Interior Design with Julia Luttrell
Making your fantasy room a fact
Here�s a fantasy for you. Imagine one of those designers on TV, showing up with her terrific team of trades people to magically transform the room of your choice. Say that 12 by 20-foot basement space for instance, you know, the one that�s presently masquerading as the world�s largest suitcase? Picture it as a bright, beautiful family room, completed in its entirety over a weekend and on a limited budget!
Unlike the television show, however, in the real world trades people actually get paid for their work, which can be as much as three times the cost of materials. But fear not, if you have the will, we have the skills! In interior design, it�s the creation of illusions to alter space, that is the real magic that makes your fantasy room a fact.
Oh, you can recruit friends and family to do it yourself. Or, with the money you�ve saved from the creative use of materials at hand, you can hire a designer to do it for you. Either way, here are a few adaptable, affordable ideas to deal with some of the fundamental design dilemmas you�ll encounter.
The most glaring practical realities you�ll be presented with in your basement room are the bare concrete floor and the challenge of horizontal windows, very oddly placed so close to the ceiling. But once again, the creative solutions lie in illusion.
Let�s start with the floor for example. You would love to have a maintenance free, durable ceramic tile, but by the time you put in the necessary sub floor, this process would eat up about $3,500, your entire budget to complete the whole room.
Instead, here�s how to get the luxurious look of gorgeous, Italian ceramic tile, without the cost or the disruption of building a sub floor.
Combine a half-and-half mix of enamel latex paint and glaze in a medium taupe colour. With a paint roller, apply it wall to wall onto the clean, dry concrete floor and allow this base coat to dry completely.
Now, using half-inch wide masking tape, map out a grid pattern of two-foot squares, starting in the middle of the room and working your way out toward the walls.
Once your grid is in place, roll on a diluted mix of latex paint and water. Use three parts water to one part paint, in a colour several shades lighter, or darker than your base coat. This diluted paint will dry very quickly, so you must work in four by four-foot sections, and with a partner.
Pre-cut five by five-foot sheets from inexpensive thin plastic, also known as painter�s drop cloth. As soon as one person rolls the diluted paint over the area, the other person lays the sheet of thin plastic over the wet paint. Allow the plastic sheet to fall wherever it may and avoid smoothing it out. Instead, randomly pat it down here and there, and then rip it off instantly, before it has a chance to dry. The glazed finish will now stand out in contrast to the freshly applied paint.
Go over the entire floor in this way and allow it to dry totally. Once you remove the masking tape, the revealed concrete so successfully imitates grout lines, that the alternate shiny and matte faux finish creates a dramatic illusion that is a fabulous facsimile of real ceramic tile.
As for the windows, if you prefer the casual elegance of a relaxed country setting, the following design idea is relatively self-explanatory and work equally well to draw the eye away from their odd location.
For a more casual approach, as seen in the sketch, the use of shutters suggests a �country Dutch-door� effect which is reinforced by a window box mounted just below the window, which is filled with live red geraniums and trailing ivy.
These inspirational ideas will produce the fundamental palette of your project. With a mere fraction of your funds spent, you�ll have plenty left over for more magical maneuvers to make your fantasy room a fact. So enjoy yourself, have fun with it, and please, let me know how it goes!
