A trip to Fairchild Gardens

Every spring, James and I get together with a few wonderful friends who live up in Miami.
This year we all piled into this beauty, a 1950 Cadillac convertible,

and headed to Fairchild Gardens to see the Chihuly exhibit.

Here are a few highlights:

These geese were a little freaked out by the alligator swimming nearby:/

My photos don't do any of Chihuly's work justice, 

so if you're in South Florida, head on over to see everything for yourself!

If your'e not visiting the area any time soon, here's an awesome video from Mr. Chihuly's website. Its the next best thing...

Chihuly at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden from Chihuly Studio on Vimeo.

(Sorry about the "sorry!" Vimeo wouldn't let me upload directly...)

The park stays open on Thursday and Sunday evenings, and per the website:
"The Garden and Glass come to life after sunset creating a dreamy wonderland of color, lights and silhouettes. It's an entirely different exhibition after hours."

The exhibit is here until May 31. (The start of hurricane season, which I'm sure isn't a coincidence!) 

Until next time,

xojo

Media wall design

Thought I'd share a small project I recently completed. I mean, I am an interior designer, right? I should be sharing project updates, but I rarely think about taking the photos!

Ok, so here's the back story...

    Before

This space really needed a focal point and consolidation of  media equipment. The art on this wall was too small in scale and the TV dominated the area. 

I decided to design the wall to accommodate a flat screen TV with lit art niches 

and custom floating storage.

    Here's the inspiration photo

Its a magazine ad for Siberian Floors.

Those floating, espresso colored shelves are what caught my eye at first. 

I also thought the greys and creams would compliment the Client's existing Kreiss furnishings nicely. 

    Original concept sketch

We didn't do the retractable art over the TV for budget reasons and we decided to do cornice boards above the adjacent windows instead of by-pass shutters. The Hubs also wanted to add an exposed niche for his TV equipment.

    During

All niches needed full plywood boxes to accommodate the weight of the TV etc...

    Completed Design

The floating shelves and cabinets were custom built by my awesome carpenters, Grafton and Jose. The niches on the left have LED lighting above each one, 

but they hadn't yet been installed when I took this photo.

All exposed surfaces on the left side of the wall are covered in this grasscloth, as was the custom cornice boards. (In the upper left of the photo.)

Its Cowtan & Tout's "Aspen" wallcovering in Silver Birch

See all those books? I reversed all of the dust jackets so they would be uniform in color.

 (Its one of my favorite design tricks!)
They came from my late father's library. I try to include a few of his books (and positive energy) in each project I complete. 

This home is a work-in-progress, so I'm sure I'll be sharing more of it in the future!

Until next time,   xojo