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Real Design for Real Life

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Stephanie Andrews
Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Stephanie is the founding mother of Balance Design. She believes that life is a quest for balance: in the home, in your family, in your community, in your work and in your world.
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Sarah's thoughts on Anthropologie
Posted: 2/5/10
1st Picture:a cute recycled ostrich that peers over candles




One of my favorite stores to duck into when roaming the mall is Anthropologie. From the second I walk through the doors, I’m captivated by the sights and smells throughout the store. Looking around, several words come to mind: authentic, romantic, vintage, chic. Their array of handmade items are no doubt exquisite but their creative displays seem to capture my attention most. Often made of recycled materials, they’re both amusing and artfully designed. Whether it’s colorful kitchenware carefully stacked on shelves of reclaimed wood or towering birds made from book pages peering over merchandise tables, customers are reminded of the beauty and fun that lie in one’s everyday surroundings if you look close enough…and that’s a beautiful thing!

Stephanie's thoughts on Anthropologie.
I agree with Sarah.  Anthropologie is a great example of how handmade recycled items can create a sense of magic.  The ostrich made out of pages of magazines!  How did someone think of that?  The trick is to be always open to seeing things that can be used in a new way.  Also figuring out items that make you smile.  An ostrich can definitely do that.  So can a platypus!  Keep your digital camera in your pocket to take pictures of things that crack you up or things that are beautiful or creative.
Labels: recycled vintage display
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Fun Elements in a Kids Room
Posted: 1/21/10
I love decorating kids rooms!  There are so many ways you can have fun, experiment with color, and do all the things you would have wanted as a kid.  First you must channel your inner kid!  Kids come with so many personalities, precocious, serious, funny, silly, scientific, dramatic, colorful, happy and the list goes on and on.  My kids are very different.  Jack is and always has been a serious little guy with a very outgoing yet logical personality.  My daughter however, is dramatic, artistic and has a sense of style to rival a character on Project Runway.
Start with the color:  Color is so much fun in a kids room!  Stripes are a favorite of mine.  I like to to do stripes at kids eye level, usually involving 3 different colors.  The room above has green walls, a light pink ceiling and 2 bold orange and fuscia stripes to separate the colors.  This way I could bring the ceiling color down on the walls.  Try to paint the kids rooms with zero VOC paint colors.  I prefer Harmony Paint by Sherwin Williams, very lovely colors and quite affordable. 
Then add the bones: Buy furniture that is not too childlike, or else they may grow out of it too fast.  I tend to like the clean, modern lines of Room and Board Kids or Ikea.  I can see the furniture in the above room going from house to house and because it is from Room and Board, it may make it all the way to college.  Figure out great ways to store kids stuff.  I prefer cubbie storage from Ikea and then add baskets and containers to keep it organized.  The room above has a great system in the closet to keep all of her toys for her small room.
Then the fun accessories!:  Bedding, windows, bean bags, lamps...all of these add so much personality to the room!  In the above room we were definitely working with little Kate's vibrant and precocious personality and trying to bring in nature and color.  The bedding is from Pottery Barn Kids.  The windows are a neat treatment.  We bought black out roller shades from Lowe's and my seamstress sewed trim on the bottom.  Then she created a small 4" valance to cover up the roll.  Then we used light green and pink linen for the curtains with the same trim at the seam.  The hardware is white wood to keep things light and airy.
Have Fun and Keep it Simple!  After all, if we get stressed out with the kids rooms, what are we going to do with the living room?


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Balance Design Mission Statement
Posted: 01/05/10
Have you ever tried to write a mission statement?  It is actually harder than it may seem.  On a 10 hour road trip with the family to Pennsylvania, my husband and I worked on one.  I am actually pleased with it, and would like to roll it out for 2010 (7 years after the opening of Balance Design).
The process was interesting to come up with a concise idea of the purpose of Balance Design.  We brainstormed all of the things we thought Balance Design strives for.  These are a few of the brainstorming ideas that I wrote in my journal while Ed drove:
  • help families live better
  • provide good design
  • budget oriented
  • local and sustainable products and services
  • sensible and comfortable
  • create beauty and order
  • loving the way you live in your home
  • creating a personal space
  • enduring design that won't look dated
Mission Statement:  Balance Design creates personal, liveable, and enduring spaces for families to grow and thrive.  Balance Design supports quality local craftspeople and artists.  We focus on sustainable methods, products and  ultimately sustainable client budgets.

