THE FINAL REVEAL- MELANIE BURSTIN'S HOME MAKEOVER WITH EMILY HENDERSON

Well we gave you the lead in a few months back, but we never showed you the final reveal of Melanie Burstin's home makeover featured on Emily's blog.

It seems fitting to do that now, since Melanie was my very first design assistant extraordinaire and worked with me for a couple of years before moving on to Emily's firm and then most recently branching out on her own as a fully fledged designer.  Exciting Mel!

So here are all the "befores" and the glorious "afters."  Yes, that's a Clad Home custom walnut wood sofa that we designed while Mel was still at Clad and RBD.

Mel is the queen of effortless California cool with her neutral palettes and penchant for mid-century design.

Also pretty excited to let you know that Mel's boyfriend Blake Beaudette is a talented contemporary potter (notice all of his great pieces filling their bookshelves)  and we now carry his original works in Clad Home!

That's a pretty great apartment Mel!  

Congratulations on your new solo career, we know you'll go far!

SaveSave

FOLLOW MELANIE BURSTIN'S HOME MAKEOVER WITH EM HENDERSON!

So the first design assistant I hired when I came back to work after pregnancy and maternity leave 5 years ago was this cool girl named Melanie Burstin, a young actress and comedienne from NYC who'd been running an art gallery in Beverly Hills and really wanted to transition into the world of interior design.  She made the bold and gutsy move of cold calling (actually I think it was an email I received) a bunch of interior designers around town whose worked she loved.  Her ambition and fearlessness paid off, we met for coffee one day, and the rest is history! 

Mel spent a few years learning the ropes at RBD, and quickly became completely essential as we grew the business exponentially when we transitioned from a small, tucked away design studio in Silverlake to our flagship store Clad Home on Melrose Ave in East Hollywood.  I could NOT have done all of that without Mel, no way no how.

So it was exciting for all of us when Mel's next career step after RBD was straight into a job with superstar designer Emily Henderson.  Pretty cool, right? Total follow-your-dreams success story.

Now Melanie is an EHD and Homepolish designer and her own stylish apartment is about to be featured in the Makeover Takeover series on the EHD blog.  We're psyched because of course Mel remains loyal to our line of Clad Home custom furnishing for all her projects, and we love to see her work her magic with our stuff!   

Here's the mood board for her newly re-designed living room (hey what's up with that super unique and different wood frame sofa?  A Clad Home original, ya'll!)

A couple of other gorgeous Melanie Burstin-designed spaces showcasing Clad Home sofas...

Follow along with Melanie's Makeover Takeover here!  (We'll post the progress updates as they unfold.) 

xoxo,

HOMEPOLISH MASTER BATH REMODEL: BEFORE, AFTER, AND ALL THE SOURCES

I'm excited to finally get to share all the details of a beautiful master bath renovation that was published by Homepolish a couple months back. 

(As you know, since we opened our store Clad Home almost a year ago the time I used to be able to devote to blogging has completely disappeared. BUT we've recently hired a bunch of new staff, and guess what?  We're bringing back the blog!)

When we started working with this client they had two upstairs baths that were cramped, dark, and dated. The home was a lovely 1930s art deco vintage, but the master had been divided up into multiple smaller spaces, hiding the fact that the room actually had a nice large footprint.  Dark turquoise walls, 1980s glass block windows, 1950s cabinets wrapping the entire space ... this bathroom had seen too many bad renos and just needed to be taken down to the studs so we could start fresh.

BEFORE...

 

 

Here are the original and the reconfigured floor plans.  The two upstairs bathrooms were unnecessarily linked by a doorway which we did away with, as well as tearing down the walls that enclosed the toilet and shower areas.  All the dated built-in closets made the room feel way smaller than it was and had to go.

By ditching the unnecessary door into the guest bath and all those old, shallow closets that weren't particularly spacious or useful, and by busting into a closet that was originally accessed from the master bedroom, we gained the space for a real walk-in closet!  Instead of full height walls that made the toilet and shower areas feel dark and tiny, we designed half-height "pony" walls to keep the bathroom feeling as large and open as possible. 

Here's the raw shell of the space after demo ...  

 

Obviously new windows were a must and did a world of good. You already know what a fan I am of transom windows.  They add height to standard sized windows and are lovely for air circulation.

We wanted to bring some classic art deco drama and beauty back into this space, so we went for high contrast finishes in black, white, and brass.  The floor tile is a concrete scallop called "Conche" by ArtoBrick. The fish scale shape is a playful digression from more typical tile shapes.

We reglazed an old clawfoot tub found on Craigslist and painted the exterior in the same matte charcoal hue as the floor. This color was repeated with the dark soapstone countertops. We aimed to balance out all the dark tones by painting the walls and woodwork white and tiling the shower with white subway tile. 

 

The brass hardware throughout ties in with the fabulous original brass feet of the clawfoot tub, and we made sure to source a few other vintage items to lend some age and gravitas to to this otherwise brand new space. The marble topped brass table beside the tub and the art deco pendant hanging above it are both antiques found on Etsy.

