Before/After… everyone loves one, right?

We’re designing our way through Nathan and Stephanie Chapman’s house.  We completed the bedroom, now we’re going to race through the rest of the house to get ready for a splashy Christmas party.

The ideas for this room were a rambling collaboration with Stephanie.  She shares our love of design and always participates in the brainstorming and idea phases.  This time though, husband Nathan wanted to get.there.faster. Stephanie’s birthday was a week away, and he wanted the room complete before she came back from the beach a week later.  Operation Birthday Surprise was on.

So… we begin with a blank wall.  A blank wall, swathed in greige grasscloth, that is.  But that’s just the beginning.

For a little perspective, this wall is the feature wall in the family room… it’s open to the breakfast room and backs to the kitchen.

Once this lovely paper was up, our favorite fine artist, Brian Tull, had his canvas.  We wanted to add a hand-painted design on the wallpaper using a pearly, shimmer of ivory paint.

The custom design started as a classic, but oversized, damask.  When he sent over his first batch of ideas, he said he was inspired by an idea that was either very cool or very uncool. No middle ground.  He wanted the design the reflect the very musical homeowners.

So he modified the damask, and added a stylized guitar into the design.  If you look closely, you can see the shape and suggestion of a guitar… an instrument at the heart of this Nashville couple.  Decidedly very, very cool

Simultaneously, an entire wall of window treatments were in production.  Yard after yard of ivory linen.  The wall holds the Redo record for fastest production!  Our fabulous fabricator, Lisa Venable, and her nimble fingers sewed her little heart out.

The soft window panels were essential to the success of the room and the happiness of the birthday girl.  To get specific, they are 100% linen, lined and interlined, pinch-pleat headers and 1.5 widths, hung on wrought-iron with a classic finial.

While Brian finished the hand-painting, and the Venables installed the window-treatments, we hung lights, brought in accessories, both old and new, pillows, slipcovers, and knick-knacks, oh my!

Then, in true Chapman style, we got to be there to enjoy the birthday surprise.

The reveal video.