At Your Service

I'm excited to announce some great new services I've put together at Jennifer Taylor Design. In addition to my full service interior design and e-design, I'm offering two additional services...one week room makeovers and VIP days.   

"One Week to Chic"  This service is for the client who needs help to finish off a room or a quick makeover in time for a special event.  The process starts with a consultation to determine your design needs.  Once a budget is established, I will spend the next few days shopping for everything you need for the room at local retail stores.  This includes accent furniture, wall decor and accessories.  On the last day, we come in to create an amazing space, just waiting for your approval.  This service involves a fixed design fee plus a furnishings budget.

VIP Day  Are you ready to do the work, but just don't have what you need to pull your rooms together?  Then, you are ready for a VIP meeting with me!  I will spend up to three hours, of uninterrupted time with you in your home.  I encourage you to have a list of questions ready and we'll work through them.  We walk through each room, I make suggestions and we create a design plan together.  After the meeting, you will receive a written plan of action of everything we discussed so you can implement the changes when you are ready.

Please let me know if you have any questions about either of these new services, I'd love to talk with you about them.  I can be reached at 850.264.6920 or via email, Jennifer@JenniferTaylorDesign.com.

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer 

EGGcited for Easter!

I have so many childhood memories of Easter.  Some mornings it was so cold and we'd have to rush through finding the eggs that I'm sure my parents hid that morning.  There were also many Easters spent at my grandparents' house with the cousins.  We'd search for eggs, attend Easter service at their church and have a wonderful lunch with ham and deviled eggs.  The "quirkiest" memory I have is being a teenager and my grandmother deciding she wanted all of us to attend a sunrise Easter service - in the freezing cold, at actual sunrise, in a cemetery!  We still talk about that crazy morning, amongst the headstones celebrating the resurrection.

Now that I have a child of my own, there are two things I make sure we do on Easter Sunday.  Celebrate the resurrection of Christ and have a great Easter basket.  I'm not too hip on the whole egg thing - the dying, the hiding, the finding.  I'm also really bad at trying to sell the idea of a rabbit doing all of these things to my child.  Now that Wes is 9, putting together a basket has become more challenging.  Here are some ideas I think are great if you have an older boy, age 7 to 10.

• Summer Fun - bathing suit, summer shoes (flip flops or Crocs), swim goggles, disposable camera, sunglasses, beach towel and a kite.  For girls, just add in some fun nail polish!  
• Movie Night - movie tickets or gift card from your local theater, boxes of movie candy, a few DVD's from the bargain bin, temporary tattoos and some comic books.  For girls, instead of comic books find a few magazines.
• In the Kitchen - recipe card and some of the ingredients for their favorite meal, fun apron, a kid themed cookbook, personalized notebook, kids watch and a few card games.  What a fun night this would make!

Here are some super cute Easter products I've found.  Most of these are for the younger set, but I loved them and couldn't resist sharing.

The tutorial for making these felt bags, from Martha Stewart, isn't on her site anymore, but I love the idea of using a bag instead of a traditional basket.  This is a great idea for an older girl.

  

These wool felt baskets from Etsy are adorable.  There are tons of options as to color and design.  When you're not using them at Easter, hang them from a cute hook in the bathroom and fill with stuff.

These metal buckets from Etsy can be personalized for your little one.  I love the colors on this one and the matching ribbon is perfect!

These personalized plates from The Polka Dot Press are so fun and can be used every day of the year.  Lots of patterns available.

I just loved how this photo made me feel.  The pink and green colors are so fresh.  Pink carnations in a white pitcher?  How easy and perfect is that?  The idea of using glue and glitter to create polka dots on the eggs may make me want to actually decorate eggs this year.

Another great idea from Martha Stewart for the table using real grass.  You could use boiled eggs you might eat or dyed eggs if you wanted more color.

By using real glass blades on standard candles, we continue the theme from above.  You can still keep these out after Easter.  Green and white, with a punch of yellow is a perfect color scheme for an Easter meal.  Find out how to make these, here.

I hope you are able to spend some time with your family this weekend as we celebrate this amazing holiday.  I pray for warm weather and for everyone to understand the real reason for Easter.

A Modern Farmhouse

A "modern farmhouse" are the words my clients first used in describing to me how they wanted their dream house to look.  It was being built on a beautiful piece of land and was nothing short of heaven on earth.  

B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!

The plans were all done when I came on board, but like any good designer would do, I had to change something and it was the kitchen.  No offense to the original architect, but some serious layout changes had to be made and fast!  Once that was done, it was on to the fun stuff and boy did we have fun.  My clients are an amazing family with three small children.  Our presentation meetings were exciting to say the least and almost always included one of our children.  

