Fun.

For every artist there is music...tonight my favorite song is "Fun."

Powder Room Remodel

Over a year ago I was hired by a friend in Santa Barbara to re-do their powder room. The project has been complete since April! Here are the 'after' shots:

I love the Timorous Beasties wall-covering and the basket-weave marble flooring. We were able to find the latter at nearly 40% of the cost at a resource in Portland! Even shipping it down to Santa Barbara didn't get us close to the cost if we had sourced it elsewhere. The Jonathan Adler mirror adds a finishing touch and the frame on the right is a framed chalk-board...to use while entertaining...my parent's lamp store, Naomi's Lampshades, provided the chandelier.

My mom, Bea Searles, trimmed the shades to add that extra touch. She works incredibly hard to make sure every one of her clients is 1,000% happy about their purchase.
Here are the before shots of the space:

As an aside, I couldn't ask for better clients. They are truly wonderful people and amazing parents. In January they flew me down for the day to LA to work on a remodel for the place they purchased for one of their sets of parents...images to follow.

What's old becomes new again...<$40 & 1 hour of labor

The picture above is our "new" entryway. [The coat racks came with the apartment and since we don't have anywhere else to keep our coats (gotta love small SF apts) - we kept them in-place.] Here's a picture of what the entryway looked like on Friday:

A little sad, right? I know the carpet is AWFUL - we've asked the landlord twice to have it replaced. I think it hasn't been changed since 1970 when the place was built: gross. Sunday I decided (& got approval from my husband) to spray paint the console table red, in an effort to add life to the entryway. Over the past year or two I've had a tendency to hate red and as a result, the entryway has become the space that I stash all things red that we own. "Regal Red" is the Rust-o-leum red I chose at Fredericksen's Benjamin Moore store. The knobs were also from the hardware store...altogether, under $40.

Each coat took about 10 minutes to apply. As a reminder, wear gloves so you don't get 'spray can finger' & hold the can at a 45 degree angle, 6-8 inches from the object and move quickly. If you miss a spot - catch it in the next coat. I let the paint dry 1 hour between each coat.
To start:

Primer for 'red' paint:

Two coats of Regal Red:

To finish - I swapped out the previous picture for something brighter and moved a rug from another spot to under the table. Much happier now!

Send Me a Picture of...

One of the few joys of renting, is taking great pleasure in a tacky fridge and the fun stuff you can affix to it with random magnets...I love that my fridge is so old and small that it reminds me of the fridge we had when I was a kid. My mom always had our artwork displayed and other reminders of upcoming events attached. Before refrigerators became unmagnetic or hidden by the cabinetry, you could tell a lot about a person by their fridge...so...send me a pic of your fridge! jolene@jolenelindner.com
The most unique/interesting or fun refrigerator will win a free hour of design consultation.
Here's a picture of ours...don't you love the way the fluorescent lights cast a lovely greenish-yellow glare...(yes, that's sarcasm.)

The pic of the postcard is the Marin Designers Schowcase house, open Feb. 1-26. www.marinshowcase.org I'm excited to check it out!

Design Sponge at Home

I just bought the book! Very - VERY - excited to peruse it!!!

Design Sponge at Home (Official Book Trailer) from The Panic Room Videos on Vimeo.

Happy 2012!

New Baby = New Room for Big-Sister!

A few months ago I started working with a friend of mine on her house. The primary focal point for our efforts was her guest room that was to be converted to her daughter's new room. Her husband and her were expecting their second child in the beginning of August. The little one arrived on-time and will soon be in her big sister's nursery.

Even though I know my friend and her style I still took her through the design process and worked to pin-point exactly what she liked and didn't like as far as interior design is concerned. We also spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not her daughter, who is currently 2, would be better off switching to a toddler bed, a twin-sized bed or a queen...in the end she made the decision to stick with the crib for now and make the call when her daughter got older. I would definitely be interested in hearing people's stories about when they switched their toddler to a bed and the size you bought and in hind-sight, what you wish you would have done.

Anyway, we went with a lavender/green theme and incorporated a lot of the items from the couple's travels to add meaning to the space.

Of course there was a budget and we ended up coming in below that number by repurposing some existing items. There is a side table of drawers that her mom is refinishing that isn't shown here. She also has a great set of parents that were willing to lend a hand, to also reduce the cost of the overall project. Her parents and herself placed the decal on the back wall - they did a tremendous job!

Before I left the last time we went through and moved some pictures around and rearranged some items to pull the house together a little more and give it a fresh look. It was a lot of fun and really wonderful to work with her and her family on this project! Thank you!

Barbara Barry

On September 14th, as a part of Fashion Week/Fall Into Fabrics at the Design Center, I had the great pleasure of listening to Barbara Barry’s talk about her new line for Kravet. She is quite petite, poised, and funny! During her intro she informed us that she had drank way too much wine the night before at Michael Mina’s restaurant in the St. Francis, Bourbon Steak. She said she found delight in her discovery of “Melt” to help with her hangover. Definitely a different way to start out a talk on her new line.

Here are some of the things that resonated with me.

“You don’t have to be wealthy to lead an elegant life.” - Barbara Barry.
I think this quote fits so well with my slogan: attainable design, with you in mind.

She shared with us a slideshow of her trips to Asia, her line for Kravet is IndoChine and it is 2.5 years in the making. Some of the primary colors: Gold, purple, grey. She sprinkled in greens and blues. Here is her slide show, with her narrating. (The music in the background is kinda cheesy, sorry Ms. Barry...)


One of my favorite pictures - the Chinese Tea Egg.