Thank you!

Today's Agenda:  Getting ready for a fun week ahead -- it's office installation time!  Most of my friends and family know that I can't get enough of a good home office project -- all the organizing of wires, finding awesome lamps for the desk, having everything at your fingertips -- so looking forward to this week!!!  I think this project will turn out pretty great -- it's a classic Brooklyn apartment with vintage touches.  We aren't doing anything too extreme (no new paint or wallpaper), but I think it's going to pull together so nicely and make the space so much more usable. 

I am so thankful for this opportunity, as I am with all of the opportunities that I have had in this career and my career as a lawyer.  I am amazed at the many interesting, impressive people I have had the chance to meet in my life and am thankful for every day I get to work on developing my career as a designer.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it really is a time to just hang out, eat good food and be thankful for everyone in your life.  Sure, there are lots of annoying things going on in life that sometimes add up to way too much but for a few days those annoying bits pretty much melt away.  We had a fun Thanksgiving -- filled with days of family and friends and great food!  Here are a few highlights captured on film (and photos of the tablesetting I blogged about on Wednesday put together!):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{Highlights include:  pre-dinner blind wine tasting + crostinis, dinner @ our house of salted cod, roasted root vegetables, stuffing, pear, apricot + persimmon tart,  annual game of post-Thanksgiving poker, lunch @ Evening Star Cafe in Del Ray, a great dose of culture @ Dumbarton Oaks Museum and Gardens in Georgetown}

Thanksgiving Prep

Today's Agenda:  Making a tart + decorating for tomorrow!

This year's Thanksgiving theme went a little off the grid I readily admit but after the year we have had I just wanted to have fun with things and keep it light.  When I was in New York last month I made it to the Marimekko shop that is inside the Crate and Barrel in Soho.  It was amazing!  So fun to see all of the patterns come to life!  I'm obsessed with napkins and so my inspiration for this year's Thanksgiving table started with these that I found at the Marimekko shop:

I then found these wonderful Chilewich lace runners at CB2 that remind me of a lace shawl my Italian great-grandmother had...

clearly, I needed a reason to try this out and so they were added to the table...


I decided I needed to get a theme together quick otherwise random things I really liked would just end up on the table...that's when the an urban Thanksgiving theme was born with blues, greens, white and blacks.  Last year's was more of a vintage Thanksgiving so I was excited to play with some different elements.

To continue the random elements I was cobbling together I found these placemats @ CB2 (paper -- husband and dad will be so happy @ clean up time!):

and her @ Marshalls for $19.99!:

I've picked up some flowers -- green berries, purple stalky things and greenery -- from Whole Foods (I am constantly amazed at their consistently great selection -- quality, variety and pricewise) and just grabbed a bunch of vases from the closet and played with them.

Now to add the rest!  I'll post the final result tomorrow -- in the meantime I'm pulling some ideas from my inspiration for this year's tablesetting...

 {from Apartment Therapy}

{from Ohdeedoh via Christiane Lemieux of DwellStudio}

I also grabbed some kraft paper and want to make a menu with kraft paper and for a blind wine tasting to warm us up for dinner wrap the wine bottles with the kraft paper.  Also have to plan for our Thanksgiving activity -- last year, I made placecards and everyone had to write inside what they were thankful for.  Then we passed them around, each person read the one they got out loud and we had to guess who it was!  It was cheesy and fun -- just like how I like the holidays :) This year I'm going to lay out the kraft paper on our kitchen island after dinner and give everyone a crayon and go to town writing what they are thankful for and their "bucket list" for 2011 -- am excited! 

Now off to finish up the menu for tomorrow...


 

Mood Board Monday

Today's Agenda:  One thing DEFINITELY on the agenda...flipping through this month's House Beautiful!  A highlight of the month!

Also on the agenda is coming up with a design for the Mood Board Monday party over at the awesome blog Pewter + Sage!  Basically, there's a theme/mood, a few photos to choose as your inspiration and...well, that's all!  Just a chance to see a lot of great designs.  No budget too which is fun :)  Although, I'm sort of obsessed with finding awesome deals...which I'm realizing is addictive...

Here are the three inspiration photos we could choose from:

 

 

I am working on a couple projects that involve a theme/mood similar to the first inspiration image so I decided to try something a little different...and it felt in line with the Thanksgiving mood and cold weather upon us...the third photo! 

