Upper East Side: How to Create Balance in Your Living Room Design

I have an unspoken formula for creating balance in design. I liken it to creating a painting and see each space as a compressed composition. Critical to not get stuck using all the same type of shapes. Meaning be sure to incorporate some solid, some open, some woven or irregular, some angular. If there are […]

Custom Furniture 101

In the last 4 years we have moved to creating more custom furniture because there are better lead times, we can control the quality and creativity of a piece. The success of custom furniture is finding the right upholster or vendor that will listen and willing work with your ideas and ability to execute the […]

Modernizing the Historical Home

At the turn of the 20th Century, the Neoclassical Revival was in full swing. Chicago deeply embraced the movement. It represented stability and rebirth after a devastating fire ripped through the city. A style that was once reserved for public buildings trickled into residential homes. From Hyde Park to the North Shore, our team has […]

5 Tricks to Make Your Sofa Last Longer

Author: Sydney Piwowar Early in our lives have we all overpaid for a sofa that barely lasted 5 years. We all felt the cushions start to cave in after a year in our favorite spot… its heart breaking to waste the money. As designers, we have been trained in this knowledge to make sure you […]

Top 5 Favorite Zellige Tile Applications

Author: Sydney Piwowar I am sure you have all seen this trend in the 2018 design magazines and Pinterest. Well news for you, it is not going anywhere in 2019. Truth is, after so much technological innovation, we are all craving a sense of hand-crafted work in our spaces. These Zellige Tiles are the epitome […]

Design Details: Contrast Piping

Author: Sydney Piwowar Many of you may remember Jen’s previous post with her Hope for Autism submission. If you didn’t see it, I want to remind you to check it out, here. I bring it up because Jen and I are obsessed with contrast piping. It is such a simple, uncommon, and genius way to […]

Top 5 Curtain Hanging Mistakes

Author: Sydney Piwowar Alright peeps — here is a sensitive topic… Drapes. Some people think that they have a hard and fast rule for drapes and that is not always the case. LESS is not always more and MORE are not always more… as a general guideline to hanging drapes there are a few mistakes […]

3 Tips to a Perfect Dry Bar

Author: Sydney Piwowar As society modernizes, I believe the perception of alcohol in the home does as well. Where once the home parlor was filled with cocktails and conversation, it turned to a plastic covered furniture living room. Now I believe we are in a full swing back to the original cocktail room we all […]

Common Art Hanging Mistakes

Author: Sydney Piwowar Art is crucial in making a house feel like a home, and good art is not cheap! Nothing ruins your perfectly good piece of art quite like bad nail placement. We have curated the top 3 mistakes that people make when hanging art and are going to share simple solutions. Hanging Too […]