Project 101

After seeing this post from Melissa over at Off the Wall, I was inspired to post this fabulous kitchen (my favorite, in fact) that we did for a client who lives in a Georgian Style home in the Gold Coast. I absolutely LOVE the skylight and the floor as well as the cabinetry. If I could, I would move in tomorrow!!!

Otom

I thought I'd share one of the projects I worked on recently in my day job. We finished a fabulous and chic restaurant last fall and I have to say, I love how it turned out!! My favorite feature is the striped walls and draperies which were custom made by our fabulous drapery workroom. The name of the restaurant is Otom and they serve American food which, I can say from experience, is absolutely delicious. The restaurant was just featured on the cover of Chicago Magazine as one of the Best New Restaurants in Chicago. Here are some photos from that publication as well as some of our own. What do you think?!?!

My View

It has been a gorgeous week (and weekend) and I've been especially enjoying my view from my office so I thought I'd share what I am privileged to look at every day! The pictures don't do it justice but here they are regardless!!


Just to the east of us is the fabulous Wrigley Building...there is a little sliver of Lake Michigan that is visible (really hard to see in this picture).


This is the view to the south-east.


The view straight south...the Trump building is on the right.



We have a nice view of the Chicago River and get to watch the tour boats and sailboats (on nice days!).
There is a beautiful little plaza where we can eat lunch along the river and there will be an even nicer park there once Trump Tower is finished (as you can see, right now it's a staging area for construction equipment).

And speaking of Trump Tower...it took away our view to the South West (including the Sears Tower) but I think it's a beautiful building and am liking it more every day! I was nervous there for a while but it's really taking shape (and getting super tall!).
You can see the front of the building and the parking garage entrance at the bottom.
We are a few stories above the restaurant and can peer in on people at night...there are huge swarovski chandeliers which are about three stories tall!!

We can hardly even see the top of the building anymore!

So that's my view...what's yours?

Project 101-Results...

As promised, here are the before and after shots of the project I posted about yesterday. I love how this space turned out and the client actually had a lot to do with the colors and furniture that was added (while I love what she went with, it's not typically our firm's style)...the architecture, however, is all us! I love the white mill work and trim against the dark wood flooring and crisp white stonework. And check out those lake views!!!!! This is one of our favorite buildings to work in (I think we're up to ten projects in this building alone!). Be sure to check back as I post more of the work I do at my "day job" and thanks for reading!!

Kitchen Before


Kitchen After



Kitchen/Living Room After

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Dining Room After

Master Bathroom Before

Master Bathroom After

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

Guest Bathroom Before

Guest Bathroom After


Baby's Room Before

Baby's Room After

And just for fun, I thought I'd throw in my portfolio page of this place! Here it is:

Project 101-Design Process and Drawings...

I am one of those lucky artists that has a full time job in addition to my Etsy shops and blog and social life...I'm busy to say the least! But I love my day job as an interior designer and wouldn't trade it for anything! I get to help our clients obtain the homes of their dreams and see the fruition of long hours spent designing, drawing, dealing with conractors and vendors, writing and managing orders and dealing with the many headaches that come up day to day. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it!! I thought I would start occassionally showing projects that I have worked on and give you a glimpse into what it takes to be an interior designer!

The first project I'm going to share was in a condo building on Michigan Avenue...it was a gut renovation that we did for a family of three. The place was original to the building (built in the 70's) when we got our hands on it and needed a lot of updating to say the least! My initial job was to take a field measure of the space and draw the plan in CAD in order to do a set of construction documents from start to finish. In my first post, I'm going to share those documents with you readers so you have an idea of the amount of work that goes into each project! Let's begin!

The first drawing in the set (after the title page) is the demolition plan:

Demolition Plan

The demo plan is just what it sounds like. On this plan, the contractor sees the original space and is told what we want him to "demolish" as well as what is staying. In this project, we moved the kitchen to the window wall and reconfigured the bathrooms as well as one of the bedrooms.

The next drawing in the set is the parition plan which shows the contractor what we want him to build (i.e. new walls, new plumbing locations, millwork locations, etc.):

Partition Plan

The third drawing is the reflected ceiling plan or RCP which shows the new lighting layout as well as any changes we are making to the ceiling:

RCP

The fourth group of drawings in the set are the enlarged plans, which are portions of the smaller drawing blown up to a larger scale in order to show greater detail to the contractor (I'm not including these...don't want to bore you!).

The fifth set of drawings are the elevations which usually include the kitchen, bathrooms and any other areas we are having the contractor build something special. These are the most fun for me to do because they're a glimpse of what the place is actually going to look like (and they're really fun to draw!). There are normally three or four sheets of elevations depending on the project:
Kitchen Elevations

Master Bathroom and Library Elevations

Secondary Bathroom Elevations

I'm going to skip the sixth set of drawings which are the plumbing, appliance and door schedules...just lists of items that will be installed and where they are going.

The final group of drawings in the set are details and sections. These are blown up sections of various areas where we need to show the contractor exactly how we want him to build something. These are extremely important in making sure that the final outcome is what we are envisioning. Here is just one of the sheets of details for an idea:

Details

Well, there you have the set of drawings in a nutshell!!! I'm actually going to post the second half of this project tomorrow...I'm sure you're all tired of listening to me ramble on about the drawing process!! Stay tuned...I'm going to post before and after photos!