Day 3- Ponte Vedra Move-in

I know.. you are tired of looking at moving trucks. Me, too.

This pretty chandelier went up just in time for the furniture to arrive.

What a mess.

Plumbers.

The right way and the wrong way to lift a 200 lb. farmhouse sink.

I am loving those lanterns and the Carrera backsplash.

And, yes folks, it took some doings but that is honed white granite on the island.

Obviously the painter had no idea what I meant about “dry brushing”.

What to do when he gets too much white paint on the brick-

fix it by faux finishing.

Marilyn Heard you would have been proud.

Can you see a difference in the fireplace?

That is Frank Rodgers, the GC walking in to check progress. He lived here this week. The cabinet doors are being installed and don’t you love the navy against the white?

This is Tudor the fabulous tile layer from Romania.

All of the tile installers that I have worked with in Florida are from there and they are perfectionists.

He was also a joy to be around.

When I needed reassurance I would go upstairs. Things were a bit more “together” up there.

The drapery installers have arrived!

W’s surprise. He loves insects so we gave him some. (He knew the name of every single one. Don’t you find that amazing?)

Tomorrow, more draperies and FURNITURE!

If you would like to say, “That was fun!” at the end of your project contact us at

http://www.cindybarganier.com

Day 2 Ponte Vedra Move-in

To start at the beginning click here.

What a refreshing sight to see that clean beautiful white slate for us to fill with happiness.

Good riddance gold!

I can’t wait to see what’s under that paper but, alas, that will have to wait until Friday.

new hardwood floors in the great room

No more brocade

Much progress on the new kitchen. Good thing since we are moving in today. 🙂

Music Room

Guest Room

I love the new chandelier. Much better scale.

Dining Room

Black instead of oak.. check

Master Bedroom

I love the new blue ceiling.

Looks like it’s time for me to get to work.

But first things first..

What is that sweet man doing now?!?!

We decided at the 4 hour house visit ( read from the first post for this story) to re-use the existing drapery hardware.

The house was filled with what appeared to be lovely custom made drapery even inner-lined with European bump. No problem… right?

I had an epiphany a week before move-in.

We never actually COUNTED the rings.

Well, well, well things are not always as they seem. The draperies were fake. They would open and close but apparently they were not actually pleated.

Meaning? Meaning that we were almost 300 rings short for the house and I was in a world of hurt.

I spent 2 hours the next day in Birmingham contacting every single wholesale supplier of hardware in the country but no one had that many rings in the correct size and color.

We finally worked our way back to the manufacturer of the raw rings and they agreed to ship what looked like a boat load of rings directly to the house where

“that sweet man” – you guessed it- painted them all.

Good grief.

Meanwhile this was happening inside.

The granite men are preparing to cut the hole for the faucet.

The painters are painting the backs of the bookshelves ( and a million other things).

Then these guys arrived to off load the trucks.

This was the place to be apparently.

Let’s get this show on the road.

Why, you ask, are we moving furniture into a house that is obviously not ready?

Well, the lease on the corporate apartment runs out this Sunday,  school starts on Monday and the family has been separated for 12 weeks.

They were ready to move in and it was up to us to make it happen.

Tomorrow, Day 2.

If you would like to say, “That was fun!” at the end of your project contact me at

www.cindybarganier.com.

Loading Up!

If you are just joining us you might want to start here or even here to start from the very beginning of this project.

Sweet Mary and her boys always take good care us. She keeps that smile on her face no matter what.

You forget how much stuff has to padded, wrapped, boxed etc.

Up the ramp you go.

Slowly but surely the warehouse emptied.

until only this remained.

Anything too delicate for the truck went in my van.

That meant I got all of the beautiful draperies and art.

Looks like I am ready!

Look out world…

Here comes The Writer

We certainly do have some adventures. I will have to say that.

We’re rollin!

That was at 9:30 a.m.  FINALLY, at @7:00 p.m. we saw this.

Then this..

then my favorite

One of the prettiest entrances anywhere

And then we were “home”.

It was time  for our first look at the transformations that had taken place since my previous visit.

But first… a good night’s sleep.

If you would like to say, “That was fun!” at the end of your project contact me at

www.cindybarganier.com.

Did You Guess Correctly?

 Whatever made me think that there would be time for posting during move-in??

The next several posts will be re-caps told as though it is in real time. Hopefully you will feel like you are with us… minus the tired part.

So did you follow the clues in the last post and did they lead you to the correct assumptions?

If you guessed COLOR you are correct.

via Dungan-Nequette

If you picked up on simple, clean spaces with vibrant punches of energy …

good for you.

