The Impromptu Dinner Party

The first of last week, a client of mine came over to approve some handmade tile for a project. As we were chatting to coordinate the visit, I invited her to dinner.

"You are coming a long way. Please stay for dinner. It will be no big deal ~ homemade macaroni and cheese, Caesar salad, a baguette and some red wine."

As we lingered over dinner, she mentioned that her birthday was next week; that she was not looking forward to it and could she spend it with me.

"Absolutely," I said. "Let me work out the details and we'll set it up." In the interim, a friend of a friend sent me an email ~ Heidi – why am I only now discovering your blog? It’s fabulous and I’m subscribed so I can get all your decorating secrets. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the kitchen cabinet fix up! Someday I want you to invite me to come see your house so I can copy all your brilliant ideas.  XOXO  Liz

All week long as I met with friends and close colleagues, I invited them to come for dinner. I invited Byron on the way back from the Elwha Dam removal documentary. I called my friend, Audrey, on Bainbridge to see if she was going to be in town. Then, Karen and her husband, Ron. In my brain, it started out as four and, as the week wore on, it ended up with eight.

What to fix? Comfort food. It's been raining like hell all week. Beyond drizzle. As I watched the rain sheet down the windows, I thought ~ potato soup with celery and artichokes with maybe some freshly smoked salmon crumbled on it, some crusty bread, some brie, wine.

I went to the store and bought a whole wild-caught Sockeye salmon, had it filleted, brought it home and grilled it on a cedar plank. Pink and smoky. Oh, yum! The potato soup was easy. While I don't consider myself such a red-hot cook, I do have lovely dishes and they just don't get out enough. So, I brought out the demitasse, the liqueur glasses, the Majolica cabbage soup tureen, the linen napkins ~ the whole shootin' match.

Byron brought an apple strudel pie just warm out of his oven. Laura brought a wonderful chocolate number and a couple of quarts of nice ice cream. Everyone brought a nice bottle of wine. And, we celebrated not just one but two birthdays ~ Laura, my client and Audrey, my dear friend.

At the end of my shopping trip, I had stopped at the store and bought everyone a lottery ticket and tucked it under each plate. Much hilarity ensued. We might be dining with a multimillionaire. What would you do with the money?

The impromptu dinner party? A group of strangers met for dinner and left as friends. At the end of the evening, we were discussing a monthly dinner party. I've always wanted to do that. I'll keep you posted.

Design for the Smallest Bathroom in the World

Let's chat about my design philosophy. I believe in saving my clients' money. I believe in using what we have. I believe in using architectural salvage. I believe in creative design solutions. I believe beautiful design saves money. I believe wonderful design is life-affirming and life-changing.

This past fall I had an opportunity to design a small bathroom in the Ballard. A long-time client of mine called to tell me the tile was falling off the walls in her shower and she didn't have a single second to deal with it because her daughter was at Children's fighting for her life. And, she said, "Keep in mind, I'm on a very tight budget."

Here are the "befores" ~ not terribly inviting:

     

When I went in to see the bathroom, I knew we needed to find a beautiful solution for the lack of storage and the very deep window that had turned into an unfortunate catch-all. Custom storage was out of the question. It was not in our budget.

However, without the "problem" window, the storage and the bathroom wouldn't have been nearly as beautiful. Finding a beautiful solution turned a "difficult, problem" window" into a star! Using a couple of sink bases from IKEA, I effectively doubled the storage space and put it all behind doors. Nothing like zapping the clutter of a very small room for a feeling of deep satisfaction. A beautiful solution! 

Every decision was a constant reminder that money was tight; the budget was the major issue. While the contractors gutted the space and restudded the walls, I started looking for a very small, very pretty vanity. I tried all my favorite salvage haunts ~ 2nd Use, Earthwise, the ReStore, etc. and Craigslist. At the first three, I didn't find a thing. On Craigslist, I scored. I found the fabulous marble vanity and sink for $50.










So, we have a lovely vanity and we have solved the storage. Toilet? The existing one was very plain vanilla. I found a darling one with double flush capabilities on Craigslist for $50. Done.

So, what about the tile, the floor, the shower? Well, one of the most wonderful bathrooms I've ever experienced is in a very small boutique hotel in Florence. I mean the room was tiny by anyone's standards, but, it was glorious. It was all crema marfil marble. Certainly, there was no way to do a marble bathroom on our budget but there were things we could do. What we needed was another beautiful solution. I found some very well-priced honed (not slippery) 6x6 crema marfil marble tiles for the shower floor at Home Depot (who knew?) and around the corner from that there was a pile of large scale porcelain tile that exactly matched it ($2.00 sf) Done! And, beautiful.


I did a quick sketch of the tile layout for the installer. For the walls, I decided on what is called in the trade "French Sanitary White" ~ clean white tile in different sizes with matching trim from Home Depot. A beautiful solution! The final effect is elegant and luxurious. Using the chair rail and braid trim pieces along the formerly difficult window sill established a nice line that allowed the deep window sill to really be the star. Following that line into and around the shower effectively expanded the space visually. Done. And, beautiful.

I matched the wall paint to the crema marfil (a wonderful chamois Sherwin Williams color called "Interactive Cream"), added a band of small 2x2 colored feature tiles in a checkerboard pattern around the bottom of the wall in my client's desire to celebrate the family's Hispanic heritage, bought the glass towel bar on Craigslist, found the wonderful Waterworks faucet (our biggest splurge), added a couple of alcoves and a shelf in the shower, new down lighting, a new fan, and hung my client's Scotty dog art and, voila, beautiful bathroom.

Using a combination of architectural salvage, vintage items and an eye to finding a beautiful solution at every opportunity, I was able to create a luxurious jewel box of a bathroom at a staggeringly low price. All good things when we still face recession worries. And, best of all? I turned problems into challenges and challenges into beautiful solutions.