Emily Hagerman Design

Wednesday

The Benjamin Moore Colour Viewer is My New Best Friend...

This past week in Vancouver, BC has been HOT! I've been lucky enough to take advantage of the beautiful sunshine and work on my newest project outside. The patio table that was once reserved for Lemonade and Iced Tea has now been scattered with drafting tools, floor plans, color chips and well...some Lemonade. I did say it was hot. So while I've been picking and sorting, and changing my mind on colour I finally decided on a few colour schemes. Rather than trying to get the builder to envision how these colour choices would look I decided to dust off my Benjamin Moore colour viewer. Did you know laptops don't work so good in the sunlight?! I think I may have another business idea if the designing gig doesn't work out... outdoor laptops..come on you think it's a good idea, right?!

So today I resigned myself to work on my home office PC and play around with the colour viewer. I have had it for almost 2 years but got frustrated with it on a couple of projects that were on a tight timeline. Somehow in the last 12 hours though a light has gone off above my head and I became a colour viewer expert. Actually it's pretty easy but I guess if you have it in your mind that something is difficult then things will be difficult!

I actually began to enjoy myself and have a colour proposal all ready to go. It is so much easier to present these colours as a whole look, the program allows you to save the "painted" jpgs and I sent a few off to the builder. The new project that I am so excited to be hired for is a new build single-family-home and I can't wait to get my hands on all the fun samples.

Here is a sampling of what I was able to create on the program. I highly recommend this software, it is very user friendly once you get the hang of it and the best part is it's Benjamin Moore!

Need help choosing colours? Send me your jpgs and/or elevation drawings and I will contact you to set up a consultation, virtual or in person! designergirl@telus.net

Emily Hagerman Design

Bringing a Bathroom Drawing to Life...

For those of you who have always wondered how a designer can go from the image in their mind to the finished product let me tell you it is no small task. For me, part of my creative process is sketching my idea out in a more technical format, that way I can use my sketches for the Tile setter and plumber by adding all the measurements I decide. On one of my most recent projects the main bathroom and en suite were complete rebuilds right down to the two by fours! Once I had decided on my color palette, tile, and fixtures I set to work to pull the whole concept together. Below is the basic sketch for one half of the bathroom that would have the soaker tub and new shower.

A big learning curve for me was that if you don't nail these tile and floor plans to the wall in the room they are intended for the trades will use their own ideas! The next picture is what the bathroom wall looked like before my design. My style is -if the walls can come down- take 'em down!

Pretty nasty for sure but the worse the before the better the after.....

While a few things changed from the drawing due to unforeseen plumbing issues, the bathroom turned out very well. The wall and tub surround are porcelain tile and they matched the real Limestone vanity countertop perfectly. The mosaic tile was a real find from the Home Depot in the USA, this was one of those instances where the tile setter decided the shower stall didn't need the mosaic at the top as the drawing specified. Again never leave things up to chance as it was I was on site for this project much more than I anticipated.

Here is the drawing, before and after of the other side of the bathroom.

More Nasty Before photo's....

And then the bathroom transforms to a one of a kind...

Bathrooms have become one of my most favourite rooms to design... stay tuned for more bathroom transformations. ~ Cheers, Emily

Emily Hagerman Design

Monday

Re-Design of a Tsawwassen Home...

Well I'm back in the blogging saddle and have some really great Before and After photo's of a home I was the interior designer for. I did the staging with another company whom I was once associated with and the final result was fabulous. The home was a pretty uninteresting project so I had to draw inspiration from the tile,textiles and paint and let the details fall into place. The home sold within 3 weeks, even in this market downturn and the builder has signed me on for even bigger and better projects. Check it out!

~Cheers, Emily

Emily Hagerman Design

~Kitchen Before

~ After
Opening up the stairwell provided much needed light and made the dining room feel bigger...sometimes you need to be more specific on exactly which wall is the right side and which is the left! Nothing Drywall can't fix!