Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo

At the beginning of Summer, I received an email asking if I would be interested in designing a consulting room for a cancer Doctor's office at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. I was a little unsure, you know? We often get requests asking for things... a little intrigued, I decided to call the lady who had sent the email... Nancy Ballard.

Nancy is a botanical artist who wanted to give back to her Doctor and had started contacting a group of designers to see if they would like to do a sort of Decorator Showcase space but in an hospital. Thus began Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo - a non-profit organization. Once I had spoken to Nancy it was like the skies had opened and I just couldn't wait to get back from vacation and get going!

I worked closely with my contractor, Paul, on what could and couldn't be done in a weekend. I wanted a Mediterranean style room - lots of warm and inviting colours, new cabinetry, Venetian plaster on the walls and window treatments. As we were meeting in my kitchen - we came across this photo in a cookery book and that became the basis of the design:

Creative Paints on Geary Street donated all of the paints.... here's the first rough plan:




Here are a couple of before shots of the room:



And this is how the room looks now. It's not a great photo as I was shooting into the light on my iPhone!!!


Detail of the venetian plaster:

Before we replaced the cabinets:

After - brand new cabinets with distressed detailing and new hardware:

Details:


And here's the amazing team - I could not have done it without them: Dima and Alex with me!

Madina and Felix - just after they had installed the window treatment:

Everyone worked the entire weekend.... Dima and Alex started on Friday evening and worked right the way through until Sunday afternoon! Madina made the blind all day Saturday and she brought Felix along on Sunday for installation. Eddy, the cabinet maker spent 2 weeks making the cabinets and Paul distressed them. There's a lot that goes into pulling a room together in a weekend and my team nailed it with attention to detail and sheer hard work! Thank you just doesn't seem enough.

The Venetian Room

Dedicated to all cancer survivors and their families
The warm Mediterranean glow that you feel in this room goes along with the saying
“la Dolce Vita” translated “life is sweet”

Sincere thanks and gratitude to:

Paul & Dima Asadov and Alex Nikolaev, Zeus Remodeling

Madina Aryeh, Madina Aryeh Custom Sewing

Edison Huang, Special Design Cabinets

Michael Yang, Creative Paints

Nancy Ballard, Executive Director

RoomsthatRock4Chemo

www.roomsthatrock4chemo.us