Chairs, new and redone...

Seeing how the salon is close to being done I think I'd better get posting!

I wanted to tell about my chairs. I have these super cool electric styling chairs in the salon. So instead of pumping the chair up and down with your foot, all you do is touch a pedal with your foot and it goes way up and goes way down. These chairs are so great for tall or short people or for doing highlights on the top of someone's head or for doing very short people. I've never worked in a slon with them but they are worth having!
So anyway the problem with these chairs is that one was GOLD and the other was GRAY. Dear lord they looked bad. So I decided to spray the chairs with vinyl spray to make them black. I went to Home Depot and they sold me the cans and told me how to do it. So I sprayed the gold one first and it looked GORGEOUS! It was super shiney looking. Very sticky. Next day, still sticky. (mind you I had to warn everyone who came in not to get near it...) next day, still sticky...and so on and so on. Long story short, NEVER DRIED! Never. They had sold me PLASTIC spray instead of vinyl spray :( Soooooo, I had to take all the paint off with paint thinner and get the right spray (matte this time instead of super shiney). Here's the before and afters, they turned out great! (finally)

Before picture, obviously...

Here's the after-

Sooooooo much better, don't you agree?


So I also had to find chairs for the "reception" area and I wanted Mid Century Modern style. I know I'd seen them in the past at all the antique stores so I wasn't worried. I found a pair of bright blue Danish Modern chairs at Atomic Bazaar on Park Blvd. (LOVE this place!) Silly me though they were TOO blue to go with turquoise walls. Kept searching finding only VERY expensive chairs so I went back to Atomic Bazaar and of course they were GONE! Lucky for me though someone had put a deposit on another set and ended up not wanting them after all! Brandon the owner called and said they were available and even brought them over to me! Yay, these chairs are so comfortable and cool looking, I'm so glad I could get them! Here they are-

Don't you just LOVE them?? I do!

Okay, enough for now, next post is the horrible gold counter top....

FABULOUS FABRIC!

I have a few spots in the salon that have fabric covering the wall, above the mirrors that I need to replace. So of course I have spent many many hours searching the internet for the proper fabric. It is really a smallish accent area so I really wanted it to scream "1950's"!! I found a whole bunch of different options, all beautiful and oh so hard to choose from. So here are some pics that I have saved from the internet (how did people redecorate before the internet??) or took from my phone. 
Enjoy-

The last one is a wallpaper, really love that one but it was sold out. The one I chose below is from Melinamade which is where most of these are from, I think.

I think this will add a little lightness to the area, and at $40 a yard I am hoping it will be the right choice! The good thing is that they make throw pillows to go with so if I like it I can get some pillows for the chairs. 

Little bit of progress!

Yes I realize most people probably just take a few days or a week or what have you and just get things DONE. Not me, I like to do things when I have some spare time which is not too much lately. Most of my work has been online researching and picking stuff out but I have done a bit of painting and stuff. Here's a few pics showing some of my handiwork, from painting trim to installing bathroom hardware...

As you can see I have gotten rid of all traces of gold in the bathroom! It wasn't easy, had to do 3 coats on the walls!

Under the shelf there was brown fabric and when I tore it off there were PINK walls! And then, when  part of the paint came off the cabinets there was turquoise underneath! So I like to think that the salon was at one time, pink and turquoise! How fun would that have been?

Painting the wood trim around the mirror gave a whole new cleaner look to the place.

It's amazing what a little bit of black paint will do! These bars were soooooo ugly painted the same color as the walls! Now at least they look they are supposed to be there. (I wasn't willing to part with them for security reasons...)

Here's the super fantastic Atomic Age toilet paper holder I found at Lowes(!) and installed myself! So proud... :D


Again sorry for the size of the pics. I e-mailed them to myself and actually made them bigger but my computer refused to acknowledge it...

That's it for now I will try to work on the resizing thing.....

Art and other stuff

I've been collecting things for my salon for awhile, here's some things that I may put up. 

