The times are a changing.....

OH WELL!

Sugar and spice in little girl's room

In the bedrooms they've created for their little girls, the interior-design team of Nicola Marc and Beth Gold have kept one decorating idea front and centre — these are spaces where older furnishings can take on a new life, where memorabilia is treasured and where favourite things are always on display.

The cradle is gone, and so is the changing table, but these rooms are easy to grow into, the designers say. Each room keeps sentimental touches from their infant days, but because some of the furniture could have been used in an adult space, the transition is smooth.

"As designers, we like to create an aesthetic and work with existing pieces," says Marc, who recently joined Gold in MarcGold Interiors.

In the sunny bedroom of Gold's three-year-old daughter Chloe, drapey white and blue linen curtains fit in with the white-framed prints made by Chloe's grandma. On her bed, a family piece from the 1950s, the white ruffled bedspread is covered with pillows and a quilt that was once Gold's.

"I'm using lots of pillows because Chloe uses it as a seating area," Gold says. "Not all bedrooms have room for seating."

The floral motif in the room is repeated in a vintage framed album cover, on the pillows, the area rug and the wallpaper that backs Chloe's pinboard on the wall just above her desk.

The pale colours in the room reflect the rest of the house, Gold says, where dashes of strong colour add playfulness — like the raspberry desk in Chloe's room. And the straw baskets filled with toys can easily be used for other functions in the rest of the house.

"We think about how we can make a fairly easy transition from one stage to another," Marc says. "It reflects our general approach to design."

"We want to give things new life by recovering and reframing," Gold says. "I'm soon going to reframe my husband's baby sampler for Chloe's room."

It's important, they say, to keep things fresh and to honour a child's history in their room — rather than reflecting the latest fad or cartoon character, their children's' room are designed to reflect the child.

The room, they believe, should fit into the overall design of the house, and they might even use an iconic piece, like a child-sized Barcelona chair — to add both a design-conscious and user-friendly element.

"We think you can make a child's bedroom fun and young without using child-themed paper or bedcovers," Gold says.

Marc's daughter, Clara, who just turned four, has a pegboard just above her bed, made from a recycled antique wooden shelf. Marc covered the backing with cork and trimmed it with bunting so that when Clara comes home from nursery school, she can put up her latest drawings.

She chose a fresh putty colour to paint the pegboard. "That colour looks so nice with blue," Marc says. "I like to do the unexpected with colour."

The fabric-covered single bed was found at a garage sale, its cane head and endboards broken. Now the pretty fabric used to cover them are also used in details on the pillow and on the fabric bolster, inside which Clara keeps toys from time to time.

A complimentary blue-striped linen with cream lining is used to make the canopy that drapes the bedhead.

"Kids love those whimsical touches," Marc says.

Because she wanted to keep the dark-stained hardwood floors yet achieve a cosy ambience, Marc added two champagne coloured sheepskin rugs on the floor, just below the painted bookcase full of Clara's favourite books and boxes to hold her dolls' clothes, books and toys.

On the spacious wall near the bookcase, Marc has created a grouping of her daughter's artwork and family photographs above a prettily framed series of letters, written to the newly born Clara by each of her grandparents.

Baskets of toys fill a corner of the room, while on butterfly hooks above Clara can hang favourite items. In the far corner, what was once her changing table has reverted to its original use as a white-painted chest of drawers.

Even the large cupboard in the room is put to play and storage use, covered with blue and white floral wallpaper, with organizational boxes and room to put away clothes and shoes.

"I love the huge scale of the flowers in this wallpaper," says Marc, who has labelled the boxes with various types of clothing.

"This gives Clara a chance to learn how to organize her things," she says.

donnanebenzahl@videotron.ca
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Dream closets start with good sort...

DIYers often install systems without first measuring their stuff, then try to make their stuff fit. Instead, first size up your contents.

DIYers often install systems without first measuring their stuff, then try to make their stuff fit. Instead, first size up your contents.
Photograph by: Thinkstock, Postmedia News

There's always a trigger, experts say. When someone finally checks into rehab or jumps off a bridge or breaks down and organizes their closets, some event sets it off. For me, it was moving to a house with smaller closets.

While I considered pitching myself off a bridge, I settled on getting smarter about closet organizing. In my new place, closet space isn't just smaller overall, the master closet area is divided into three closets: his, hers and I don't want to go there.

Because I purged when I packed to move, all the clothes I brought to my new digs were staying. Every garment fits, looks good, all the zippers work and nothing bears some sorry hope of coming back in style.

As I set about organizing my new closets, I knew they would have to meet minimum standards -no belt snake pit, no sweater stack that comes with an avalanche warning, no underwear drawers that look like chickens live in them and no hangers so tangled they look like they've been in a barroom brawl.

More than that, what I really wanted was a closet so organized that I could pull together an outfit without taking a step.

I started by sorting. I grouped clothing by colour, then by season. I divided clothes into fat days and skinny days, by short and long, by categories (pants and blouses), and by function (work, casual and dressy).

This got so complicated, I called a professional . Lisa Engel, vice-president of marketing for Closet Maid, knew my pain. "Moving is a major closet-makeover trigger," she said, sympathizing. Other ones are having a baby and getting married.

The recession is also having an effect. "Before, when people got married or had a baby, they often got a bigger place," she said. "Now people are stuck, so they're making the closet space they have work harder."

To help me get the most out of my closets, Engel shared some inside-thecloset scoop. Here, she said, is what most consumers don't know:

. The typical three-metre-wide wall closet with a pole and a shelf holds three metres of hanging clothes and three metres of stacked folded clothes on the shelf.

That same closet with a system can hold just over three metres of hanging space, five metres of shelves for folded items, plus drawers and racks for belts and shoes.

. After a point, additional cost buys strictly looks. For a relatively minimal investment, you can have a wire-closet system that does everything a pricey cherrywood system does: organize and add useful, differentiated space.

. DIYers often install systems without first measuring their stuff, then try to make their stuff fit. Instead, first size up your contents.

Measure how many feet of longhanging items you have. Start your plan there, then add upper-and lower-hanging racks for short-hanging items. Next add a shelf tower, bins and racks for ties, scarves and belts.

. The best hangers curve like shoulders to keep garments in their ideal shape, but contoured hangers can hog space. Next best are flat, thick (halfinch) wood or plastic hangers, which take less room.

. The primary rule of closet organizing is put what you wear most within easy reach, said Engel. Archive items you won't wear until the weather cools.

Consider under-the-bed storage boxes. After that, how you arrange your clothes is personal.

. Don't hang what you should fold, and don't hide what you should see. Fold and stack T-shirts, sweaters and exercise wear, and don't keep shoes or jewelry in boxes, which wastes space and makes you forget what you have hidden.

. Buy systems you can adjust. This way you won't worry if you make a planning mistake. Plus, you can take flexible systems with you when you move, which you may not have to do if you get the closets right.
© Copyright (c) McClatchy-Tribune Information Services