I first fixated on the blanket and the chair in the photo.  I designed the mood of the room from those two pieces -- an arts and crafts inspired dining/sitting room.  I wanted this room to be able to do double duty.  Arts and crafts homes are usually on the smaller side so this room could be a reading room where by day you can cozy up with a good book and cup of coffee and a scone for hours or a dining room where by night you can have a fun dinner party with a lovely stew and a glass of bourbon. 

For the colors I wanted to incorporate a couple of brighter colors like in the picture -- maybe some red, some green, a little blue -- but really focus on neutral colors and different textures.  I just finished a design for a client's sitting room where we have lots of textures and neutral patterns layered and evenly spaced throughout around the room and I am having a lot of fun playing with neutrals.  (It really is playing...too much fun!) 

For a structural element in the room, I incorporated this wallpaper.  I would paint the room a neutral color -- something like Benjamin Moore's China White depending on the light in the room and the color of the wood floors -- and use panels of wallpaper with molding framing the panels that is painted the same color as the walls.  In between the panels would be a large bookcase filled with books of all sizes and colors (the photo in the picture is actually taken from the inspiration photo!).  This would add some more texture and life to the room. 

The other elements in the room would be layered neutrals -- ivory leather chairs, a woven bench, a light colored wood farm table, dark side chairs, leafy wreath, glass vase, pewter and glass lighting. 

Together this would create a cohesive design -- comfortable, stylish, functional!   Take a look!

Here's a summary of the design elements in the room!

Theme:  Arts and Crafts
Space:  Dining/Sitting Room
Colors:  Neutrals (ivory, white, beige, brown, green, orange, red)
Table:  Design Within Reach Farm Table
Wingback Chairs:  Mitchell Gold Gustave Leather Chair
Side Chairs: Design Within Reach Nakashima Straight-Backed Chair
Bench: Design Within Reach Moller Bench 
Rug: Custom Rug 
Accent Rug: Ikea Rens
Lighting: Pottery Barn Rustic Glass Pendant
Wallpaper: Morris & Co.
Wreath: Pottery Barn Live Magnolia Wreath
Vase: Pottery Barn Fleur de Lys Vase

Thanks to Sarah @ Pewter + Sage for giving me a reason to play a little bit today! 

Friday's Organizing Item

Today's Agenda:  Celebrating my little sister's 30th birthday with my family!!  I can't believe she's 30!!

I had a really fun week working with another amazing client (have I mentioned how I've been REALLY lucky to have such great clients!!)!  The room came together quickly thanks to some of my finds from the warehouse sale in Raleigh a couple weeks back.  Some shopping in the attic (there were rolls of vintage grass cloth wallpaper!!), Homegoods and TJMaxx and Pottery Barn and the room is pretty much complete!  Just need the perfect fabric for a couple pillows and a new TV...

We were cleaning out the bookshelves they have and there were a couple large mailing boxes of old photos.  Boxes are a great way to store things but for a little bit more a nice rattan box really does the trick.  It then acts as both storage and decoration and you are actually more inclined to take a minute and go through the box instead of just tucking it behind things or under things to hide them.  We had about 15 deep shelves to fill -- they are those deep shelves built for box TVs so books and DVDs can end up looking lost and little -- so I had to think big, think reasonably priced and think classy.  All in a couple of days :)

A few of these filled out two of the shelves and stored the photos they have...with room to add more!  I bought 3 of the middle one -- it's a little richer color in person.  You could get a few of each color or 2 of each to really add texture and color to shelves.  Pictures to come next week of the room!

Have a great weekend!  This is my favorite time of year so I'm psyched for cooler weather, tights and boots and cooking up a storm with family next week!

Friday's Organizing Item

Today's Agenda:  Tidying up my office in between work tasks -- I'm THIS close to perfection :)  This time it's game on office.  I am tackling you once and for all. 

I'm a big believer in Elfa if it is done right.  It's high quality, you can move the shelves so easily to accommodate different items or purposes for a closet, it looks nice.  I could go on.  But a lot of times, they can push unnecessary Elfa accessories on you.  For example, I really don't need to line EVERY single shelf or need that many extra pieces of hardware.  So I usually end up returning some odds and ends pieces after installation and by now have a sense to at least ask what is necessary and start with that.

This piece -- the Ventilated Shelf Divider -- is one of those pieces.

I have had 5 of them sitting at the bottom of my closet for 3 years.  They are supposed to be used as dividers on your shelf in between sweaters or purses.  But my sweaters don't really move that much on their own (or shouldn't at least) and then the divider just ends up taking precious space!  (I've used just about every nook and cranny in my closet -- when we moved from our Manhattan apartment the movers had to go back for a bigger truck and more boxes because they underestimated what I had in my closet!!  It was an amazing, walk in closet...memories...) Anyway...I felt like they would maybe be good for something down the line and didn't return them...