Here’s the 411

The house has a lot of beautiful trim: deep crown moulding, chair rails, wainscoting etc all painted pure white (read expensive to change).

Instead of fighting it, we decided to embrace the direction that we were given and keep the white trim but wipe away all of the heavy gold and green. By painting almost every wall in the house the same shade of white as the trim we will end up with a gallery effect that will allow art to be the star.

I am so moved right now by some of the great contemporary art that is on the scene we decided to let the entire design scheme be driven by art and rugs.

Here are some of the early pieces we considered.

The amazing thing about this project, and the most difficult part, was that I only had access to the house for about 4 hours. The previous owners had small children and in order to honor their wishes that their schedules not be too disputed we literally had to go in, take a lot of pictures, take as many measurements as I could think to take and get out.

I knew that we were doing a total demolition on the existing kitchen so that part was fairly simple and  I arrived with plans in hand for the new layout of the kitchen. That helped tremendously. We then went back to my hotel and said down with the pictures I had loaded on the Ipad and talked through some possible scenarios.

The next day was spent traveling all over Jacksonville with a granite broker. That was a first for me but I liked it. This guy, Roger, had relationships with each of the granite and stone yards in the city and he had a working knowledge of what each of them had in stock so after I explained to him what we were interested in he literally escorted us to 4 or 5 yards and helped us select the best slabs available for our project.

With slabs “in hand” we were able to double back and select tiles for backslash etc and even had time to make all of the plumbing and lighting selections.

I flew home the next day and began to formulate a plan.

A short time later my clients drove to Montgomery and we did an all day presentation.

Can you even believe that we were able to nail down every single decision in a single Saturday.

I am telling you, if you find a designer that you love and trust stick with them for life. Every house/project gets easier and more fun because you know each other so well. It is pure bliss.

I don’t want to give away too much but I will tell you that these fabrics play a leading role in the great room where I have designed a custom banquette in the white leather and that gorgeous blue ikat that will back up to the white, honed granite island on the kitchen end thus becoming the anchor for that space.

The gray flannel covers two sofas that flank the fireplace at the opposite end and the “Chanel” fabric will be on a pair of swivel chairs.

All of this will rest happily on a large custom sisal with a smaller rug on top that repeats the ikat pattern and coloration from the kitchen.

One of the new patterns from my fabric collection has now been dubbed “A….’s Blue Delight” and it will make an appearance as pillows on the sofa.

Is that not the worst name ever!! Help me out here folks. I stink at naming all of these patterns.

Here she is in paper form as I sent her over to the mill:

And this is what showed up on my doorstep yesterday printed on white linen.

(The color is more true than it appears here.)

What do you think? The initial response has been very exciting.

Springboarding off of the gorgeous Mediterranean blues and teals, we moved  to the living and dining areas with these fabrics.

The Chandelier on the left will hang over a  contemporary glass dining table that is 6 ‘ square.

These are for the breakfast room.

Varying textures is so important in the creation of a beautiful room.

The visual roughness of this sisal (though it is soft to the foot) will play off of the different woods while the

marble, lacquered pieces and linens add the sheen.

Another of my fabrics will anchor the tall wall of the foyer.

New pottery will rest on an antique chest from Italy to create the tension that makes a space fun to be in.

Well, that is an appetizer.

The last few items arrive tomorrow. We load the big truck and head out bright and early Monday morning.

It’s about to get exciting.

If you would like to say, “That was fun!” at the end of your project contact me at

www.cindybarganier .com.

May I Go To Sleep Now, Please?

Whatever made me think that there would be time for posting during move-in week???

This is a picture of the writer Sunday night.

I can tell by the long legs.

Here I am.

We were a bit tired.

Can you tell?

I will now backtrack and catch you up on the last two weeks.

Inspiration Gallore

Believe it or not, it all started here with this simple little picture.

I thought that I would share with you the process that lead us to the design decisions that we made for this lovely home in Florida.

I flew to Jacksonville for the first time to see the house armed with my ipad loaded with pictures of things that were somehow, some way speaking to me.

Most of  you will go…ah, yea… crazy woman but some of you artsy types will completely get it.

Fortunately for me, these most wonderful clients in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD understand the way my mind works and they love to roll with me.

So, without further adieu and very little commentary I will leave you to examine the images and see if you can figure out what it all means.

All images are from Pinterest. Thank you Dear Pinterest!

I am smiling.

Have fun.

This was actually found after we completed the design but you will be surprised how similar it is.

We should have had a contest to see which one of you could come closest to figuring out the direction.

We will have to do that one day.

Next time… it all begins to take shape.

