 |
 |
| On the left is the library in a
vintage apartment before work was done. The overall feeling is a little chilly, an impression
not helped by the white painted fireplace face and light
upholstery. The view on the right shows the room now. The
trim, as in the rest of the apartment, was repainted from stark white to a
soft taupe-y tan color. We tiled over the existing fireplace face
with soft blue-glazed tiles, and reupholstered a sofa from the living
room, and the existing ottoman, with a wonderful William Morris fabric
that complements the tiles beautifully. The same silk curtain fabric
used in the living room is used here as well, only now it is the
complement to the blues and greens, giving a sparkle, albeit a subtle one,
to the small space. The oppressive and overpowering mirror above the
fireplace is gone now, replaced with an interesting painting from the
couple's travels. A lot of people think, erroneously, that a big
mirror over a fireplace will make a small room seem larger - the opposite
is actually the truth, as these two photos show. If your room is
small, make it a virtue, not something that you are ineffectually trying
to fight. |
 |
 |
| On the
left is the view of an entry hall before work started. My client had made a good
start with the use of William Morris's Golden Lily wallpaper, but the
space, a large and central one, lacked the essential feeling of welcome
that all entries should have. The table in the center, an obvious
choice, actually served to hinder the flow among the other rooms, and
created a visual barrier that subconsciously said "stop."
The picture on the right is the way the room looks now. On the
original plans, we discovered that there was a fireplace intended for the
corner where the big pier mirror was. When we looked behind the
mirror, we discovered that the masonry was there, but it had never been
opened. I used all the original woodwork from the mirror to create a
mantle and fireplace surround, and we installed a ventless box. Two
wing chairs, a nice table and a pretty lamp create a wonderful spot to sit
during a party. The feeling now is definitely one of warmth and
welcome. |
 |
 |
| On the left is a view of one end
of the living room in the same house before. While there is a nice, original fireplace
and mantle, the space feels curiously unfinished, and lacking any
anchoring weight. The flanking loveseats are the right idea, but the
white slipcovers are too stark. The photo on the right shows my
solution - built-in bookcases that also cover the radiators now complete
the picture, and give a feeling of solidity and purpose to the area.
A custom pair of Lutyens-inspired chairs replace the sofas in the proper
scale. I changed the wall color just slightly to a warmer, happier
shade of tan. |
 |
 |
This is the existing fireplace
and surround when my clients moved into a loft apartment in a vintage
building in Oak Park. Not the most horrible, but
certainly nothing special, nor did it reflect the character and
personality of the original building.
The picture on the right shows the same view
after. The concept and detailing were based on an original fireplace
from elsewhere in the building. I felt strongly that my clients'
apartment should not look like a left-over scrap of a once-grander space,
as these conversions can often seem, but rather like it always was this
way. The bright, multi-colored checkerboard pattern on the face
echoes the original source of inspiration, and the painting above, by the wife's mother, was a
stunning complement, found long after the tiles had been installed.
Flanking bookcases help to define both the space and the function of this
area. |
 |
 |
| This is the living room in a
Tudor-revival house in the suburbs. Despite the ample windows, the room was cold
and dark feeling. The previous owners had attempted to deal with
this by painting the walls a pale yellow and everything else, including
the limestone fireplace, stark white. It did not work - in fact, the
results were just the opposite. The room felt colder and just sort
of grey and depressing. |
Counter-intuitively, it
sometimes is better to go darker in order to make a space feel
brighter. We kept the woodwork white, but softened a bit. The
big difference is the wall color - a rich, warm, lush terra cotta, with
plenty of complementary colors. The result, as you can see,
sparkles, and the light that does come in seems brighter by contrast.
|
 |
 |
| The original fireplace in a
grand suburban househad been
removed, and replaced with a Georgian-style surround by a designer in the
1920's who had achieved a level of local fame, (no, it was not David
Adler) and so the owners wanted to keep the mantle and surround
intact. There also might have been a covenant about it in the sales
contract, no one could quite remember, so it was decided to err on the
side of caution and work around it. I was inspired by a photograph I
saw in a book on Standen, and designed the structure on the right to
basically "float" on the wall, and not actually be fastened to
the surround at all beyond some small beads of caulk. Building
pilasters on the sides allowed me to get a pair of sconces into the
composition, something all fireplaces need, I think, and bring some
architectural interest to a fairly plain wall. The copper charger
has since been replaced by a red lustre plaque by William DeMorgan that
the husband and I secretly scored for my client's Christmas present.
