How Would You Remodel Your Living Room? Selecting the Right Interior Designer to Create Your Dream Space

I was recently introduced to Laurel & Wolf, a professional online interior design business that offers interior design services entirely online and challenged to consider writing a blog titled "How Would You Remodel Your Living Room?" So I thought to myself, well, that's an interesting idea and decided to take on the request.

As the co-owner with my wife Alison of Skipjack Nautical Wares & Marine Art Gallery, we are accustomed to working directly with customers & interior designers who are in the process of decorating their coastal/ beach home, and supplying them with the appropriate marine art, nautical furniture, furnishings lamps & lighting, and decorative accessories suitable for a well designed nautical interior and exterior too! We are one of a handful of dealers that are exposed to truly exceptional authentic maritime items- the nautical world is our oyster!

Another motivator for this blog is to correct the fable believed by our customers that our personal home must be like visiting a museum. Far from the truth. Though we do own some fine examples of nautical rarities, our home is pretty much designed for everyday comfortable living as well as for casual entertaining with family and friends. The bulk of our nautical treasures are available to you at our store.

Our brownstone home located in
historic Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia.

We live in a brownstone townhouse built in 1916 and located in Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia, one of America's earliest and most historic seaports, a fitting place for us to live and run our nautical antiques, marine art and furnishings business. The parlor (living room) is not large but does features a beautiful bowed front window, old pine floors, a canted fireplace and wide doorways with raised paneled pocket doors that open to both the front foyer and stairs and the formal dining room. The room also features 10 foot high ceilings with decorative running vine crown moldings and an original plaster center medallion that surrounds the crystal chandelier. Since the question at hand is how would you remodel your living room, I'll leave it at that.

I visited Laurel & Wolf's website and perused through their site. Their online service allows you an opportunity to design your space from the comfort of your home, your office, or even on-the-go using your internet-accessible device! Pretty neat concept. So, I started by reviewing their  design questionnaire and following their advise  to give them a sense of your desires for designing your dream space. One challenge that most of us have is the ability to relate our desires to a designer for them to work with to create that perfect space for you. Part of the questionnaire asks for you to provide images of the type of things that you like. My experience has found that to be the biggest challenge. Most people have a better sense of what they do not like more than what they do, so I always recommend to a customer to visit such sites as as Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/ and use their search engine to assist you in finding visual ideas to help you develop you perfect space. Here's the link to my boards on Pinterest This scrapbook of ideas will give your designer pictures of the right parts and pieces to work into your design for an environment that will be what you are seeking. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Linda Merrill of Linda Merrill Decorative Surroundings, Boston Mass.

I then visited their directory of  interior designers and searched through the numerous pages of designers with examples of their work. With a fairly clear picture of what I would want as a living room, I visited the numerous designers pages and reviewed examples of their finished work and found a designer that design style really sums up my taste and would love to have design a living space for our abode. Linda Merrill, owner and principal designer of Linda Merrill Decorative Surroundings located in Boston, Massachusetts was my pick.

Living room designed by Linda Merrill. Love the balance of fine
maritime art and furnishings together with a pleasing fabrics and color palette.

Well that made total sense since the largest number of Skipjack's customers are from coastal Massachusetts, so I guess my tastes tend to fall along the traditional seafarers homes of the 19th century, the days of tall ships and whaling. Linda's design work blended the wonderful period items that I love to live with together with a liveable space with traditional upholstered (comfortable) seating furniture and an eye-pleasing color palette that brought it all together.

Linda uses the right mix of old and new creating an
interesting and comfortable living space.

Linda would be my choice, but I could quickly conclude that all of the designers on this site had so much to offer and it would be pretty easy for anyone to find one that fits their budget and taste. The rest is up to you, so design away!

Shopping Olde Towne Portsmouth, VA: Skipjack Nautical Wares & Marine Gallery Nautical Store



Skipjack Nautical Wares & Marine Gallery storefront located on the riverfront in Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia



This Upscale Retail Store features Everything Nautical for the Collector and Coastal Homeowner

Olde Towne Portsmouth, VA museums

 By Allen B. Graves

 If you're planning a visit to Norfolk, Virginia Beach or any other cities in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, make sure that you save time and set your course to the quaint historic seaport of Portsmouth, Virginia for a fun-filled day of shopping, dining and experiencing the historical Olde Towne-Downtown riverfront area. Olde Towne's High Street corridor ( a seven block corridor from Effingham Street to the riverfront) is the heart of the downtown shopping and dining district. This seven block area boasts over 30 restaurants, pubs and eateries to choose from and is one of Hampton Roads finest dining destinations. High Street is also Portsmouth's "arts and antiques" district with a diverse selection of fine antique shops, art galleries, unique boutiques and five museums including the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum, and the Lightship Portsmouth Museum,  The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, Courthouse Galleries, and the newly expanded and doubled in size (reopening late April 2011) Children's Museum of Virginia . 

