Another Church to condo conversion and an evening with New England Home Magazine

As I've mentioned before, I love a conversion property and I have a particular thing for church conversions. Churches are just such unusual spaces - large, lots of millwork and stained glass, not to mention so much history - baptisms, weddings, funerals. Life in all its stages. So, tonight, I very happily attended a networking event at the Mt. Auburn Village, hosted by New England Home Magazine.

What was once the First Baptist Church in Watertown, MA is now in the process of becoming luxury condominiums that is part of a larger grouping of conversions.

The church

The Parsonage

The Map - Parsonage on left, church on right

The project - by Haddad Hakansson LLC - still has a long way to go, but the entrance and one of the units has been completed and staged.  Here's the entry, with mailboxes and center hall table. (ignore the beer bottles!)

How gorgeous is the ceiling? Am thinking that the sconces and pendant are from the original church.

Here is the finished unit - living room:

The home office which is right off the kitchen - love the stained glass insert.

The kitchen - the design style for this project is clearly traditional. Beautiful cherry cabinetry and Viking appliances throughout!

Here was one of the other units that's not quite finished. It shows the interesting challenges that can arise with these types of projects - what do you do with the support column? Build some cabinetry and a counter around it. Honestly, I'm not sure this was the most successful solution to the challenge...

But, back to the architecture - how fantastic is this wall? It's the focal point in the living room of this as yet unfinished unit. Now, there are definitely design challenges here - the window looks right into another building - so the owners will want to put some kind of covering on the windows from the sash down.  Or not...  baptisms, weddings, funerals... and now peep shows!

More fantastic millwork. You could do so many interesting treatments in the spaces between the arches.  Beautiful accent colors, or even a custom built-in book case of some kind.

And the party held in one of the other units:

And finally, say hello to Betsey Abeles Kravitz, Associate Publisher of New England Home Magazine, and Douglas Weisman. Btw - how gorgeous is Betsey's necklace???

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The Skirted Roundtable, Brooke Giannetti and a pretty shade of green

This week on The Skirted Roundtable, we welcomed Brooke Giannetti of the beautiful blog Velvet and Linen to the table. Brooke, along with her husband Steve who is an architect, run the eponymous design business Giannetti Home in Santa Monica, CA.

Brooke's home, which she's profiled on her blog, is filled with gorgeous, feminine style, antiques and the small details that make a place come to life.

While we were holding our interview, I was perusing her photos and fell completely in love with the green on the back of her shelves in these photos... 

 I actually forgot to talk on the interview, because, well, when I see a beautiful green, all things go out of my head except for a soft buzzing sound. Have you ever had that feeling?

Anyway, as I'm working on my kitchen remodel, I am now so smitten with this color - reportedly Farrow and Ball's Verte de Terre - that it's gone up to the top of my list for the green I plan on painting part of my woodwork and the ceiling.

So, Brooke, thanks for joining us at The Skirted Roundtable, and thanks for the inspiration!




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Maintaining Fixtures and Counters in Your Kitchen and Bath - DivineCaroline

It’s not surprising that the most expensive rooms in our homes—the kitchen and bath—are also the hardest to keep clean and in good repair. These...

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Time Is Short, Life Is Busy, Make It Better - DivineCaroline

Clutter and general disorganization is a total time and energy waste. Thinking about, maneuvering around it, and feeling guilty about it doesn’t help either. If...

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Linda's kitchen: Crown moldings and a second skim coat

My kitchen remodel is coming along nicely. This weekend, we got the second skim coat up and installed a crown molding around the entrance to the kitchen space. There are so many styles, options and materials for crown moldings and I think the use of a crown molding is really about how ornate or clean lined you want your kitchen to be.

image courtesy of TrimConnections.com

Here's a roundup of some beautiful kitchens - some with a crown, some without.

Traditional crown  - Brian McCarthy kitchen design via Point Click Home

No crown - Jennifer Gilmer design via Point Click Home

No crown over back wall - Mark Badgley & James Mischka kitchen via Point Click Home

Very small quarter round crown - Jonathan Berger kitchen via House Beautiful

Formal deep crown - Kathy Smith kitchen via House Beautiful

Traditional crown - John Oetgen design via House Beautiful

Small crown over brown wall, traditional crown over cabinets - Jamie Gottschall's kitchen via House Beautiful

Large crown over cabinets grace the cover of (now defunct) Accent Magazine. I love the painted crown matching the painted ceiling and am seriously considering this for my kitchen.

So, a little recap: here's my original gross popcorn ceiling:

And here is my beautiful flat ceiling with new crown molding. I decided to go with a simple quarter round molding. While it does not match the crown molding style over the cabinet end of the space, I decided to stick with as simple and clean lined a look as possible. There is no crown molding anywhere in my condo because of its modern design and vaulted ceilings, so it doesn't make a lot of sense (to me at least!) to design a kitchen with ornate trim work that differs substantially from the rest of the space.

I also feel that there is so much that goes on in a kitchen, even a small one like mine, that the simpler one keeps things, the better. Plus, I have something fun going up on the walls! More to come on that!



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Redecorating my website

I get bored easily and am always looking to change something - in my house, my hair and my portfolio website. I've updated my website an invite you to take a look and let me know what you think!

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Branding the Famous: Cindy Crawford Style at JC Penney

I haven't seen this new collection in person yet, but the are holding a fun contest - so if you have a decorating dilemma and would like a chance to win some free products from this new Cindy Crawford Style from JC Penney, click here and good luck!





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