Tag: Home Theater Construction

Who do you think was sent to the front? Oh yeah, it all made for some interesting school and family dynamics. But I wasn’t completely hopeless. I had some trouble studying, but I found that I could do well if I had a visual frame of reference. I was good at geometry, for instance, because it involved shapes and putting things together. And I found that I could memorize facts for history class if I drew little pictures of battle scenes or whatever event was in the curriculum. Approaching information visually made all the difference for me-and it still does. I always wanted to be an artist, but my parents were a little skeptical about the idea, since it’s not the easiest route to a solid bank account. So I figured out that I could go to art school to become a graphic designer, which might landed me a legitimate job.
It turned out that I loved it. I loved it so much that when I was asked to do one project, I’d do three. (I was a real overachiever beaver on that one.) I also started doing carpentry, working on building houses, but I never thought of it as a future vocation; it was just a way to pay for school. After I graduated, I got a job at a graphic design studio and won some design awards while continuing to study painting and sculpture. It was all going well, but not long into it, I met a model scout who encouraged me to try modeling. The pay, he promised, would be great.
So, even though I had hilariously long hair with a kind of funky rat tail in the back, I went into the modeling agency office. A week later I was on a plane to Japan and entering what would become my wanderlust phase. Modeling gave me the travel bug and opened new worlds for me. I had never been anywhere. Now I was going to Europe and Asia and living in New York City, Japan, Thailand, and Italy. I wasn’t exactly striking it rich by modeling, but I was seeing the world and in the process learning so much about different cultures, different religions, and different ways of life. I began to see everything, including art, architecture, and furniture, in a completely different way.

You can build mini pieces of furniture out of paper or cardboard and even add paint to test out colors. Whatever way you do it, it’s really worth the effort, and it’s going to be a lot easier on your back than moving furniture around. When you’re making your floor plan, give some thought to creating rather than just filling space. All rooms need “flow”: Open spaces make them easier to navigate as well as more open and inviting. If, for instance, you walk in through the front door of a house and are hit by the back of the couch, it kind of stops you dead in your tracks. It’s like putting a Do Not Enter sign on the couch, making it harder to comfortably walk into a room and feel a part of what’s going on in there.
Tempting as it may be to 20 How to Plan for a Makeover cram every single thing you love into a room or to opt for furniture that really doesn’t fit simply because you like the style, go for spaciousness instead. Trust me. The airier the room, the less hemmed in you (and everyone else) is going to feel. Having flow in a room also allows you to use the room for its intended purpose. One woman for whom I designed a room was a big reader with lots and lots of books. She is an inspiration. She adopted many kids, several from Russia, who nobody else would take because they had birth defects or had some other kind of disability. Because she raised them to believe in them, they were funny, smart, and engaging kids.
She, however, had focused so much on the kids that her bedroom had become completely beside the point. She used it mostly as a study, a place to read books in between caring for the kids, which was a full-time job. AB a not?-and basically redesigning the house. I wasn’t much better in school. I definitely had some issues with conduct and, being who I am, a lot of excess energy. So I caused chaos in the classroom, climbing in and out of windows, slapping Johnny on the back of the head. As it happens, my mom was studying to be a child psychologist and, as part of her course work, she came to my elementary school and asked to study the worst kid in the school.

