Three Ways

Hello from NYC!

I'm feeling blessed to be here post-storm, for a beautiful weekend with friends and family.

Before I left home, I was digging through my photo archive for another post, and I came across these images of my living room three ways.  These were taken a LONG time ago, when I was experimenting with different art and accessory choices for an overall look/feel.  The room feels so unfinished to me now without curtains or some of the other layers that have emerged over time, but it's still fun to see how you can produce various vibes around one major piece, like our brown Bantam couch.

In the end, I'd say the living room has progressed in a more eclectic, sophisticated way, and looking back makes me love what it has become.

I think the lesson is that there's no "right" or "wrong," and playing around with all the pieces you have to work with can sometimes yield surprising results--or teach you what your style really looks like.

Am I alone in this?  Or do you play with your stuff this way, too?

Sneak peek

I've been working on my old bedroom at my parents' house in bits and pieces.  While it is not quite done (I need to sew the curtains and hang the art!), I'm getting impatient and showing you a peek.

Somehow, I don't have a good before picture.  (Well, without digging through my high school albums, anyway.)  My parents built the house in 1989-1990, and they let me decorate my room back then, too.  My 16 year-old self went peach and mint all the way, with matching custom chair, bedskirt, and shams in a very trendy abstract reminiscent of splatter paint.

Nice deco styling on the chair, no?  The wallpaper--an abstract tulip motif--was the same as my previous bedroom, but in a different colorway.  Over the years, random bits and pieces were added to update the space (and to fill the gaps when I inherited the armoire and headboard from the set in this room, which has been my parents in our old house.  Did you get all that?  You know, this headboard and that armoire.)  For example, my mom added bamboo side tables.

(Oh, you mean this bamboo side table?)  Apparently, if it weren't for awesome hand me downs, my house would be basically empty.

Anyway, we finally had the room painted last week, and here's where we are at.

(The carpet is eventually going.  Oh, and I blogged the chair transformation here.)  

Here is a progress shot with the new furniture and bedding but with the old wallpaper.  

Doesn't that deep wall color just make ALL the difference?

More details on the projects and sources if (when!!!) I ever finish.

Next week: more peeks, and a giveaway.

Enjoy your weekend!

Clutter, be gone!

There's nothing better than a skirted table to take your pantry from hot mess to hot stuff.

(Oh, man, did I just write that?  And am I going to leave it?  I guess I just did.)

I spent a chunk of Tuesday with a client working on some projects around the house, and I think we're both feeling good about the transformations.  Her older house has a great pantry, big and light filled, at the back of the house, visible from both the kitchen and the railroaded living room and dining room.  She installed an old Ikea table for some surface area, but underneath the table was a radiator and the typical recycling disaster.  (Minneapolis currently has SIX SEPARATE CATEGORIES of recycling, though I here this is changing soon.)

She actually saw this post and suggested we do something similar at her place, and she had a specific vision: polka dots.  We settled on this fun fabric (but in Navy), but when she went to pick it up they were plumb sold out.  Then I had a genius idea: why not use a shower curtain?  At 72" wide, they are much wider than a typical curtain panel and would allow us greater fullness without seaming a bunch of pieces together, and unlike raw fabric, several of the sides are already hemmed.  Plus, the nylon fabric is perfect for a food environment where it can be easily wiped down.

This was a no-sew solution.  We sliced the curtain horizontally across the middle and used hem tape (left over from Ikea curtains form my living room) to create rod pockets at the to hem the piece that had been the top of the curtain.  (If you chose a rod-pocket style instead of grommets, you could skip that step.)  A tension rod, and voila.

Super cute pantry.

As seen from the dining room.  (Where we hung a giant gallery wall of family photos.  The black frames echo the little skirt very nicely!)

