Dream Closets

I'm yet to meet a single person male or female who would not like a walk-in closet/dressing room and I've met quiet a few who are absolutely in LOVE with the idea of having their own celebrity style walk-in closet thus I figured I'll write about dressing rooms and what you need in one to make it stand out and be ELLE Decor worthy.

So what's a dressing room for as oppose to say having a wardrobe or closet in your bedroom. A dressing room is a place where you go in to plan or put on an outfit as oppose to "storing clothes" which is what a closet or a wardrobe is for.

In a dressing room you are; storing clothes and accessories, displaying special items, getting your hair and makeup done, trying on different clothes/shoes, and finally emerging in an "outfit"

So what would you need in a dressing room for it to be both, efficient and awe worthy?

Just like a wardrobe or a closet; one of the main purposes of a dressing room is storing and displaying clothes. That job is performed by closets, shelves, hanging rods, drawers, etc...(which is basically what a wardrobes/closets fit-out company would do for you such as; American Wardrobe, Creative Wardrobe, IKEA and any of the other redundant shops in Doha,

The type and amount of storage depends on 3 main factors; the room area, the type of clothes you want to store/display, and the amount of clothes you want to store/display. Now whether you want to "store" or "display" your clothes that is also an additional factor.

While you might want to hide away all of your clothes in closed wardrobes and drawers

Or put a few special items on display

others might like to go all out and have open storage for everything that they own

And some might even go the extra mile to do a very extravagant display of something they cherish so much, wedding gown in a box frame ladies? or are you more of a "display it on a mannequin" kind of bride

Adrienne Maloof, former cast member of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills had her wedding gown displayed oh-so beautifully in a clear box frame

a gown put on display on a mannequin in a shop. This could very much be done in your own dressing room for an exclusive boutique sort of feel. 

or maybe it's jewelry, makeup, or bags and shoes that you like to keep out in a special display?

The choices of how to display these items are endless and they depend again on space, quantity, and type of items. It could be a jeweler stand, a counter with a clear top or clear boxes just like at jewelry boutiques, an open or glass front armoire, shelves, and just a corner in the dressing room, the last will make the piece look like it's a sculpture or a vase on display!

Now for the utilitarian makeup savvy artist the top vanity is a dream come true , but you can still get your beauty on (hair & makeup) at a fit for a Hollywood star vanity and get to store all of your makeup and hair products. Be it modern and more on the utilitarian side or fancy and old world glamorous, a vanity table, mirror, and chair are a must have in a good dressing room.

This leads us to the trying clothes on and getting ready role of the dressing room. Now what's also essential in a dressing room for getting ready is for it to be equipped with the following; seating, to sit and put shoes on or to wait while someone else is trying clothes on, a hanger/table to put whatever you want to wear on while your getting ready, a full size mirror, and adequate lighting.

Now with seating and the mirrors you can either make them statement pieces or make them blend in with the rest of the interiors and be a built in within the wardrobe set.

I absolutely love having hangers and counter tops or tables for laying out or hanging clothes out to wear them. It helps a lot too if you need to get something steamed.

Would you like a hotel bellboy sort of golden rail cart to hang your clothes out on for steaming? I wouldn't mind! will make you feel like you are staying at a hotel.

And last but not least is what I believe to be the most important thing in a dressing room, adequate lighting. You want your dressing room to be well lit with soft general lighting that is a mix of slightly warm light and daylight in order to be able to see the true colors of your clothing/make up yet still get the tone improvement effect of having the warmer lights. Steer clear from directional lighting and strong lights that cast harsh shadows because they will put a super model to shame (changing room meltdown flashback anyone?)

So whether you've got a small space to use as a dressing room

or a huge space

got a classic style

or a quirky one

There is always room for dressing rooms love!

Just remember:

Put your clothes away

But show off some

Vanity Fair

Sit

Get Ready

and Go!

What do you think? do you have a dressing room envy? or do you already have your dream closet fitted?

Wall Decal Finally Completed!

so after another Friday completely spent by, mainly my sister, and myself; measuring, sticking, cutting decals. The feature wall in baby Farida's nursery is finally done! Woohoo.

What do you think? We are loving it.

Baby Girl Nursery- Take 2, a project by me

So finally the furniture arrived, 10 days ago!, the crib is the Yale white crib from Mamas and Papas and the rest of the furniture is all IKEA. I was supposed to finish the wall behind the crib before the furniture arrived but things have been crazy around here, can you notice from how many times I said I will post pictures about the nursery and never got to it?

the pillows on the nursing couch and the cloud pillow in the crib are all purchases that I made on ETSY

the nursery walls are painted a light shade of grey except for the wall behind the crib which is supposed to be a feature patterned wall with peach and golden wall decals from Walls By MUR

I'm personally not into changing tables and baby bath stands, I'd rather get a dresser with a changing pad to go on top and a bath sponge.

A great way to upgrade any furniture like IKEA's is to replace it's hardware with nicer hardware. I replaced the white knobs with these mother of pearl brass knobs from Anthropologie which I had purchased originally for my bedside tables with a couple of extra ones which came in handy!

Finally last Friday I managed to in list the help of my sister and her friend to start on the feature wall behind my baby's crib. It took a very long time to stick these decals in place all perfectly aligned. We used a ladder, pencil, X-acto, masking tape, a straight edge, and a level and it's really an exhausting job. They did the majority of it really.

Here you can see the room starting to take shape

The golden triangles are actually metallic which add glamor to the nursery in a subdued way. I LOVE it and love the colour of the triangles and that they are not baby pink but a peachy pink colour.

so I will hopefully post again soon on finishing the feature wall with decals from Walls by Mur and some other updates in the nursery. Once the nursery is completed and I have my baby I will be sharing the rest of the apartment's design space by space and how we turned it around from absolute nothing-ness (I love inventing words) to the beautiful 3 bedroom small apartment that we absolutely love.

