Rosa Beltran Design: dining room

Showing posts with label dining room. Show all posts

BREAKFAST NOOK WITH SOME CHINOISERIE FLAIR

I just designed a tufted wrap-around bench that we're custom-building for a client's breakfast nook, and now we're in the midst of choosing the rest of the elements in the space. We need to decide between two different fabric combos, so that's what I've got on the brain right this minute.

One combo has ivory linen roman shades trimmed in coral and paired with a punchy coral vintage tole chandelier and pagoda print pillows (yup, you guessed it, this is all for the same house as the chinoiserie chic living room I've been sharing with you lately.)

The alternate combo has the pagoda fabric on the roman shades paired with a white vintage tole light fixture because I think a coral fixture would be too much in this case.

So which do you prefer?? I like both, but I'm leaning towards #1 because I love the red lantern paired with the marble-topped tulip table. I just love the red lantern, period.

Whichever scheme I go with I'll probably include in a pillow or two in Quadrille's Java Java or Saya Gata, two classic fretwork prints that will look fabulous with the coral laquered fretwork Chippendale chair we have. Just the one chair, as the tufted bench will actually wrap around on 3 walls leaving space for only one accent chair. Fine by me because as much as I love Chippendale chairs, they can look a bit busy as a whole set ... that's a lot of lines.

So what's your pick, combo #1 or combo #2?

FRIDAY FIND: AFFORDABLE BRASS BAR CART

I've got a great little find to share today, just in case you haven't seen it already!
I recently installed this Crate & Barrel "Libations" bar cart in the Los Feliz English Colonial house I designed in LA. BUT ... this cart is NOT my secret tip for you ... so read on!

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It's a great bar cart option due to its clean, straight lines, wood-accented handles, and matte brass finish. It's one of those chameleon pieces that can go either modern or traditional, quirky or classic.

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Here it is again used in a room styled by Emily Henderson (I know, I know, I've referenced her twice this week ... I like her and she's the only other designer I could find with photos of this cart used another way!)

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It's a lovely piece and I'm definitely a fan, but just know that even priced at $600, it's not actually solid brass ... the brass tone is clearly a surface-applied finish.
SO.....Target recently rolled out their verrrrry similar "Threshold Wood and Brass" bar cart for only $130! It's a bit smaller than the C&B version, but I've seen it in person and the brass finish is nearly as good ... a bit more gold in tone, but still really nice. The wood detail on this cart comes in the form of the wooden tray surfaces, which I think provides a really nice material contrast to the brass finish.

Here it is styled up by Suite Life Designs ...

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Bearing in mind that most new metal bar carts run $600-$1500+ (search "Worlds Away" bar carts and you'll find plenty of drool-worthy, super pricey options) I think this little cart is a steal and I wouldn't hesitate to use it!
Be quick about it though ... Target tends to cycle through their design collections rather quickly and it won't be available forever.

Hope you have a great weekend!

RBD CUSTOM FURNITURE ON DESIGN SPONGE!

Happy Friday people! I've had a week of my toddler keeping weird hours and throwing off the whole sleep routine so I, for one, am ready for the weekend. I have chill time with good friends planned throughout the whole thing. Bring it.
Design Sponge featured a home tour this week with a custom RBD sofa in it. Big ups! It's a grey tufted sectional that we modeled after the perfect classic mid-century sofa, and it's lookin' gooood in this hipster Echo Park pad, if I do say so myself.

DESIGN SPONGE: CUSTOM RBD SOFA

My client was Sonja Rasula, founder of Unique LA (now also in San Fran and NY), a design show/market event that "brings modern, curated made in America design to the masses." She also just launched CAMP, a "creative business conference that takes place in a summer camp environment," and is opening an 18,000 square foot building in the LA Arts District dubbed The Unique Space, an endeavor to foster art, community and co-working in downtown LA. Very cool chick. Let's tour her house (which I did not design by the way. I can only take credit for the sofa.)
Loving the breakfast nook magenta bentwood chairs against the dark walls...