Testing (a really big gallery wall)

Source: blogs.babble.com via Heather on Pinterest

One of the challenges when it comes to design is the inability to "see it."  Design is filled with leaps of faith: trusting that that little swatch of fabric will look good when applied to that (non-returnable) couch, that a big square of paint will translate to just the right feel you want in that room.  The list is endless!

Of course, there are ways to mock something up.  Wondering about scale?  Build a scale(ish) model out of cardboard to see how it feels in the space.  I once printed out a scale(ish) image of tile backsplash to see what it would look like with the repeat (which was larger than the sample.)

Right now I'm working on a really really big gallery wall.  Really big.  I feel like I can do these walls in my sleep (and love doing them), but when we are talking about over a hundred pieces to hang, you really want to think it through before you get out the hammer.


The wall is in a conference room that is 25 feet long, and to keep it from getting crazy we are filling a band about 4 feet wide that ends at table height.  The pictures are all old family photos, printed in black and white, a mix of candids and portraits.

Do we:

1. Use all the same size frames (anchored by a pair at each end), hung randomly?

2. Use all the same size frames, hung in loose columns

3. Mix in some double and triple mat frames, and hang them randomly

4. A mix of frames hung in loose columns.

I played around with these layouts to visualize my plan (these mockups only represent a 16'  wide wall--I ran out of space ont he page!).  To help the client "see it," I found some reference and pinned it.  Check it out here!

I have been working hard on projects, so stay tuned for some before and after, some how to, and a giveaway!

Thanks for reading,

Heather

Art to Benefit Sandy Relief

I love this movement of art for disaster relief--I feel like many artists are such humanitarians, it makes sense to me that art could contribute both directly and indirectly to the mitigation of troubled times. I always sort of wish I had one of the Milton Glaser I Heart NY More than Ever prints as a reminder/remembrance of 9/11. In this era of instant news and quick forgetting, there is something appealing to me about an artwork that reminds us of tragedy--both to keep us focused on gratefulness but also to keep us mindful or the sometimes surprising upside of difficult events: a sense of community, connectedness, or faith.

 After the Earthquake in Japan, there was this.

Already, there are two editions out with sales benefiting the relief effort.



Blue Marble, 20x200, buy here



Purchase here (NJ print also available)

Art to support the losses of the storm are especially poignant, considering this.
Somehow, I think it is the most unexpected, unpredictable losses that hit the hardest.

Aftermath

Have you been seeing photos of the aftermath of Sandy?  With many friends and family on the East coast, they are all over my Facebook feed, and many are heartbreaking.  All the photos of large, displaced items (boats, shipping containers, a shark!) get me the most: they demonstrate the power of the water, the randomness of the event.  I keep thinking of the movie Ponyo.  Isn't it funny how our brains work?

I've been thinking about disbelief.  Like when the tornado came to Minneapolis and I did not heed the sirens.  People who got stuck because they would not go.  And I have been thinking about loss, how we may be surprised by what we mourn afterwards.  Not too long ago, I stumbled upon this list from a woman who lost everything in a house fire.  What she most misses.  (Hint: it has nothing to do with money, everything to do with soul.)  When I think about what I would take, that old tale of the first things you would grab in a fire or flood, I'm sure they would not be the most meaningful.  They would just be the closest at hand.  What do I think I would want?  Is that even a useful exercise?

We forget, too, that after a natural disaster, there is work to be done.  We hear the phrase "The hard work of rebuilding," but if we are not rebuilding ourselves, personally, we forget.

Today, from the lucky comfort of my home office, planning for trick or treating, playing with fabrics for a client in New Jersey who has no power (but is otherwise okay), I will be thinking of  all the people trying to get the boats back in the water.

Sandy

andjelicaa instagram

I spent all day yesterday listening to storm coverage as if I still lived in NYC.  I couldn't help thinking that our old house in Brooklyn was in the flood plain--we were so close to the water that most insurers wouldn't take us on.  Hoping that all my former neighbors and all my friends and family who are currently in the storm's path are safe and sound.