In December, I partnered up with Real Housewife of NY Kelly Bensimon to give a real housewife in NYC a green bedroom makeover.   It was for the TV show Extra (I’ll post a clip later) and it was a challenge to give someone a makeover who once lived in a giant suburban home in Texas and now lived in a much smaller apartment in the Big Apple.    But I like challenges and I loved the fact Kelly was willing to roll up her sleeves and help out.  

Before pic of the bedroom… existing furniture, things placed here and there, the existing blinds that came with the apartment.  Not awful, to tell you the truth, but it could use a little help.

Another view of the “before” bedroom.   Books everywhere… what to do with them?    Have to come up with a solution.

Start by clearing the room.   Some of the furniture was donated to charity and some of it was reused.   Very little was thrown away since doing a green re-decorating and tossing it all the trash would be against the whole point.

At the JCPenney flagship store in Manhattan, Kelly and I started shopping and coming up with a plan.  With just one day to do the makeover, we had to work quick.    Kelly brought along some photos of her homes for inspiration.  No matter what your opinion is of her from the TV show, I have to say this: she is one of the nicest, hardest-working person I’ve worked with in a long time.    And I’ve worked with tons of actresses, musicians, editors and TV personalities… I’m on Team Kelly now!     

And the after: a recycled shag rug made from water bottles, my Simmons Natural Care by Danny Seo mattress for the bed, a faux leather (cruelty-free) bed from JCPenney Home Collection, new lamps with energy efficient CFL bulbs inside (also from JCPenney) and white sheers to let the light in, but cast a dreamy glow, from JCPenney Home Collection.    One stop shop and one gorgeous bedroom.

And all those books?  They are now neatly organized on these skinny bookshelves flanking two sides of the homeowner’s existing chair.   They almost become sculptural pieces, rather than boring bookshelves.   And doesn’t the bedroom just look bigger?    Different configuration that takes advantage of the space so not one area becomes the dominant focal point.

From one Real Housewife to another….. what a fun makeover!

I did a little makeover on my last trip to Los Angeles and I thought I’d share one small project from it with you.  It involved this dresser.   Correction: this scratched up, beat-up, cheap, flimsy dresser that had been living outside under a porch for who-knows-how-long. 

What I love about these mini makeover projects is that if the end result doesn’t work, no harm done.   No one loved the dresser before it was touched and if you don’t love it after, then life goes on.   So, with the homeowner’s blessing, I tackled it with some paint and about $10 in supplies.

Step One:  Paint the whole cabinet a creamy white (or whatever neutral color you want).   Let it dry completely.      Next, take a sheet of intricate lace from the fabric store (or, in this case, Wal-Mart) and spray a little spray adhesive all over it.   Attach to the front of the drawer of the cabinet.

Step Two:  Lightly spray paint all over the surface on top of the lace, being careful not to let the paint drip or get too heavy in certain areas.   Just lightly spray, spray, spray.   I used a Krylon water-based paint, which is much more environmentally-friendly alternative.  Another option?   Go on FreeCycle and ask if anyone has any leftover spray paint they want to give away.   

Step Three:  Remove all the lace carefully and continue doing each drawer seperately.     The lace can be reused over and over again, but use a fresh piece whenever you think it’s time.

Step Four: Reattach knobs and let everything set and dry.    Funny how the beat-up original knobs now look “antique.”     The homeowner LOVED the revamped dresser and we made it into an outdoor bar for entertaining.  All the drawers are perfect for holding cocktail napkins, stirrers, mixers, glassware and more.   

From trash to bar treasure.

Part Two of the eco makeover I did for the June issue of O: The Oprah Magazine!    This is so much fun going back into my digital archives to finally share these pics with all of you!

Okay, here’s the patio area that is, well, just a chair and a broomstick before I got my hands on it.  And here’s the after:

I moved the teak chair Kerry Washington already had to across the other side of the patio.  Here, I put this all-weather wicker chair (in a nice blue color) on top of a natural reed runner.    Behind it, I took the top half of a dining room hutch from Smith & Hawken and used it as shelves because it fit RIGHT IN the space on the patio.    When I saw it on clearance, I knew it was the perfect and inexpensive piece for the job.  On top of the shelves, I took these amazing Linden Street lanterns from JCpenney and made them the hero accessory for the area.    To finish it, I took a JCPenney Home Collection pillow and “sequined” it with just safety pins for a starburst effect.

Here’s the dining room before.   The chairs were clunky and they came with the apartment, so Kerry was not attached to them at all.   And that was it.    Above it was some track lighting that sorta lit the area and there was no real effort to make it a stylish, cool, beautiful area to entertain.

And here’s the after!    I mixed and matched here quite a bit.  The rug is a real find from HD Buttercup in Los Angeles and it’s remnant carpet all stitched together into a vintage, patchwork piece.     The chairs were clearance “driftwood” pieces from Pottery Barn that I mixed with a Linden Street table from JCPenney; there are pieces costing thousands of dollars that look exactly like this JCPenney one that cost just a few hundred.  It pays to shop, seriously.    And we painted the walls a cool lime color using that same Benjamin Moore Natura eco paint.  Looks vibrant and fresh!

