Do you remember these awesome orange lamps that I had in our LA living room?I got them at an antiques mall in LA and had new shades made for them. They really worked well in the scale of our space at the time.However, there just isn't a space for them in our house here. I'd tried selling them on Craiglist but they are so specific and also a bit nicer than your typical Craiglist find (as in more... Read more
Lately, now that our interiors have hit a certain stage of "doneness", I've been itching to get outside. I did some planting at the fronta few weekends ago and plan to plant some bulbs later today. I've also been thinking about how I'd like to dress up our backyard in the future. Similar to the house, the garage is sided in vinyl so we can't really paint it. However, I've been considering dressing... Read more
Summer travels by plane, bus, and car have had me searching for the PERFECT black dress. You know the one: won't wrinkle, will be comfy on the four-hour drive to the mountains, can be styled appropriately for dinner in East Hampton...the Do-Everything Dress. With my suitcase packed for our two-week vacation and 55 minutes to go before picking up the kids from camp and hitting the road, I set out... Read more
A while back I blogged about my client's living room which I've been working on. Here is the concept board from a while back.You can see on the left hand side a photo of a table that she'd inherited from her mother. We knew we wanted a sort of washed finish on this to coordinate with some of the other items in the room like the settee. Well, it's sort of amazing how much people will charge to do... Read more
Now that our interior is mostly complete (for now that is - until I decide I can't stand my office or the basement), I've decided to focus my energies on some inexpensive upgrades outside. Our landscape in the front yard was seriously lacking. There is a nice cherry tree, some laurels and azaleas in front of the house and a beautiful hydrangea net to the porch that you can't see, but there are no... Read more
As most of you readers know, this blog has followed me through the renovation of our house in LA on Glen Arborand now our house here in NJ. One of the things I never got around to doing in LA was the kitchen. There was so much potential with the 1940's glass front cabinets and the vintage stove. Before we left, we slapped on a coat of white paint and changed the hardware to freshen it up. But I'd... Read more
Greetings from August in the City by the Bay! Those of you who've traveled here on a summer vacation (or read any Mark Twain, for that matter) know that while these may be "summer-casual" months at the office, they are also foggy & windy months at the park, which is why most of us default again and again to denim. A recent foot injury has me re-thinking footwear to accommodate arch supports... Read more
I posted a while back about our amazing Cole and Sons powder room wallcovering. Well, they did end up shooting the powder room for the Woman's Day shoot and it's not all that different than the photo from my original post- below (with a bit more styling):However, I wanted to give you a sneak peek at the other minor progress that WD didn't shoot. Not knowing what would be shot and what wouldn't I... Read more
OK, I realized after I said that the living room was the final sneak peek that there are a couple more spaces I wanted to show you guys. First off is the breakfast nook. Not all that much has changed. But if you recall, it looked like this before.I wasn't crazy about the artwork. I sort of just hung those two pieces there temporarily. Then in the process of unpacking (yes, we are STILL unpacking)... Read more
OK so this is pretty much the final sneak peek after the Woman's Day photo shoot. WD also shot the kitchen but you guys have seen that in its full glory a number of times, so no need to rehash. In the bathroom sneak peekI showed you the "before" photo from before we moved in. I like that it really shows how far we've come. So here is the living room in its "before" state (the fish eye lens makes... Read more
On to the next space of our Woman's Day photo shoot sneak peek. So it turns out WD didn't photograph our bathroom, but nevertheless it was motivation to complete the room, organize and accessorize. Not sure if I've ever showed you guys what the room looked like before we moved in and did any sort of renovation.A gross single vanity and lots of extra space on one side of the room. The only... Read more
The area that I think has changed the most in the past couple of weeks prior to our Woman's Day shoot has been the dining room. At the last minute we managed to install drapery and hardware and get my table painted a nice subtle minty green. Also added a bar cart from Ballard Designsfor good measure. Here is the table in progress between coats (I sanded, primed, sanded, painted, sanded, and... Read more