Two Embellishments Kids Designs Awarded "Best of Houzz 2014"

Two of our kids room designs have been awarded Best of Houzz 2014.  Our Not-So-Neutral Gender Neutral nursery and the Teen Sports Makeover room snagged the title.  Congratulations to our two room occupants Lucas and Carson.  We always thought your rooms were great but now 16 million Houzz users agree...

Here's our blog post on the Gender Neutral nursery http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2012/09/render-gender-designing-neutral-nursery.html
and on the Makeover Sports Room http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2012/04/teen-bedroom-30000-makeover-challenge.html

Join us on Houzz to browse our posted works- http://www.houzz.com/pro/embellishmentskids/embellishments-kids

Genius Boy's Bedroom - The Theory of Decorativity

Sitting criss-crossed legged on Kade's floor, his mother and I stare at the room, back at each other and then down to my tablet.  What if, what about this, what about that and whoa, what about those is asked?  I'm rapidly sketching away at some ideas to cover the vastness of Kade's interests.  We're making headway with ideas but how do we tie them together.  Finally, the word to summarize him comes to mind.   It's genius, rather...he's a genius.

6 year old Kade has an inquisitive mind.  Within his quaintly small room are blooming amaryllis bulbs, crystals, plant seeds, disassembled toy pieces, works of personal art and an array of THINGS that I'm sure juggled around in his pockets before finding their rightful place in his room.  He loves Star Wars, reading, cooking and finding answers to his burning questions about biology, chemistry, dinosaurs and magic tricks.

My quest was to tie everything together in a room design fit for a genius.

His loft bed was Kade's dream piece of furniture.  It's one of those light maple kit units with the primary colored panels to play fort in.  Not exactly what I'd like to work with.  As a matter of fact, its monstrous footprint prevented the petite room from having a functioning arrangement.  So, it needed to go away or be reinvented.  Kade's mom raised her eyebrow inquiring "what do you mean, reinvented?"

Reconfiguring the loft bed made room for a retro steel desk and chair.

As a sucker for an artistic challenge, I proposed rebuilding Kade's loft bed by adding a facade of faux reclaimed wood, rethinking the crayon colored canvas, replacing it with burlap and reorienting the slide and re-facing it with galvanized sheet metal for an old school look.  Changing the bright maple required some sanding and re-finishing with a wood toned lacquer.  That's a lot of re's...whew.  

Before and After alteration of Kade's loft bed and slide.

A collage of mounted magazine clippings, science themed art, a "K" for Kade and a piece from my superhero wall art collection speak to the science theme.

The slide being refaced in galvanized sheet metal gives it a retro, old school feel.

His white walled room had a niche with a built in dresser and a sad little shelve.  With a few sawcuts and some trim I altered his floor standing bookcase and transformed it into an upper cabinet, above the set of drawers.  This made the new niche the perfect home for a fish tank.  

Vintage flash cards act as a decorative border.

Now that his bookcase became an upper cabinet we freed up room for a vintage steel desk and chair.  Topping it of with some painted shelving, the corner became the perfect spot to house organizational vintage locker bins, reclaimed tin can storage and glass mason jars to display his collections.  A little nod to his love of science, Star Wars and classical music was brought together by plaster casts of Einstein, Chopin and a faux plaster bust of Darth Vader, I created from a halloween mask.  A hollowed out and spray painted dinosaur became the perfect container for an aloe plant, which Kade remarked is used for burns.

A Darth Vader halloween mask altered into a faux classic bust finds a home next
to plaster Einstein and Chopin.

I've been on a hexagon craze lately and with its sciencey shape, I found it to be the perfect solution to store some of his fabulous finds.  The hex cube unit, I built features decoupaged pages from an old dictionary, where key words like nucleic acid can be found.  Kade quickly filled it with his precious rock collection.

Created in my studio, the unassembled hexagon shelve pieces looked like a
colorful game of Jenga.

Applying a sheet metal veneer over the awkward looking
colonial raised panel bifold doors turned them into modern magnet boards.

The family's home is built in a modern style which was compromised by the old fashioned raised panel bifold doors the builder had installed.  My laminating a sheet metal covering over the colonial looking bi-folds created a fun, modern looking usable magnetic and dry erase board surface for Kade. 

