The Lettered Cottage

Q: What kind of camera do you have?

We have a Canon 30D.

Q: What kind of video editing software do you use?

Sony Vegas.

Q: What software do you use to do your Photo Consultations?

Adobe Photoshop.

Q: What software do you use to do your Virtual Consultations?

I use Plan 3D to get them started, and then use Adobe Photoshop to finish them.

Q: What was your experience like with the Sheffield School of Interior Design?

Click on the badge below:



Q: How did you re-do your kitchen cabinets?

1. Remove the cabinet doors.

2. Lightly sand the doors and cabinets.

3. If your cabinets are too short, like ours were, add a 1x6 and some crown molding to the top of the existing upper cabinets.

Here's a post that shows how to do that.

4. Prime the doors and cabinets with one coat of "Behr Premium Plus Interior Base Flat Primer" It's specially engineered for adhering to glossy surfaces, and has a mildew resistant finish. We used gray-tined primer on the base cabinets, and white Kilz primer on the upper cabinets. (Both are available at the Home Depot.)

5. Paint the doors and cabinets (twice) with "Behr Premium Plus Kitchen & Bath Paint". We used Martha Stewart's "Mourning Dove" (mixed at Sherwin Williams) on the base cabinets and Sherwin Williams "Alabaster" on the upper cabinets. We'd used a satin finish.

(Tip: If you use a brush, be very conscious of creating long, smooth brush strokes. You may even want to try a sponge roller if you're worried about it.)

6. If you like the “distressed look”, lightly sand your cabinet door edges with a fine-grit sandpaper, or hand sander.

7. After about 24 hours of dry time (on each side), re-attach doors to cabinets.

10. Attach new pulls and knobs.

Q: Why did you re-paint your cabinets from black to white & gray?

Kevin and I get ants in our pants, and like to try out different looks all the time. We may battle with an array of other types of anxieties, but design-related fear is definitely not one of them!





Q: What type of floors do you have?

We won our flooring from an auction on eBay. We paid just 99 cents a square foot. It’s Shaw’s Tropicana Laminate Wood flooring, in Chocolate Umber. Here’s a good shot of their actual color:



Here's a link to a site that's selling it online.

For us, it’s a temporary solution. You see, it’s currently floating above an array of surfaces. There’s tile that needs replacing underneath it in the Kitchen, Laundry Room and Master Bath. Hardwood floors that need refinishing in the Living Room, Guest Bedroom, Office and Dining Room. And then there’s our little "concrete dilemma" underneath it in 1/4 of the Living Room (the house was added on to in 2003). Here’s a photo of what lurks beneath:



Did I mention the concrete part is an inch higher than all of the wood flooring around it? Ugh. :-(

Underneath it in the hall, there’s yellow linoleum STUCK to the original hardwood flooring. There’s plywood subflooring in the Reading Room and Guest Bath. So, the Shaw Laminate was our “quick fix” to get everything unified for at least the next couple years.


Q: What color did you paint your beadboard wainscoting?

All of the trim and beadboard throughout the house is painted with plain semi-gloss white paint from Home Depot.


Q: What color is your Dining Room painted?

It’s a color by Sherwin Williams called “Rice Grain”. It’s got yellow undertones, which keep it from looking too fleshy. I love it, and recommend it to clients all the time.



Q: What color is your Kitchen painted?

It’s also painted "Rice Grain", but I had the folks at Sherwin Williams cut it in half by 50%, to brighten it up a bit. If you love a certain color, but want to lighten it, you can always cut it by 25%, 50% or 75%.

Q: How high is your beadboard wainscoting?

It’s same height as me! 65 inches. I love that I can hang things above and below it.

Q: What color is your Living Room painted?



It’s painted a Sherwin Williams color called “Natural Choice”. I tried out about five different creams before deciding on this one. It has just the right amount of brown it in, to keep it warm, yet just the right amount of gray in it to keep it crisp.

Q: What color is your Guest Bedroom painted?

It’s a color by Behr called “Fencepost”. I would only recommend using this color in very bright spaces. It’s got brown and gray undertones, so it could little look a little sad in dark rooms, but in our guest bedroom, it worked great as an “easy on the eyes” white.





