MN Acoustics

Trust me, I have to see myself on television every day so I’m all too familiar with the
Imagine that one day you inexplicably find yourself living in an extremely bad situation. Your house is in shambles, run-down inside and out, the yard choked with weeds. You’ve tried to fix things up, but, frankly, you’ve got more pressing things on your mind, including a young daughter battling cancer, a wedding ring pawned to help pay her medical expenses, and long hours at a grocery store job trying to make ends meet. Then, just as it seems almost too much to bear, you hear a very loud and annoying voice yelling your family’s name through a megaphone. The next thing you know, you and your family are being whisked away for a much-needed weeks’ vacation, while a group of TV people stick around to spruce up your house. “Cool;’ you think, “It’ll be nice to have a room or two redecorated.” Well, not exactly.
That family-featured on the very first episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition-was more than a little surprised to come home to a whole new house, not just a few revamped rooms. Now, of course, people know what to expect when they hear me shouting “Good morning!” outside their door. But that initial makeover was a revelation to everyone involved, including me-and I’m not talking just about the sheer amount of people power that went into the job (though that was pretty amazing, too). While I’d been crafting furniture, designing rooms, and renovating homes for years, until I began my job as team leader on EMHE, I don’t think I realized how much difference having a comfortable, well-designed, and beautiful place to live can make in someone’s life.
Sure, I’ve always been passionate about houses, but the experience of creating warm, inviting sanctuaries for families who really need them has made me a true believer in the power of positive rethinking. If you want to inject light, energy, and optimism into your life, making over your home-or even just a single room interior– is a good place to start. I know for Sure that the instant that first EMHE family walked into their new house, their lives had changed for the better. I don’t think any of us, including all the neighbors and community members who had come out to help us, were quite prepared for how dramatic and emotional that moment would be.

He could only have been referring to “Big Daddy George,” my grandfather. The medium went on to tell me things about my family history that there was no way he could have known. Let me tell you, it was eerie. And that was only a tidbit of the bizarre stuff that started happening on that project. I worked on Brittany and Ron’s room, taking my cue from something Brittany had told me. She said that she had always seen the world in black and white, very clean and simple, until she had a child with autism. Then things got muted and gray. To give her back some of that simplicity, I stuck to a largely black-and-white palette anchored by graphic wallpaper adorned with bare trees. To give the trees some life, I added some cutouts of ravens, birds I’d seen lining up on the side of the road on the way to the house. Now here’s the other twisted thing. When It’s always nice to have a “clothes” chair in a bedroom, a place to dump your clothes when you’re so tired all you want to do is climb into bed. But even if you’re going to cover it up half the time, choose a good-looking chair. This red one might be tucked in the corner, but it’s no wallflower.
Set against a colorful backdrop, the black-and- white faces of the Vitale children are striking and add great feeling to their father’s bedroom. The bedding is understated enough to be masculine but still colorful enough to add energy. Brittany saw the room and the wallpaper in particular she asked me, “How did you know?” Turns out, her grandfather used to tell her that her ancestors would come back to watch over her in the form of ravens. Spooky! Black-and-white bedrooms are not for the meek- they make a pretty strong design statement. But there are other, subtler ways to use a graphic look to good effect. Usually pop comes from a bolt of color set against a mostly neutral background; but the reverse works, too: a bolt of black and white set against a more colorful background. A good example of this is a bedroom I designed for a New York policeman named John Vitale.
John’s wife died tragically of leukemia at the age of twenty-eight, leaving him alone with three boys under the age of five. The family had been in the process of renovating their home when John’s wife got sick and hospital and burial costs ate up all their renovation funds. EMHE decided to finish the job for them, and I had the good fortune to create a new bedroom for John. Because I wanted the room to have a masculine vibe, I kept the colors fairly low key-the bedding and side chairs are mostly in autumn red and orange hues-and used wood to add rich tones to the mix. The floor is natural maple, the bed and two bedside tables I custom designed are made from a dark walnut and the tongue-and-groove flooring on the back wall is walnut, too, stained an even darker, espresso brown.
To get a better sense of John, I had asked him, “What do you love in life?” and his answer was this: “I love waking up every day to my kids and seeing their faces.” I took what he said to heart. I photographed the boys and blew up the pictures, mounted them, and created a montage of six black- and-white photos that now hang above John’s dresser. The photos are really striking, not only because they contrast with the colors in the room, but because they’re hung a few inches away from the wall (I used a French cleat, which causes them to jut out slightly). The kids literally leap out at John when he opens up his eyes in the morning.