If you would like to say, “That was fun!” at the end of your project  contact me at

www.cindybarganier.com.

Gigi Camp!!!

This year The Writer and I hosted our first annual Gigi Camp and we had a blast.

Gigi Camp is all about how big of a mess you can make while Mommie is out-of-town. tee hee

It involved a lot of Dora the Explorer as you can see.

The great thing about summer is that when you get messy you can just go outside and hose off. So we did.

Little man loved it.

Then when you get all clean you can dress up like a princess and go to “Chick-a-lay” where Pop will buy you an ice cream bigger than you  are with a cherry on top.

On Day 2 you get to open a new pack of “dots”

and make Mommie a surprise.

And while you still have green arms you can learn to make your first banana pudding!

Day 3

Do you have ANY idea how big a mess you can make with flour???

“Hey Geegg…”

(by the way, Gigis end up looking ROUGH before camp is over. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“I LOVE Gigi Camp…what’s my next s’prise?”

Way cool man! We even get to get dirty when we take a BATH!! Mommie would never believe this.

A girl can never have too many hair thingies.

“My Mommie” ( we hear that one a lot) left us cute matching outfits for every day. We tried really hard to keep those clean.

All in all, Gigi Camp was a grand success.

And Pop and I headed straight for the chiropractor!

If you would like to say,”That was fun!” at the end of your project contact me at

www.cindybarganier.com.

Happy Birthday Nannah

It was a summer of BIG birthdays in our family this year. First hubby’s Mama, then my Daddy, then my Mama so we partied our way through June and July.

The above picture is a picture of my Mama and her brother as children. She didn’t like sitting in the grass. smile

This is before the food was added but we had a pretty little box lunch for a few of her closest friends.

I love girly food, don’t you?

She had a special chair,

and a special guest,

who helped her blow out her candles.

And because she is one of the best gardeners I have ever known and she never met a pair of new shoes or pocketbook that she didn’t love….

the centerpieces were  flower filled “tea-party” hats and handbags made of moss.

Happy Birthday Beautiful Mama. We love you!

And Then There Was July!

 

I have been honored and amazed by the number of people who are asking, “When are you going to do another post? We want to know what is going on!”

You guys are awesome.

Well, May brought the end of the Watercolor  jobs and June was demolition month. We did a complete demo of the kitchen in Union Springs and the kitchen in Wetumpka and started rapidly moving on the renovation of the house in Jacksonville, Florida. In addition to that we started new projects in west Alabama and Enterprise, Alabama and hosted the first annual “Gigi Camp” for the grands.

I will share with you some of the demo pictures and then give sneak peeks into what is to come very shortly.

First, a quick trip to Union Springs, Alabama…

“hmmm… whatever do you suppose is behind this very strange soffitt?”

Only one way to find out!

 

 “Wait! Who is that crazy man knocking holes all over my kitchen???”

tee hee, That would be the awesome, wonderfullness of Mark Reese, owner of Grace Fabrications and creator of some of the most fab kitchens in the southeast.

Pay close attention to that little cook-top and dinky range you won’t believe how that is going to look in a few weeks!

He is having more fun than the law allows. This is like your Mama giving you permission to write on anything in the house. You can’t read it but he is writing

“REMOVE!”

on all of the cabinets so that there is no doubt in the demo-man’s mind as to what is supposed to happen here.

I think he understood, because 24 hours later:

Yuk, believe it or not that is concrete. We all had to touch it because it looked like some weird carpet.

It is the backside of the lovely plaster corner cabinets on

the other side of the wall.

Bye, bye cabinets and ugly green soffitt!

This will soon be a beautiful farmhouse sink and amazing range and hood!

In goes the new insulation;

New Plumbing and wiring are in;

So here we are with a clean slate to write on.

I know you are wondering:  so think oak floors, white carrera marble backsplash, white quartz counters and deep gray lanterns for starters.

See you on the flip side!

And if you would like to say, “That was fun!” at the end of your project contact me at:
http://www.cindybarganier.com

If It’s August It Must Be Jacksonville!

Ponte Vedra we are standing at your gates!

Bless your heart. We are packing trucks, cars and vans for moving day and you have no idea what has been happening for the last month.

We must take care of that mustn’t we?

Well this is the community

and if you are a golfer you need no introduction.

The house started out looking like this:

gold…

lots of gold…

and damask

And these guys ( I don’t think they will make the cut for over the guest bed)

This must be my year for strange soffitts.

This is a large room but the way it was arranged made it feel unusable.

Up next, the beginning inspiration images and then DEMO!!!

If you want to say, “That was fun!” at then end of your project contact me at

www.cindybarganier.com.