In just about every room, there’s one wall that immediately draws the eye. That’s the accent wall, which, in most of the bedrooms I design is a term that’s interchangeable with “the wall the bed is on.” (But “accent wall” sounds a lot more interior design, don’t you think?) In any case, creating some drama on one wall, in particular, is a sure way to give a bedroom some personality. And there are several different ways to do it. The first step, of course, is to choose which wall you’re going to highlight. Often that choice is dictated by the architectural layout of the room. When there are two windows on a wall with 86 Lighting the Way generous space between them, I generally like to place the bed right in the middle, which creates automatic symmetry and balance often, though, a room’s layout isn’t so obviously balanced, so you have to get creative.
The way I approached the problem in Sadie Holmes’s room was by creating wall art in place of a headboard. In this room, the obvious place to put the bed was on a very long, windowless wall, however, I didn’t want to let the bed just float in empty space. Placing the paper “waterfall” behind it defines space and adds drama. There are tons of ways to define the accent bedroom wall. Installing a bed with a great- looking headboard is probably the simplest, but you’ll still need to add something to make it pop, whether it’s painting the wall a different color than the rest of the room or covering the wall with wallpaper. Another great way to define a wall is to cover it with tongue-and- groove flooring. This works particularly well for a masculine room, like the one I did for John Vitale. Also don’t underestimate the impact of an excellent piece of art hanging above the bed.
And a four-poster bed creates its own sort of drama; you don’t have to worry about the wall if you’ve got a stunning bed set against it. If you don’t have a bed with an interesting headboard and aren’t inclined to invest in one, you can always create a detached headboard and attach it to the wall with a French cleat (two interlocking pieces of wood, one attached to the wall, the other to the object you’re hanging). For instance, in a bedroom I designed for a Marine, I used a router to cut out stars in a 7′ x 8′ wood headboard (it fell behind both the bed and the bedside tables).
But it doesn’t have to be that elaborate. Using a staple gun, you can also cover a board with foam and fabric to make a plush and elegant headboard. There is no end to the possibilities. Just make sure you use that French cleat or some other means of attaching the head- board to the wall (especially if you live in earthquake country). You don’t want it falling on you in the middle of the night. Lighting the Way 87 Another place where I was able to use lighting to good effect was in a bedroom I did for Patricia Broadbent, an AIDS activist and adoptive mother of six children, some of whom are HIV-positive. Patricia is an incredible optimist, who has taught her children to go out and have a full life despite their health status.
A former social worker, she has also helped raise awareness about the AIDS crisis and its effect on children. In the midst of all these selfless efforts, Patricia was diagnosed with lung cancer and, when the EMHE team met her, she was undergoing chemotherapy. It was clear, then, that she needed a bedroom where she could not only decompress from the work she was doing in the community but where she could rest and recover. To that end, I thought her room should have the same qualities as a spa: Zen-like calm and a simple, clean-lined design that, while spare, is not austere. The best spas are warm and nurturing, which is exactly how I wanted Patricia’s room to feel. We made it happen by using strategic lighting to set off the earthy colors and textiles and highlight the room’s natural beauty. Behind Patricia’s bed, for in- stance, are two floor-to-ceiling panels made of eco- resin, a non-toxic, translucent substance made largely of recycled materials. Frankly, I don’t think this Chinese neck pillow looks too comfortable, but it makes a great-looking table lamp. When it comes to lighting, use your imagination almost anything, from colanders to funnels, can be turned into a lamp.

What makes it work is that the furniture is in complementary tones and shapes, and the fabrics’ colors and patterns harmonize. Personally, I tend to favor a combination of the build-it-yourself and scavenger approaches. I’ve made a lot of the pieces in my house, but some of them also come from thrift shops and unexpected places. I bought the chairs in my dining room, for instance, from a college that was selling off some of its old furniture. They’re a mix of primary colors, made of chrome and plastic, and I paid only five dollars for each. I put the chairs around a bright white table, which has a base I got from a flea market and a top that I built myself.
Step Eleven is the most complicated step because it may entail going back to square one and going through the steps again with a less ambitious plan. In fact, most makeovers require revising the plan more than a few times. Just know that you’re going to freak out, but that you’ll refigure everything and it will all work out in the end. I do it every week.
 
Create a Floor Plan
How you’re going to commit your ideas to paper by re-creating the room in miniature so that you can play with all the elements. First, though, you need measurements.
A lot of them
Measure absolutely everything. Measure the floor, walls, and doors. Measure the height and width of the windows and, if you’re going to be using shades, measure the inside of the window frames. Measure how high the ceilings are. Then measure all the furniture that you plan to bring back into the room. All this measuring is going to help you in two ways. First, it’s going to allow you to draw up an accurate floor plan, and second, it’s going to help you avoid ordering curtains that are too short or shades that don’t fit in your window.
Rely on only your eyes to assess dimensions and you’re liable to end up with a dresser that covers part of the window or a desk that blocks a closet door. So get out the tape measure, write down all the measurements, and keep them accessible so that when you go shopping you don’t have to guess at the length of the sofa you need. (Trust me, guesstimating is aggravating-especially when you end up having to saw a sofa in half.) When you have all your measurements written down, you’ll create a floor plan. One way to do it is to find a floor plan tool online (a quick Google search will help you locate several different planning tools), then draw up your plan on your computer.
If you’re more of a low-tech kind of person, it’s also easy to just draw a floor plan yourself. Scaling everything down (say, 72 inch = 1 foot), reproduce the room on a piece of paper. Then, on a separate piece of paper, using the same scale, draw the furnishings you have and those you anticipate purchasing (anything from beds, dressers, and entertainment centers to couches, desks, lamps, and rugs). Cut the furnishings out and try out different arrangements in the room you’ve drawn. This method will save you from having to draw and redraw the room a hundred times.