She and her husband, William devoted over fifteen years to the center. They are beacons of the community and amazing human beings. Linda has had some medical problems that forced the family to fall on hard times, and William has some problems of his own: He is visually impaired. He can, however, make out shapes. So I decided to create a very graphic room that both Linda and William could enjoy. The black bed, for instance, contrasts with the white bedding and pops off both the yellow headboard wall and gray-and-black paisley wallpaper.
The art, too, is meant to stand in high contrast against the walls and it’s mostly made up of large botanicals that William can see. For all their troubles, Linda and William are two joyous people and they certainly brought a lot of joy to the neighborhood. If there was to be a color that represents them it had to be yellow-using it as an accent here was a no-brainer, My favorite part of the room is an ornate bench, now also yellow, that William calls his prayer couch. I think that they had found it in a thrift store and it was pretty beat up before we reupholstered and painted it. The bench has always been a place for William to sit and think late at night; now it’s a lot more comfortable spot for contemplation. I did a third black-and-white room for an EMHE family, but before I tell you about it, let me ask you a question: Do you believe in haunted houses? I didn’t think I did until I met the Ray-Smith family. Brittany Ray and Ron Smith, two teachers, Placing art against busy wallpaper can be tricky. These prints work because they’re big and bold, which sets them off from their backdrop.
Before you toss out an old piece of furniture, consider what a little paint and reupholstering can do. William’s rejuvenated prayer bench is set against walls also given a new lease on life with the simple addition of white molding.
With its four-poster bed and paisley bedding, this room has a traditional feel. What makes it modern is its strong graphic quality and the surprising pop of yellow running throughout.
I modified this bare-tree wallpaper by adding cutouts of ravens, which, according to family lore represent the Ray-Smith’s ancestors, come back to watch over them. To create this little piece of art, I put black paper through a shredder, placed it in a box, and nested five stones on top, one for each family member. Live with their three children in an old house in Maine that was once occupied by Brittany’s great- great-grandfather. What we were dealing with first and foremost was the condition of the house. It just wasn’t safe for the kids, one of whom is autistic. The repairs were particularly important because the Ray- Smiths were in the process of adopting a daughter from China. We had been told strange things had happened in the house.
It was thought to be haunted and it didn’t seem like a good idea to just tear it down without making sure it wouldn’t stir up spirits. The Ray-Smiths’ safety (and the safety of our crew) was at stake. So we did the logical thing and brought in a medium. Channeling Brittany’s ancestors, the medium told us we had better renovate rather than demolish the house. Then he began to dole out some personal advice to some of us from the “ghosts” in the room. None of my ancestors seemed to be in the room so I asked, “What am I, chopped liver?” in my usual joking way. “Oh, you’ve got some issues,” he replied, looking serious. I would have just laughed it off if he hadn’t said that there was someone named George in the room.

 
 
The combination of black and white, it should be mentioned, has the potential to look a little cold, but there are lots of ways to warm it up. In the Harris bedroom I did that by mixing lots of patterns. I covered the chairs in a hounds tooth check, covered the walls with paisley wallpaper and scattered pillows in a bold, flowered print around the room. The highlight, though, is the quilt on the bed, which was created especially for the Harrises by renowned quilters from Gee’s Bend, Alabama.
These African-American women, many of them descendants of slaves, carryon a tradition that’s been passed on for generations. Their work is so admired that it’s been shown in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and now adorns a stamp. I gave them a panel of the black-and-white curtains I’d found.
In the thrift shop and that became the edging of the quilt. And let me tell you, that quilt is absolutely awesome! Perched atop the Harrises’ four-poster bed, it’s a work of art (and source of warmth). I also did a similarly graphic, if not entirely black- and-white room, for a great couple in North Carolina. Linda Riggins, despite being told that she wouldn’t amount to much, put herself through college and graduated with honors. She started a community center to help keep disadvantaged children in school and offer them activities like music and dance.

 
A few dashes of turquoise on the bed and curtains and a couple shapely bedside lamps were all it took to put the final touches on a warm and inviting room. RIGHT Totem shelves are a great platform for sculptures, vases, and other works of art. And you can make them yourself.
African masks really pop when perched on a turquoise wall.
It’s always safe to stick with a mix of three dominant colors. One of my favorite color combos is turquoise, chocolate brown, and white or cream. Here the threesome provides a warm backdrop for Veronica’s African mask collection.
When planning your room makeover, you need to take into consideration the room’s symmetry: Is it balanced, and what is your wall space like? Occasionally you’ll get rooms with windows that are unevenly spaced or with a single window just sort of hanging there in no man’s land. When you do have these imbalances, you can often use art to make up the difference. If you have a long wall that would leave your furniture swimming if you were to center it all in the middle, consider moving the furniture (like a bed and night tables in a bedroom, sofa and side table in a living room) so that it’s closer to the end of one wall and balancing it out with something like a big painting; a collection of photos or drawings hung salon style; a sculpture; or even unexpected objects that you treat as art. Maybe it’s a vintage bicycle, an old advertising sign, some African drums and shakers that you hang on the wall, a surfboard with a great pattern airbrushed on top. It could be anything that you think is beautiful as long as it provides balance to the furniture on the other side of the wall.
This technique also works when you’ve got windows that are out of whack. Use art to provide the missing symmetry. One other thing to keep in mind about art and symmetry: when hanging paintings and photographs, don’t go any higher than the top of the room’s window frames. In most cases, going higher will disturb the balance of the room and even make the room seem smaller. Usually all the windows will be the same height; if not use the highest frame as your margin and line up your art either at or below it.