And here’s the $15 chandelier I created to replace the tacky track lighting.  I took a $9.99 paper lighting fixture from Ikea and ripped off the paper to leave the exposed wire ribs.   Then I wrapped it all with chicken wire from Lowe’s, added some branches and a few craft store birds from Michael’s craft store.    I chose interesting bulbs (since it’s exposed) and voila!   Birdcage chandelier.     It was inspired by a $2000 version I saw in an antique store and thought… “I could make that.”

Here’s the before shot of the living room:  mirrored walls, mismatched rental apartment furniture, assortment of unmatched accessories.   It was comfortable, but not homey.

And the after photo of the living room.  We solved the mirror wall problem by installing yards of Rubie Green organic cotton fabric onto hospital tracking.    We found another patchwork rug that matched the one in the dining room and picked a neutral sofa from JCPenney’s Linden Street collection and threw on some recycled burlap pillows and antique store pieces, too.   The table is from Baker Furniture (an investment piece!) and a casual wicker chair from Smith & Hawken finished it off.   The lamp is cool, too; it’s from HD Buttercup and it’s an old medical floor lamp remade into a great floor lamp for the home. 

All fun stuff for a cool modern country apartment…right in the Hollywood Hills.   Check it all out in the June issue of O: The Oprah Magazine!

Coming out on newsstands any day now is the June issue of O: The Oprah Magazine, which features the lovely Oprah Winfrey on the cover with a whole gang of adoptable dogs from the PAWS shelter in Chicago.

Also inside the issue is a great eco-home makeover story I did for the magazine on actress Kerry Washington’s Los Angeles apartment.    I actually did this green home makeover–the kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom and home office—many months ago.    But with the lead time with magazines, it’s just coming out now and I promised to keep it mum until it hit newsstands.

But instead of scanning the magazine pages and sharing them with you, I do encourage you to pick up the issue to see the amazing before and after photos, great resources and tips and sidebars we created on going green when you renovate.     That said, I have some digital shots I’d like to share with you and I decided to break it up into a two part series.

First before photo is the functional, but not so great looking, dog steps that were already in the apartment when I started.  Instead of tossing them and starting fresh, I decided to hit the Los Angeles flea markets one Saturday and see if I could find some interesting and colorful fabric to cover them with.

And here’s the after.   A bright Peruvian vintage rug was just the right size to give the stairs some color and texture.    “Pet” furniture doesn’t have to be ugly; it can totally be functional and beautiful, too.  All you need is a $15 flea market find and a staple gun to re-create this handmade project.

Here’s a before shot of the bedroom.   It worked, yes.   But it lacked,well, being a bedroom.    Kerry did sleep on my Simmons Natural Care by Danny Seo mattress (and I was beyond thrilled they credited it so in the magazine, even though it’s a covered bed in the final shot), but the room needed more green improvements, storage, lighting and a good, solid bed.

And here’s the after.   We found a wonderful bed from Mitchell Gold that featured soy-base foam in the batting in the headboard (nice complement since the mattress also has soy-based foam!).    The bedding is predominantly from JCpenney’s Simply Green initiative (love the organic cotton coverlet) and the new carpeting is recycled nylon carpet called “Holland Park” from Shaw Flooring.   The double wall cabinets are also from JCPenney and I have them in my own house; at just $399 each, they are solidly built and have plenty of storage.    Aren’t they great?   I also painted the walls in a bright, blue color using Benjamin Moore Natura paint, which is a new line of paints they have that are zero-VOC, meaning they do not off-gas when you paint with them.   Bright, beautiful colors!

And here’s a kitchen that BADLY needed a makeover.    As much as I wanted to salvage the cabinets, I just couldn’t.   But luckily, someone on the construction crew asked me if they could have them, and I gladly said YES!    I guess it’s true: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.    So, the cabinets got recycled and the old fridge and appliances also did, too.    We replaced everything with new Kraftmaid cabinets from Lowe’s and energy efficient appliances from Electrolux.  Now, here’s the after shot:

I call this a modern country kitchen.   We have real poppy flowers pressed into resin for the back wall from 3-Form.  The floor is kitchen tile from Shaw that I have in my own kitchen at home; it’s designed to look like wood graining. The open cabinets are important to me, so you can see your own dishes, cups and collections in your kitchen; it also keeps it feeling airy.   And the cool faucet?  It’s the Karbon faucet from Kohler; it can bend, twist and adjust to a million different positions and it’s just the most amazing faucet.  I just ordered one for my guest cottage after installing it here.

Tomorrow, come back for more pics: a new dining room before and after (including a bird cage chandelier project made for a few dollars), a patio makeover in the Hollywood hills, and a living room that uses organic cotton to hide an ugly mirrored wall.