Where did July go?

July is the shortest and the longest month.  In addition to the Fourth holiday, this year we had two kid birthday parties (for our kids), two family birthday parties (for our kids), several installs, a trip to San Francisco, and tons of shoot prep for a shoot that has been rescheduled!  I'm exhausted, in the best possible way.

Whenever I take an accidental blog hiatus I don't quite know where to start when I return.  So I will start with the present: yesterday we bought a dresser for the master bedroom.  For the past ten years we have been using a pair of Ikea dressers that I spray painted in our Brooklyn basement.  (I wish I had a photo of the very country before: knotty pine with black iron hardware!)  they were great in our Brooklyn bedroom flanking the bed:

And they have been functional side by side in Boulder and now here.  But this is how much I don't love them anymore:  when I had scouting shots done of my house in the fall, I had the photographer skip that side of the room altogether and focus on pretty detail shots like this.

To give you a sense of it, the large photograph in the photo below is sitting on the dressers, pushed together on a long wall.

(Don't you just love photographs that show you the inside from the outside?)

Long story short (too late!), I have been sort of keeping an eye out for a long 9-drawer dresser for years.  So when this one popped up on the instagram feed of Retrowanderlust, one of my favorite local vintage shops (the source for the tree!), I jumped on it.

Just in time for the rescheduled photo shoot.  Maybe I will allow a wider shot of the bedroom this time.  Of course, who knows what dominoes may fall from this.....

Spring Bedroom Refresh (the best pillowcases)

Spring!

One of the quickest ways to refresh for the new season is to address your bedding.  Out with the heavy duvets and extra throws and in with light, bright, and fresh.

You know I love a good printed pillowcase, and have been known to splurge on them in the past.  Well, I recently found a secret source for CHEAP pillowcases that look straight our of John Robshaw, or Kerry Cassil, or Anthropologie.

From World Market, only available in stores:

Cool

Warm

At $14.99/pair, I find myself picking up a new pattern every time I'm at the store.

I had the small-scale print on the bed when I had my house photographed last fall:

Then moved on to the yellow-and-olive design:

And Just recently swapped in this new print with strong red, blue, and green.

I couldn't bring myself to invest in new bedding (yet), so I borrowed the blue hotel bedding from the guest room and I love the brighter/ crisper color in here!

I brought back the floral bolster and leopard pillow--two of my favorites, that had been taking a breather in the basement.

I also did a pillow swap to match the palette.  From this:

To this:

My room feels so happy and bright, and the only expense was the pillowcases--$14.99

Disintegration

For a while now, I have been noticing that the beautiful Indian pulkhari textile on my bed is fading.  The background color has gone from a vibrant coral to a faded orange, and the embroidery has simply disintegrated, one color at a time.  (It still had some blue here, and lots of pink, here.)  At first, I sort of vaguely suspected that it was changing, and then, all of a sudden, it became very clear when I posted an old photograph from my bedroom in the same post as a current picture, but the damage was already done.

This is one of those things about decorating: it is not forever.  Organic materials change.  Use wears away at things.  Buttons pop on upholstery, kids leave stains, pets scratch floors and furniture.  Even if you decorate appropriately for your lifestyle, nothing stays pristine.

I absolutely believe in using what you have.  Our wedding china is very expensive, but I would rather use it and delight in it, even if it means chips or even a broken dish here or there, than leave it on the shelf.  Having that textile on our bed was one of my favorite vignettes in the house.  It made me think of the store where I bought it--now defunct--and the early days of my brother and sister-in-laws relationship (she was with my mom and I shopping, and spotted the textile first.)  It reminded me of Clio's tiny toddler room in Brooklyn.  For a while, I let it fade because using it made me happy.

But then I freaked out and moved it to a chair, still in the room but out of the line of direct sunlight.

And I tell myself that it is good to move things around and keep it loose.

Tell me: Have you loved and lost any precious objects?  My heart broke a little when one of my daughters knocked over a ginger jar at my mom's, left to her by my grandmother.  But of course life goes on.

Visualizing (isn't my husband helpful?)

I am trying to be thoughtful as I complete the final projects around my house that will hopefully (oh, please, dear god!) let me feel finished.  For now.  Among other things, this means not doing things that can't be undone if I am not 99% sure that I will love it.

Case in point.

I have been wanting to give my master bedroom the canopy treatment, much like I did for this client:

This is what the room looks like now, more or less:

I like the idea that a cornice-and-curtains treatment would soften the room in lieu of panels on the windows and balance the height of the gallery wall, across from the bed.

I have left over white linen curtains that didn't get used on a project, and some yellow fabric with a small scale print that I have been dying to use again.

I should just do it up, right?

Except.  

The bed wall is one of the first things you see when you come in to the house (and, for that matter, it is what you see from the street when the shades are up).  We kept the paint from the previous owner, and I don't know the color.  All of this means that if something goes up that requires putting holes in the walls, it is not coming down.  The last thing I need is to repaint this large room because I changed my mind about a little canopy and couldn't cover the holes.  (Though that sounds just like me, doesn't it?)