To give the headboard wall an iridescent glow, I cut square panels, painted them the same red and white pattern, mounted them about six inches from the wall, and placed little lights behind them. OPPOSITE PAGE: Taking my cue from Shawna, I wrapped paper around boards and hung them as art. When she walked into the room and realized I’d referenced her own decorating ideas, it put a huge smile on her face. That’s when I know that I’ve done my job. I’m not among those people who think you should buy art to match the furniture. I’m the kind of guy who buys art from the heart, then worries about how it’s going to look in my house later.
But that said, if you already own art that you love, why not design the room to showcase it or at least let it be your inspiration? The driving force behind the design of a room for a woman named Veronica Ginyard was her collection of carved masks, gifts she’d received from friends and family who’d traveled to Africa. Veronica is a lovely and incredibly strong woman, who extricated herself from domestic abuse and is single-handedly raising her eight children (including two sets of twins). At the time we entered the picture, the family was living in a small house with exposed live wires sticking out of the wall and mold from the constant flooding of their basement.
The place was really a wreck, and the kids were all crammed together in attic and basement rooms that were dangerous and stifling. While my goal was to display Veronica’s collection of masks to good effect, I also wanted to create a restful environment for this woman who had endured so much hardship. But, in some ways, those two objectives were at odds with each other: I could use only cool, neutral-colors, which would make the room, feel very quiet and peaceful, but if I did that, the masks, all of which are wood, wouldn’t have really popped off the walls in the way I wanted them to. So I came up with a compromise.
I kept most of the colors in the room neutral, then painted one wall a greenish- turquoise, which contrasted well with the dark wood of the masks but wasn’t so brash that it ruined the room’s low-key mood. To make the masks on the other wall stand out, I mounted them in shadow boxes, using the same green-tinged turquoise as a background. Since Veronica’s mask collection was fairly exotic, I chose a beautiful teak hardwood to make the bed and other pieces of furniture in the room. It’s the combined effect of these exotic wood pieces that gives the room its life and enabled me to keep everything else fairly unembellished.

The wood is unstained, a good choice when you want to keep the look light. The real key to making any room with strong visual elements work is restraint. In Colleen’s bedroom that meant letting the flower photos and the carved bedroom set be the main attractions by keeping everything else in the room simple. There are, for instance, no rugs on the floor and, save for a few flowers throw pillows, no other patterns in the room. The bedding-including the fabric encircling the head of the bed-is solid so that it doesn’t compete with the other patterns in the room and lets the pure joy of those flowers shine through. To this day, Colleen sends me emails telling me how much she loves the room. She’s finally accepted the idea that she can take a moment to enjoy herself without having to feel guilty. While I kept patterns to a minimum in Colleen’s room, I’m all for mixing them when the time is right.
The room I did for breast cancer survivor Shawna Farina is the perfect example of a wild mix that works. Combining different patterns is always tricky, and sometimes you just have to rely on your eye. What makes for harmony in this particular instance is that the patterns are of varying size and in the same colors. Mixed motifs don’t always have to be in the ABOVE A piece of glass fitted over the bedside table protects the wood from sloshing cups of coffee and other possible stain perpetrators. OPPOSITE PAGE Pictures can have as much impact propped as hung.
FOLLOWING SPREAD One reason the mix of patterns in this room works is that the patterns are of varying sizes. Another distinctive feature of this room is the use of pendant fixtures on either side of the bed instead of table lamps. Sudden Impact 53 same shades (though they usually work best if they share one or two colors), but it is a good idea to team up patterns of different sizes. If all the patterns are big, you could be in for a big crazy mess; if all the patterns are small, you risk the room looking fussy and overdone. The reason I chose to create such a bold room for Shawna and her husband is because Shawna herself is so bold and strong.
When her mom was twenty-nine, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, so Shawna grew up knowing all about this dreadful disease. But her mom survived and Shawna was so inspired that she created a walk/run called Relay for Life to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Although the fundraiser only takes place in the small Indiana town where Shawna lives, she has raised close to half a million dollars in five years. One year when she was getting dressed for the relay she found a lump in her own breast. At twenty-six with three young kids it seemed insane that something like this could happen. She had to go through chemotherapy, radiation, a mastectomy, and hysterectomy, all the while still participating in Relay for Life and working part time, not to mention leading her daughters’ Brownie troop! But like her mom, Shawna beat back the cancer. By the time we showed up, Shawna’s family was in pretty dire financial straits; all their money had gone toward hospital bills.
They barely even had any furniture. But-and this is just one measure of Shawna’s can-do spirit-she took old Christmas wrapping paper and framed it so that her kids would have something bright and colorful on the walls to look at. I loved that idea so much that I used it to inspire the room’s accent wall and bedding, both of which have wrapping paper patterns. Red is a dynamic color not everyone would want to live with it, but for Shawna it was a good fit. She and her husband is young and very hip, so I kept the look modern with a steel-framed bed, globe lights, and a buttery leather Eames chair. Yet it’s not stark modern; the chrysanthemum mural and “flocked” bedding give the room a sense of humor.
To me, though, the room’s crowning glory is the wrapping paper art above the Eames chair. It’s a reminder of Shawn a’s ingenuity, appreciation for beauty, and fortitude.

