YS Built- Modern Green Builder/Developer in Bellevue

YS Built is a company that’s redefining ‘developer/builder’. Yuval, the owner, is a great designer and I get to sneak in and help him fine tune colors and other surfaces for the interiors and exteriors.

These homes were designed by Whitney Architecture and they are such good design that adding colors and textures to them sure has to be well thought out. It is a delicate balance to enhance good design with color and not let it detract.

His team is made up of great collaborators and experienced craftsmen and I highly recommend them if you are considering building a custom modern home or remodel.

My Parrish.

Warning: sentimental sappiness ahead:

I am not a religious person, per say, I was raised as a roman catholic yet found ‘God’ in two distinct other places.

The first place was the beach. Any beach.  If you grew up on Long Island, you and the beach were good friends.  The smell of the beach, the sun, the soft sand, the dunes, the fishermen- the after prom parties etc…  I learned about beauty,nature, light, hope, faith, danger and passion at the beach. I learned this from the wind, the waves, the sun and moon reflections, the patterns and the people there with me.

We spent much of our summers on our boat or at the beach and many a winter weekend taking drives to the beach or to the east end of Long Island. This brings me to god’s second location.

‘deserted beach’ william merit chase

The Parrish Museum in Southampton, NY. This place is where I also saw beauty, as created by humans and not mother nature. I loved the smell of  hardwoods, oil paint, and loved seeing the incredible collection of art thanks to lots of easy donor money. There were tiny little rooms with larger than life paintings of great importance.  Outside, there was a statuary in two neat rows  with carved marble busts of the greek gods- we walked through there staring into those blank yet all knowing marble faces. We played chase and ate our lunch out there, under the glare of these gods.

In this museum I  learned about light, dark, beauty, pain, passion, hope, and faith. I would leave inspired every time.

I just found out they closed the old building in November ( to be used as a retail space ,maybe,I read) and moved to a brand new super over-designed modern building in Watermill. I am sure it is fabulous and awe inspiring. I am sure you can get a latte in a great cafe there now and spend 4 seconds in front of each painting. I am sure you can go to a ‘who’s who’ type of gala there in a ballgown. I am positive the collection is well lit, well shown and revered the same as it was in the old building. I am snarky.

My heart is broken.  I am in mourning for a building.  My Parrish is no longer.

There are no more small rooms and big paintings, there are no more arches to enter through that made you feel like you were headed in for worship.

The old Parrish Museum

Here I learned that there wasn’t just one ‘god’- I could be a creator too. In those paint strokes, I learned that I had control over the beauty in my life,  that humans are the actual gods- it is all within each of us- the gift to make our own beauty.  In that building there was no fear, only a sermon on bravery, bravery to make your individual mark.

The statuary of gods

Connections

Happy New Year!

This is my first post for 2013. It’s a big year for me, I am turning 40 and my firstborn is turning 13. She reminded me yesterday how much more of a big deal it is for her to be turning into a teen than for me to be entering into my 40′s.

Naturally I was thinking, “What do you know,kid?” …………but then I realized something I know, but had simply forgotten.

All of us have our own concept of how we see the world, each is equally AS important, intense, valid, real etc. They should never, ever be compared.

In my work , I have learned that true connections happen when you erase yourself completely from the equation when listening to the needs of others. My ego has no place in my projects , and what I hope happens, is that clients homes come out being just right for them.( I should also say here that i am very pushy when it comes to what i think is right for clients homes.  I only employ this pushiness when i know the end product will be what the client told me they wanted in the first place, I swear

Connection is the key for me this year. I think I am doing it well at work, now if only I could do this better with my friends and family.  Listen better, connect better and  take the time to see the world through their eyes. Then truly my world will be more colorful.

This man obviously knows how to make connections- and boy does that family know about color.

nw ladies, their homes, and my good fortune.