Baby Girl Nursery, a project by me

This is an ongoing project that I posted a teaser about earlier. It's my baby's nursery. My husband and I are currently expecting our first child- due early July- and we couldn't be happier. As you can tell from the title we found out that we are having a girl! and being the "design project manager" that I am I started designing the nursery right away. Take a look at the concept, colors, inspirations that influence my design and check out the album every now and then for pictures of the nursery before, during, and after the design works take place.

I knew I wanted my baby's nursery to be a place my husband and I would love and enjoy being in as much as our baby would once she got slightly older. I however wasn't keen on frills and bespoke royal baby sort of nurseries. I wanted something that was pretty and practical that had clean modern lines and that would grow with my baby.

I consider myself to be a girly girl but there is one thing that I hate so much that is associated with girls which is the color Baby Pink. I honestly absolutely hate those two baby associated shades; baby pink and baby blue. I however love other blues and pinks left within the spectrum. I wanted a peachy sort of pink, never mind the tone in this board it's a tad too peachy here.

I wanted to complement the peachy pink with a mint green and metallic gold for accents. All furniture was going to be white- personal preference- and I knew light grey was going to be used around the room as a neutral backdrop color.

I took my personal preferences, budget, size limitations, and needs to the Doha market and online market for that matter and came up with a mood board for my baby's nursery of things I'd like to use, or find things that are similar to. Beside having a color theme for the nursery my husband and I wanted to use the motif of a lamb in the nursery but not too much that it gets redundant, we hate things too matchy matchy

Then came time to create the layout and make sure everything would work in the room.

These are a few teaser partial elevations to give you an idea of what will be going on in the nursery

Comes the time for photos of the actual space now. This is the nursery, 1 of the 3 bedrooms in our apartment. The photo is taken at the time that we first went to check the apartment out for rental. You guessed right, this is the door that leads to the teeny balcony which I've posted about before.

As you can see the room is currently being used as a drying/ironing room and a place to store "stuff" we are planning on moving the laundry related activities to the 3rd bedroom, remains a store room today, once the baby comes and to get all of the extra stuff that we don't need sorted out before the baby comes!

and Here are other photos showing all the other sides in the nursery.

Stay tuned for more posts to follow on the progress in the nursery

So what do you think? have you done a nursery in your room before, would you like to share it with us? PM me!

Tile Away

One of the things you can play around with in your home when re-furbishing or building/buying a new home is tile. It comes in all sorts of colors and shapes and can really be used anywhere, not just in bathrooms and kitchens. So the next time you take on a tiling project, try something different.

multi color it

Change the shape, aren't you tired already of the square 40cmX40cm tiles? pictured are the Penny Mosaic Tiles

Get a fancy look with a sophisticated tile shape that adds a level of intricate detailing. Always contrast the grout color to the tile color for a powerful impact

Get a funky shape and a monochromatic color scheme and do an entire wall for an overall powerful effect like these fish scale tiles

Add a sense of depth to your walls/floors by a 3d illusion created by segmented 3d shapes. Don't you love the monochromatic scheme with the pop of yellow?
 

 so have you come across some really cool installation, or done some yourself? share it with us

Balcony Revival, a project by me

Hi Everyone, I'm finally getting to actually sharing my space with you guys. I know I promised to do that long time ago, but I'm getting too caught up in the little details to start sharing just yet. So I decided to share one space at a time!

We never used the little balcony which is in one of our 3 bedrooms ever since we moved into our first apartment in September after our wedding. It was so hot that we never actually even opened the sliding doors because the Air conditioners were on all the time. Once the winter in Doha started though, my husband started day dreaming about having a nice balcony and I was day dreaming about trying out my green thumb.

I had to get a maid to clean out the balcony, it was so dirty- I don't think anyone cleaned it ever since the building was built!- that I didn't even know what type of flooring laid underneath the layers of dust and dirt and then planning commenced!

These pictures were taken during mid cleaning, it was much much worse than that. I didn't know if I had terrazzo tiles or ceramic tiles laying under the dust, to my surprise it had ceramic tiles just like the ones inside the house! 

I took measurements and logged onto the best website ever, IKEA of course! and started shopping around for items that would work within my space, I knew I needed storage for all the plants care tools and items and outdoor equipment and that I wanted plants to be able to vertically grow (climbing plans and shelves for pots to go on) and that I had very limited space so furniture size mattered big time here. I chose the furniture and did the layout as per the furniture measurements.

My husband liked these floor decking tiles that we saw at IKEA once so I did a tile layout just to know how many tiles I needed.

I then went to IKEA for a shopping spree and got everything on my shopping list+some candles and garden lanterns and all the furniture pieces were assembled and in place! my husband and I spent the following days having every cup of coffee, breakfast, dinner there, we loved it. It had transformed so much although it was still pretty bare.

The next weekend my husband and I took off to the plants shop near the whole sale market and picked and choose plants and flowers to go in our balcony and had them arranged in the pots right there. I also picked up some seeds which I should get to planting right now so that I don't miss the season! I got cherry tomatoes and some herbs to try and see if I have a green thumb!

All the plants and lanterns went into place and the place turned into a mini oasis! we are absolutely smitten and in love with our little balcony/garden for two and we are keeping our plants company by being in that balcony on almost daily bases.

So what do you think? have you had any green thumb experiences lately? tried yourself at landscaping or got someone to redo your garden, balcony, outdoor space? share your ideas, comments, and photos with us!