The addition of a vintage school map to the angular entrance of his room creates a focal point, a tribute to geography and acts as a reminder that a long, long time ago Navigation was best learned on a really big map with a sharp pointy stick.

I sent Kade's mom shopping for a retro Edison style light fixture.  What's more genius than Edison?  She was pleased to find out she could have one custom built at a local architectural salvage house.  The glowing filaments of the Edison bulbs look terrific.

Kade's feathers, melted crayon sculptures, pint size biospheres and his scientific notes are all safe, sound and organized in his genius boy room.  It's now a room that reflects his intellectual passions and feeds this playful young boy's needs for whimsy and fun.

Kade and his mom couldn't be happier.  The petite room is more user friendly, it has personality and it's a one-of-a-kind built just for him.  Kade's mom whispers...."he can also organize his collections", which was code words for clean his room.  Sorry Kade, even Einstein had to keep his room clean.

I'm no scientist, but I think the theory of decorativity comes into play here- for every aesthetic action there's an unequaled enthusiastic reaction!

Enjoy!

Aaron

Pictures of the Genius Boy Room are posted on my Pinterest page, if you are a pinning machine.

Teen Bedroom $300.00 Makeover Challenge - Today's Creative Blog

A dear friend I worked with years ago turned creative blog high priestess asked for a favor and presented me with a challenge.  Could I take over her $300.00 gift card budget for a sponsored room makeover and transform her son's room?  And in 72 hours?

Tattered and loopy from a 14 day commercial project that whacked out my body clock with graveyards, swing shifts and too many hours in traffic, I must have been in YES man mode.  Why YES Kim, I'd love too.  Why YES, I'll scour your sponsor Lowe's store for ways to spend the moolah, create unique items and install in 72 hours.  YES, YES, YES.....

Kim's son Lucas' room was trapped in transition.  The explorer theme had yet to evolve to match his young teen soccer loving bravado.

All kidding aside, my friend Kim Demmon and I have reacquainted via our social media endeavors with hers being top notch and mine part of my jack of all trades learning curve.  Her love and labor Today's Creative Blog features an array of talented bloggers, creatives and puts the artistically challenged in touch with tools and technology to make their creative whims easier, better and smarter.

Our project at hand was to transform her son's room utilizing her blog sponsor Lowes $300.00 budget as part of a blogosphere challenge.  Top on Kim and her son's list were a desk, some storage and a fresh teen attitude.  He had existing bedding from Target and lot's of sports memorabilia, but that was about it.  Pretty much bare bones.  Part of her reluctance to further his room was the disconnect between the bedding and the wall color.  She felt they didn't work together.  I resolved the issue with an unexpected solution.  Can you spot the change in either the bedding or the wall color from the before and after picture?  It's a subtle change that made all the difference in the world.

The bedding was too vibrant, the colors on the verge of fluorescent.  The stark difference between the brilliant white, hunting vest orange and other colors fought with the neutral wall color.  My solution was to treat the bedding in a custom blend of Rit Dyes.  Adding an antiqued over-dye to the bedding enriched the colors, changed the white to cream and toned down the kid-like color palette, making it more mature for a teen.

Sticking to the $300.00 budget I devised a way to cut up and assemble hollow core bi-fold doors into a desk, a headboard, shelving and create a casing around one of those clever ClosetMaid storage cubbies.  Would you believe all of those items cost under $90.00?  The remainder of the budget was spend on paint, sundries, lighting and materials for the custom bulletin board and hexagon shelving, I designed for Lucas.

I had Kim and her husband paint the wall stripe, his existing dresser and name cut-out with a spicy orange.  

Given the room's size of 9.5 feet by 11 feet, the dimensions for the desk and cubby worked out great.  Just enough room for his laptop and effective storage.  I crafted the hexagon shelves out of a new pre-cut lumber Lowe's has, it's a super high quality plywood trim with a birch veneer.  I left the edges unpainted to showcase the pattern of the laminated ply.

I took creative liberty to work in one of soccer pieces from my line of children's art.  The Soccer 100 Yards piece is available nationwide through retailers the stock Oopsy Daisy Fine art or online via my website or online retailers.

I enjoyed designing and creating the memo board.  As a matter of fact, I'll provide a D.I.Y on how to make your own turf board in a future post.  I had Kim, with her technological craftiness cut out a vinyl #14 (her son's player number) with her Silhouette Cameo cutting system.  It was a great way to personalize the desk chair.

