Category: Surfaces

Window Treatments – Protect Your Art & Furniture From a Sunburn

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Blinds, shades, and draperies, collectively known as “window treatments” are a great addition to any home. They’re not only functional, they add style and personality.

Window treatments run the spectrum from clean and simple to elegant and complex.

One of the main benefits of all window treatments is that they allow you to control light, including providing UV protection.

As happy as we are to see the sun in spring and summer, it has a dark side. We all love to get our Vitamin D, but we still wear sunscreen. Your art and furniture can get a sunburn too. Your home needs the same protection from the sun’s rays that your skin does. Not only does your family benefit from the protection that window coverings provide, your furnishings, draperies, accessories, and floor coverings do too.

Unprotected, the sun burns out the colours, fades and disintegrates the fibres of your fabrics and rugs, ruins your art and changes the colours of your wood floors

Another great thing about window treatments is that you can manage privacy. Dance naked for your neighbours, or not, this becomes entirely up to you.

In addition to privacy and light control, window treatments also conserve energy, helping keep rooms seasonably warm or cool making them a great solution to drafty windows. Window treatments, especially drapes, (which we love!) can also be a real benefit to room acoustics.

Here are our three favorite window treatments:

Roller Shades

Most simple, and becoming the most common in our projects, are roller shades. Roller Shades are the new “mini blinds” only they make you swear less when you use them. Roller shades come in color options with designs that make it easy to convert any space.

Options

Opacity: from see through to blackout and everything in between

Automation: solar, hardwired or battery – Yes solar!!

UV rated: this is an option in some brands

Valances: there are choices

Benefits

Control: temperature and light including computer glare

View: when they are closed they disappear

Safe: no cords with automation

Convenient: they can usually fit into existing condo valances (where the mini blinds are now).

Compatible: work with other window treatments like drapes or outside mounted roman shades

Strata Rules: easy to meet guidelines

Affordable: compared to most other window treatments

Drapes

These are our favourite and probably the most beneficial of all window treatments. They insulate your windows keeping your room cool or warm as needed. For darkening rooms, especially bedrooms, they can be lined with a blackout lining. The least considered benefit is acoustics, drapes help soften sound in a room. As a design element they work in any style of space.

Options

Opacity: from shear to blackout and everything in between

Automation: hardwired

Mounting: ceiling or wall mounted

Hardware: lots of rods and tracks – some rods can be curved to go around corners

Benefits

Control: temperature and light and acoustics

View: can clear the window depending on installation

Safe: no cords

Convenient: they can fit into existing condo valances

Compatible: work with inside mount roller shades

Strata Rules: easy to meet guidelines

Affordable:  if you buy from IKEA. We always suggest custom, which are pricey, but worth it!!

Roman Shades   

Share the same attributes of drapes – only they are shorter. Ideal when you have a baseboard heater or furniture piece below a window. They are a great companion to drapes and can be the same or complimentary fabrics. Roman shades are an embellishment opportunity waiting to happen.

Options

Opacity: from shear to blackout and everything in between

Automation: hardwired

Valances: optional

Mounting: inside mount or outside mount

Benefits

Control: temperature and light

View: will always block part of the window when open

Safe: will have a cord/chain but doesn’t have to be long and can be locked

Compatible: work with other window treatments like inside mount roller shades

Strata Rules: easy to meet guidelines

Affordable: only if you buy from Home Depot. We always suggest custom, which are pricey but worth it!!

Favourite Things – Dekton

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Surfaces

Screen Shot 2015-03-19 at 11.13.59 AMWelcome to our newest column on Good Ideas, Favourite Things. Every day our designers come across new and innovative products and services that we just can’t wait to share. In Favourite Things we pick a Good Space Interior Designer and ask them to talk about their latest finds. Today, we start with Lauren’s favourite find at Buildex 2015, Western Canada’s largest tradeshow and conference for the Construction, Renovation, Architecture, Interior Design and Property Management industries.

What:  Dekton Ultracompact Surfaces (When you go to the site, say you are from the United States to see in English)

Why: The Possibilities! Dekton can be used for everything from tableware to surfacing on the exterior of buildings. Definately in line to be the ‘next big thing’. Screen Shot 2015-03-19 at 11.04.27 AMScreen Shot 2015-03-19 at 11.04.10 AM

  • Strength = 5 times the flexural strength of granite
  • Non-porous =  never needs to be sealed it naturally prevents liquids and gasses from penetrating the surface = low maintenance surface that is easier to clean
  • Colour Stability – pigmentation doesn’t vary as much and it won’t fade over time
  • Dimensional Stability – consistent in both dimension and thickness throughout slab which minimizes the need for field corrections and allows for easy installation
  • Thin – options range from 8-20mm
  • UV Resistance, Scratch Resistance, Completely Stain Proof, Heat Resistant, Abrasion Resistant ,Cold Resistant
  • Size for tiling = 126” x 56” = less seams!
The House of Dekton

The House of Dekton

Thanks for that Lauren! We love the attached article that talks about the ‘House of Dekton‘ designed by Steffen Kehrle. The entire house including exterior, interior and furnishing is made from Dekton. Visitors are even supplied with Dekton kits containing screwdrivers, lighters and aggressive cleaning agents to test the surface’s outstanding resilience for themselves.

Background Beauty. ’20 Feet from Stardom’ A Netflix Must-watch!

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MV5BMTQxNDY2NjMwNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNzExMDg0OQ@@._V1_SX214_AL_We believe that when designing a space, attention to the background is of utmost importance. With this in mind, we have some entertaining viewing that reinforces this concept. 20 Feet from Stardom looks at the backup singers who have brought us some of the most well-played songs in the past 40 years. Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, this film features interviews with foreground stars such as Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger and Sting, to name a few. We love that 20 Feet from Stardom gives accolades to singers with pipes as strong as Aretha’s but who have never been given their due. This wonderful bit of viewing will change the way you hear music. We now hear the background first … Check it out on Netflix!

Rough Week? 3 of 3 Things to Chill You Out

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Step 3 of 3 To Chill In Your Castle and Turn Around that Rough Week:

Create A Relaxation Room.

Wakefield-I-12-300x200You have a nice glass of wine, the great music and lights are low. Now you need an area that you can truly relax in.

Paint Palette: Consider which colors make you feel the most serene. Colors that appear in nature can be warm like driftwood or cool like the winter sky. What is a shade that you relate to? That relaxes you?

De-Clutter: A cluttered room can remind you of your cluttered mind. Set your senses free and keep clutter to a minimum. If you must have those chachkas keep them all on one shelf and arrange them artfully (more on that in later post).

Fabric Textures: Pillows, throws and upholstery should be soft and easy to lounge on. Whenever you are testing something think if you could laze the afternoon away on it.

Floor Coverings: Does it feel good on bare feet? Does it make you want to kick off your shoes?

Does thinking about these things make your right brain hurt? Is this something that you love the thought of but it’s just not in your DNA to design? Not to fret, these are all things that are covered in our Good Space Plan. To develop your serenity room, click here to get started…