Making a Design Budget Work

Let's face it we all have budgets, some are just bigger than others. But the true value of using an Interior Designer is that they know how to make your $1,000.00 budget look like $10,000.00. This thought reminded me of a project that I did recently in Southern California, we were getting to the end of the project, money was starting to run out, and I still needed a drop-dead fireplace surround for the Living Room. It was going to be the first thing you see when you walk into the house so I wanted it to be dramatic. Also, it was a big room, so it had to be able to deal with the scale of the space too.

I decided that a simple wall treatment would create enough drama and scale to create an illusion of a tall, grand fireplace. So I found some leather floor tiles and laid them up the wall. I used a sheet metal guy to do a very simple surround around the firebox opening and then had it colored to look like bronze. So far, so good.

Now for the mirror, I wanted something simple, chic and slightly modern, so with a basic drapery rod, two leather belts from the gap, and a sheet of mirror, mitered with two slots cut into the top portion....and voila!