what I do

what I do

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Picking materials for a mountain home and more great Homegoods finds

I spent a couple of hours looking at fabrics with a client yesterday ...


We are working on a new mountain home she is building in Wyoming. We selected fabrics for the large living room and also for the master bedroom. It is a large house and we are going room by room ...


This reminded me of a rabbit fur ... it is faux. It will be made into a pillow for the living room sofa.


This will be a blanket we are making for the back of one of the sofas. The thin purple stripe will coordinate with the eggplant colored velvet sofas. 


I sent my client this collage to show her how I see the fixtures looking - a nice mix of iron and brass. You can find the images and their sources on my Pinterest page here.



The fabrics we selected for the master bedroom were inspired by a pillow the client purchased. We set up fabrics on chairs in the Pindler showroom to give us a visual of how they would look together. 


This house is going to have some wonderful materials ... with rustic, industrial and modern touches. Last week we worked on some of the stone for the bathrooms:



So much fun!


After our meeting I went over to see what was going on at my local HomeGoods. As usual I was not disappointed ...








If only I had a warehouse to store it all. If only!

Friday, September 26, 2014

Flowers for a princess, new pillows and my temporary office

I took a friend to lunch at the Grand Central Market in Los Angeles yesterday (now that is a post in itself!!!) and on the way I stopped in at the flower mart to pick up some flowers ...
 

Because this little princess is turning three on Saturday and she is having a little bash.


Don't you wish you had natural ringlets like this?


I made some sweet arrangements to go on the dining tables ...


 And there will be plenty of cupcakes.



My youngest daughter (she is such a good auntie!) is taking out all the green sprinkles to get ready to decorate them. No green sprinkles allowed ... this party is all pink!


 And speaking of pink, I have a new pillow order I am working on.


 The fabrics are from Duralee, Pindler and Kravet. They will be going in this room:


I presented the first inspiration board (you can see it here) with orange accents and the client asked for pink instead. The teal ottoman was her favorite, but it was just a conceptual piece that I had found on Olioboard. But today, it showed up on my Facebook page saying I might be interested to know that it was being sold on One King's Lane. For $369. Nice! (Scary that my research is being tracked, but it was quite convenient!)





The rug is on its way, the media cabinet is installed, and this lamp is on it's way:



Progress always makes me smile. Another thing I am smiling about is that we have a house full of kids right now. One is staying for a while and the others are visiting. To make room, we needed to make a few adjustments and so temporarily I moved my office out into the living room. It is not permanent, but it works for now. 


In fact, it is kind of fun being out in the middle of everything ...


And the view is great! Have a happy weekend everyone! 

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

The newest mason jars


Have you seen the newest Ball mason jar color? In 1913, the Ball brothers launched their first perfect mason jar. In 2013, to celebrate their 100th anniversary, the makers of the Ball mason jars created a limited edition Heritage collection. The first color they released was the blue jar and it was the perfect color to use for a couple of weddings I recently styled.



A few weeks ago, I noticed they had come out with a new color (apparently they have been out since Spring). 




I am seriously in love with these pretty green jars


I purchased mine here and they arrived yesterday.




I am working out of my office all day today - trying to stay hydrated in this miserable heat we are having. And watching out the window while a film crew sets up for a Kia commercial that is being filmed in front of my house this evening. They will be setting up lighting in my front yard and inside my house ... fun! 

Friday, September 12, 2014

Bar carts, a great lunch and my latest obsession

My youngest daughter, the one who is a farmer, is in town and yesterday we took a little trip up to Venice to check out some vintage stores and to have lunch. 




 I am not normally that into vintage, but since I have been doing the weddings I have been scouting the vintage stores more and more. It is amazing what you can find!


We started in The Mart Collective on Lincoln Blvd. The Mart Collective is 16,000 sq. ft. of vintage and antique objects, furniture and art in 120 dealer spaces. It opened last year and is owned by the former managers of Wertz Brothers Antique Mart in Santa Monica which also closed last year. We spent an hour browsing around ... we could have easily spent two. It was packed with so many fun things and a lot of bar carts. I have a thing for bar carts. Have you seen my Pinterest page devoted to them?



I found this one first. I kind of liked it. In fact, I thought about it the entire time I was walking through the store. It was not in the best condition but it was only $60. Or so I thought. I went back to look at it just before we left thinking it would come home with me ...


I really need to get better glasses! 


This one was a much better deal at $225.




This 1960's Danish cart was selling for $495.


And they were asking $745 for this 1970's brass plated cart. 


The Mart Collective is just across the street from the Hardware store. I couldn't resist shooting the sign - remember my sign obsession during our Route 66 road trip last summer? After we left the vintage store we headed over to Abbott Kinney Blvd. to walk around and have lunch. We ended up at Lemonade a fresh and colorful cafeteria. 





I loved the colorful pots ... and they even had a gluten free cookie I could eat!




It was a really fun morning! My favorite salad was the beet salad. Funny thing ... right after lunch I had an appointment with my kidney doctor who told me that I need to avoid certain foods from now on so I won't get another kidney stone. Guess what was first on the list ... beets! And then he went on to say that citrus will help balance the bad foods so I should drink plenty of ... lemonade!  It made me smile anyway (until I saw that chocolate was also on the bad list). Oy vey!

Oh ... I was going to show you my latest obsession ...


Have you tried this gelato? It is delicious! (#helpmeIcan'tstop) Happy Friday everyone!