That day finally came and I love how they work as...dividers for trays in my dish closet! 

They work really well since they are so secure and you can space them as close to each other as you want.  Finally, a solution for stacking all of the trays and having to take them all out one at a time to get to the one I really wanted...all the way at the bottom of the pile :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!  If you are planning a trip to the Container Store anytime soon, and planning on spending $100, if you do so by 11/28, they will give you a $15 gift card to be used 12/4 - 12/23!  Not a bad deal if you are already going to be there :) 

A Nursery!

Today's Agenda:  Refining space plans.  Need to optimize space and double check functionality!

In the meantime, voting for this nursery here on Oh Dee Doh ends soon -- 10am this morning!  So, take a look and vote for it!

I'll post a more detailed post of my thought behind the design but in the meantime here is Knox's mom's photos and description of the room!  This was a great example of e-design where I prepared the design plan and color/furniture/fixtures scheme and mom and dad implemented the design, making tweaks along the way.  It was such a fun process and so exciting to see the final product!!  And the best part...meeting Baby Knox! 

What started with this:

Ended up with this:

 

 

 

Pretty awesome!

Warehouse Sale Loot

Today's Agenda:  Organizing all my new finds...this may actually take longer than expected :)

Last week I ventured down to NC to see my mom, this little guy (and his mom!), friends and clients.  And to hit up these two great warehouse sales. 

Between all of that, I feel a little bit like time stopped...and now it's a week later.

Warehouse sales can be great -- a lot of inventory to choose from, not a lot of styling going on so you have to imagine the piece in your house which is good because you are not swayed by how it is styled in the store, need to dig to find something great, oodles of potential.

I was in the market for a couple desks, dining room chairs, a sofa for clients.  Came away with 2 sofas, coffee table and side table, bolts and bolts of awesome fabric for just $15/bolt, a lamp, little footstool with some Thomas Paul fabric...oh, and probably some other things.  I almost forgot -- THE most amazing custom curtain panels.  I'll blog tomorrow about those...and the fabric (mostly because I didn't take photos of it and I want to find some inspiration photos to use the fabric on)...

I, sadly, did not come home with these.

 

There were 6 of these.  Marked down from $1100/each to $499 each.  I was angling for $250/each but they were gorgeous and probably worth $499 if I had the right project to put them in.  And they had sumptuous white leather piping.  And to just get two as statement chairs for a dining table would be awesome.  I think they would have an effect similar to these. 

 

(1st photo via Apartment Therapy; 2nd photo via Design Sponge)

Hopefully they found a good home!

Here are the pieces that I know found a good home!!

This table...

It will live in this room for a client that we are redoing...as a sofa table (the sofas are actually the same color green in the table; this before photo doesn't capture the green of the sofas that well)...

 ...with 2 of these lamps on them (a lovely charcoal gray)...

With these coffee and side tables to replace the brown wood ones...

And this lovely, lovely gray linen sofa in that window nook (with an amazingly comfortable down cushion!) (marked from $3400 to $1600!)

Got these pillows too to add some pattern, interest in the room and got a couple for the green sofas too to replace the current ones and tie the two areas together.

This settee is in the same home as the above furniture but in the main living room area that we have been working on for the past few months (it's almost done...just a table and some barstools to go and then final before and after photos!)

  Here's a sneak peek of "her" in her home! (via Iphone photo so excuse the poor photo quality...)

 And, this guy found a place at my mom's!

 It was the best deal of the day at $450 (marked down from $1600)!

Here's him in his room!  (Final styling not quite done; at this point we had the other two sofas we were selling in the room so I was just playing around with rugs, tables, lamps, etc.)

A few more things that I was sad didn't make it home with me...

I really need to get that storage space!  Or not...clearly it's as my friend Dina calls it, a slippery slope!

 My mom and I also hit the Durham Farmers Market.  It was so cute and really nice because it was in a covered area so rain or shine it was there!  I had an amazing mini sweet potato pie that I gobbled up so quickly I forgot to take a picture!  Here are some pictures of the market and of this amazing store Ox & Rabbit in Durham (everything was soooo well edited!).   I also love getting ideas of how to display things/hang things in projects from how things are hung in stores...which is clearly what I was doing here :)

 

It was a great trip!!  So productive!