Enter the husband.

Not sure I like it all the way at the ceiling...how about lower?

But of course the mirror would still hang in front of the curtains.  How does it relate to the cornice?

Some days he is a good sport.

For today, we did not put holes in the walls.  I still like the idea, but the execution needs some thinking.  Fuller curtains?  Narrower cornice?  Valance instead?  With the high ceilings, proportion is key.

What do you think?  Should I tweak this idea or abandon it altogether?

Currently/ No Place Like Home

Isn't it funny how good your bed feels after a time away?  Even if you have been staying in wonderful places?

After 6 days in New York, I was VERY happy to find my way home yesterday.

This is what our room looks like currently.  With all the switches that happen around here, I'm not sure you are current.  :)

Still thinking about adding white curtain panels, but mostly, this room is done and makes me happy every time I look at it.

Back to real content tomorrow.....

The $7.99 bedroom makeover REVEAL

When I promised you a Monday reveal on Friday, I sort of forgot that Mother's Day was sandwiched in between.  And that I was hosting.  I spent Mother's Day morning playing around with bedding and styling, and it could not have been better.  I ask you: is that strange?  

Better yet:  to say I am in love with my new bedroom is an understatement.  I am smitten.

Here's the "before"

It never ceases to amaze me what a big difference small changes can make.

The inspiration was the giant Pottery Barn bolster, found for $7.99.  The challenge was to build a makeover around the bolster without spending any more money.  

The first issue was the bolster itself.  The right size bolster form costs $50.  But I have a cabinet full of unused bedding.  It took a twin quilt, full size cotton blanket, and 4-count 'em FOUR--baby quilts to fill this puppy.  Probably not practical in the long term (the result is one heavy frickin' pillow), but I have some foam and batting lying around and will likely make a custom bolster.

The next problem was the duvet cover.  The whole point was to move away from my (beloved) chinoiserie, and I knew I wanted white.  I considered borrowing the hotel style duvet from the guest room, but then what would go in there?  My husband uses a white Ikea bedspread for his body work business, and I had my eye on that, but it was at his studio.

Well, I'm a genius, cause the back side of this comforter is plain old white.  That's right.  I just flipped the thing over.  And I like that the burnt orange piping around the edges keeps it from being too blah.  Something textural, like a modern matellase, would be perfect, but those cost money.

With these issues resolved, it was just a matter of borrowing from the house and styling it up.

Before:

And After:

The lamp was on the other side of the room, I just traded to give the bed more presence.  Same with the zebra pillow, which the bed needs to make the brown stripe on the bed skirt make sense.  The throw is the same, just opened up to cover more of the plain bedding.  The jewelry boxes came from my dresser.  That chunky basket came from the auction at the girls' school--we bought the "game night" and all the games came in that puppy.  The extra throw inside it was just hanging out in the linen cabinet.  The bamboo side table came from the guest room (and my old room at my parents' house before that).  The white quilted shams came from my girls' rooms.

All of this leads me to an important point.  I always hate it when watching a makeover show and they "shop the house," and the result is basically one good room at the expense of the rest of the house.  So I made a silent rule that I could not borrow anything just for photography purposes and then send it back when the blog post was done.  Nope.  This makeover is staying put.  I swapped a different side table in to the guest room and different pillow shams into the girls room.  No harm no foul.  (I know: it helps to have a stash of extras.  I've been collecting it all for a long time.)

Here's the area across from the bed.

Before:

And after:

The Moroccan table went more orange (with the red still underneath) and the chairs (my grandmother's, back in the day, which, incidentally, lived in a room with kelly green wall to wall) got green pillows to ground the white and my favorite old Indian embroidered floral pillows, because god knows I still need a stylized floral in the room.  Hello, old friend.

Just a little detail.  I love the pinstripe sheets peeking out--a nice masculine counterpoint.  Oh, and those flowers would be cheating, budget wise, except, of course, mom's get flowers for Mother's Day, right?

When my sister in law saw the mini-transformation tonight, she said "I love your room--it looks so FRESH."

Exactly what the doctor ordered.  And not bad for $7.99!

And hey, if you are a mom or have a mom, I hope you got to celebrate yesterday.

Bedroom Makeover for $7.99

My bedroom is mostly, sort of, kind of done.

It's the room that has gotten the least attention but felt the most finished from the get-go, just based on using what I already had.

Right now it looks kind of like this.

I think the last time you saw it, it actually looked like this.



It's fine.  But as I itch for summery decorating, the bold floral on the duvet is feeling a bit heavy.  Let me just say, I LOVE this bedding.  It is Dwell Studio for Target and when it debuted, Brooklyn sold out in a heartbeat.  My mom bought it in Minneapolis where it was aplenty and mailed it to me.  But that was oh, five or six years ago?  This is now the third house that we used it in.

In use in Brooklyn:
(honestly, I can't believe I didn't immediately stage up the room and send my mom a photo.  So I will force you to look at my adorable family instead of a plain and barren room.)

That's my 5 year old when she was 2, pretending to talk on the phone, and my 3 year old as a 2-month old.