If you do like big, soft, fluffy furniture, fine-just don’t over stuff a small room with it or you’re not going to have any space to walk around. Try to limit it to one fluffy comfortable chair or maybe just a fluffy ottoman. Or, if it’s a bedroom, keep all the furnishings and the bed itself fairly streamlined and top the bed with a big fluffy comforter and pillows. Better yet, get furniture that’s sleek and low to the ground. Also consider having a few pieces on the sidelines-say, tucked away in a corner or pushed up against a wall-which you move to the center only when you have guests over.
Those pieces might be stools for extra seating or even a couple of side tables that nest inside each other and can be pulled out for a cocktail party or the Super Bowl. You’ve got to have somewhere to put the chips, right? If you’re creating an entertainment room, also think about housing your electronic equipment in the most streamlined way possible. For instance, in my entertainment room, instead of putting my TV and stereo in a bulky cabinet or armoire, I built low, simple shelving on the wall with some little drawers and narrow shelves for storage and display. It makes the room feel more open, doesn’t take up much floor space, and yet still has a decorative feel.
Probably the most important thing to remember about designing a small space is, keep it simple. Choose a few wonderful things for the room and leave it at that. Think quality, not quantity. How to Plan for a Makeover 15 up with other styles to produce the atmosphere you desire. Keep in mind that a whole room doesn’t have to adhere to one particular style. Mixing styles can be a great way to create an environment that’s personal and unique. Compare Your Dream Room with Your Real-Life Budget and Capabilities okay, you’ve decided what you want to do. Now, how does that square with what you can realistically afford-in both time and money? Here’s where you need to ask yourself how much of the work you need to hire out and how much you can do yourself. Or, how much can you ask your friends to help with. I suggest that you do get help and make kind of a party out of it. Call up a bunch of friends and say, “Hey, let’s have fun this weekend.
Let’s get a few pizzas or whatever and makeover a room:’ You’ll be amazed at how many people will say, “That sounds like fun:’ The great thing is, you take advantage of your friends-of course, you’ll pay them back later when they start calling, and trust me, they will-who will undoubtedly bring their own ideas to the table. And the more ideas, the better. Friends or no friends, though, cost is still an issue. And if you can’t afford to make over a room entirely, think about what parts of your dream room you can swing. Keep in mind that you don’t need to replace absolutely everything in a room to give it new life. Sometimes when people can’t afford a complete redo, they don’t do anything at all, but I think it’s far better to make even a few small changes.
Painting a wall, adding one new piece of furniture, changing the art in the room, replacing the lighting, tossing a rug on the floor, getting different window shades-these are all easy fixes and none is very costly. You can make art out of just about anything.) Unless you’re doing some structural work that entails breaking through walls, furniture will probably be your biggest expense. But it depends on which way you want to go. There’s the cheap-but-chic route, which lets you buy cool-looking furniture knowing that it’s going to have a relatively short lifespan. For some people this is ideal, either because you get tired of stuff quickly or you’re just in an unsettled phase of life.
Then there’s the high-quality and higher-priced route, where you look at furniture, new or antique, as an investment. You want some- thing that’s going to be around long enough that you can pass it on to your grandchildren. Or there’s the build-it-yourself plan, which puts you somewhere in the middle cost-wise and lets you end up with some great one-of-a-kind pieces you can take pride in. Finally, there’s the scavenger approach-searching out previously owned but good-quality furniture at garage sales, flea markets, thrift shops, on Craig’s List and on eBay. You don’t, of course, have to choose only one way to go. I think some of the best rooms have a mix of furniture styles.