At auction the following month, a DeMorgan plaque similar to ours, but not
as nice, sold for five times what he paid. The Morris-designed rug, Rounton
Grange, was custom made in a large size to fill the generous room. |
 |
 |
|
These are two views of a living room
fireplace in a large new addition to a vintage house, with paneling, tile work and built-in shelves all inspired by
Voysey. The light fixture is a period antique, and the painting
above the fireplace was bought by my client before work had even
begun. It turned out to be a perfect size and palette to use in this
room. The tiles on the fireplace face are a wonderful and varied
glaze of iridescent green, something Voysey would have appreciated, and
are laid in vertical soldier courses like many of his fireplace designs. |
 |
 |
| One of the reasons that no one
really liked sitting in the original living room in the suburban bungalow was it was dark and
frankly a little depressing. The heavy paneling and black-painted
fireplace surround did not help matters any. When I first visited I knew
something was not right with this whole situation, and suggested that we
at least take the paneling down as a start. |
Upon removing the paneling. we
discovered a fantastic original chimneybreast and the remains of two
flanking bookcases, hidden for more than twenty years! Obviously the
painted brick was not original, but most of what we needed to recreate the
whole composition, or at least clues to what it used to be, was there. |
 |
 |
| Here is a view of the finished
fireplace with bookcases. We were able to locate old bricks from a
salvage source that matched exactly in order to rebuild the mantle, and I
had my cabinet maker build the bookcases to exactly copy what was
there. It is now a fabulous, inviting and much-used space. |
This is a view towards
the entry hall and stairs. While small, the house does not feel
cramped because of the generous openings between the spaces.
|
 |
 |
| This is a
view towards the fireplace in the basement family room space of a house in
River Forest, both before and after. Paradoxically, by
bringing the paneling up to about 5 feet, and painting the remaining wall
and ceiling the same color, the room feels higher than it really is.
Both the leather sofa and the pair of chairs are on the low side, which
helps to reinforce the feeling. The wicker chandelier is something
we have made exclusively for us in two sizes. The one shown is the
larger, 31" in diameter. Because it is hanging over a place in
the room that you would not normally walk under, we could lengthen the
drop a little. This kind of fixture, which reflects light off the
ceiling, is a wonderful way to softly illuminate a room without casting
hard shadows. |
 |
 |
| On the left is the before view
of a living room in a modest but charming Oak Park bungalow. It was
not clear if there ever had been a fireplace in this house, but the one
next door did have a non-functioning one in this location, so we knew that
conceptually this was the way to go. Any molding or art glass had
long before been removed, and the whole room was chilly and
unexciting. The view on the right is the room now. The leaded
glass, the bookcases, the fireplace and the tilework is all new, but
designed to look as if it had always been there. The challenge in
this small room was to make the fireplace the focal point without allowing
it to dominate the space. I dropped the level of the bookcases to
well under the window surrounds, and pushed them back as far as possible
in their depth, in order to maintain the proper sense of scale.
After the work was complete, my clients invited a neighbor to drop by and
see what had been done. The first words out of her mouth were,
"you're so lucky to have the original fireplace." What a
great compliment! |
 |
 |
| Sometimes what seems impossible
turns out to be relatively easy, at least technically speaking. The
picture on the left shows a fireplace at one end of a large room in a new
house in Virginia. There is nothing particularly special about the
space or the detailing at this stage, nor had the architect planned
anything more that the standard mantle and wood surround. The
exterior of the house had very strong, but accidental, touches of the
architecture of Greene & Greene, and so I suggested that we make the
interior reflect this as well. On the right is the finished
fireplace, with the exception of the tile surround, which came after this
photo was taken. An inglenook with built-in bookcases and a bench,
and large and emphatic beams and woodwork details create a magical
space. Two bowarm morris chairs in mahogany by Hile Studio, covered
in a soft green velvet, are all that is needed to complete the feeling of
repose and containment. While the design of the space took a
considerable amount of work and thought, the execution is not much more
than trim work, albeit on a grand scale. Nothing is structural, as
it would have been in the Greenes' architecture. The wood is poplar,
colored with aniline dyes to mimic mahogany. Click
here to see a picture of the finished tilework and a custom rug we had
made based on an original watercolor design by Charles Greene. |
|
