Office Minimalist: Sunday's spectacular seven....and your questions answered!

Posted by Mr Wong at 4:30 AM

Good morning, hope everyone is having a great weekend. We are experiencing our first round of true fall weather, and I have to say I am loving it. Brisk, cool, beezy....now this is what I have been waiting for!! Today is a short post on seven spectacular rooms/spaces that I just love for one reason or another. Also I have another round of questions to answer so thought it is easier if I just answer them as I get them..

1. Are we polishing or honing the marble? Is there a difference in how it wears? Well, I am not claiming to be a marble expert by any stretch but we are honing all of our marble in the kitchen, butlers and pantry. First I love the look of honed marble, it makes it look kind of old world and the bottom line as I have been told, the key either way is to be sure you get a really good heavy duty sealer and use it 1-2 times a year. This applies for either finish.
2. I got several people asking my about my personal style, how do I like to dress and if it mimics my style in decor (classic, elegant traditional) and what are my favorite brands? I had to laugh a little at this because lately anyone who thinks of me as dressing well would be very disappointed, seems lately I live in sweat/yoga pants, a basic t shirt, and sneakers (sad but true). But I do have my great looking Ralph Lauren jacket over it! Seriously, yes do love classic dressing. I would say my style is classic traditional tailored elegance with a little twist. Some of my favorite brands are Tory Burch (very much my style), Tibi, Milly, J Crew (for basics), Theory to name a few. I love great cashmere sweaters and cardigans, blouses, lacy tops, tailored straight front pants, beautiful scarves, tailored fitted jackets, ballerina flats and riding boots. Am also a bit of a handbag fanatic. Those are some of the pieces that I love and wear often. Of course many of these items are ugh....lets just say "on hiatus" in my closet taking a nice long vacation while yours truly gets her priorities back and starts losing 15 -20 lbs that shes gained due to "house stress". Yes, it IS so convenient to blame that house :)
3. What will I be using as backsplash in the kitchen/pantry? We are actually working on this now as a matter of fact. I am thinking of going classic and simple, ideally want to get beveled subway tiles that are oversized either 6x10 or 6x12. Then maybe frame out a herringbone design above the stove. Want it to be a beautiful but subtle backdrop to everything else going on in the kitchen.
4. Did I or am I working with a designer? No, its all me!! I was doing interior design work for clients for a few years before we started building our home, and despite having the good fortune of being offered several jobs turned them down to fully concentrate on this house. My opinions are strong and pretty definite on how I want things to look so I realized early on, that I wasn't going to want to work with anyone else alongside me ( did briefly consider it and spoke to/interviewed a few designers). One of them even told me that he thinks I could do it on my own as he loved my ideas/vision and I realized he was right, at least up until this point. However I did hire someone who is a master at room planning/space planning to help with layouts, sizes of furniture,etc and I do bounce things off of him from time to time and am sure there will be more of this as we step up the decorating process now....it might take a little longer this way but at least I will get exactly what I want!
5. What color stain are we using in the family room and what was used in the breakfast room? They are both custom stains, we played around with several options and tweaked them until we got the formula where we wanted it to be. In the breakfast room, we did a "limed" finish on top of the stain.
6. Do I recommend putting bathtbus in all the bathrooms for new construction? No I don't, unless it happens to work for you and your lifestyle and you have kids who specifically really want bathtubs. We have 3 sons who all like showers, but my youngest who is an athlete likes to soak in a tub, so we put one in his bathroom and in the guest bath. I think its wise for resale to have at least one other bathroom with a tub but I certainly do not think its necessary to have one in every bathroom.
7. What are my feelings on TV's above the fireplace? I got this several times too. In a perfect world, I wouldn't do it but sometimes you have to bend the rules and make concessions. In our bedroom, we are doing this, but we have a beautiful frame and woodworking around it and I am confident that when the room is done, the focal point will not be the TV but many other pretty elements in the room. It happens to be dead center so it was the logical spot for the TV. Again in our family room, our architect was against it, but it was the perfect spot in terms of how the room lays out with furniture to have the TV above the mantle. So the compromise was we installed a hydraulic unit above the fireplace that will be part of the wood panelling that can conceal it when and if we want. This was my hubby's thing, putting it on the record that I had no problem with seeing the TV, after all it is a family room, you expect it!!
Now onto 7 spectacular rooms.....Have a favorite?