06 Sep When In Seattle Bring the Outside In
Posted at 19:28h
in
Design,
House Tour,
Travel
by nestrs
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Last year my sister purchased her first home in one of the most expensive markets in the U.S….
Seattle, WA
Between the tech, aerospace, and life science industries, Seattle’s real estate market is red hot. So red hot that, according to the Seattle Times, the median home price is now a staggering 722K.
For your average home!
That price gives me sticker shock and I’m from NYC!
Anyway, my sister and her hubby found a home on Zillow through the “Make Me Move” feature. They had a fabulous agent (message me if you need one in Seattle — she’s fantastic!) and snagged the house for 585K!
A bargain!
🙂
Before
Here is what their living space looked like when they purchased it:
After:
Not quite their speed. So, just over a year later, they finally got Nick and me to come out and do a complete overhaul:
We started out with a mood board. My sister loves the outdoors – so bringing wood and plants into the design was essential. She wanted to bring the outside in.
They loved everything we brought to the table except for the red accent. We swapped that out for kelly green.
One of the biggest changes we made was taking down half of this wall so when they’re cooking on the stove or when they’re at the sink they can converse with whoever they’re entertaining in the living room.
And THEN…
See where those pans are hanging in the picture above?
Well, I wondered what was behind that wall.
It wasn’t a closet…and there isn’t a basement…so the only other thought I had was:
CHIMNEY! Which means….
BRICK!
And see those IKEA bars? That’s how they stored their pans. But, now that we were exposing the brick they didn’t want to drill holes into the brick or mortar.
So we moved the bars to the other side of the kitchen and attached them to a piece of reclaimed wood.
Here is the kitchen area before:
And here’s a shot of the exposed brick with the half wall down:
Remember how I said they were big fans of bringing more wood into their space? That’s usually Sarah and Nick code for:
WOOD FEATURE WALL!
Yay!
So, we wrapped the kitchen peninsula with 1×6 pine from Home Depot, stained it with Minwax Dark Walnut, and voila:
Air plants are a great addition because they require little maintenance and they’re just so damn cute!
Because you can never have too many spots to rest your glass of wine.
And another shot…because this table has so many good angles….
We even found the perfect
coffee table on Amazon that we didn’t have to make. 🙂
Speaking of wine, our clients needed a spot for all their fancy bourbons and bottles of wine. We liked this
bar cart because it was a light ash grey. It went really well with the art piece we found at World Market.
Let’s talk paint.
You may or may not be able to tell from these photos, but these walls have that orange peel texture.
It gets worse.
Not only did the previous owner paint the walls this pale yellow color that had zero personality, but did so with semi-gloss paint.
Quick tip: Using flat or matte paints helps hide imperfections in your walls.
Which means shiny paint HIGHLIGHTS imperfections…i.e. orange peel texture.
Don’t do it, people. Just don’t do it.
So, since we didn’t want to float every wall in the house with mud we opted for paint with a flat finish.
Our clients were floored with how much this masked the orange peel!
The dark blue walls, Sherwin Williams Smoky Blue SW-7604, added depth to the space. They have tons of natural light from all the windows and sky lights.
We then paired that with Sherwin Williams Conservative Gray SW-6183 to add contrast.
They loved the outcome.
 We did too!
What do you think? What do you love about the space? Would you change anything if it was your own?
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