DESIGN SPONGE

Eames wire chairs and that ubiquitous Cole & Son aspen wallpaper. (Are they aspens? I think they are. They look like aspens to me, and I grew up in aspen groves. Not literally in one, but around them, for sure. Anyhow they just call the pattern "Woods.")

DESIGN SPONGE

I particularly like the "WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" signage. It's good to be reminded of that sometimes.

DESIGN SPONGE

Parting shot. Hello again sofa. You like nice...

DESIGN SPONGE: CUSTOM RBD SOFA

Email me if you're interested in fine custom furniture at a working man's (woman's) price point. Design for the people! That's what I'm all about.

GIVEAWAY WINNERS AND A DESIGN CRISIS TO SOLVE

HUGE thanks to everyone who participated in the pillow giveaway and left comments...it's so gratifying to know that you're actually out there, following along. The winners are announced at the bottom of this post :)
I loved our interaction so much that I'm going to keep up the giveaways on a regular basis, all right? I think next up will be a little faux malachite hand-painted box for ya...

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Remember me threatening awhile back to jump on the malachite faux-ing trend? Well the right project came along and I'm on a kick now, making some amazing faux malachite lamps for the Los Feliz "Parisian Chic" apartment I'm working on, and since I always pick up plain wooden boxes and trays whenever I see them out thrifting, you know I'll be transforming some of those into malachite treasures. Stay tuned for that giveaway and to see the crazy beautiful lamps I made for the "Parisian Chic"project.
But for the moment, I'm seriously waffling on a big design decision and I'm taking any and all input you care to offer! Remember the vintage metal director's chairs I bought a while back and planned to re-vamp for my own dining room? (I've since found out they're a mid-century design put out by Virtue Brothers furniture company of Compton, CA. Cool.) They're back from the powdercoaters with a new matte brass finish, and now I'm completely stuck on deciding what material to use for the sling seats and backs.

What I know for sure is that I'm ditching the brown naugahyde that you see in both the before and after photos (looks like different colors but it's just different lighting.) My initial plan was to use a tawny cognac / brandy tone leather for a classic look...that's the sample that I clothespinned to the middle of the chair back. It's generally my favorite hue for any leather, and it ties in well with the rest of the house, including the mid-centry leather tufted chair chair in the living room. My hope is that the leather would be pretty kid-friendly...stains and spills much more wipeable than the ivory linen on my current chairs.
Something like this...only with the brass chair frames...

BUT once I saw it on the chair along with all the brown wood tones in my dining room, I started to reconsider. It's too much brown, right? Doesn't the cognac leather just get a little lost? Do I need a color that will pop more?

I have tons of leather samples on-hand in my fabric library so I tried out blues, greys, camels...nothing really worked. Either they didn't contrast enough against the brass frame, or they didn't stand out enough against the grey walls and the dark walnut dining table and medium brown wood floors. The only alternate possibility I could even entertain was a peacock blue teal leather.
By sheer coincidence the other day Jenny from Little Green Notebook posted about doing her dining chairs in peacock blue leather, and although at the time I wasn't even remotely considering this as an option, it turns out it's the only shade of leather (other than the cognac) that I felt was in the running after my process of elimination.

Nice, right? But I'm feeling sort of paralyzed about pulling the trigger on the peacock blue! I just hadn't thought I'd do a strong color there (although I'm not really opposed to it...I just have to get used to the idea.) There are 6 chairs, so it will be a big element in the house (open floor plan...living room flows into the dining flows into the kitchen. The teal does work with the rest of the colors and spaces, I think.)
I started considering other options too...fabric, or waxed canvas (thinking that a waxed finish might be more impermeable and stain resistant than a typical fabric, not to mention a lot less expensive than leather.) The fabric option would mean that I could more easily sew the seats myself, which is a cost saver, whereas with expensive leather I'm not sure I'd have the confidence to do that (but maybe...I'd have to look into getting the right leather needle, etc.) I could do a tobacco/spice brown canvas with leather trip for a vintage safari chair vibe? But I sort of run into the same problem...the waxed canvas colors are drab...navy, brown, olive...nothing that would stand out much against all the brown wood.

