Renovations Archives - Page 15 of 17 - Kelley Astore Interiors

Renovate Your Kitchen – 4 Reasons Why You Should

The kitchen is a crucially important part of your living spaces Food is a delicate form of love, making the kitchen the heart of the home. Having a beautiful large space to prepare and enjoy food supports a healthy relationship between cooking and eating. If you have children, raising them to appreciate cooking equips them with essential tools for when they step out on their own. If you’re able to renovate one thing in your house, do not neglect the kitchen. It makes all the difference. Keep reading to learn the 4 reasons why you should start renovating your kitchen today!

1. Renovation Gives You Creative Control

Gutting your current kitchen and starting from scratch allows you to build the kitchen you’ve always dreamed of. Renovation always gives you the most creative control in a design process, because it gives you a blank canvas to work on. Your imagination becomes your starting point and you can ensure that it looks and functions in a way that’s perfect for you and your family. Everyone has different needs and priorities, so customization is key. I worked with a client who wanted to do a full kitchen renovation. The original design felt outdated and seemed to suck all the natural light out of the room. As soon as I saw it, I knew there was a more clever way to use the space in a way that would brighten the whole space while providing everything the client wanted and needed from their kitchen.

2. It Makes Mealtimes Easier

Having a smart layout with a lot of storage space and counter space will make mealtimes much easier for everyone involved, especially if you’re a busy parent. Having a kitchen island large enough to have bar stools is one of the best ways to tackle this. It gives you plenty of space to prepare meals and allows your or your children to eat under supervision or while you clean. Custom-made kitchen islands are designed to your needs including size and whether you’d like it to have a sink, a dishwasher, internal storage, a stove, etc. The large amounts of additional counter space will allow the kids or your friends to get involved in cooking without the kitchen becoming too cluttered or chaotic.

For this client, we opted for a bespoke kitchen island with a beautiful marble top, built-in shelves, and amenities including a small sink, as well as four high chairs for casual mealtimes.

3. Organization Reduces Stress

Renovating your kitchen allows you to organize it in a way that works for you. Having enough storage available will largely reduce stress in a kitchen. Any successful chef will tell you that keeping a clean workspace is key to cooking delicious meals, and having smart organization makes it easy to keep things tidy. It also makes doing the dishes a lot easier. Additionally, our brains often associate clutter and anxiety together, so organizing your kitchen in a way that hides most of the kitchen clutter away gives a cleaner, more luxurious look that will ease any stress.

This was one of the priorities for this client, so we took extra care with all the built-in cabinetry. We opted for white cabinets to reflect the beautiful natural light in the kitchen, and also opted for the refrigerator and freezer to be built into cabinetry creating a cleaner look. We made sure to include a bunch of different cabinets and drawers of all different sizes to make organizing kitchen tools and crockery easier. A clean and tidy space encourages a clean and tidy mind!

4. A New Kitchen Paves the way to Post-Pandemic Parties

As more and more people get vaccinated, it feels like we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Dinner parties, brunches, game days, and BBQs with all our family and friends are well underway, and we cannot wait! What better way to celebrate the recovery of our world than with a beautiful kitchen to prepare and host parties for your loved ones? If you’re preparing food for a large group of people, you’re going to want plenty of space to do it. Additionally, an old worn-down kitchen is not as welcoming and doesn’t feel as hygienic as a new beautifully renovated kitchen. Impress and surprise your family and friends with a new renovation.

One of the key ways to make this kitchen feel more welcoming was brightening it up. We went with a fairly neutral palette, focusing on white cabinetries, pale gray marble, and silver hardware detailing. We added lights at the top of the built-in cabinets lining the walls, as well as along the backsplash to brighten everything up. We decided to put the main sink directly in front of the window to make doing the dishes more enjoyable. To balance it out, we opted for beautiful dark hardwood floors.

Stop Putting It Off, Book Your Consultation Today!