All in all, I think for $300.00 and within 72 hours we gave Lucas exactly what he needed- a teen room with attitude, a desk and much needed storage.  If you'd like to dive into the details closer, here's a outline for you.

If this makeover's inspiration isn't enough to talk you into making over your child's room, relax I can help.  That's what I do, I create children's rooms.  Visit my site for details and give me a call for a free in-home estimate or to discuss e-consult recommendation.

From Pale to Precious - A Girl's Bedroom Makeover for Two

Confection colors and our studio created crowns add whimsy
in the made-over shared bedroom.

When inspiration hits, I like to grab a sheet of blank paper and jot down ideas, scribble my thoughts in picture form and transform it into a brainstormed blueprint to elaborate on.   When I asked for submissions from my Facebook page fans for rooms that need makeovers, I was struck by this room and couldn't resist the proverbial blank slate's allure.

A floating door and overwhelming pale walls.

The good sized room was divided ineffectively.

Eclectic furniture of varied scale.

The homeowner, Tara said in her email to me, submitting her two daughter's shared bedroom, that they had purchased some chandeliers and their placement presented a problem.  While I would have gladly offered help in placing light fixtures, the room pictures cried out for more.

When discussing the rooms potential with her, I found out that there were three assorted sized crawl-space access doors within the room.  You can see them in the pictures, one floating on the wall in the corner, a second hidden behind the toybox and the third covered by the crib's side panel.  These three eyesore doors added intrigue and a level of difficulty to the project that had my mind racing for ideas.

Unlike our previous makeover project for Nick, which focused on handyman skills and built on site custom aspects to transform, I wanted to confine this room to crafts, paint and light budget solutions.  These type of solutions are easily adapted and may serve as inspiration to others.

So, after an interview of the girl's likes and dislikes and a survey of the rooms furniture, bedding and existing items, I embarked upon my ideas.  The girl's bedding which was from Ikea featured animals celebrating in merriment with musical instruments, juggling, riding bikes and carrying birthday cakes.  This was my launching point for creating a confection colored room that had a celebratory tone to it.

The bedding offered fun and inspiration.

While, I restricted my own participation to simple affordable ideas, I did ask Tara to sell her youngest daughter's outgrown crib and replace it with the exact Ikea bed her oldest sleeps in.  This would give us some continuity in the room and help expand upon black as an accent color.  Other than a few accessories, paint and craft items everything in the room was either reused, altered or edited.

2 gallons and 3 quarts transforms the room.

Considering the room was two square shapes overlapping, it presented itself as a candidate for some color carving, with wall of different confection flavors, as illustrated in my layout concept below.

Here are side by side room shots presenting the before and after photos.

Addressing the issues that we agreed the room had, I presented my solutions-

The Crawl-space doors-  The floating one would be disguised by painting the door trim and adding a ribbon board facade.  The only technical issue was guaranteeing the door and door knob functioned.  The other two doors would be primed and painted to match the walls.  Any pattern would continue right over the doors as if they weren't there.  This basically camouflages them.

Shared Space solutions-  Considering the room was shared by sisters two and half years apart, I decided to separate their sleeping areas into the two natural room halves.  Our custom studio crowns would personalize each half.

Function-  The dresser and dresser hutch combination dwarfed the wrought iron Ikea beds.  To de-emphasis the scale difference our crowns would hold draped tulle adding weight and scale to the beds.  The girl's needed lighting and side tables.  To stick with our light budget theme and the Ikea tradition started by the family, I sought out two lack tables and fabric shade light pendants.  While I enjoy Ikea's lack table simplicity, it wouldn't do for this project so I altered them by moving the legs back and adding a scallop trim.

Personality-  Adding color, pattern and some whimsical features transformed the plain room.  In the studio I created the ribbon boards, the bird sculptures and the bunting pennants to add dimension and a low cost but customized touch.

While money can be thrown into any project to purchase style and whimsy, I offer this room as a testament to sweat equity and creativity.  The rooms walls are works of tape, small rollers and a level.  The scalloped crown trim is easily created using a cardboard pattern that is traced and filled in.   Some details about the individual pieces are described here.

