Design Happens

We love designing for our seven children, so the Everett family basement makeover was a blast! Even though the logistics of creating a bright and fun entertaining space for three kids and two adults is challenging enough, but we wanted to make this basement extra special with an emphasis on art and family memories.

Scott and Elyse’s kids are very creative, and they had accumulated loads of their art work with no place to hang it all, so we knew this had to be a focus of our design. Their new ultimate art space for kids now includes a wall stacked with pull-out craft paper, a wall covered in chalkboard paint and a cork board covered wall perfect for displaying art. And because it can be heartbreaking to part with our children’s art but eventually it can become cumbersome to keep it all, we went with the “shrink art” solution for the Everett family (something we’ve done with our own kids’ art.) Our friend and artist Jan Eleni makes wonderful archival solutions for displaying and enjoying your prolific young artists’ work forever.

We wanted mom and dad’s area of the basement to be full of personal keepsakes, just like the kids’ space. So we designed a focal wall covered in beautiful black-and-white wallpaper made from their family photos. This is a super easy project you can create online using one photo or a collage of photos for about $10/sq.ft. Adjacent to the family photo wall hangs an Ann Carrington original made with some help from our kids. The backing on the flag art is magnet boards that can be found at most home improvement stores.

Last week, we created a flirty pink-striped staircase for two surfing sisters. Well, clearly we can’t get enough funky staircases, because we did a playground style one this time — complete with a slide! In the show, wasn’t it fun to see the kids and parents can slide down to their new basement?