If there’s anything we learned from this past year and a half, it’s that life is too short to put off the things that bring us joy. We’ve learned the importance of the home feeling and functioning as a safe haven, and we’ve definitely learned much joy socialization really brings. There are too many reasons to renovate your kitchen, that it would be silly to put it off any longer. It may feel like an impossibly big and daunting task, but that’s what we’re here for.

At Kelley Astore Interiors, we oversee and manage the entire renovating and decorating process. We have ongoing relationships with a range of licensed contractors and skilled craftsmen who work under our supervision on all our projects. We take full responsibility for seeing that the entire project is finished on time and on budget and that all work is of the highest quality. We take the worry out of the process for our clients. Visit our services page to get started today!

Bespoke Upholstery for 2021: Living Room Remodel

Your living room is one of the most important rooms in your house. It’s where you unwind, spend valuable time with your family, and welcome guests to relax. The way your living room looks can make or break an entire house design. When working with clients on living room remodels, we always recommend they use bespoke upholstery. Bespoke Upholstery comes with many benefits, from sustainability, creative control, and individuality. Today we’ll be taking you through a living room remodel that used bespoke upholstery to bring the design together.

The Remodel

We started with a pretty blank room. It had a beautiful piano and a wall hanging sitting on the floor. The room had beautiful large windows and the walls were painted in a neutral color with bare wooden floors. The client wanted to continue with a neutral palette, and have gray be the main color. The first step was to install beige-toned carpeting to separate the space from the rest of the floor plan, and to create a more welcoming, cozy, and comfortable living room.

We agreed that bespoke upholstery was the best way to go: it gave us the most control over the design and ensured that the furniture and drapery would be of the highest and longest-lasting quality. Rather than going with a sofa set, we decided to use four armchairs to create a sitting area around a small round table. Armchairs are often cozier than sofas, and using four of them to create a sitting area helped to section the room off. We upholstered the armchairs in a textured gray fabric from Kravet. We made sure to use a textured fabric and add a decorative stud trimming to the armchairs to add dimension and details for the eye.

To match the armchairs, we used heavy gray linen from Kravet for the custom drapery. This room was on the smaller side and didn’t have exceptionally high ceilings, so we made sure to hang the drapes as high as possible and to have them reach all the way down to the floor to create an illusion of taller ceilings and a larger room. The piano stayed in the same general location by one of the windows, so we added black cabinetry on the opposite side to balance out the black of the piano. Two lamps with white shades and gray bases were added on top of the cabinets to provide soft lighting in the evenings. We then added in a small round table that had a grey top with black legs to tie the gray and black together.

The client wanted an ottoman, so we upholstered one in a textured orange fabric from Romo. The final step was to tie the entire design together with details and decor. Every armchair needs a cushion, so we had four throw cushions custom made using a gray and orange patterned fabric from Romo. These cushions were crucial in tying the design together. They had a few tones of gray, dark, and light, which tied the black piano/cabinets together with the gray armchairs and drapes. They also have just a few strips of white and orange running through them that matched perfectly with the ottoman and lamps. We hung some matching wall art of nature and used orange flowers and leaves to decorate the piano and cabinets, completing the nature theme. Lastly, we added a few smaller details such as coasters, a house plant for the coffee table, and a few books.

Overall this was a super successful design, and I’m delighted knowing that my client gets to enjoy this living room with their family for many years to come. Design is making a composition of items that are different but still match and complement each other. Going with bespoke upholstery and custom-made cushions and drapes allowed us to have full creative control. If you are looking to remodel, we highly suggest choosing bespoke upholstery for 2021.

Looking to remodel?

Among interior designers in Northern Virginia, we are nearly unique because virtually all of our cabinets, upholstery, and window treatments are completely custom-designed by Kelley and produced to her precise specifications by craftsmen here in the area. You can be assured that our designs will be expertly tailored for your living environment, and you will not find these elements of your design appearing anywhere but in your home. Head to our services page to get started today!