You just have to open your eyes and your mind. 44 Inspiration In most homes, bedrooms tend to be on the quiet side, with the “wow factor” left to more public spaces like living and dining rooms. But there’s no law that says a bedroom can’t also be high impact (and if there is, well, rules are meant to be broken). In fact, sometimes bright, mood-elevating splashes of color are just what the doctor ordered. There is, though, a smart way to go about creating a bedroom that’s fun and lighthearted. After all, you don’t want to turn up the volume so high that it’s impossible to sleep. ABOVE Photographs of flowers were enlarged, printed out on canvas, and stretched over frames to make inexpensive artwork. OPPOSITE PAGE Fun, attention-getting bursts of color work in a bedroom if they’re balanced with muted tones and clean-lined accessories. The extras are kept to a minimum with only a few understated lamps and a couple of elegant floor vases. Likewise, when your headboard is ornate, keep the bedding simple. Here, all we needed for oomph was a few flowered throw pillows.
Sudden Impact A balance between high spirits and liv- ability is what I was going for when I created a bedroom for a woman by the name of Colleen Nick. One summer night, Colleen and her eldest daughter, Morgan, traveled to a nearby Arkansas town to watch a Little League baseball game. During the game, six- year-old Morgan joined her friends to catch fireflies in an adjacent field and was never seen again. She simply disappeared, possibly abducted by a man who witnesses saw watching her. That was in 1995, but Colleen has never given up hope that she will one day be reunited with her eldest daughter (she also has two other children, a boy and girl).
After her loss, she established the Morgan Nick Foundation and she’s worked tirelessly ever since to help other families find lost children and to implement protective measures so that kids don’t get abducted in the first place. Colleen is an absolutely incredible woman. After years of neglect while the family concentrated on finding Morgan, the Nick house was in a pretty sorry state. The carpet had gotten so bad that they had ripped it out and were padding around on bare concrete floors. (Her son and his friends, though, thought it was cool-they were skateboarding on them.) While the EMHE crew worked on giving the Nick family a new house, I joined in on some of the continuing efforts to find Morgan. I was helping to put a time-enhanced photograph of what Morgan might look like now on a billboard next to a highway when I looked down and there, growing out of a cinderblock amidst old tires and machine parts, was one little yellow daisy.
This one small flower, somehow surviving in the middle of all this junk and trash, seemed like the perfect metaphor for Colleen herself. With all the pain and suffering she endures, I thought she deserved a room that brought some light and joy into her life. And that daisy, unabashedly bold and bright, was the perfect inspiration. But while I wanted Colleen’s bedroom to exude exuberance, I also wanted it to be a place where  she could relax-a little hard to do if the walls are screaming at you. So here was the compromise: I saved the bright bursts of color for the artwork I created to adorn the room, then painted the walls a deep, but fairly muted mustard yellow and light olive green.
Because they’re associated with nature, both shades symbolize new growth, but neither was going to keep Colleen up at night. To create the flower pictures above the dressers and on either side of the bed, I took digital photographs of daisies and sunflowers and transferred them to my computer. I then enlarged the flowers and deepened their red and orange hues so that, once framed (they’re printed on canvas), they’d really pop off the yellow and green walls. I also carried the flower motif over to the solid maple bedroom set I custom built for Colleen.