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Simple things I do to organize at the begining of each year.
Posted: 01/04/10
"Command Central" that I created under the stairs in my kitchen.
Every year at this time I am motivated to organize, set my goals for the upcoming year, clear out the old and bring in the new.  New thoughts, new ideas, new organizing tools, ultimately, a new me.  Reinventing, rejuvenating, this time of year inspires me like nothing else.  So I thought I would share a few things that I do and perhaps you can share some inspirations that you have too.





Here are some of the things I did and I am working on:
  • On January 1st, I write down my goals to share with a select few people that love and believe in me.  I am still working on this one, but it sure is exciting to contemplate your own potential!
  • This year, after 7 years in business, I finally made a mission statement for Balance Design (with the help of my creative hubby and a 10 hour car ride).  I will share that in my next blog entry....the suspense!
  • With the help of my unwilling kids, I went through each of their rooms and collected toys for some less fortunate friends in Nepal.  Then we organized what they have to include their new shiny stuff from Santa.  They each told me how they wanted to modify and redecorate their rooms this year.  Jack wants a loft bed and Allie "simply" wants new colors....(to be continued in another blog)
  • I put up a small Command Central in my kitchen.  This included an erasable calender for the week, a pegboard for invitations, some magnets and a shelf to hold a calender and phone numbers.  Total cost:  $35.00 and some pleading of my hubby to put it up. 
  • I am working on feeding my family in a healthy, less processed food and sweets, less meat way.  So I am trying to find some ways to meal plan, grocery shop and cook in a less time consuming way.  Any ideas would be welcomed!
I wish you all a happy, prosperous and meaningful 2010 and I am looking forward to the journey together!
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John's thoughts on the unwrapping of the decorations
Posted: 12/30/2009

And so I find myself at the crossroads of the Holidays, just past Christmas but not quite New Year. This time of year has always been a bit difficult for me, but not completely in a bad way. I willingly and gleefully embrace my blatant love for the Holiday Season, a love ingrained by a mother, may she rest in peace, who some would say had an almost unhealthy love for Christmas. I will, however, always defend that love of the season which she gave me. Not to mention her age-old and largely Southern tradition of “if it doesn’t move, decorate it.”

This year is a bit different, of course. Like many, I pared the decorations and presents down in this economy. Instead, I tried to concentrate more on the true meaning of the season. I put up the first real tree of my adult life, having always used an artificial tree which I could easily persuade to hold all of the lights and ornaments my over-eager hands could hang. A Frasier Fir is my partner this year, because that is the kind I had always wanted…just like the trees in the antique postcards and old-time books my mother so cherished. And the presents glittered even a bit more brightly and warmly under that tree, although there were fewer of them. This was the year of “getting the presents right,” not “getting the right presents.” And not every room got the “full treatment,” no decorated garlands on all the mirrors lit by the unsightly extension cord hanging down the wall, no four-foot wreath on the front of the house drenched in the artificial daylight of a floodlight. Just some real greenery sprinkled about with a minimum of trimmings, greenery supplied for free with a smile and a “Merry Christmas” by the gentleman at the tree lot. But the candlelight sparkled just the same, if not even sharper and more pure.

And now I am at the point where the glitter on the floor makes me think about how many weeks it will take to actually clean up, and the crunch of the evergreen needles on the carpet makes me remember how long I have borrowed this tree from nature. It is time to release it, it is time to pack it away, it is time to finally deal with the stack of gift boxes empty of treasures but still full of the tissue my “green” self fears throwing away.

But not quite yet.

I still have a few days, a few days to try and remember why it is so important to me. Not the work, not the expense, not the stress, not even the gifts which I have begun to incorporate with the rest of my belongings. It is the love, the warmth, the spirit of the season which is important, regardless of WHY you celebrate it. It is that simple extra smile of a friend or loved one, or better yet of a complete stranger, even if it happens only once a year. It is that warm feeling you get when you open a greeting card from one you had not thought of in a while. As corny as it sounds, I do truly believe that Christmas IS the most wonderful time of the year, and that if every day COULD be just like Christmas, what a wonderful world this would be. We all know the songs.

And so I will hold on to it all just a few more days, a few more days until my heart tells me it is okay to let it go, until the New Year reminds me it is time to start anew. Then I will pack it away with a smile and remember I have new memories to cherish. And I will look forward to doing it all over again.

Always,

John
Labels: mindfulness in taking down the decorations for Christmas
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