Seaboard building

One of the most unique and best known stores in Olde Towne is Skipjack Nautical Wares & Marine Gallery. Skipjack is located at the rivers end of High Street and next to the High Street Landing or basin, where the paddle wheel ferry arrives throughout the day carrying passengers across the Elizabeth River from Downtown Norfolk to Olde Towne Portsmouth . One High Street is the address of the famous Seaboard Railroad building. The passenger rail terminal built in 1894 was a busy center for nearly sixty-years, during a time when the railroad dominated Portsmouth's economic activities, giving the city its motto, “where the rail meets the sea". 

Schooner Virginia

This up-scaled nautical retail store and gallery is situated in the first floor level of the building with it's front doors opening onto the High Street Park and seawall and just steps away from the encased Hog Island Lighthouse Fresnel lens.  Colorful vintage signal flags fly below trade signs painted in black with mounted  raised gold letters stating "MARITIME ANTIQUES, NAUTICAL DECOR, MARINE ART and SCHOONER VIRGINIA". The dark-green painted storefront wood work surrounds wall to wall tall windows offering a picturesque view from inside of  the bustling riverfront yacht and ship activities that travels the busy Intracoastal waterway. Once inside,  you will be greeted by the proprietors of Skipjack, Joe and Alison Elder. This large, mostly open front showroom houses Skipjack's collection of nautical accessories, decor and wares- a special blend of handcrafted nautical items made exclusively for Skipjack together with their own nautical apparel and jewelry. Skipjack is also the official "SCHOONER VIRGINIA"  ships store carrying SCHOONER VIRGINIA apparel and merchandise to help raise funding and awareness for the State of Virginia's ambassador vessel. Skipjacks broad and focused collection of nautical wares makes this the perfect Olde Towne shopping destination for the nautical enthusiast. 

A great shopping experience for the nautical enthusiast at Skipjack Nautical Wares.

Schooner Virginia and other nautical accessories at Skipjack Nautical Wares

Nautical instruments at Skipjack nautical Wares and Marine Gallery

A view of Skipjack Nautical Wares front showroom, Olde Towne Portsmouth, VA.

To the back left corner is the entry into the main gallery that is split into two separate areas. The first section features a fine collection of both new and antique Chelsea clocks and barometers, old and new marine instruments, and ship models including a vast collection of ship in a bottles by North Carolina master model builder Jim Goodwin. The main gallery also houses their collection of vintage and out of publication books on maritime subjects and a portion of the original marine art and prints. Through the fabric-paneled walls is Skipjack's design center that accommodates their picture framing department, prints  and a selection of antique and vintage ship grates set aside for custom nautical furniture such as coffee tables, side tables, and occasional tables

Chelsea clocks & barometers at Skipjack Nautical Wares & Marine Gallery

Ship in bottles by master model builder Jim Goodwin

The main gallery leads into the newest part of Skipjack, the foyer gallery that displays the majority of original marine art blended with nautical antiques, sea chests, and three dimensional marine-themed works of art. Skipjack Marine Galleries changing art shows are shown in this long foyer space. Skipjack also leases the foyer gallery for private parties, business gatherings, wedding receptions and other small events.

A section of Skipjack's  Foyer Gallery.

An original marine casting by Bill Osmundsen on display in Skipjack nautical Wares & Marine Galleries Foyer Gallery.

The upper deck level of Skipjack's Foyer Gallery.

Panoramic view of Skipjack, the Hog Island Lighthouse lens and the riverfront.

Preview 360 degree panoramic views of Skipjack's showroom by Virginia photographer Allen B. Graves.

Portsmouth Visitor Information Center

For more information about Portsmouth, Virginia and the historic Olde Towne district, you may also want to stop by the Portsmouth, Virginia Visitor Information Center located at 6 Crawford Parkway in Olde Towne offers visitors an abundance of informational brochures about area attractions and is open seven days a week. (757) 393-5111, (800) PORTS-VA
 

 Another information center is Starboards Coffee kiosk located at High Street Landing, at the corner of High and Water streets. Betsy Cartier is a great source for finding out what is currently happening in Virginia's quaint historic seaport. Also, David Cartier writes a column titled "A New Day in Olde Towne" that is by far the best source for Olde Towne news and events.

About the author: Allen B. Graves is a writer and photographer that resides in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can visit his website at  http://www.viewva360.com/