Kravet's Ronald McDonald House of Long Island

I first heard about the Ronald McDonald House of Long Island project last year when I attended BlogFest2013. BlogFest was sponsored by Kravet, one of my most favorite fabric houses. I even had the great pleasure of sitting right next to David Kravet during lunch and then touring "behind-the-scenes" at Kravet following the hoopla of BlogFest. David Kravet told me all about their collaboration with the Ronald McDonald House of Long Island, which happens to be just miles away from where I grew up.

As if I weren't a huge Kravet fan already, their level of empathy and philanthropy is overwhelming. Here are some of the rooms that were completed in Phase I of the project with the help of 30 designers. Now they are moving on to Phase II. I threw my name in the ring to work on the project. We'll see what happens- these designers certainly set the bar high!

Michael Herold

 

Amanda Nisbet

Tarasoff Interiors

Drew McGukin

Mehditash Design

Kate Singer

 

Mr. Call Designs

Eric Cohler

 Which is your favorite? 
My mind is spinning with all the wonderful Kravet fabrics I would use in a Ronald McDonald room if I am selected to participate!

Re-Upholstering the World...One Piece at a Time...

Yes. I know. Dramatic title. But that is how I feel when I venture down the road of re-upholstery with a client. Re-upholstering isn't for the light-hearted.

It isn't inexpensive...the options are endless...but the results....well...they can be just so out of this world!

Here is a piece that one of my clients needed help with.  See it all the way back there...the one armed-chaise. First question: re-upholster or replace? First I scoured the market for comparable pieces.... they were a few out there in a wide-price range. Some were out of the price range and the less expensive versions cost about as much as re-upholstering. Since this was a good, sturdy piece, we decided to go for the re-upholstery.

Another shot:

Now that we made the decision to re-upholster- we were on to fabric....fun! The client has some cats....they like to scratch...shocking. We were looking for a fabric that could with-stand the mighty claws, and still add something to the room. So we went old-school on the fabric choices and took a fork to them to see how they held up. We narrowed it down to two. Next test...and this can be the hardest one of all: the husband test. In my experience husbands fear two things in fabrics: pattern and price. Thankfully, our favorite fabric passed the husband test, too! Here it is: A gorg pattern from Duralee:

Off to the re-upholsterer we went and we ended up with this beauty:

Another a beauty shot:

Success all around...unless, of course, you are my client's cats!