Now, nine months later they are settled into their home and making memories on a daily basis.  I recently did a photo shoot and wanted to share it with you.  I'm super proud of how this home turned out and look forward to helping them over this next year finish every room.  They are one of those rare clients that you don't ever not want to see their name on your calendar.

Can you find the hidden Mickeys in this tile detail?

Custom log benches I had fabricated for their fire pit outside.  Love these!

 

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer

A Year in Pictures

I can't believe it's been a year since I officially started Jennifer Taylor Design and what a year it's been!  I've been blessed with the BEST clients that have not only challenged me to do my best work, but have been open to most of my ideas.  To mark this occasion I thought I would recap the year with photos of different projects, at different stages throughout 2012.  Be warned - most of these photos were taken with my phone and are not the best, but they help tell my story.  Enjoy!

Some finishing touches on a master bedroom.  Love this seating area.

This kitchen was featured in the 2012 Parade of Homes.

The extent of my "craftiness" for the boy's bathroom in the same parade house.

A bed I designed with a custom canopy and pillows to go with a colorful quilt I found at a local store.

These were the selections I put together for a family room re-do in Orlando.  We designed and furnished the entire room via email and mail.  We are now working on the finishing touches to include window treatments.

Fabrics I put together for new cushions and pillows for a breakfast nook.

This is a page from my first e-Design project for a studio apartment.  I can't wait to get the finished photos back from the client.

Built-in desk I designed for a girl's bedroom.

This was the kitchen island top for a home renovation project I helped with.

This was the rug I selected and used for inspiration for a playroom I designed.

The finished product.  Both the parents and kids couldn't be happier with how this space turned out.

This was one of my largest projects of the year.  I assisted these clients on all the selections for their new "modern country" home, as well as the furnishings once they moved in.  It has been a great project with a great family!

This was their kitchen right before they moved in.  We did a real brick splash instead of traditional tile and I was so happy with how it turned out.  

This photo wall (from another project) highlights many generations of this family.  I helped create this with another designer I work with.  The client's reaction was tears.

This is a bathroom that we totally transformed with just wallpaper, fabric and new lighting.  

This was installed in a nursery I designed.  We took full advantage of the stripe around the room to highlight the wall decor we used.

I loved helping these clients finish off their green dining room by installing new draperies and rug, as well as new fabric for their existing dining chairs.

Detail shot of the draperies.  This was one of my favorite fabrics I used all year!

A Mickey and Minnie Mouse wall decal I installed in a kid's bathroom.  Well worth the effort.

The finished family room in my modern farmhouse project.

I ended the year doing a little holiday decorating for one of my favorite clients...my sister!

I can't begin to put in words how grateful I am for a wonderful first year.  I find myself wondering if I made the right decision, but I'm always reminded that I did by the feeling I get looking forward to each day.  I know year #2 will not only bring me more projects, but more people to teach me and bless me.

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer 

A New Project

I love starting new projects!  The ideas start coming to me at all hours of the night, I find myself constantly pinning inspiration photos or looking for products on my phone while I'm in the carpool line at school.  It's even better when you have a client who is so excited to be working with you.  I was lucky enough to meet one such client on Monday.

She's in a hurry (most clients are), so we're fast tracking a lot of decisions so we can move onto the others.  The first item on my list are paint colors.  Here is a little sneak peak of the colors she currently has to face every day.

Hard to really tell, but here's a shot of three rooms - family, kitchen and dining room.  Each is a different paint color.  Gold, tan and baby blue.  The "French's Mustard" in this room is creating the most angst.

This color is a tie for being the worst in the house.  It honestly looks better in this photo than in person.  My client called it "baby poop" as we walked through the first day.

In addition to the paint colors, we had to start making decisions on a few fabrics so we could select just the right colors for the walls.  It's much easier to match a paint to a fabric than the other way around, trust me!  Here are a few rooms we put together in the last few days.

These are the selections for the upstairs playroom.  We are using an indoor/outdoor rug.

This is the fabric for the shower curtain and beautiful paint for the guest bathroom.  This is going to be a major improvement of the current baby poop on the walls.

Finally, we are using wallpaper in three rooms.  When my client said she liked using wallpaper, it was like music to my ears!  I'm super excited about what we have ordered and can't wait to see it installed.  

Here's the paper we selected for the powder bath.  Sorry for the bad photo.

This is one of the light choices I'm sending her today.

And this one.  Which do you like best?

I can't wait to see how everything starts coming together.  She has guests arriving at the end of this month, so let the games begin!  If you need help getting your home ready for a special occasion, give me a call!

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer