nyc holiday windows 2011!

ok, i'm really behind the times.  it's been a ridiculous 15 years since i've been to new york city, and for the life of me, i'm really not sure why.  it's a quick bus trip up the interstate, and the interior design stores are to-die-for.  this weekend, i went with stalwart friends to the big apple for some down-n-dirty wholesale jewelry shopping, the Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall (amazing), and to soak in the holiday spirit.  aside from having second-row orchestra seats for the Rockettes (did i mention, amazing), my favorite part of our 24-hour extravaganza were the department store holiday windows. add 'holiday window designer' to my list of dream jobs.  namely, at Bergdorf Goodman's, the most wonderful store in the whole world. sigh.


here are the best ones... i left out Saks and Barney's because, quite frankly, Saks was weird and boring ("Who Makes the Snow?") and Barney's got it wrong when they made Lady Gaga a Christmas theme ("Lada Gaga's Workshop).


Bergdorf (photos by Ricky Zehavi, thankfully, because taking pictures with your iPhone through a crowd of people in the dark does not produce high-quality images) --"Carnival of the Animals":

everything is made out of fabric/yarn

entirely made out of Italian glass tiles... 

made out of paper.  do you see the ostrich and peacock?

wood stuff.

cha-ching, bling bling copper and other metals

Lord and Taylor -- "What is Christmas Made Of?" (photos by Lia Chang)

orange you glad it's friday?

Pantone just released its 2012 color of the year... and it's 'tango tangerine'!  are you jumping up and down??  well i could not be happier.  for those not familiar, i think Pantone started announcing the 'color of the year' about 12 years ago. it means nothing, really, other than it validates that other people also like orange just as much as i do.  it also validates my pick for the living room, the 'loring' sofa from Room & Board in 'valor tangerine.' snazzy, eh? 

for you bold cats out there, check out these fabulous tangerine rooms, courtesy of my fellow pinners and apartment therapy. 

The above is from Benjamin Moore's red-orange spectrum.  notice the tone-on-tone trim!

dado rails get fancy for 2012

Wikipedia and I had a chat earlier. "So what is a chair rail for, anyways," I said. Wiki kindly informed me that "A dado rail, also known as a chair rail, is a type of moulding fixed horizontally to the wall around the perimeter of a room. The dado rail is traditionally part of the dado and, although the purpose of the dado is mainly aesthetic in modern homes, the dado rail still provides the wall with protection from furniture and other contact." Who knew? All this time we've called it a chair rail, we could have used its more sophisticated name, dado. Dado, dado, dado.

I've always thought dado rails were supposed to be white or part of the trim color.  somewhere along the line -- and you know Pinterest played a part in this -- i started to notice a trend of trim matching the wall color, especially in dark, cozy rooms.  (See previous posts on hibernating...maybe that is the greater trend these days.)  so, after I spent days painting the dining room the glorious "Sealskin" color, it really bothered me that the chair, ack hmm, dado rail was white.  the contrast was too drastic and was casting a Pottery Barn feel from, oh, 2010 (which is almost two years ago, people).   i took a deep breath and painted right over that fancy blue tape and voila, my dado rail is now the same rich, dark color.  the look is ultra dramatic if you take your wall color to the crown moulding and baseboards.  the best part is, less taping!  go crazy with your brush!

i'm not going to reveal the final look until later, but here are a few good inspirations for painted trim! 

contemporary living room design by boston architect LDa Architecture & Interiors

eclectic home office design by los angeles media and blogs, Lisa Borgnes Giramonti

other design

spaces design

let's get fruity this christmas

who doesn't like citrus? it smells good, it contains vitamin C, and the colors are cheery any time of year. back in the day, we used to get grapefruit in our stockings on Christmas morning. i still don't understand why, other than it made our stockings look heavier... anyhoo, these lovely decorations feature natural greenery and items you can find at the grocery store.  why not get fruity and string up some kumquats for your garland this year? (you just said the word kumquat out loud, didn't you...)

color preview for the dining room...

this holiday weekend has been a painting marathon.  the actual painting part takes less time than picking colors, driving to the paint store (coupon), driving to the hardware store to get the paint supplies (a different coupon), taping all the trim, ceiling, and baseboards, and then sitting down with the dog to snuggle because he feels left out.  i started with the dining room because we have no furniture in there, and i'll move on to the living room because...well, we have no furniture in there either.  more sneak peeks to come in the next few weeks!  after four coats of paint in the dining room (that's above the chair rail, with three coats of a mystery color below), i'm very happy with how the room turned out.  it's mega-luxe feeling, cozy, and moody.  drumroll please... 