Here's my Rat Pack Sands Hotel framed autographed picture that I got in Vegas. It's got all their autographs and some casino chips and cards-

Here is a print from Nat Reed that is so apropos for the salon I couldn't believe it when I saw it! If you can't see it very well, it has a beauty salon chair dryer hooked up by extension cord (and a little bb-que!)-

Sorry those pics are so small they are from my phone! lol Okay, here is my favorite Shag print-

That's it for now, my computer is acting too slow to post more, I'll share some more later... :D

Let's talk about lighting...

Lighting...let's see...lighting is difficult in a hair salon. There are so many factors to consider. You NEED to be able to see clearly when you cut, so you do need some spot type of action going on. Another thing is that when doing haircolor you need to see the true color. You don't want it to look warmer than it really is (the client can freak if she sees too much "red".) On the other hand if you have flourescents it can make the color and the client look green!  Too bright it can blind you, too dark you can't see. Oh yeah, another thing is heat! Those little tiny bright halogens are HOT!! So what's a girl to do? I have no idea so I'm just going to go with what LOOKS good! Lol!

So here is what I've found-I've got mirrors that need sconces (see before post for the pictures of salon) so these look super cool to me. Can't decide though do I go with single or double? What does everyone think? And I am also going to do track lighting across the salon, hope I can find something that looks the part...

Here's the double one, but I would have it in chrome-

 

Boomerang!

So this is the fabulous drawer pull I found for my cabinets. They are from a company called Renovation and they are only $6! Yay! :D

Here are some other drawer pulls they make. I wish I had a place to put them they're so cool!

Here are some really great starlite fixtures found by someone renovating their bathroom, she really scored with these-

That's it for now, if anyone has links to anything they think I should see, please post!
Enjoy-Kathie

Paint and floors...

After scouring the internet for hours upon hours for salon ideas I finally settled on painting the walls turquoise. It sounds kind of weird to most people judging by the stunned silence I've gotten a few times after telling a couple of my clients. But TRUST ME, it will be soooo cool! Here's a picture or two of what helped me decide-

As soon as I saw this first one I was sold!

Now that one seems a little on the "sea foam green" side so I'm thinking more like the wall in the background of this picture (maybe not quite as bright):

On to the floors-The floors I have now are old linoleum (and not in a good way), stained, not put in very well. I'm hoping they won't have to take them up when they put in this very cool BLACK linoleum! (I can't wait!)

That's all for now, I've got some outstanding drawer pulls to share next time... :D

The befores....

I had taken lots of before pictures of the salon so i will post a few now so that you all get an idea of what I'm having to deal with. In my favor the salon is not run down or falling apart, but the style...well it's about as far away as you can get from what I am going for! lol

So here is the front of the salon-

Here are a few more showing the dark heavy drapes, which really closes it in, the over abundance of gold paint and lots and lots of STUFF...

So as you can see I have my work cut out for me. It will be a fun challenge, any advice will be welcomed...

Welcome to Hair @ The Copa Room!

Welcome, this is my first blog!

Recently I inherited the hair salon I had been working at. Sadly my friend Dennis, the owner of the salon, passed away. While it's been a very hard time adjusting, I can't help but look forward to owning my own salon (albeit tiny...) and thinking of what to do with it.

Fortunately I already had loads of ideas! I figured someday Dennis would retire and then I'd be able to make it my own. Well the time is here! The first thing I had to change was the name. Soooo....Souza Hair Color and Design Center became The Copa Room!

Why The Copa Room, you may ask? It's simple. I LOVE LAS VEGAS! OLD Las Vegas. The Rat Pack's Las Vegas. The Sands Hotel, and you guessed it, The Copa Room. This was THE place to be at the time. Where all the magic happened on stage, where people flew in from all over the world to see Frank and Dino and Sammy get up onstage and have a party. Talk about "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas..." they invented it!

So short of putting in a slot machine (which I totally would if I found one from The Sands) I'm going to be decorating the salon to reflect my love of late '50s, early 60's, Las Vegas, mid century modern, atomic age, etc. Think 1957-1963, think Madmen style, getting a picture? Cool music, lounge, swing, space-age, tiki, classic crooners, the works.

So I started this blog to document the process of remodeling, posting pictures, links etc. to all my ideas. Hopefully it will be fun to follow and eventually the salon will be done but there will still be tons to blog about!