I've even considered going with pattern. I love this Premier Prints knock-off of the teal Peter Dunham ikat and it's a heavy, woven, durable fabric that I think would work fine on the chairs.

HGTV

But honestly I don't think I can rock a pattern on my dining chairs...I like having the flexibility to go in any direction with my table settings, and I feel like a busy pattern on the chairs would limit the options for the tablescape, plus it might just be overkill on all 6 chairs.
So what do YOU think?? Is there a color or option that you like best? Help me, I'm seriously stuck!
Here are the 3 randomly chosen winners of the pillow giveaway...please email me your delivery address and I'll send out your pillow covers! And thanks for participating :) *Amanda K *Anneliese *Erin B

COLONIAL HOUSE TOUR PART 3: DINING ROOM

DINING ROOM
I hope that by showing you lots of the (still lovely) peripheral spaces in this beautiful home and saving the LIVING ROOM for last I am creating a slow building, burning and smoldering desire in you to see that final room reveal on this house tour...'cause it's gonna be good people, best for last!
So today I bring you the dining room....a room that is VERY different from any space I have ever done before. That's because during the design process my clients fell completely and utterly in love with a particular photo of a very particular dining space designed by Nate Berkus, and they simply had to have it, or as close as they could get to it.
That's something I've never really done before...emulated a room design SO closely with very little deviation from the original inspiration. But they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? And since the clients were quite certain of their design direction, I went with it.

Here's the Berkus...

10 Creative Looks for Dining Rooms Tables & Chairs - HomeandEventStyling.com

NATE BERKUS

And here's the Beltran...

ROSA BELTRAN DESIGN

Look beyond the obvious details that need polishing....the electrician hung the chandelier a bit too high above the table, for instance, and the window treatments are not up. But this is what is happening for now, so I wanted to share.
Re-creating those emerald green velvet chairs was a very interesting process. Needless to say we weren't just going to stumble upon a set of intact emerald green velvet mid-century chairs, or find them at, say, West Elm. You may remember from this post that I found these Saarinen-style chairs for a bargain on Overstock and had them powder coated gold/brass and redone in our emerald green velvet.

Here's a shot of the dining room BEFORE so you can gain a full appreciation for the current pale grey walls over the pistachio green walls of yore. The color we used is Benjamin Moore "Silver Satin."
BEFORE...

AFTER...

ROSA BELTRAN DESIGN

One detail of this room that didn't photograph very easily is the gorgeous graphic blue and white Hermes china that fills the two corner built-in cabinets. It's a great addition to the colors and the vibe going on in this dining room.

There's also a very pretty and airy open metalwork console along one wall, but unfortunately we didn't really wind up with any great photos of it in the context of the whole room. This was a super rushed whirlwind photo shoot with hardly any time to stop, consider, and edit the styling of each shot, and there are definitely some things I would change now if I could. The vignette on this console is one of them.

ROSA BELTRAN DESIGN

SOURCES: Wall Color: Benjamin Moore "Silver Satin" OC-26 Chairs: Overstock.com Table: Restoration Hardware (exact model is discontinued but they still sell very similar ones) Scissor Arm Brass Chandelier: Murray Feiss Vases: West Elm Sisal rug: Overstock.com China: Hermes Abstract painting: done by yours truly

NEW OBSESSION: METAL DINING CHAIRS

I told you about finding these vintage metal director's chairs and my plans to swap them out with my current linen upholstered dining chairs. I think it'll be a much more toddler-friendly option!

The frames have been powder coated with a brass finish and I'm picking them up this week to have them fitted with leather seats and backs. I've got a food feeling that this little project of mine is going to work out!
In the meantime, I've been ogling metal dining chairs left and right...I really love the unique twist they give a dining room! Check out some of these beauties...