Q: Where did you get the bedding in the Guest Bedroom?

It's Pottery Barn's "Classic Ticking" Quilt and Quilted Shams, in blue. The two throw pillows are Pottery Barns "Kristine Pillow Covers", also in blue. The big, white euro shams in back are Pottery Barns "Pick-Stitch" shams, in white. The long, bolster pillow in front is also Pottery Barn.

I bought everything on Ebay. It was all brand new and still in it's original packaging. It cost me less than half of what I would have paid if I had bought it from Pottery Barn. Gotta love that!

Here's a video we shot the day we uncovered the wood wall in our guest bedroom...



Q: Where did you get the blinds in your living room?

Bed, Bath & Beyond. (Or "Bed, Bath & Beyonce" as I call it, because I have an obssesive-compulsive addiction to re-naming everything, and everyone...you don't even want to know what I call Burger King....let's just say it ends in the word, "fling".)

Q: Where did you get the wood corbels you used underneath your kitchen cabinets?



Home Depot. They cost around $10.00 a piece. I attached them to the wall with Liquid Nails and used one finish nail and some painters tape to hold them in place while the adhesive dried.




Q: How did you paint the stripes in your Reading Room?

I used a laser level, and a yard stick to draw 12 inch bands around the room from floor to ceiling. Then, I taped off my lines and used a clear multi-purpose sealer (available at Michaels or Hobby Lobby) to seal the edge of the tape. That way, none of your wall color paint can seep underneath the edges of the tape and make for messy lines.

The colors I used were “Fencepost” by Behr (Home Depot) and “Natural Choice” by Sherwin Williams.



Q: What happened with Design Star?

After a couple of rounds of auditioning, I was told by the casting agent that the producers of the show had made their final selections and that I would not be part of the Season 4 cast. She did encourage me to try out again, and said that my "persistence would not go unnoticed". Fast forward to 2010. It's so crazy how things seem to just work out sometimes. Although I decided against trying out for Design Star again, I'm currently working for HGTV writing articles for their website. :-)


Q: How would you describe your style?

I like to think of it as an inspired pastiche of the four C's: Classic, Cottage, Coastal and Country.


Q: Where are you originally from?

Minnesota! Born and raised. I moved to Atlanta, when I was nineteen, to attend music business college at the Art Institute of Atlanta. Then, in 1996, I packed up and moved to Los Angeles for a job I landed at an audio post production studio smack dab in the middle of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. I called many places “home” during my eight years out there- North Hollywood, downtown L.A, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Universal City, Northridge, Thousand Oaks, Acton, Silverlake and Culver City. For a brief time, I rented Crispin Glover’s guest house up in the hills! It was one little room with a tiny kitchenette and two teeny-tiny bathrooms (one that had a sink and toilet, and one that had a beautifully-tiled, arched shower). My area was formerly the maids quarters, and my entire living space probably only totaled 100 square feet or so. Nevertheless, it was absolutely charming, and the view of Los Angeles was stunning.

Here are some photos of Crispin's home:



I found this article written about it at Papermag.com:

“At first glance, it seems that Glover has spent years personalizing his nest, which he bought from a producer in 1992. A stairway appears out of a wall, going nowhere; a catwalk stretches across the 20-foot living-room ceiling; huge glass bricks sit atop the garden lights to soften the glow. But, he reveals, "I haven't done anything to the house architecturally. All I've done is paint it. The house had a great look and feel when I bought it."

My little room was tucked in this corner of his palatial estate:



Here are some photos I took while I was living there. I used to turn the front tires of my little white car inward, so they faced the curb. You can’t tell from the photo, but that hill was steep! I always thought I was going to wake up and find my car in someone’s Living Room at the bottom of it. That white blob at the top of the green mountain on the left is the Hollywood sign.



The next two photos show my front door, and the balcony. The black cat was mine. Her name was Maggie, after the explorer Magellan. She was always going off on adventures, but always managed to find her way home. She was in heat in this photo…notice the little neighbor cat checking her out. Crispin asked that I get her "fixed" soon after I moved in.



I used to sit on that balcony, look at all the twinkling lights below, and just dream…

In March of 2003, I met Kevin. Eight months after that, I moved to Alabama to marry him.

The Beginning.