more often than not, rugs’ colors can appear differently in different environments. This can be caused by a number of reasons, including amount of sun and existing colors in the room! Don’t forget, the showroom most likely has fluorescent lighting and the rugs will definitely look different in your living room!
4). As you know, rugs come in various sizes, shapes and colors. But they also come in various thicknesses. Just because a rug is thinner than another one doesn’t mean that it’s lower quality…just the opposite!!! A thinner rug can mean finer fibers which means a higher thread count per square inch — finer fibers = higher quality which allows for the rug to be shaved down further than others.
5).Always double check your work! With this budget exercise, i know i’m going to have to go back and check every line time2, 3, 4 times! This budget will be 4 pages long when it’s complete!
the week wouldn’t be complete without more pics of the cats and their friends the chipmunks!
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