Sometimes I get design inspiration from the most random places, and often they come to me in the middle of a storm. Let's take a ride down the bumpy design road I traveled with a client a few weeks ago, shall we? Choosing wall colors for her prefab, newly built crap-shack in the burbs of Manhattan was more complicated than landing a 747 in a blizzard with no engines. Every single time I produced a color option she'd make a snarky face and whimper, "I'm just not sure what the final product is going to look like." Well, honey, I'm not sure what the sunset tomorrow's going to look like either, but I'm sure it will be pretty. AND IT'S PAINT. HATE IT? PAINT IT! To take the red out of my face while choosing the colors, I decided to take my favorites and paint them on large pieces of wood, then placed them around her house and let her live with them for a few days. A funny thing happened..she loved all of them and told me to "go with it" so that I did! While examining the boards, however, I thought of another client with an incredibly boring back staircase. Like a lovely, colorful light bulb going off above my head, I got the idea to paint the back of the risers on the staircase various shades of blue and added a rope railing to bring the design in for a landing. The lesson here (at least for me) even the most tedious clients often inspire cool projects…and, hey, it's just paint!
