'Why Rashida chose blue walls for her clients' first two transformations (+ what she learned)'

Hi, EHD! Rashida is here! It's been a while since I've written on the blog. For over a year now, I have also taken up the profession of interior designing. I thought it would only take a few hours a week (naive me), but it has actually taken up most of my time. Even though the schedule changes were not planned, creating a special sanctuary that enhances the well-being of my clients and their family is truly the reward of this profession.

So, I would like to show you two homes that I have done. The first is a job I did to create a cozy atmosphere for a couple who also do a lot for their community, so I wanted to do something special for them. The second one is a design that I''made for a man who loves to cook and throw parties. These two clients are different, but they have one common theme - the color blue (yes, that's right!). The color blue is no longer a new thing for the EHD blog. I'd even say it's the signature color here! However, I've never used it in my designs before. I've always admired the color, but never had the opportunity to use it in my designs. After experimenting with different shades of blue, I realized that it is a versatile color that can be combined with other cool tones or with hot bright colors like red or orange.

The first project is a cozy living room.

In my first project, I created a living room for my friends. The main problem with their space''Was that the room was narrow and long, as well as being passable. This meant that there were few furnishing possibilities. So to maximize the space, I decided to make a huge modular corner sofa. I love modular design because I can create combinations that work for each space I design. We decided to go with the Homebody model that seats 6. In fact, we created our own sofa with 4 seats and two poufs to create a "U" shape. I opted for two poufs instead of two edge seats to make the space feel looser. The poufs are a place for my friends to rest when they are just relaxing after work, but when they have dinner parties, guests can use the poufs instead of the seats. They love it''Relaxing with your dog Ziggy, so a flawless recliner (in one of the center seats) is the perfect choice. This corner sofa is super comfortable.

Now that the main piece of furniture is in the room, it's time to finalize the rest of the details. And the question I had to decide was what wall color to choose? I needed a color that could empathize with the huge sofa. It had to be bright and interesting to accentuate the gray sofa. That's when I came up with the brilliant idea of making the walls indigo. Indigo''is like a lilac blue color. It mixes shades of purple with dark blue. This is what makes the dark blue color more interesting. I chose the color Blue Gaspe by Benjamin Moore. In fact, the real depth of this color is best appreciated in person. It's one of those colors that is hard to capture in a photo. To warm up the atmosphere a bit, I added natural wood tones, browns and even black colors. They already had luminous lighting, but I always prefer to create layers with secondary lighting. So I installed wall lights with twisted wires from Troy Lighting and a wide semi-square brass fixture from Corbett Lighting.

The second project is a stylish kitchen and bar in the basement

In the next house we worked on four''rooms: kitchen, toilet, basement and a bar in the basement. He originally had a white kitchen with little storage cabinets. He wanted to add a linen closet and a junk closet. The problem was that I was unable to find the exact same cabinets. The solution was to buy pre-made cabinets for the new areas, and re-facing all the doors to create a uniform style. And since we were making new doors, I suggested changing the color from white to..... you guessed it, blue. He was nervous, but after some coaxing, we decided to go with Sherwin-Williams' "In the Navy" color.

For the bathroom, the homeowner insisted on using "Bequia" wallpaper by Malene Barnett, which is sold exclusively at Lulu and Georgia. And of course, it's the color blue again. We replaced his current sink and added''Antwon Maxwell
.Photos of Raul Rivero's second home