Some dear friends of ours live in a beach town in the south, and they have an adorable house in an artsy neighborhood. They’re raising kids and working full time. Their jobs are extremely important and rewarding — they work with people who are homeless and people who have disabilities — but it’s tough work that can be exhausting. With all they have going on, they haven’t had much time to devote to their home, and the wife asked me to brainstorm ideas. I was very happy to help, since designing on a budget…
When we bought the beach condo, one of the worst spaces was the interior stairwell. It was dark and dingy, and the stairs were covered with blue, smelly carpet. It was depressing! And the previous owners had painted ivy down the hand rail. Under some circumstances I find that charming (we inherited a similar feature in the basement of our home, and I love it), but in this stairwell it felt like lipstick on a pig. We decided the stairwell was an easy place to bring in fun, crazy color. And we figured we’d save money by not…