Media >The Plain Dealer
Full House
1/17/08
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Energize your home for the new year with color, tiles, heated bidets
By Susan Condon Love
Holiday clutter (yes, that's what the collectible nut crackers become after Jan. 1) is gone and, as fast as you can say tweed couch, the house looks bare. Boring. Bland. So very . . . January.
You know I'm talking about you. All your stuff looks mismatched, too big or too small, or just not right.
Ah, to have your own personal interior designer. That would be cool.
He or she would come in, in all their coolness and sophistication, and poof! Your jumbled, style-confused living room is suddenly "House Beautiful" camera-ready.
Yeah, right.
Here's the next best thing, faithful readers. I placed a call to one of the area's premier designers and asked these key questions: How can we tweak our homes out of 1989 and directly into 2008? And can it be cheap but look expensive?
Thank you, Pamela Bayer, for returning the call and dispensing valuable (and oftentimes pretty economical) advice.
Even when she's flying to a project in New Jersey or jumping on the turnpike to make the run from her Hudson home to downtown Cleveland, interior designer Bayer is plotting and planning.
How can she personalize and glamorize a young professional's apartment, without losing sight of the fact that it is an apartment?
How can she fine-tune and finish a huge home project started by a now-retired interior designer?
Where would be the best place to use that really cool tile she recently saw at Stoneworks in Bedford Heights, the elegant spa showerheads found at Trumbull Industries in Akron or the neat switch plates, drawer pulls or fan pulls at eclecticjunction.com?
For the busy designer - the resident trends expert for "Good Company" on WKYC Channel 3 - such strategizing is all in a day's work.
Bayer, who started Pamela Bayer Interiors in 1994, talks fast, pouring more information into a small conversation than most people do in a daylong discussion. Get your pen ready. Here's the plan to update your home to make it dazzling.
"Air baths are going to be really hot," she said. "They add elegance and a contemporary look to any bathroom."
Creating your watery oasis involves multiple and hand-held shower heads and "air"-jetted tubs (instead of the standard water-jet units), thus the term "air bath," she said.
"They are amazing," said Bayer. Their other advantage over the water jets is that you can use bubble bath in the air baths.
Another biggie for bathroom decadence, in Bayer's opinion? The Toto Washlet, which costs about $1,000.
(I now must digress. Needing to study this combination toilet seat and bidet, I went to www.cleanishappy.com, featuring the Toto product. Within seconds, co-workers were drawn by my "Omigosh. Oh dear. Heavens!" exclamations and snorts of laughter. The Washlet fits over your standard toilet seat. Among its features - enumerated by a video presentation that starts out with smiley faces planted on six bare rear ends - are a heated seat, oscillating/or nonoscillating rear and frontal water jets, a hot air dryer and, in a perfect touch, a remote control. As one of the smiling representatives pointed out, the washlet leaves hands "liberated from their usual chores." Yikes.)
Bayer's list goes beyond bathrooms and bidets.
"Look for lots of glass, copper and iridescents in various mosaics and tiles," she continued. "People a lot of times forget about their [kitchen] back splashes. Add accents! Add tiles!"
As a bonus? "It's a great selling point if you put your house on the market."
"Switch plates!" she exclaimed, suddenly changing gears.
Yes?
"Switch plates. They are an inexpensive and fun way to complement your decor," said Bayer.
Other 2008 "must-dos," she said, are textural wallpapers. They are easy to install, easy to clean and easy, if you want, to remove.
Bayer, like many design soothsayers, pointed out that the popular colors through 2010 are coppers, golds, rust tones and earthy greens.
When you get those colors in a subtle form in the textural wallpapers, "you don't get glitz, but if the light hits them right, it really adds punch to a room."
Her final advice for do-it-yourselfers looking for a big change for less money? "Look into carpet squares," said Bayer. "Interchangeable carpet squares, that you apply yourself, are less expensive than wall-to-wall carpet, and you get change-out squares if they get dirty, or even if you get bored and want to add a different color or a pattern."
She added, "I always advise to buy 5 percent more [squares] than you need." That way, she said, you don't have to worry about dye lots matching or the colors being slightly off if you replace squares.
ProSource in Kent is a great source for the carpet squares, she said. "It's accessible only to interior designers, so you'll have to go through one to buy, but it's worth it."
Homeowners can take it even simpler, she added, and just use the squares to create an area rug. An 8-by-10-foot "rug" should cost under $1,500, she said.
I'm now eyeballing every room in my house, ready to change switch plates, repaint (I've been accused of being a serial painter; I plead guilty) and add pillow and throw accents to introduce new colors and pizzazz to my rooms.
As far as the bathroom? It's worth it, don't you think, to start a "Toto Washlet" fund. That heated seat is too much for me to resist. My husband, once he can drag himself away from cleanishappy.com, can't wait to add another remote control to his stash.