The Marc Royce photography print of a crumbling palace in Havana is such an awesome focal point and visually extends the space.  I like to lean a tall mirror rather than hang it as we did with the gilded arched mirror by the doorway (all sources listed down below) and the Mongolian sheepskin stool from Clad Home helps to soften all the hardscape.

This transformation from cramped, outdated, and dark to bright, classic, and airy was exactly what we aimed for. I hope you love this space as much as we do! 

xoxo,

SOURCES: 

floor tile: ArtoBrick

vanity mirrors: Restoration Hardware

sconces: Rejuvenation

brass faucets: George’s Showroom

cabinet and towel hardware: Rejuvenation

bathtub pendant: vintage; Etsy

marble side table: Vintage; Etsy

tub: Vintage; Craigslist

leaning mirror: Ballard Designs 

sheepskin stool & all small accessories: Clad Home

framed print above tub: Marc Royce
floating lady painting: original painting interpreted by our talented homeowner

NOVEMBER "YEAR OF CHANGE" CHALLENGE: STYLE YOUR BED

Here we are at the last Friday of the month once again.  I hope you've enjoyed some good downtime this week!  We've been in New York and Princeton with family all week long and it's been a beautiful time.

This month my fellow design bloggers and I decided to tackle styling a bed.  I took this project to my sister's house, since I'm poised to launch into a remodel on my own house in the New Year (yes, it was supposed to happen this Fall, but these things move agonizingly slowly) so I'm not decorating much around here at the moment.

Remember my One Room Challenge "Parisian Chic" living and dining room?  This bedroom is in that same apartment.  The overall look for this home is traditional, pretty, and very feminine.

The design for this space immediately came into focus when I stumbled upon an old 4-poster bed deep in the dark and dusty recesses of my carpenter's shop/overflow storage.  This place is crazy, piled to the rafters with stuff that hasn't seen the light of day for at least 50 years, and could sit there 50 more since it's not open to the public and has been pretty much forgotten about.

So when I came climbing out of there with an  iphone shot of this bed that they hadn't laid eyes on in years, they were perfectly willing to get rid of it.  I think I paid $125.

Crazy, especially considering that a nearly identical 4-poster bed with cane headboard is sold at Peter Dunham's high-end design store Hollywood at Home for over $10k.  Score!

This what the bedroom looked like when we began ...

And here it is as it started to shape up, with the addition of a vintage crystal chandelier, white linen drapes, and the 4-poster bed ...

With the bed installed, we began imagining what the rest of the room could look like. We knew we wanted lots of crisp white bedding to play off the black bed frame and enhance all the natural light in our space.  Something similar to these inspiration images ...

(all images via our Pinterest project board)

One of the challenges we had to work around was that the wall that made the most sense for the bed to sit against had a big, off-center window.  So once again, just like I did with the Larchmont Bungalow bedroom, I hung white linen curtains that extended beyond the window on one side, to give the illusion of a centered window behind the bed.  Works like a charm!

Lately when designing feminine bedrooms (and this entire apartment is nothing if not feminine!) I've been drawn to white hotel-style embroidered bed linens with bright, bold florals on the pillows.  Here's some of my inspiration for white bedding combined with painterly floral prints ...

 (all images via our Pinterest project board except 

the last one from my Larchmont Bungalow project.)

If you know me at all by now you'll have guessed that both nightstands and the cane bench at the foot of the bed were all thrift store finds that I re-finished (the nightstands got professionally lacquered and the bench I did myself.)

You can't really style a bed without styling the nightstands too, and I especially love this beautiful black lacquer chest with all the brass hardware and a slim writing desk that slides out at the top.

All the vintage stuff when I first found it ...

One of the chests sold between the time I snapped this photo and when I returned to purchase them, so rather than trying to come up with a match and not succeeding, I chose something in a really dissimilar style to highlight their differences.

 And the end result!

Do you recognize the pillows from the "sofa in the garden" post I did last month showing off these beautiful fabrics from Tonic Living?  I had the pillows made up for this project, but the installation date came a bit later so I couldn't show them in the actual bedroom until now.

Be sure to have a look at the bed styling skills of my fellow "Year of Change" designers.  Excited to see what everyone came up with this month!

*Tricia and Erin the Suburban Bitches 

*Amy at Commona My House

*Sarah at Life On Virginia Street

And this month we're also joined by the three lovely sisters over at 11 Magnolia Lane

Care to catch up on past "Year of Change" challenges?

March: Stenciled Entry Wall

April: DIY Furniture Round-Up

May: Global Bohemian Patio

June: Colorful Kids Art Nook

July: Martinique Banana Leaf Wallpaper

August: Bookshelf Styling Tutorial

September: DIY Wall Art

October: Using fabrics from Tonic Living

BEDROOM SOURCES:
Greek key duvet set: Overstock.com

White linen curtains: Ikea

Malachite pillow fabric: Tonic Living
Floral pillow fabric: Tonic Living
Leopard bench fabric: Tonic Living
All furniture: vintage (I promise to post about my fave LA vintage shopping spots soon!)
Crystal chandelier: vintage
Faux malachite lamps: vintage (DIY tutorial coming soon)
Large magnolia art print: re-purposed from my dining room (I explain how to source and enlarge wall art here)