KDSDesign @Women's Survival Guide!
Time to Refresh the Nest!
Some years ago, I started my own interior design business called KDSDesign (Kim Druker Stockwell Design). I worked for eight years doing large and small residential projects around the Boston Metro area. I did commercial jobs, too!
Eventually, I chose to spend more time with my three little girls and I drifted away from the business side of design and shifted to studio art. I got my MFA and opened a studio in Boston.
These days I am an empty nester living in a house that I decorated nearly twenty years ago. During Covid, the house was “loved” by our family and now needs some attention! Have you experienced PCHS? Post Covid Home Syndrome? I don’t think we are alone. It’s time to “refresh” the nest!
Maybe it’s a change in color, an upgrade in couch, adding curtains, wallpaper, etc. A refresh doesn’t have to be a great big deal.
So, I am back to interior design by necessity for myself but I am happy to say I am open for business for you, as well! I work virtually and in person. It’s as easy as on-line mahjong!
If you would like some help with your midlife-redo please drop me a line! KDSD@mac.com (Or DM me on Substack!)
INFLUENCES:
Interior design is part of my family DNA. My Mom, Dad and grandmother each had a big influence on how my own style developed. Pierre Deux and Laura Ashley were home decor key stones for many of us growing up in the 70s and 80s. They had retail stores we could visit and buy fabric along with many other divine items. I collected and studied decorating books, obsessed on Martha Stewart, and all the other magazines, as well. I took drafting and interior design classes at night at the Boston Architectural College.
Stylistically, I was (and still am) in love with British style masters like Colefax and Fowler though now I am over the moon for Soane UK. Other favorite designers include Brunschwig, Sister Parish, Pierre Frey, Clarence House, Nina Campbell, Liberty, Jasper, Joseph Frank.
How I decorate: Relaxed Elegance and Layers
I design a home or an office to be well and comfortably used. In my own home, I do not like having furniture that is so precious that a dog isn’t allowed on it. I cannot control my dog or yours.
I learned this twenty five when our dog made himself at home with muddy paws on my brand-new-celery-green-Schumacher-velvet-fancy-86”-most-expensive-thing-I-had-ever-bought,-ever,-couch. The stains are still there. The fabric is still on the couch in my living room right now. I keep meaning to recover it!$
It isn’t that I don’t want you to have nice things. I do. I like nice things, too. I just like to be able to live with my choices. Have you been to a house where red wine isn’t allowed at parties? Or, shoes have to come off at a function and it wasn’t raining out? I want you to be able to enjoy your pets, kids or grandkids and not worry they are going to wreck your couch. If there was a philosophy to what I do it’s Relaxed Elegance.
Relaxed Elegance doesn’t mean we have to buy expensive fabrics and trims. The trick to great decorating is exactly like great dressing: combining the high and low. A well dressed woman knows you don’t need to spend a lot on some things, but other items cannot be faked. Some things are worth spending more on. It’s the same with home decor.
Layers.
I see a well decorated space in layers. A room can be fully furnished yet feel unfinished. Why? Because we aren’t turned on my furniture alone. It takes more than that to make a room appealing, comfortable, interesting, surprising, and memorable. It takes decorative layers. For instance:
The trim on a pillow, curtain or bedskirt
Art you love, not that someone has chosen for you…unless you love it
An unexpected wall treatment or color on the ceiling
Lacquered, lucite or linen wrapped furniture
An interesting collection, creatively displayed, edited
Cache pots with ferns
A painted floor? A layered carpet, animal print?
Something of your grandmother’s
A touch of red
A mix of modern and antique
POWDER ROOM
Let’s start by looking at the first photo in the grid of my powder room.
Nothing is original in the photo except for the window. We tore out a full bathroom and created a bar and powder room. A powder room is a BIG opportunity to go crazy. Think of it as the Met Ball of your home. It’s small so you can use more expensive materials! Don’t forget the ceiling! You can paint it, wall paper it!
I was influenced by my grandma’s home. She had the same wall paper you see above, by Clarence House, but in a metallic. I wanted to be slightly more low key, yet I wanted a ballgown of a ballon shade with insane fringe, as well! The coral/orange silk taffeta is also Clarence House. You can see a peep of the bird painted sink that came from my mom’s house. The counter top is the same material I used in the kitchen (Lagos Azul) and the floor tile, from Waterworks, is in the same stone as the countertop. I still LOVE this room!
So, the counter and floor tile, “Lagos Azul”, was definitely “in” in 2008 when this house was decorated. As a decorator, it is easy to see what the colors of the year are by what’s new in the decorator show rooms. Many times, we can tell what year a home was done because everything was from the “new” category. Always a mistake. “New” ages. “Classic” does not. The best decorating combines the two and then adds the owner’s own “stuff” to make it homey. If they don’t have their own stuff there is always the Brimfield Flee market Fair, check out auctions or KRB in NYC (for the fancy stuff)!
BIG ENTRY HALL
Let’s look at the big entry hall next. Is that a paper lantern? Yup. A giant big pink paper lantern from China Town in Boston. It’s not a fancy architectural light fixture, but isn’t it cool? Did I paint the walls pink? I did. But the first time they were painted I did Dove White…or White Dove…I can never remember, by Benjamin Moore. I did the whole house in that warm, creamy white to get a sense of the spaces and how our stuff looked in it. The bar and kitchen are still that color but nothing else is anymore. They have been layered-up!
Back to the photo, the little settee was my grandmother’s (yes, yes, she had a big influence on me…and a fair amount of good stuff) that I eventually had to recover when her sweet floral chintz fell apart. That’s a Pierre Frey wool fabric. The two black chairs came from a flee market in Connecticut a few houses ago. They are banged up but work. I like pieces that show people have used them. But I also like things to be in good shape, like the woodwork. The carpet is nothing special but it is wool. The mirror and table are, you guessed it, from my grandmother.
I have seen at least three photos of her different homes where she has this exact set up. Do you have things that belonged to your loved ones? Try to use them. They are free. You can paint and recover anything!
Stay tuned, I’ll keep writing about the photos above and my influences in interior design.