And layered in Boulder:

So it's like a bedding love story.  (I wrote a love story to my bed upon leaving it in Brooklyn.)

I didn't even realize I had been thinking about change until I walked in to Pottery Barn for bedding for a client and walked out with this.



A giant floral/paisley bolster, on sale for $7.99.  (They have them online with free shipping, too.)  All my favorite colors.  totally in with the whole-house color palette.  And so, this weekend, my bed will be getting a little makeover.  The trick?  I can't spend any more money.  Not a dime.

Totally doable, don't you think?  The mind reels.

Have a great weekend --celebrate your awesome mom--and come check out the makeover on Monday!

Art Wall: Done!

Got the actual art pieces hung this weekend, which included going into my husband's stash of prints to supplement what I already had--he's an awesome photographer, when he feels like it. The room is actually feeling finished, which feels great: perhaps the first (almost) finished room in the house.

This wall is a prime example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts (is that the right expression? sounds backwards, somehow.) These are pieces that I have collected or made over the years, and while each is personal, I likely wouldn't choose them today, as most of them are not exactly wowing on their own with the possible exception of the Brad Harrison photograph--the largest, middle one of a woman standing on a rock in the water. He's an amazing photographer and this print was a gift for a shoot I produced with him for an insurance company back in the day. It's lovely, and serene, and this is the first time it is not hanging on its own in a bathroom.

I think the reason this grouping works is that each piece is figural and predominantly black and white. So even though the eras and styles are all over the map, there is a logic in the subject matter and an overall cohesiveness by tone. For me, when using figures, it's important to think about where they are facing, and no one here is gazing awkwardly into space...so that's something, right? I always think that people in a group of images like this should be looking inward, rather than "out of scene" or "off stage," but sometimes you can do that on purpose to interesting effect. Here, the girl in the orange and black deco piece at the top is coming through the curtains and gazing out the window.

I think you also need to think about balance. In this case, I wanted to balance figures with portraits (bodies with heads) and black and white with the images that have some color. I also wanted to balance the frames in terms of color and levels of detail.

Anyway. Boring. If you really want more on what works in gallery walls (in my opinion), check out this post.

But mostly, here's what's nice: I walk into the room and it feels finished. Except for the pile of crap all over our dressers. Maybe we'll clean those up and take a picture and post it here for posterity.

Caution: Art Wall in Progress

To be honest, I was feeling a little reluctant to create a second full-scale art wall in the house. This one is already a major statement in the office (more on that here)


but the truth is we have lots of little pieces and lots of BIG blank walls, so you do the math. Typically, if someone insisted on two (or more) gallery walls in one house, I would recommend two different styles. Probably one more free form like my office and one sort of regimented, a big grid of matching frames. But I don't have the pieces for that. So I suppose I'll have to settle on one wildy colorful and one mostly black and white.

Anyhoo.

I got things all mocked up in the master bedroom, and asked my husband to approve the layout before I got to putting all those nails in the walls.

(I decided to incorporate the floor lamp, and keep things high enough to accommodate a possible future occasional table between the chairs.)

You know what he said? He likes it just like this. Brown paper, blue tape.

He is more avant garde than I.

I can see from these photos that I need to adjust the spacing just a bit. Probably just as well: I try to hold off on hammering while the kids are asleep.

Happy Accidents

I've been slowly but surely thinking my way through design for the girls' room, and in the process I ordered a great looking and super inexpensive cotton pile rug from Overstock.com. I was inspired by this photo from Domino (We inherited a similar shade of blue on the walls and I already have raspberry microsuede for headboards and love the total effect)



as well as an outfit that Clio loves to wear which includes a white top with black stripes and a red sequined heart and a tiny floral print skirt (which in my mind translates to Liberty of London for Target bedding or accessories, though of course I missed my moment on that and would have to shell out for it on ebay one piece at a time. I never do things the easy way, do I?)




So I was really excited to find a 5x7 black and white bold striped rug for only $100.

Now, I was initially skeptical about ordering rugs online. You can't feel the pile, you can't really see the color, and the pattern could show up much more (or less) pronounced than it looks in photos. But I ordered one for the basement with great success, and found that I was hooked. There is just so much VARIETY on overstock, the prices are uniformly reasonable, shipping is fast and practically free, and you can search by size, color, pattern, style, material, and price point, which is really tremendous.

Well, fast forward to last week when my black and white striped rug arrived, only.... it was BROWN and IVORY. Damn internet. Seriously, under no circumstances could this rug be considered in the black family, and the color scheme just sort of felt muddy and, well, wrong in the girls room.

But guess what? Inspiration struck and I tried the rug in our bedroom, where I must say, it looks fabulous.


Don't you think? I have been using an old sheepskin rug in there, which I was kind of digging, but my grandmother's white upholstered boudoir chairs will migrate back into the bedroom when the living room loveseat arrives, and that will all be a bit monochromatic for me. The fun thing is that I NEVER would have thought to buy this rug for this room. So much brown. So much strong, graphic pattern. Just proves once again that more is more.