The problem with your room isn’t always the paint colour. Often, it’s that the room hasn’t been styled yet. And a good designer can recognize the difference. There’s almost nothing that makes me happier than styling a room which is really when the look and feel or another way of… Continue Reading →
Okay so this is the month where you’re finally going to see the two bathrooms I renovated last July! At the same time, I decided to do a kitchen refresh as well, mostly to show you, my lovelies, why a white kitchen is so versatile. So I’m starting with my… Continue Reading →
My friend Nancy DeVries and her husband Brad have lived in their house for 9 years and two years ago they embarked on an extensive renovation. They added a garage, renovated the kitchen and laundry room as well as extended the kitchen further into their backyard where it backs onto… Continue Reading →
This is the view from their home. My lovely clients Crystal and Rob built their home almost 10 years ago when the Tuscan brown trend was going strong. Five years ago, they bought the property next door and built a summer house which I decorated for them. Suddenly, they loved… Continue Reading →
My neighbour Shari and her husband Josh renovated their kitchen this past Spring. They chose someone who came highly referred by their friends. He had installed two kitchens for them and they were beautiful. This is the note I received from Shari: “We went to Home Depot and a few… Continue Reading →
About two weeks ago, Kelly (my design assistant) texted me a picture of her dining room chairs. She wanted me to approve the way she had styled the chair to post it on Craigslist. “Stunning!” I texted back, “And I need you to write a post for the blog after… Continue Reading →
Maria Killam and Mom Hellen (Junttila) When I originally helped Mom decorate the first floor of her carriage house (built six years ago) we had found this area rug (below) as the inspiration starting point because she loves turquoise. Then, we painted her upstairs living room coral and in the end,… Continue Reading →
My favourite part of the decorating process the styling. I love how a vase of flowers, along with some well distributed accent colours, can transform so many interiors into ‘Wow it looks like a magazine’. My sweet freelance writer and editor of both my eBooks Irene Hill, had a main floor that needed some… Continue Reading →
via Pinterest Since it seems like EVERYONE has a pod coffee machine because it’s the latest and greatest convenience, I thought I’d show you how I styled them last week AFTER a photo shoot. Not to be confused with the image I created for Pinterest and Instagram 😉 😉 First, here is what my… Continue Reading →
When I decorated my client Barbara’s dining room, she had too many chairs already and didn’t need anything more than new chair covers, an area rug and custom drapery.
But when I found this upholstered chair from Pier 1 (below) that would make her dining room feel much more collected and less ‘matchy-matchy’, she bought them right away.
Barbara built this house with her husband 5 years ago ago. He wanted a wood stained kitchen and although she’d love to have a white kitchen now, she wasn’t prepared to paint it in this phase of the decorating project.
Her biggest complaint was with the pendant lights, they created a lot of visual glare and she wanted them replaced.
Also, she needed drapery to block out the sun in the wintertime when it slanted through the windows.
Jacqueline called me and said:
“Help! My laundry room is finished, it’s white, I followed all the advice on your blog right down to copying the shelves in your laundry room, but now that I have a white Maria Killam laundry room and I can do anything I want, I have no idea where to start!
What colour should I paint it? I painted it BM Grey Owl because I had some leftover paint but it’s doing nothing for me!”
I said, “First, Grey Owl is almost like a neutral, muted blue/green grey that would look great in a bathroom with lots of blue grey marble that coordinated with it, but for your laundry room to look fabulous, it needs a colour!
Interior design & styling by Maria Killam As I lay by the pool on my recent vacation in Kauai, I had already read both of the beach novels that I brought, so I went through my client’s library and pulled out The Alchemist. My sister Elizabeth posing for my photo Three… Continue Reading →
Advice for new decorators and designers sounds like this: “Pay a professional photographer to take photos of one great project, or even one room decorated well, and show that on your website.” And before you tell me that you barely made any money on the job so you can’t afford to pay… Continue Reading →
As promised, here are the photos from the guest house with a pool that my clients built beside their home on Promontory Hill. They don’t have to drive when they go away for the weekend! Here she is looking so pretty in her navy dress on photo shoot day! The main… Continue Reading →
My photographer came today to shoot my house, now that I finally made a decision on my drapes and they have been installed–I’ll give you a hint, they’re HOT PINK–so Tuesday I drove into the city to buy flowers and Elizabeth came with me. Here’s where we went: 12:20 pm… Continue Reading →