Today I had lunch with one of my favorite clients before we headed into the new Room and Board at University Village.  This inspired me to write something about these ladies in my life who have become very important to me! Sometimes, if I am lucky I spend a whole year in someones life and lately , I have been having some very touching conversations with my clients.
I love to see so many different homes and peek into the lives of many families. Each time I walk into someones home and meet their smiling children and their leaping pets, I witness their special “flavor” of family. I try to listen well to understand how they live and I ask many questions. These question sometimes lead to amazing conversations and sometimes tears,  but mostly lots of laughing~
Here is a slice into my job over the years.
I meet families who have never eaten dinner together at a dining table.  I encounter homes without any furnishings. I walk into huge estates and small condos ( i am always sure i have the wrong outfit on!) . I meet women who are recently divorced and some recently married. I meet women who have no say in what happens in their homes and ones who run the show and all shades of in between. I especially love the pregnant women in the midst of a remodel. yikes~( i was one of those myself!) . I hold crying babies, play with  toddlers, meet the inlaws.  Often I meet a woman whose contractor will not listen to her, at all, and they need one more woman’s voice to make her’s sound stronger.
Sometimes, women hire me but absolutely do not need me~ their homes are gorgeous, they have great taste and they just want a friend because they are suddenly isolated in their homes with babies and no adults.  I find myself caring deeply for all of these ladies and often they touch my life in some special way.  I am so grateful.
All these clients have something in common, they want their homes to feel nicer, cozier, and more ‘put together”. Usually they tell me they are sick with the “half-done” homes they live in. Northwest women are women who do not want to be wasteful. They want to use the furnishings that they have~( or they want to do a craigslist shuffle of their stuff)  and they almost all want a natural comfortable, zen  interior, while using materials and products that are green/sustainable. Most all of them want me to help them find a place for their ski gear, bikes, and kayaks more than they want a space for their china collection. These are some seriously cool ladies. A recent client is knitting her stairwell light fixture!  Oh and most interestingly, most of them have real pieces of fine art or cultural art from their travels and will tell you tales of far away places and love affairs.
An overwhelming amount of them just want some peace in their lives, such weary ladies, they’re exhausted! ( from all that kayaking & carpooling?)   I take away things in their house sometimes more than adding new ones. I take away clutter or help them put it away behind cabinets . I rearrange the furnishings for better flow. I help them buy new art and re-hang all of their favorite pieces and take away the meaningless ones. I add lights and focal points-  They are almost all searching for an authentic, beautiful life and a home that reflects them and their dreams.  There is nothing better than achieving this and seeing happy clients at the end of a job. I miss them when we are done and think of how they are doing years later.
Today I received and Amazon.com package I didn’t expect. I opened it and there were two books from a kind, new client of mine. She had mentioned I might like them in our last meeting.
My clients inspire me everyday, even though they are expecting me to inspire them ~ It’s a crazy, amazing cycle that must mean I am doing something right. Phew, that’s a relief!  Society sure doesn’t give any signs to women artists who are self employed that they are doing anything right~ You just have to keep chuggin along-

Troweled-on flooring (in any color)

Hey there, did you know about this? This is a picture of a project I am working on, and I wanted to share it…

You can have your flooring be made of something other than wood! This stuff is great, it can be applied over a sub floor of plywood ( that is installed well) They will make you some color samples until it’s just right, and then they trowel it all over your floors and steps. This is not a poured slab, although it looks like it! It is an epoxy/mortar material called Westcoat.

Stone Slabs, Straight from Mother Earth.

One of my favorite things about my job  is walking around the stone slab yard with my clients. Sure, the main task while there is to pick out their counter tops, but you can’t help but feel that you’re at mother earths art gallery opening. I get into that trance that happens to me at museums and galleries, do you know that feeling? The kind where you don’t even know your name and you are incredibly hungry all of the sudden? My clients are often seen gasping at the beauty as well. Come see big mama’s art show, it’s always an opening night gala @Pental in Seattle off of 6th ave S.

Office Makeover, University of Washington Anthro dept.

Benjamin Moore Color Stories Spice Market

So, this amazing person is my long time friend, Ph.D. anthropologist, author, and champion for the people of the Marshall Islands.

Her book recently won an important award:

Holly Barker, lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, was awarded—with collaborator Barbara Rose Johnston—the New Millennium Award, for their book Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report. This award is given every other year to authors “whose work is judged to be the most significant and potentially influential contribution to medical anthropology.” The book traces the long term physical and financial costs to individuals, and the cultural and psychosocial damages to communities in the Marshall Islands, following testing of the hydrogen bomb Bravo in 1954.

Now, she might email me right now and tell me to take all of this info down because she hates any form of bragging, horn tooting or basically anything Oprah would tell her she should be doing for herself as a female brilliant academic. In fact she won’t even tell you that she just got back from Geneva, where she finally ( after over 20yrs trying) got a chance to sit in front of the UN with her Marshallese Elders and translate their story.

Naturally, when she told me that she got a new office at the UW, but it had no windows and was dismal, I had to jump in.

How can a girl like me help contribute to the greater good of the world??? Re-decorating her brilliant friends office of course!

Enjoy the before and ( almost) after picture. We just need some lamps!- ( turn off that fluorescent light, please!)

PS, this makeover cost under $100 using the UW surplus furniture items and 1 gallon of paint from Benjamin Moore. Holly had most of the interesting carpets and Marshallese hand crafts already.

thursday palette challenge question!

Sometimes you look down after working with someone  on a palette for their home and you just think “wow this pile of colors in itself is so pretty!”

Two of these these colors are for the exterior and some are interior, one is a ceiling color.

Can you guess which is which?