To reach Susan Condon Love:
slove@plaind.com, 216-999-4784
Holiday clutter (yes, that's what the collectible nut crackers become after Jan. 1) is gone and, as fast as you can say tweed couch, the house looks bare. Boring. Bland. So very . . . January.
You know I'm talking about you. All your stuff looks mismatched, too big or too small, or just not right.
Ah, to have your own personal interior designer. That would be cool.
He or she would come in, in all their coolness and sophistication, and poof! Your jumbled, style-confused living room is suddenly "House Beautiful" camera-ready.
Yeah, right.
Here's the next best thing, faithful readers. I placed a call to one of the area's premier designers and asked these key questions: How can we tweak our homes out of 1989 and directly into 2008? And can it be cheap but look expensive?
Thank you, Pamela Bayer, for returning the call and dispensing valuable (and oftentimes pretty economical) advice.
Even when she's flying to a project in New Jersey or jumping on the turnpike to make the run from her Hudson home to downtown Cleveland, interior designer Bayer is plotting and planning.
How can she personalize and glamorize a young professional's apartment, without losing sight of the fact that it is an apartment?
How can she fine-tune and finish a huge home project started by a now-retired interior designer?
Where would be the best place to use that really cool tile she recently saw at Stoneworks in Bedford Heights, the elegant spa showerheads found at Trumbull Industries in Akron or the neat switch plates, drawer pulls or fan pulls at eclecticjunction.com?
For the busy designer - the resident trends expert for "Good Company" on WKYC Channel 3 - such strategizing is all in a day's work.
Bayer, who started Pamela Bayer Interiors in 1994, talks fast, pouring more information into a small conversation than most people do in a daylong discussion. Get your pen ready. Here's the plan to update your home to make it dazzling.
"Air baths are going to be really hot," she said. "They add elegance and a contemporary look to any bathroom."
Creating your watery oasis involves multiple and hand-held shower heads and "air"-jetted tubs (instead of the standard water-jet units), thus the term "air bath," she said.
"They are amazing," said Bayer. Their other advantage over the water jets is that you can use bubble bath in the air baths.
Another biggie for bathroom decadence, in Bayer's opinion? The Toto Washlet, which costs about $1,000.
(I now must digress. Needing to study this combination toilet seat and bidet, I went to www.cleanishappy.com, featuring the Toto product. Within seconds, co-workers were drawn by my "Omigosh. Oh dear. Heavens!" exclamations and snorts of laughter. The Washlet fits over your standard toilet seat. Among its features - enumerated by a video presentation that starts out with smiley faces planted on six bare rear ends - are a heated seat, oscillating/or nonoscillating rear and frontal water jets, a hot air dryer and, in a perfect touch, a remote control. As one of the smiling representatives pointed out, the washlet leaves hands "liberated from their usual chores." Yikes.)
Bayer's list goes beyond bathrooms and bidets.
"Look for lots of glass, copper and iridescents in various mosaics and tiles," she continued. "People a lot of times forget about their [kitchen] back splashes. Add accents! Add tiles!"
As a bonus? "It's a great selling point if you put your house on the market."
"Switch plates!" she exclaimed, suddenly changing gears.
Yes?
"Switch plates. They are an inexpensive and fun way to complement your decor," said Bayer.
Other 2008 "must-dos," she said, are textural wallpapers. They are easy to install, easy to clean and easy, if you want, to remove.
Bayer, like many design soothsayers, pointed out that the popular colors through 2010 are coppers, golds, rust tones and earthy greens.
When you get those colors in a subtle form in the textural wallpapers, "you don't get glitz, but if the light hits them right, it really adds punch to a room."
Her final advice for do-it-yourselfers looking for a big change for less money? "Look into carpet squares," said Bayer. "Interchangeable carpet squares, that you apply yourself, are less expensive than wall-to-wall carpet, and you get change-out squares if they get dirty, or even if you get bored and want to add a different color or a pattern."
She added, "I always advise to buy 5 percent more [squares] than you need." That way, she said, you don't have to worry about dye lots matching or the colors being slightly off if you replace squares.
ProSource in Kent is a great source for the carpet squares, she said. "It's accessible only to interior designers, so you'll have to go through one to buy, but it's worth it."
Homeowners can take it even simpler, she added, and just use the squares to create an area rug. An 8-by-10-foot "rug" should cost under $1,500, she said.
I'm now eyeballing every room in my house, ready to change switch plates, repaint (I've been accused of being a serial painter; I plead guilty) and add pillow and throw accents to introduce new colors and pizzazz to my rooms.
As far as the bathroom? It's worth it, don't you think, to start a "Toto Washlet" fund. That heated seat is too much for me to resist. My husband, once he can drag himself away from cleanishappy.com, can't wait to add another remote control to his stash.
To reach Susan Condon Love:
slove@plaind.com, 216-999-4784
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