Design Update: Castine, Maine Lake House

“Hi! Would you have time to chat sometime this week? We recently bought a vacation home in Maine and would love to explore some updates and redesign. Thanks!”

15 months after completing their Brooklyn, NY apartment, two of my very favorite clients reached back out with a very special project in mind - a lake house they just purchased in Castine, Maine! This isn’t the first time I’ve worked on a second home with a client and I am incredibly humbled for the opportunity to continue good work with people I thoroughly enjoy!

When I first saw this place I was all in.
(every photo in this post was taken by the clients - they are truly amazing!)

I love two things about this:
1) The gorgeous structure and architecture of this home, and
2) How terrible it looked when we began

This job is a classic example of the perfect cosmetic update. It wasn’t hard at all to imagine what this home could be!

Pretty amazing, right? Since this home will be used as a vacation place, the clients do plan to rent it out when they’re not there. This dictated much of the design and selections for the home - durable, family friendly elements were a must, and using some of the homes existing pieces where possible helped stretch the budget.

We still have a little ways to go, but I thought it would be fun to share how far this home has come since September! Items left to do include painting the window frames black and updating the dining room and kitchen lighting. There is also a guest room/office that we’ve been chipping away on and that will be included in the final reveal in a few months!

Come on in, friends!

Repositioning the existing sectional and adding a pair of forest green armchairs gives the living room an intimate, cozy feel in this cavernous space. The clients really wanted the sofa to face the windows, so I believe we turned it a whole 180 from where it had been. We’ll be adding an old, rustic bench along the back side, which conveniently leads right outside to the screened porch.

When I was told this home would be rented out, I really wanted to add some special touches unique to Castine. A pair of framed maps helps visitors identify where they are in this very special, undisturbed part of Maine.

Reusing the existing coffee table and media console were easy options - they work well in here as functional pieces that don’t stick out. The style direction we were after was a modern rustic/farmhouse vibe - primitive, functional pieces, nothing too modern or fancy.

Browsing for textiles in this home has been the MOST fun. All pillows and rugs came together just beautifully. I haven’t updated the throw blankets yet but I think a couple fresh selections will pull this all in just right! Isn’t the light in here so lovely?

I absolutely can’t wait to see the new lights installed over the dining table and island. I think you’ll really like what I found! Little different, but everything about this design has been a fun opportunity to step outside the box.

The kitchen required the most effort from the clients - I picked out a few paints for them to sample, they sent some pics, we finalized, and then they got to work! They painted all the cabinets Light French Gray by SW, and the island Newburg Green by BM. But one of my favorite updates in here was removing the previous yellow-y shelving unit and replacing it with natural wood shelves on simple iron powder coated brackets. Done and done! I can’t wait to see what the kitchen will look like when the window frames are all painted black. Cannot. Wait.

This past year has been deeply hard in so many ways and I can honestly say this project came at just the right time. I needed this level of creativity, I needed a project that would rejuvenate my soul and allow me opportunity to see some fruit from my efforts. Every time I sat down to work on this place I felt my mind enjoying the escape. While I’ve not stepped foot in this house, I’ve loved every second of working on it and studying its every corner, nook and cranny. More to come soon when it’s ready for it’s big final reveal!

Thank you so much for coming by, friends. Stay warm and stay safe out there!

Maybe Mauve Dresser

Creatively speaking, I don’t have much to show for myself lately. When the world shut down, many of you found sanctuary in projects while stuck at home. I found myself going to my day job in full PPE. Suddenly I was signing waivers at the door each morning, bruising my nose and breaking out under an N95, getting COVID tested twice a week, limiting my water intake to avoid taking off my mask, wary that a single mistake that could compromise my health or that of those around me.

My 9 to 5 is working with residents at an Assisted Living Facility - a very vulnerable population that I have seen wither under sequestration. My creative bandwidth was eaten up by how to keep spirits up among the residents and how to keep us all safe.

For these reasons, my garage workshop stayed quiet for most of last year (well that and because Caleb turned it into a home gym for a while). My 2020 flip list fell by the wayside with only one project completed and others never tackled or never shared.

I have a lot of hope that this year will be different. I do want to see more pieces unfold on this platform as my time and energy will allow. These projects still bring me great joy and your support and positive response to them are such a source of encouragement for me to keep creating.

I found this gem listed in Facebook as a curb alert. It was free and in the neighborhood so I snapped it up while I was already out running errands.

I was kinda digging its dusty color but the original paint job was a HOT MESS. The body was shellacked with thick drips of high-gloss beige while the top was and unfortunate clash of flat cream from what I can only assume was a bad repair job.

The stripping process revealed several layers of paint that started peeling off like wallpaper - indicative that it wasn’t applied properly in the first place.

This piece had lived at least three other lifetimes as a shabby chic dresser with obvious brush strokes in a white paint finish. Then it did a stint as a vivid aqua/teal dresser. Then it turned into the mauve-meets-beige mess that landed it in my workshop. But that mauve gave me an idea to try something new so I picked up a new color to try.

Now mauve is technically in the purple color family but that scalloped detail was calling for something soft and pretty and reminiscent of Shire’s pink room circa 2018. I browsed my favorite paint line (Behr Marquee) and chose Retro Pink that lands in right the dusty hue range.

The scalloped detail lends itself to a sweet overall look while the dusty pink color still reads mature for all you millennial-pink lovers out there.

Keeping with the original dresser’s look, I painted the tapered legs in the same color as the body.

I did not however, keep the ridiculous pulls from the original dresser. Instead, I filled those holes and drilled new ones for a single gold whistle knob on each side.

Just enough gold to give it a touch of glam.

I had wanted the color to be reminiscent of a dried clay so naturally I had to style with a ceramic touch.

I pulled this trio of ladies from various corners of my house and invited them to come smirk from atop the dresser.

They agreed to make eyes at the dresser’s potential buyers until the right one comes along.

Maybe Mauve Dresser
Now Available for Sale
$545

If you are interested in this piece or a custom order like it, email me at cate@stylemutthome.com

Interior Design COURSE: Coming February 2!

Hello there! Just dropping in with some exciting news - we’ve turned our Interior Design Starter Guide into a course! The guide was a fantastic exercise in gauging the need and interest for this information. So many aspiring designers are out there chomping at the bit, ready for clients, but just aren’t getting their business off the ground how they’d like. After doing some research into available interior design degrees in both the community college and online options, we discovered that course content for such degrees is seriously lacking one major element - business skills! Color theory and proper curtain length are only helpful when you have design projects to apply those skills. But how does one get the projects? This is where our Interior Design Course comes in!

We believe that business strategy specifically tailored to the creative field of Interior Design is the missing piece for many of our fellow designers. Strategies that we’ve discovered through 5+ years of experience have been the foundation of our success and the reason we have been able to reach full-time status.

Since releasing our Interior Design Starter Guide in September, we have been working on providing a much more in depth course covering the details we previously glazed over. We consider the guide a wonderful birds-eye view for someone considering the field of interior design, but the course is a serious look at the details for the serious aspiring designer.

Here are some highlights that this course will cover:

The format of our Interior Design Business Course will be pre-recorded video lessons so you can move through at your own pace on your own time. We know most you are juggling a lot of balls at the moment and we want you to have the most flexibility with this course so you can really learn and master the material. Even our price of $999 is flexible to divided payment plans by request. Times have been tough and we want to work with you however we can.

It’s a fantastic time to be helping people with their homes and we want to equip you in every way to get out there doing your thing! Please don’t hesitate to email me at chelsea@stylemutthome.com if you have any questions. Otherwise, mark your calendars for February 2!