Whether she is at home or at work, Laurie Gordon is surrounded by the things she loves.
At home in her stylish Beaconsfield bungalow west of Montreal, Gordon lives with the same design elements that she sells at Re-Vive Décor Maison, her store in Pointe Claire Village.
Re-Vive specializes in new and reconditioned vintage items for the home, all hand-picked by Gordon, according to her taste.
"When I opened the store, I decided that I would buy only merchandise that I could imagine in my own home," she said. "That way, if the store went belly up, I'd want to have the stock in my house."
Far from failing, however, Gordon's store has flourished in the seven years since she opened it, suggesting that her customers share her taste, which she describes as "shabby chic."
A style popularized in North America during the 1990s, "shabby chic" features painted and distressed furniture and "the comfortable decor of mismatched and accumulated accessories," Gordon said. The term was originally coined in Britain to refer to the organic evolution of decor in aristocratic country houses.
It's also a cosy, inviting style that Gordon, who does most of her own renovation work, has used to great effect in the house she has transformed. Built in 1955, the house boasts three bedrooms and an addition at the back, built by previous owners to create a dining room.
"Cosmetically, the house was a disaster when I bought it 10 years ago," said Gordon, a single woman who shares her digs with her three cats. "It desperately needed work. The central area (the living room) had been painted Pepto Bismol pink and the rest of the house was contractor white. The woodwork was painted forest green and navy blue."
There were a few other visual blights that also had to go, notably the fake beams across the living room ceiling.
Gordon, who loves receiving power tools as gifts, says that before she could turn her attention to designing the interiors of the house, she first had to address a structural problem.
"The living room floor was sunken," she said. "So I jacked it up and replastered most of the house. I also had to remove a bank of Arborite and faux-wood cabinets that lined one of the walls in the living room."
Then there was the house's exterior aluminum cladding, which had been painted blue.
"I hate blue," Gordon said.
"So I scrubbed the entire facade with TSP (trisodium phosphate) and gave it two coats of primer. The shrubs were very overgrown and I had to fight through them to paint the walls. Anyway, I painted the front of the house a taupe colour I had carefully chosen. I drove home from work one day and when I saw it in the afternoon light, I knew it was the wrong colour; it had too much pink in it. I wanted a greyer taupe, but the paint store didn't have what I wanted, so I threw some olive paint into the pink taupe and created my own colour."
Gordon says her background in fine arts, which she studied in CEGEP before doing a business degree, has enabled her to understand the composition of paint colours, which she often mixes herself as she did to get just the right shade of chocolate for her dining room walls. And her career, first as a manager for retailer Pier 1 Imports and then as a buyer for Montreal wholesaler Accents de Ville was also an education in how to compose comfortable interiors.
One of the many things she loves about her house is the large backyard deck, which was accessible only from the dining room when she bought the house. After she replaced one of the living room windows with a pair of French doors, the house had two exits onto the deck and her long-term plan is to convert the other living room window into a third set of French doors.
She had all the hardwood flooring in the house stained a dark brown, except for two of the bedroom floors, which she painted a high-gloss white in typical shabby chic style.
In the bathroom, Gordon installed white beadboard wainscotting, a new toilet, sink, faucets, light fixture and vanity countertop.
"I also retiled the floor myself," she said. "The hard part was having to cut the little glass insert tiles into hexagons. I would sit, night after night, cutting them into the right shapes."
Throughout the house, the soft furnishings -- sofas, arm chairs and bedding -- are in neutral colours, allowing Gordon to play with colour on the walls and in accessories.
"It also allows me to move stuff from room to room, knowing that it'll work," she said. "When I get tired of one room, I move accessories to another room."
In the living room, she has artfully combined grey-green walls with silk drapes in a robin's egg blue colour and dark wood antiques from India. At one end of the room, a built-in white shelving unit holds design books and a collection of white porcelain and ceramic vases.
She also has a keen eye for flea market finds, notably old prints and paintings.
"I love gloomy landscapes," she said.
And being handy with a sewing machine enabled her to sew slipcovers for her living room sofa and armchair with the white denim a friend found for her at a wholesale price.
Because Gordon stocks items for her store that she loves, some things are taken home and become part of her decor. A couple of faux sisal area rugs made of polypropylene are floor coverings in the dining room and living room.
"They're impervious to stains," she said.
There is a resourcefulness to Gordon's decor. For instance, the bolster cushion on her bed was a framed needlepoint that she bought for $20 in a second-hand store and repurposed. The reading lamps on each side of her bed were a bland beige until she spray-painted them orange. And because the doors on her bedroom closets were uneven, she removed them and replaced them with homemade drapes.
She also enjoys creating aesthetic vignettes. A rustic pine table in the bedroom holds a serene collection of beach stones and ceramic grey-green vases. A towel rack in the dining room holds an array of colourful tablecloths.
And in typical shabby chic fashion, the end tables are mismatched.
"One is from India, the other from China," Gordon said.
Some pieces of furniture date back to Gordon's global travels as a buyer. The dining room table and an ornately carved cabinet in the living room are made of mango wood from Jodhpur, India.
"I'm all about inexpensive decorating," Gordon said.
"Because I change my decorating frequently, it would be foolish to spend a lot of money."
While Gordon's interiors might consist of collections of inexpensive items, they have the rich, homey look that comes from acquiring belongings over a long period of time.
Having pulled it all together in her own home, she shares her design secrets every day at work with her customers.
-- Canwest News Service
