STEP BY STEP: Shop till you drop!
Step by Step documents the projects that I’m juggling alongside setting up my interior design business, Kate Kerin Interiors. My clients Joanna and Pam have kindly agreed to being the subject of this blog, and I thank them for sharing their projects with our readers.
Petersham Project – bathroom reno
While we are waiting for quotes to be provided from our two possible tradesmen, Joanna and I decide to do some window shopping. We plan to visit a few bathroom showrooms near her apartment in Sydney’s Inner West to check out fixture options (toilets, mirrors and tapware), tile retailers to narrow down our choice of tiles, and two specialty showrooms which are each about as local as we can get. The first of these is Publisher Textiles and Papers in Camperdown, where we are meeting co-owner Stephanie to view in person the wide range of custom designed wallpapers that we have admired on their website. As expected, Publisher’s range of hand-printed wallpaper leaves us with a difficult choice – there are so many beautiful options to pick from. There is even a bespoke colouring service if we can’t find the right colour paper. We walk away with a number of generous samples to pin up in the bathroom for inspiration.
The other specialty stop is a treasure trove called Three of a Kind Furniture; a workshop/shopfront in Leichhardt, whose tagline is “butt ugly blokes building handsome furniture for beautiful people”. Head bloke/carpenter is Karl, who is passionate about his wood, his work and his team, and spends nearly an hour talking with us about options for Joanna’s vanity. Joanna has previously bought a dining table from Karl, and doesn’t need convincing about the quality of the furniture on offer. She is keen to stretch the budget a little bit to include a custom-designed vanity for her project. This item will set the design tone for the rest of the room.
I have prepped for this window-shopping trip by attending each of the retail showrooms myself in advance, to ensure they have the items I want to show Joanna and to have an idea of where everything is and the distance between them. I will be driving us on this outing, and I want to be as efficient and organised as possible. Joanna has taken time off work and it’s vital that we see everything on our list – without getting too exhausted! We move from shop to shop, talking all the way about style, colour, budget and sustainability. By the end of the day, we have a much clearer view of how the bathroom is going to look – all centred around the beautiful hand-made reclaimed wood vanity. It’s starting to get exciting!
Read on to learn more about Joanna’s project.
Greenwich project – Seniors’ Resort refresh
Back in Greenwich on Sydney’s north shore, Pam and I are also planning a shopping trip to start furnishing her reading room (as we are now calling the glassed-in veranda). Pam is pleased to escape the apartment and the painters for a day, so we head to the Moore Park “Supa Centa” where we can visit a range of retailers in the one building. On our list are a comfy indoor/outdoor chair with footrest or ottoman, a side table, a good floor lamp for reading, a small bookshelf that can also display some nick-nacks and a couple of smallish area rugs – one for under Pam’s feet when she’s reading and the other to relieve the expanse of tiles in the room. We have debated whether to update the tiles but ultimately Pam decided there was nothing wrong with what was there, and that she didn’t want the upheaval of removing and replacing them.
We have settled on a low-key Hamptons style for this space, to maximise the feeling of sunlight and restfulness. We are therefore looking for white furniture, which will pop against the pale grey walls. Pam will be reading in this space so she needs a chair with a fairly straight back and arms that she can use to support herself when sitting down and standing up. Technically the space is an outdoor area, as it was once an open veranda that she and her husband had enclosed when they arrived. Pam therefore wants to consider outdoor furniture, but with a level of comfort and style that is appropriate to the high quality of the rest of her apartment. However she doesn’t want to spend a lot of money on this room, so budget is also a consideration and mid-range retail is definitely the way to go.
I am conscious that as an older person Pam can get easily tired, so I have scoped out the Supa Centa before we leave, and I have also sent her links to a number of websites that show items I think she might be interested in. This cuts down the amount of time needed to shop, and we are able to make some quick decisions. Pam wants to sit in the various shortlisted chair options so she can feel their comfort and quality. In Freedom Furniture she chooses a lovely white-framed chair with a grey cushion that picks up on the wall colour. A matching ottoman isn’t far behind, and we head to Beacon Lighting to choose a lamp that is adjustable and has an accessible foot-operated on/off switch. We locate the perfect two-level side table by accident at OzDesign Furniture, and agree that’s enough shopping for one day.
Later in the week we are able to settle on two identical rugs which fit the size of the space perfectly. The colours pick up the warmer tones of the floor tiles, while also reflecting the grey of the walls. They have a low profile, which will minimise trip hazards and I offer to stick them to the floor with double-sided tape, again to avoid accidents. The rugs are an online purchase; Pam is brave in agreeing to purchase rugs she hasn’t seen or touched, but I assure her that they can be returned if she absolutely hates them. Once they arrive, we both breathe a sigh of relief that she thinks they are perfect! The other online purchase is a DIY Hamptons-style white bookshelf. Again, we purchase this online because it is the perfect size and we had not been able to find something in a physical shop that fit the bill. My husband offers to put it together for her, and then together Pam and I style the room with some gorgeous green indoor plants, a comfy rug and her favourite books, photos and accessories. The room (shown in the thumbnail photo of this blog and also featured on my website) looks like a million bucks and Pam can’t wait to start reading in there each morning. Job accomplished!
In my next post we move onto some other rooms in Pam’s apartment.
Kate Kerin Interiors specialises in working with residential clients in Sydney, particularly older people who are downsizing or live independently in lifestyle resorts. Contact Kate for an initial consultation to talk about your project.
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