Fantasize About What Your Dream Room Will Look Like Close your eyes and picture the room you’ve always wanted. Does it have swaying fabric hanging from a bed or a clean-lined headboard? Does it have a cushy couch or minimalist chairs and an angular coffee table? Is it filled with books or art? Is the floor bare or covered with a soft rug? Maybe it’s reminiscent of someplace you saw while on vacation or in a design book. Is it a room that’s all about luxury, light, earthiness? Do you want it to be as simple as, say, brown leather chairs surrounded by white walls or as elaborate as a room filled with carved furniture and Indian tapestries? Is it a room you remember walking into as a child and thinking, “I want that room when I grow up”? Also think about what you want it to feel like, literally. Do you want to sink into soft, cushy fabrics, or do you like the feel of fabrics that are taut and sleek? Visualize absolutely everything about the room, including how you’d like it to smell.
Fantasize, too, about breaking your old habits and traditions. If you’ve always gone for country, visualize what it would be like to have rooms that are contemporary. The options are limited only by your imagination.
How to Plan for a interior Makeover
Choose the Mood You Want to Set Now that you’ve let your imagination run wild, rein it back in a bit and think about how to meld your fantasy with reality. The colors and the style you choose are going to help you create a mood. And you can use your fantasy to decide what that mood should be. In the following chapters, I talk about finding your inspiration, choosing colors, and determining your style in depth. Reading those sections will help you get through this step. Basically what you want to decide here is how you want the room you’re redoing to make you feel. You might, for instance, want your bedroom to be a place that relaxes you while you might want your living room to be an environment that evokes out-and-out fun.
In a work space, you might want to create an area that is serene with little to distract you so that you can concentrate on the work at hand. Color helps dictate ambiance, but so does the style of a room. Whether you’re partial to mid-century modern, or you love Victorian furniture, or you want to pay homage to a particular ethnic culture, think about whether that type of decor will evoke the mood you want-or whether it can be tweaked or mixed
Measure the space and design the interiors accordingly
Space is the ultimate frontier. Who doesn’t want more of it? I’ve lived in Japan where space is at a premium, as well as in tiny dorm rooms, and in overpriced, under spaced NYC apartments so I don’t take a millimeter of free space for granted. And neither should you. Space makes you feel like you have room to grow, so don’t box yourself in, even if it means that you don’t get to put everything you want into a room. The first design rule of thumb for a small room is to scale your furniture. Personally, I’m not a fan of big, soft, fluffy furniture to begin with. Especially big, soft, fluffy sofas: Sit down in one and you end up getting sucked into it, then the next thing you know you’re totally enveloped in pillows, which is comfy but can put you to sleep in seconds, and I like to try to stay awake most of the day.

Check the Lighting, Both during the Day and at Night The amount and type of light affects the mood of the room. To me, a big overhead light in the center of the room is dull-it makes everything in the room (including the people) look drab and unattractive. On the other hand, accent lighting-like table and floor lamps, sconces, directional lights you can aim at the walls-warms up everything. To get a sense of what you’re going to need, look at the space you have available and think about what in the room you How to Plan for a Makeover interior literally want to spotlight and where you need light for practical reasons (e.g., for reading).
Also consider how much you want to spend- lamps are generally the least expensive form of lighting because you don’t need to get an electrician involved-and what lights will need to have three- way bulbs or dimmers. I highly recommend anything that lets you control light brightness and direction because there will be times when you want to soften the light. If, for instance, you sleep with someone who doesn’t read as much as you do in bed, putting a three-way bulb in your bedside lamp or installing a sconce that swings out and lets you direct the light right over your book will allow your significant other the luxury of lying in bed without being blinded. Or let’s say you’re a single guy and you’re trying to get closer to your lady. You’ve got sexy music cranking on the stereo, then you switch on the light, and suddenly you’ve gone from Barry White to Very Bright. It’s a mood killer. It’s also important to get a read on how much natural light the room gets during the day.
The more natural light you have permeating a room, the more joy and happiness the room will radiate. Use daylight as one decisive factor in selecting your window treatments. If the room isn’t particularly light, you don’t want heavy shades, blinds, or curtains that will diminish it further. Yet you don’t want to lose all sense of privacy. There are a lot of different shades designed to deal with this dual problem, some of which are made of synthetic mesh that lets light filter through while blocking prying eyes. You can also get bottom-up shades that allow the sun to shine in at the top while providing coverage at the bottom.
There are ways to get creative with this, too. In- stead of putting up window treatments in my old house in Atlanta, I created shoji-like screens out of white Plexiglas and placed them in front of the windows. They let in light but blocked out my neighbor’s backyard. I also planted bamboo outside the window, which created wonderful shadows on the screens.
If you’re going to redo the room on a pretty big scale and you don’t think it has enough light, you might even think about making some structural changes. Add another window or a skylight if possible. Or you can actually cut a space-a square, a rectangle, a circle, an arched rectangle, any shape really-into one of the walls to let in light from another room. It can require having to move some of the electrical, but if you get lucky, you’ll miss it and you won’t have to move anything. This will not only make the room brighter, it will open it up a bit so that it seems to have more space than it actually does. And that’s always a plus.