Post makeover, Tara offered " First of all, I can't believe that was how I allowed the room to look!  I had no idea, sense of direction and just didn't know how to organize the room and make it cute for the girls."  Commenting on her favorite feature, the dotted wall she said " I could look at that wall all day.  I'm really glad that it acts as a feature wall and it's the first thing you see as you walk in."  While the girls proclaim to her "They love their crowns!" adding, "They really define each of their spaces, which is important to them since they share the room and pretty much everything in it!"  "Working with Aaron was such a fun experience.  There were so many ideas and surprises." she said.

While makeover contests don't happen often, we are thankful and excited to offer them when we can.  Be sure to join our Facebook page, that's where all of our contests are announced.

Pennants add a sense of festivity.

Studio made birds sculpted from foam add whimsy.

Pom Poms and Ribbons help the room celebrate with color.

Ikea's lack table purchase on sale for $4.00 transformed by moving the
legs back and adding a hand wrought scallop trim.

  

Teen Bedroom Makeover- Goodbye Kid, hello Young Adult!

Back in July, I opened up a contest on our facebook page asking for submissions of kid's rooms for a makeover. Having a hard time deciding on just one, I chose three winners. The first of our three winner's, Nick has been anxiously awaiting the reveal of his new room. As a Birthday gift to him, yesterday we completed the room while he was at school. Now, I'm happy to share with you the finished project. We've taken Nick's room from a messy, eclectic one he's outgrown and turned it into a more modern, sleek, storage filled one with plenty of room for friends to hang out.

If you want to follow the progress of the makeover from the beginning, I've posted links to the project beginnings at the end of this post.

First, and most obvious from the original pictures of Nick's room, he needed storage. One of the leading causes of a messy room, other than age appropriate procrastination, is inadequate storage. To remedy the issue, I designed a wall storage niche, desk and headboard configuration which we built on site with the table saw artistry support of Nick's Dad. We then removed the legs from his 2 x 6 constructed bed and mounted it "floating" between the headboard and the walls. To dress it up we created a "weathered steel" facade which mounted over the face. The accent wall of red was highlighted with a custom 3D, backlit piece of art comprised of 5 dimensional letter "N's" of various typestyles. This was an abstract way to express Nick's various interests in science fiction, music, theater and acting.

Our secondary storage goal was to get his closet back into working order. The bypass doors had been removed by this parents to create an area for his TV, and AV equipment. In doing so it left his hang bar and other shelving open and exposed.

To return order to his chaos, we installed and finished out a new wall in the middle of the closet niche. This would serve as a divider between the two revamped areas. To the left, shelves were installed to hold his electronics. To the right a hang bar and shelving was reinstalled, restoring his closet into working order. We reinstalled one of the bypass doors with a facelift of blackboard paint and new trim.

To free up floor space and create seating opportunities we removed the roll top desk and replaced it with a revamped and restyled chair. The newly found space also gave room to display his guitar and a personalized piece of art we had Nick create. The art is a collage presentation of his goals, dreams and images to motivate and inspire him (see detailed photos at the end of this post).

Pictured below are details about the room including the custom roller shade and cornice.

This 10 x 9 foot room went from very crowded and underutilized to seemingly spacious and clutter free. It's personality reflects that of Nick, a young man with aspirations and confidence in who he is. It was a terrific project and I'm glad to have been of service. I'd like to thank Nick's parents for their faith in my ideas and their hands-on assistance during the project. The following images offer some details about the individual features of the room.

If you would like to see more of our custom bedrooms be sure to visit our website EmbellishmentsKids.com. Aaron Christensen's Embellishments is based in Portland, Oregon and is available for consultation/hire throughout the west coast. We also offer design packages created remotely with correspondence via internet and phone.

http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2010/07/kids-bedroom-makeover-with-ryan.html
http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2010/08/before-to-after-teens-bedroom-makeover.html

A Teen Room Makeover in Process

A continuation of our kids room makeover series of posts.....

We are in the midst of turning Nick's teenage room from it's blue and green disorganized state into a stylish, storage filled hangout. Gone are the chunky furniture pieces, replaced with a sleek headboard and space divider that melds into a floor to ceiling desk and storage area. The multi colored scheme of blue, aqua and white has been buried for good under a contemporary gray and red palette. The 9 x 10 room has grown in scale, visually, due to the reduction of those colors and the unifying of walls and ceiling by using a single color. At our studio, his new art monogram wall art is underway. It will mount relief style in front of the red wall, reducing the red to a graphic border. With the help of Nick's Dad, we are returning his open closet to a closet with a rolling door, with one alteration. We are shrinking the closet to half it's original width. The unused half will be home to open shelving to be used as his media center.