Sherwin-Williams "Sealskin" SW7675

you'd be surprised at how large the room feels, even in a dark color.  we painted over a bright yellow room, which made the room feel closed-in, not open and sunny.  (i won't mention what color was below the chair rail... let's just it was close to meatloaf.)

here are some of my inspirations for dark and moody dining rooms that still feel open and inviting...

as much as i'd love to paint the living room the same color (see previous post on hibernating in a taupe world), it's a bright, happy room, and the walls blend with the foyer and hallway upstairs.  so, we went with a lighter, more neutral color, Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter (HC-172).  more to come...

taupe + hibernation

hey there fall friends. i can't believe it's been over a month since my last post.  since then, we've moved out of the cottage, moved temporarily to a furnished condo in an urban hotspot complete with public transportation, moved into our new house, traveled to Dallas, and now i'm stuck with my third cold-slash-plague of the season. all that said, i'm ready to hibernate for the winter and wake up with the trees start to bud.  however, part of our agreement for buying our 'forever house' in NOVA was for me to embrace all four rainy seasons.  maybe that's why every photo I've pinned on Pinterest in the past month features a taupe-colored room.  the dark greys and browns of taupe just exude warmth and coziness, don't they?  would it be insane for me to paint our new living room and dining room (which must must must be painted -- they are currently rose pink and a combo of horrid yellows and browns) dark taupe? p.s. -- love the pops of red/orange with the taupe. i'm even tempted to find an orange couch!

so long, sweet cottage life!

alas, my fledgling blog has suffered from a month of crazy life events, such as the selling of our sweet cottage. selling a home really can be all-consuming, especially when it was your dream house as a single gal and homelessness isn't so attractive.  when the plan was to move to california wine country, it wasn't so hard to say goodbye to the charm, the nooks and crannies, of this place.  now that my darling husband has convinced me to go big with more than two bedrooms, a garage, and a yard (dare i say, suburbia??), it's a little harder to stomach! at the closing table back in 2007, the sellers told me that every owner since the originals in the 1930s had been single women...who, after moving in, found their husbands and had babies.  i don't know if that's true, but talk about a selling point!  well, the trend continued, and andy appeared out of thin air.  (no babies yet, don't get excited.)  since then, we renovated the kitchen, put in a slate patio, added a fence, and made the basement a true snuggery (a real word, people).  i'm pretty sure i painted every inch of the entire house, including ceilings and baseboards.  we weathered every natural disaster possible in the course of four years in between our foot-thick stone walls and original double-paned casement windows.  as we head off to temporary apartment living before searching for another dream house, i thought i'd pay a little homage to our cottage life along the Potomac.

already missing my flower box!

they don't make floors like that anymore. next stop, herringbone floors.

lots of great gatherings in there. (paint is BM Shenandoah Taupe, armoire from my favorite store, Random Harvest.)

made those seat cushions...see post on chevron!

our neighbors gave us those plantation shutters, which we sanded and painted for days. sooo worth it.

i would replicate this kitchen in any house.  except maybe not with Carrara marble counters throughout.  go IKEA!

andy built a closet for our guest room, which was basically the only storage we had!

original bathroom with my fave black/white subway tile.

and finally, the snuggery in the basement. complete with andy's man cave items and my cherished wood-burning fireplace with poor ventilation. :)

so long, sweet cottage!

earthquakes and hurricanes, oh my.

so the summer of chevron came to a rollicking close this past week when we had a 5.9 earthquake followed by miss irene.  everyone jokes about how dc overreacted, but i am truly thankful most of the city and environs stayed intact, especially because we did not lose power (like the week in 2003 when miss isabel thwarted my plans of showering, cooking ramen, and watching hours of antenna tv).  however, the earthquake of 2011 did leave casualties in my house.   the earthquake took out my glass hurricanes, sitting on the mantle and hearth.  foreshadowing at its best?  somehow the mirror over the fireplace jumped its moorings, crushing everything in its path on its way down.  i came home to check on sweet angel dog and saw millions of teeny tiny glass bits all over the basement.  


as someone with obviously way too much time on my hands as we hunkered down on saturday, i couldn't help but bow to the irony by trying to think of how to replace my hurricanes and get ready for fall (read: replacing my broken hurricanes with new hurricanes during a hurricane).


i love the idea of multiple candles or gas lamps inside of one giant hurricane.




forget the glass (in case another earthquake strikes), add pops of color.  good for a dark cozy basement.


fill hurricanes with things other than candles.  who doesn't love a baby pumpkin?


i love these 'prospero' candle holders from napastyle, and lord knows we have a few spare wine corks.


 a rustic votive (or julienned vegetable) holder made from a sugar mold, also from napastyle.


footed mercury glass hurricanes from west elm.  i like the idea of using these with a few mercury glass votives.


as i dwell on this further and contemplate God's subtle hint to spruce up our basement, i'm ramping up for this weekend's ekster barn sale!  maybe i'll find some great gear from france, belgium, or scandinavia!