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