Apr 23, 2009

designHop Club Creates Home Office for Mom


Stephanie's husband, Mike, moves the bookcase.

Fellow designHop club member, Stephanie, is expecting a baby any day now. Baby #2 will get the office upstairs, so we helped Stephanie arrange her new office downstairs in the basement.


Office BEFORE -- see above photo


Office AFTER -- see above photo

The basement is one large space with no obvious divisions between three areas: play area, office and entertainment/TV. Our challenge was to not only make it look beautiful, but also to divide the area.

Stephanie had most all the pieces for her office, we just put it together. One piece missing was a chair. We spied a small wing back chair in her already crowded TV space and re-purposed it as an office chair. We think it adds a lot of comfort and class to the new office space.

To provide a division between the play area and the office, we -- well, Mike -- moved a bookcase and faced it towards the play area. Because it now faces the play area, toys and books can be stored in it. On the back side of the bookcase -- now facing the office -- we suggested Stephanie put the peel and stick cork squares to provide a bulletin board convenient to her work space.

We also suggested she put up an extension rod and curtain to hide the storage in the play area -- illustrated in the photo below. And we discussed paint colors to pull all three spaces together. We'll provide up dated photos as the space continues to transform.


A view of the "proposed" curtain.

designHop club makes design happen!

If you live in the St. Louis area and would like to host, start or join a designHop club, call me at 314-276-1129.

Apr 13, 2009

At Home Magazine's Habitat for Humanity Project on Show Me St. Louis

The Habitat for Humanity project sponsored by AT HOME magazine was featured on Show Me St. Louis today.

I enjoyed the opportunity to share some of the design elements featured in the home. Homeowner JoAnn Barge was a delight to work with and I think you can see why in this clip.

Kudos to Christy Marshall, also interviewed, who gathered 30 area interior designers to design for five deserving families.

Click here to see the segment on Show Me St. Louis.