Modern Master Bathroom Renovation

The bathroom is where you start and end your day. It’s where you get clean, get ready for the day, and wash up before bed. If a bathroom looks worn down, it may not feel clean even if it is. Because of this, it’s important that it reflects the way you’d like to feel. At Kelley Astore Interiors, we renovate and design luxurious bathrooms to create havens for our clients to prepare to take on the world. Today we’ll be taking you through a modern master bathroom renovation we recently did for a client to give you ideas and inspiration, and to show you what a difference a renovation can make!

The client we were working with is a full-time business owner and parent and wanted to renovate several rooms in their house. We always manage projects from start to finish to take the stress out of the renovations for our clients.

“Being a busy business owner & parent of 3 kids, I knew I wanted a beautiful house & home office but didn’t know where I’d find the time & energy to manage all the updates. Kelley & her team were fantastic. From color patterns & lighting to new flooring & bathrooms, our house now has a beautiful, functional look & feel we will all love for years to come. I’m so appreciative Kelley was able to manage it all from start to finish so I could focus on clients & family.”

– S.H. Vienna, Virginia.

Strictly speaking there wasn’t anything wrong with the master bathroom as it was. It had nice gold detailing, a luxurious bathtub, and a large shower. It felt bright and airy. However, it was almost entirely white which left it feeling a bit like a hospital and a bit plain. The white tiling started showing some wear. The cabinetry was a bit clunky and painted white which felt a little boring. Additionally, the frosted glass around the shower and the large borders around the built-in tub made the bathroom seem much smaller than it was. Lastly, there was one massive mirror above the sinks and another one mounted to the wall beside it. Having so much mirror meant that everything in the bathroom was reflecting off itself resulting in a cluttered feeling.

Master Bathroom – Before

As soon as I first saw it, I started to envision all the ways we could transform it into a luxurious modern bathroom. The plan was to keep the general location of where the sinks, cabinets, tub, and shower would go, but update everything. Most importantly, we would play with more textures and colors to add dimension and elegance to the bathroom.

The first step was to totally gut the entire bathroom to its bones to allow us to start from scratch. The contractors got to work demolishing the cabinetry and shower, removing the tub, sinks, and mirrors, and taking out the tiles and light fixtures. Meanwhile, the client and I got to work choosing and planning the changes for the bathroom. We made some decisions, including featuring a free-standing tub, and headed to the stores to take in all our options.

Once everything was gutted and all the materials and fixtures were chosen, all that was left was fitting everything. My contractors and I got to work to create the modern bathroom of my client’s dreams. We installed new larger stone tiles all around, including in the shower walls and around the bathtub. Unlike the plain square tiles previously installed that were uniform, each stone tile had a very subtle veining. Even that small detail gave so much texture. The new tiles had a smaller seam which meant the whole floor and shower looked smoother and cleaner.

Next, we installed a beautiful floating vanity. The floating vanity really opened up the room with the empty space beneath it and on either side of it. We painted it a pale gray to compliment the color of the tiles. Nothing feels more luxurious than marble, so we topped the vanity with white marble. We installed two mirrors with a textured dark gray border that paired well with the tone of the vanity and tiles. We added new modern faucets and lights above each mirror. We kept the trim of the bathroom white to provide contrast and had the walls painted a neutral pale color.

We then replaced the tub with a free-standing whirlpool tub. Similar to the vanity, having the tub unattached to the walls gave the whole room so much more space and made it feel so much more luxurious. Lastly, we tackled the shower. Because we were opting for transparent glass doors, it was important the shower still had a clear separation from the rest of the bathroom. Because of this, we chose a fun mosaic for the shower floor and I absolutely love it! With the white, black, and gray tones, it does such a good job of tying the rest of the room and colors together. We installed a new rainfall showerhead coming out of the ceiling to get rid of clunky shower pipes and further open up the bathroom

Overall this was a super fun and successful modern bathroom renovation! I am so pleased with the results and even more happy that the client is pleased as well. If you’re interested in renovating, be sure to head to our services page to book a free consultation. Whatever the nature and scope of your redesign, we take full responsibility for seeing that the entire project is finished on time and on budget and that all work is of the highest quality. We take the worry out of the process for our clients!

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