More about summer

Something more to love about summer.  Fresh picked roses from the garden.  These are placed in a jar that held roasted red peppers.  Imperfectly perfect!

All the trimmings.

Trim of any kind finishes a room.  Crown molding and  baseboards are a couple of the most popular finishes.  I love bead board.  It has the look of paneling and can be installed piece by piece with tongue and groove.  In my case, it is installed in the form of paneling.   In these pictures, the bead is 6" wide.  The major rule for using trim is: do not use it at exactly the halfway point on the wall.  The lower third of the wall, or taller than the halfway mark. 

In this example, I chose the height based only on the fact that I had already hung the picture above it, with vinyl writing above the picture and didn't want to move them.

 In the kitchen and back hall, the paneling is higher up on the wall and painted a deeper color than the wall itself.  Tyler, our gifted carpenter, also lined the windows and added the lintel trim to match the doors.

Another view of the paneling.  The crown molding is called "triple stack" as it is made up of 3 different pieces of wood.  I would be happy to refer you to Tyler.  Just let me know.

You can never get enough of St. George

Sorry.  I hit publish before I had loaded all the pictures.

St. George

These are a couple of walls our daughter Quinn and I designed in St. George.  We wanted a "cottage feel" for this vacation home.  These are all bargain shopping and secondhand store finds.

In the Good Old Summertime

Happy Summer, everyone!

I love to mix and match patterns and colors.  It works when you get the scale right.  Hooray for the red, white and blue!

We had a very dark and windy, stormy afternoon.  Suddenly, just before sunset, the clouds moved away and the light was breathtaking.  Smooth sailing ahead.  Cheers.

Father's Day

As you can see, these posts are going to be in no particular order.  I wanted to surprise Jerry for father's day, so I designed a "family wall" of photos. 

This wall is more than two stories tall.  What do you do with a space that big?  I took Jerry's favorite family picture, turned it black and white and had it printed 5'W x 4'H (it's called banner size).    Our carpenter made a custom frame and crackled it black with red.  Below the painting is a ledge shelf made by Tyler (the aforementioned carpenter).  It is sprayed black and lightly distressed.

Below the ledge, I hung vintage pictures from both our families.  It makes me happy to see all these pictures as I go down the stairs.  We can design/build a wall for you.

What I'm working on.

Don't you love to stay with friends who make your guest room really special?  So I have been working on one of our guest rooms and here are a couple of pictures.

This is a queen size bed.  This shade of green is one of my favorites.  So fresh!  I bought the standing lamp for $35.00 from a neighbor who is moving.  The shade was a suede-like fabric, with a criss-cross texture, done in a camel color with little dots of rust and olive.  I sprayed it black with fast-drying spray paint.

 This nightstand is two filing cabinets put together.  The lamp has a black base and the shade has a ticking stripe.  I wrapped 3 books with black paper and tied them together with black and white ribbon.  The accents are silver.  I love this room!

RapierDesign Welcome

Hello and welcome.  This blog is to allow family, friends and future clients a glimpse into my creative world.

I love everything about design:  light, texture, color, composition, layering, furniture and re-purposing.  Though I am not formally trained, I come by this love honestly, as my dad was a self-trained fine artist, sign painter and Kodak award-winning master portrait photographer.

My home is my outward expression of love for my family and friends.  I want it to be warm and welcoming.   My husband, Jerry loves our home and after 43 years is still saying "It looks great.  We're done now, right"?  He knows it is a rhetorical question, and NO we are not done yet.  He is fond of saying that "if it doesn't move, Sue will paint it".  He also says that he has to turn on the light if he comes home late at night, in case I have moved the furniture.  

So, here we go.  Welcome to my world.