Virtual Makeover, Savage Style!

A few months ago I toured a gorgeous model home in the Dallas, Texas area. It was truly drool-worthy but there was one room that made me go, "hmmmm". Something felt off in one of the guest bedrooms. For lack of a better word, the room felt squatty. In my opinion a couple of the design choices took away from its best features, such as the size of the room, the architectural interest created by the coved ceiling and the natural lighting.

Since I had taken photos of this amazing home, I thought it might be fun to do a virtual makeover, Savage style!

Here's what I did and why:

1) Coved ceiling & wall color : A coved ceiling curves down onto the wall by about a foot and is typically textured same as the ceiling. This adds wonderful architectural detail and visual interest to the space.

Here is a closer look at a coved ceiling.

Side Note: Coved ceilings were common in homes built in the 1950's and earlier. Today, the retro-chic trend is the reason coving is making a big comeback.

Coving is a lovely feature but reduces the paintable drywall real estate by about a foot in height. So, if your room is the standard 8-9 feet from floor to ceiling, as was the case in this guest room, the color of paint you put on the walls can either expand or shrink the space.

In choosing the darker shade of paint it creates a hard line where the drywall meets the coving thus making the room feel "squattier" and pulling your eye directly to that line.

By lightening the paint to a shade closer to the ceiling color the hard visual line is eliminated, allowing other features in the room to come into focus, and the room feels taller.

2) Window treatment: The large cornice boards emphasize the reduced visual height of the room, as did the dark paint against the coved ceiling. It also covers about 1/3 of the window, which blocks much of the natural light. I eliminated the cornice and used panels only, which allows the natural light to flow into the space and solves the visually "squatty" issue.

3) Light fixture: I added a beautiful chandelier. To me, this is the icing on the cake or the jewelry that finishes the outfit. As most designers will tell you, lighting is everything. The chandelier also serves another purpose, it helps guide you visually throughout the room by forming a triangle between the headboard, chandelier and the art.

4) Art & bench: These are minor details but I swapped the art to a piece that is slightly bolder and added a bench to the foot of the bed to fill out the space and make it feel a little more luxurious.

So there you have it. Takeover Makeover Savage style! What do you think?