Fabulous progress on a traditional home

For about a year now I have been working long-distance on a fabulous home in New Jersey.  I love formal traditional style, but most of the homes I have lived in are decidedly more casual, so it has been really fun to pull out the stops with florals, damasks, silks, and trims.  My client has a great eye and sense of what she wants, and this has been one fun and easy collaboration.

She recently sent some update photos, and I thought I would share with you.

Fantastic floral wallpaper in an upstairs bath:

Grasscloth in the study:

Another excellent print (on linen) on the kitchen barstools.  Love the giant nailhead.

Great brass pendants over the island and velvet-trimmed raw silk roman shades

Vintage dining chairs recovered in silver faux-leather (it's hard to see in this picture, but the chairs have a silver-leaf detail outlining all those pretty curves).

We're thinking about this paper for the powder room:

Those fish are like 18" tall!

Next up: recovering a lot of old regency and biedermeier furniture.  Can't wait!

We have a winner

The Shabby Apple gift card winner is comment 33

April G!



April, send me an email with your street address heather{at}heatherpetersondesign.com

Thanks for playing!

Does redecorating mean starting over?

These days, I tend to buy new clothes in bursts, not one piece at a time.  (This usually happens when all my usual tops have holes in them.  Sad but true.)  When I come home with a bag full of goodies, I immediately play around with the existing items in my closet to create new looks.  Why?  Well, partly because wearing new new new from head to toe makes me feel false, somehow.  Inauthentic.

A similar principal applies in decorating.  While I imagine some decorators love a blank slate, I find it difficult to start completely from scratch.  The things you have picked up along the way are YOU, and your home should tell the story of your life.

Flipping through the new Elle Decor, I saw this ad.  To be honest, I have no idea if it is meant to be tongue in cheek, or what, but it struck me because I couldn't disagree more.  Redecorating does not mean getting rid of everything.

Redecorating means re-considering your favorite things, re-mixing them, and pairing them with some new purchases to create a whole new look.

I've been doing this in my house, rediscovering things I love that have been, inexplicably, sitting in the basement.  While it is fun to try on new trends, I know that the things I bought a decade ago that still look great to my eye are the things I truly love.

Mine include mid-century chinoiserie, rattan, embroidered textiles, block prints, metallics, text art, moroccan anything (but especially lanters), deco influences, and bamboo plant stands, among others.

What about you: what does your "old stuff" say about your taste?

P.S.  Don't forget to enter the Shabby Apple gift card giveaway.  Go here and follow the instructions.  You have until midnight tonight to enter.

Small measures

Source: gallery.apartmenttherapy.com via Heather on Pinterest

Source: isuwannee.com via Jackie on Pinterest

Source: friendsofthewestendparkatl.wordpress.com via Kiira on Pinterest

Source: indulgy.com via Hannah on Pinterest

At first, I will admit, I wasn't on board with the lantern cluster. But Lisa Sherry made me reconsider (second from top) with her elegant, neutral, and asymmetrical concoction. And for a kids room? Go over the top, with color, shape, and even birds.

Swan Corbels and a fireplace makeover

Hi friends.  Did you enter to win the $50 gift card from Shabby Apple?  Click on the original giveaway post here and scrolllllll down for directions.

I'm working on a fireplace re-design for a new client, with a tile facade that is an updated take on mission style.  Here's the vintage inspiration:

Source: redfin.com via Heather on Pinterest

We will do square tiles, possibly offset, that runs along the face and the hearth.  We are creating built-in shelves around the fireplace, but because the existing fireplace is set into the wall fairly flush, the shelves will essentially create a recessed fireplace.  Here's what we want to avoid:

Source: houzz.com via Heather on Pinterest

The fireplace just gets lost, and the mantel feels disconnected from the white built ins.

Instead, we will do shelves that are 12" deep, and for balance, we will do a mantel at the same depth, supported by simple decorative wood corbels.  I found this, which is almost exactly what I was picturing:

Source: dominiquesskincare.com via Heather on Pinterest

(except we are not working with such high ceilings, so no cabinet or arch at the top).  The tile we're using even looks similar.  So lovely, right?

Like so many other design elements, there are a million choices for corbels out there.  These things also get expensive, fast.  Because we want something simple, I am trying to keep it budget friendly, with a narrow bracket that will extend 2/3 of the way out the mantel.  Something like this:


$31 a piece, here.  Truth be told, I would like something a little fatter, but then the price leaps into the hundreds--for each corbel, and I think I need 5.  No dice.

While I was poking around the interwebs, I came across plenty of gorgeous specimens with all kinds of carving.  With all the animalia out there these days, I thought you guys would like to see this one:


here

Kinda makes me think of this table from Serena and Lily

Source: serenaandlily.com via Leina on Pinterest

Or these elephant console tables

Source: circawho.com via Gwynne on Pinterest

Or the rams head coffee tables that seem to be popping up all over.

Source: littlenudge.wordpress.com via Melissa on Pinterest

Have I ever mentioned that my mom had a swan-base coffee table with glass top in the late 80s? She did. And oh, did I love it.

If you want more fireplace reference, check out my pins here and here.

Mixing patterns like a pro

There have been some great tutorials around blogland recently, sharing some different tips and approaches for mixing patterns.

Nicole Balch mixes 27 patterns to perfection on Making it Lovely

Dina has a simple equation over at Honey + Fitz

Elle Decor mined their archive for great examples and asked top designers for their tricks.  Click here for the article and slide show.

Real Simple has a slide show, too, here.

But my very favorite tutorial is the video that Emily Henderson made and posted over on her blog.  She is adorable, and her information is good, easy to follow, and totally doable at home.

Watch and learn!

Oh, and I have a pinterest board called "pattern mix."  Check it out here.  If you are so inclined, you can follow all my boards here.

Last but certainly not least, don't forget the Shabby Apple giveaway.  Go to the original post here and follow the instructions at the bottom to be entered to win.

Heather

Ikea blunder

I was at Ikea yesterday, and asked one of the co-workers if the catalogs were out -- I had seen a PDF of the cover and wanted the featured chair for a client's living room.  The catalogs were not in the store yet (I got mine in the mail later yesterday--and promptly lost it), but the co-worker said. "ohhhh.....I don't think we're going to be carrying that chair."



Sure enough, it is a vintage Ikea chair "renewed" with some current pillows.

The co-worker, who shall remain nameless (mostly because I don't know his name), said "I really don't know why they did that.  I have a feeling it's going to cause some problems."  Feeling like I was the first of those problems, I said, "yeah, good luck with that," and away I went.

It is interesting to me that Ikea is in some way trying to own this notion of "refreshing," going so far as to showcase their own ikea hacks, such as the new pine dresser, "a fine, pine canvas," which reminds me of this beautiful project.

The catalog also shows an upholstered dresser using Ikea fabric.  Cute, right?

But to me, the interesting thing about Ikea hacks is the creativity of the people creating them.  Give us the canvas, let us paint, you know?  (Check out tons of ikea hacks here.)

And back to that cover:  we count on Ikea for inexpensive, short term, good looking refreshers.  Showing us those on a chair we CAN'T have?  Well, that's just a tease.

What do you think?

P.S.  To enter the giveawy for a $50 gift card at Shabby Apple, check out instructions and leave your comments on yesterday's post.  Giveaway is going on until Tuesday 8/7 at midnight.