Be Careful When Changing Light Bulbs!

by Mara Vollbrecht Ayers

This is a story about how things can progress in the most unusual ways. I recently had a client who was referred to me because she wanted some stationary side panels in her formal living room. When I first went to meet with the client her very large room with a vaulted ceiling and gorgeous millwork charmed me. The room had great bones and I knew that it had a lot of potential; I was looking forward to transforming it.

Her furniture though, was mismatched and about 20 years old, never the less all she wanted to talk about was stationary side panels. See they used to have wall scones on either side of the large picture window and apparently the right bulb burned out and her husband went to replace it and well, he broke the sconce. It turned out that the sconce was so old that it couldn’t be replaced! And they decided that since there were a total of 8 sconces in the room that they didn’t want to replace them all. So they took the sconces out on either side of the picture window and put a metal plate over the holes, thus the need for side panels. She must have told me 10 times to make sure that the panels would cover the metal plates.

The picture window had a beautiful arch to it and I really wanted to accentuate this so I designed an arched cornice with swag overlays and side panels. I used a patterned fabric for the cornice and a solid antique satin for the panels and swags. The window on the adjoining wall got the same treatment only it was straight across so I arched it slightly to compliment the picture window. The effect of the arches and the treatments turned out wonderful and the client was so happy. No more ugly metal plates!

After the installation she realized that the dining room was visible from the living room and it had an older valance of a navy blue fabric that just didn’t go with what we had just done in the living room, therefore we had to now change the treatment in the dining room. We ended up with a Kingston style pole valance with stationary panels. Then she realized that the rug in the dining room didn’t work with the new drapes so it had to be replaced as well.

The mismatched 20-year-old furniture was still residing in the living room waiting to be sent away. But she loved the style of the sofa and the wingback chairs. Basically they were still in good structural condition so we decided to recover them all, why not. The fabric we selected for the chairs was retail $198/yard from Beacon Hill (I think that we used 4 yards each)—it was beautiful with the cornices and new panels in the living room. We found an allover diamond pattern for the sofa and then decided that one of the ottomans could stay and had it recovered as well. We are now looking for a sofa table with a marble top and another side chair to fill out the room.

All this happened because of a burned out light bulb and a broken sconce. My client laughs at herself every time we meet, it really would have been less expensive to change all the sconces—but certainly would not have looked as fabulous as it does now or been as fun! Oh, and did I forget to mention that the French doors got new sheers as well.

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Mara Vollbrecht Ayers
designs by mara, inc.
www.designsbymara.net
6710 220th St SW #2
Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043
425-776-8265
dbm4art@comcast.net