Next up...

1) Transforming his existing 2x6 wooden bed frame into a floating faux metal masterpiece utilizing paint techniques and Hollywood movie prop style embellishments.

2) Creating a one of a kind work of art by making tangible Nick's goals and dreams to become a Broadway Singer and Actor!

3) Bedding - a touch of plaid honoring his Scottish heritage, but with a rock and roll edge.

And more.....stay tuned.

Kids Bedroom Makeover with Ryan Seacrest? What?

Last week, I wrote on our Facebook page asking for submissions of kid's rooms in need of a makeover. I have some new products and new techniques I was hoping to experiment with and photograph in the made-over room. There was an overwhelming response. Now came the hard part.

I'm more of a Paula Abdul judge than a Simon Cowell. I'd much rather tilt my head side to side, smile and see the opportunities within, rather than be critical. But, unless I wanted to do twelve makeovers, I had to start narrowing things down. Immediately, there were obvious rooms that could be cut from the contenders and I don't think they were surprised by my actions. They really didn't need a makeover, just some editing and creative storage. They were the Chris Daultrey's and Adam Lamberts of room makeovers, just a little grooming and styling and they're done. I'm on the hunt for the William Hung or tone deaf, two left feet kinda spaces.

Down to six candidates, I posted them to our Facebook page looking for opinions. The comments and observations were fantastic. But, even with the great feedback, I was presented with a dilemma. A makeover theoretically means there's a before and after. It's the contrast between the two that shows the depth of change. Undoing what's been done and creating new would be the intriguing part of this. Much like this room. The room with no closet, technology spiderwebbed all over, nursery colors and the teenage need for storage. Undoing this "kid's" room and making a "teen" space would be great fun and a challenge.

The dilemma is this room presented as a blank slate, and I mean blank. Does that qualify? The accompanying story is sweet of two girls, sharing space who love fairies and princesses. Surely, two little fairy girls are deserving of a makeover...right? To create more challenges, I find out the room has 3 mysteriously placed attic access doors. Sweet and challenging....hmmm. The owners hit more of a road block which means the room will never progress past this point. There are a lot of parents that hit that same obstacle. They've purchase furniture, placed it in the room and have no idea what to do, especially when presented with two girls of varying ages, likes and 3 weird doors. So, Yes it is a makeover, officially candidate #2.

A third option consists of a room that started off okay, but lost it's direction. It lacked personality so it's a great makeover story in the making. Two boys, rough and tumble, love building things, how things work and are fast becoming the best of friends. Their room could be a place of imagination, fun times and brotherly bonding but it's missing the fun factor and bonus...there's a weird air duct "growth" just hanging on the wall and a out of scale door that leads into their attic play space, under the eaves. What to do...what to do??

The remaining candidates were all very similar, they are great spaces needing something to make them function better or come alive. They were good candidates, but in my American Idol analogy, they could sing, but couldn't find their voice. They're Top 10 material, but couldn't make the cut.

So, as of this post my top three are evident. The "I'm a teen, not a toddler", "Blank - a design roadblock" and "What's that weird duct thing doing in my boring room" rooms.

WHO'S THE WINNER OF THE MAKEOVER?

So, in classic Paula Abdul fashion, I nod and clap, hymn and haw, talk nice and vote all three through. What does that mean? Well, instead of just selecting one room, I select all three, THREE WINNERS!

In depth, this will mean three separate makeovers, with three separate goals and looks. All of which, I'll document and share with you here on the blog. Now, the intention is for these to be made-over, which doesn't mean a full revamp with all new this and all new that, like some game show prize. I'm going to rework the rooms, add some Embellishments tricks and techniques, build things from scratch, shop for a few new things, alter the existing and put the parents to work. We will be teaming up for some sewing, painting, crafty stuff and handyman hardwork. If we can work out our schedules to accommodate this, I'll be working on one room each month for the next three months and sharing the progress with you, here.

Thanks to all the loving parents whom submitted their child's room. I appreciate your faith in my abilities and willingness to allow me to take on this task. This will be fun. Be sure to bookmark or follow the blog for updates.

Coming soon....

Visiting the rooms onsite and discussing ideas for the makeovers.