WOW: Marie Hines

I am so amazed right now & totally tearing up.  I just got a supersweet email from singer/ songwriter Marie Hines about her latest song/ video from "Better From the Living Room Sessions" and I clicked on her link to see the video.

{Marie, if you're reading this, I'll be honest, I really had no idea what to expect.}

But I was blown away.  Really blown away.  I definitely teared up.  She has such an incedibly beautiful voice, IS so incredibly beautiful, and you can just see that she is seriously passionate about what she does.  I'm instantly a new fan & wanted to share it on the blog because I thought you might enjoy her songs too:

http://www.mariehines.com/

Marie decorated her living room featured in the videos herself & styled it beautifully with a million candles.  You'll love it.

Thanks so much to Marie for sharing & you have got it GOIN on!!!




If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

WOW: Marie Hines

I am so amazed right now & totally tearing up.  I just got a supersweet email from singer/ songwriter Marie Hines about her latest song/ video from "Better From the Living Room Sessions" and I clicked on her link to see the video.

{Marie, if you're reading this, I'll be honest, I really had no idea what to expect.}

But I was blown away.  Really blown away.  I definitely teared up.  She has such an incedibly beautiful voice, IS so incredibly beautiful, and you can just see that she is seriously passionate about what she does.  I'm instantly a new fan & wanted to share it on the blog because I thought you might enjoy her songs too:

http://www.mariehines.com/

Marie decorated her living room featured in the videos herself & styled it beautifully with a million candles.  You'll love it.

Thanks so much to Marie for sharing & you have got it GOIN on!!!




If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Casual-Cool "Love" Rooms

This house stopped my in my tracks when I saw it in Elle Decor.  (Back in March of '09!)  It's a 1927 redone Hollywood house that was once owned by Ingrid Bergman that now belongs to director & producer Brett Ratner. (To read the full article, go here.)

{Brett Ratner's House in Hollywood, featured in Elle Decor.  Designed by the renowned Waldo Fernandez}

The laid-back house hosts great parties & is masculine and natural.  I love its collected feel (this is almost a characteristic in my favorite spaces) and the mix of vintage & traditional pieces.  The house has such a palpable sense of place and some serious vibes.  I'd love to live somewhere like this one day.

And I must think about this window at least once a month:

{Perfection }

I'm working on a project right now & I was thrilled when my client sent over this apartment as inspiration:

{Design by Brad Ford I.D. featured in Lonny}

There's nothing better when a client pulls inspiration photos from some of your favorite magazine articles.  The ones you've poured over.

This kitchen by Peter Dunham fits right in:

{by Peter Dunham featured in House Beautiful}

I love this shot of the bowl of clementines:

{Peter Dunham}

And here's another favorite.  I want this:

It's such a practical set up with there being two tables and a little space to slide in between so no one has to scoot a mile to get to the center of the other side.  (The eating areas in my home are fairly small and I imagine I'll do something similar to this in our dining room one day to accomodate us a bit better.)

I'm so excited about the design I've been working on for this client.  It's a casual-feeling mix of modern & vintage pieces with a scultptural vibe.  The space itself is light & airy & interesting.  I can't wait to see it through!!

I'm off to work but have a great day!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Casual-Cool "Love" Rooms

This house stopped my in my tracks when I saw it in Elle Decor.  (Back in March of '09!)  It's a 1927 redone Hollywood house that was once owned by Ingrid Bergman that now belongs to director & producer Brett Ratner. (To read the full article, go here.)

{Brett Ratner's House in Hollywood, featured in Elle Decor.  Designed by the renowned Waldo Fernandez}

The laid-back house hosts great parties & is masculine and natural.  I love its collected feel (this is almost a characteristic in my favorite spaces) and the mix of vintage & traditional pieces.  The house has such a palpable sense of place and some serious vibes.  I'd love to live somewhere like this one day.

And I must think about this window at least once a month:

{Perfection }

I'm working on a project right now & I was thrilled when my client sent over this apartment as inspiration:

{Design by Brad Ford I.D. featured in Lonny}

There's nothing better when a client pulls inspiration photos from some of your favorite magazine articles.  The ones you've poured over.

This kitchen by Peter Dunham fits right in:

{by Peter Dunham featured in House Beautiful}

I love this shot of the bowl of clementines:

{Peter Dunham}

And here's another favorite.  I want this:

It's such a practical set up with there being two tables and a little space to slide in between so no one has to scoot a mile to get to the center of the other side.  (The eating areas in my home are fairly small and I imagine I'll do something similar to this in our dining room one day to accomodate us a bit better.)

I'm so excited about the design I've been working on for this client.  It's a casual-feeling mix of modern & vintage pieces with a scultptural vibe.  The space itself is light & airy & interesting.  I can't wait to see it through!!

I'm off to work but have a great day!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

New Irregular Blog Series: "Love" Houses

If you've been following this blog for a while, you might have picked up that I'm not very good with doing regular blog series.  (And if you're new, well, I'm not good with doing regular blog series.)  I like to write about what floats my boat on any given day, so I'm better with irregular posts.  BUT in my mind I like to have some sort of organization so one of the new irregular series I'll be doing around here will be "Love" Houses.  These are the houses that have been featured in magazines or online that I just can't get over.  The articles I go back to for staring at time and time again.  The ones that I feel disappointed about when the text runs out.  The ones that get me dreaming & excited.  Some are old, some are new, but these houses are my favorite and go in the "love" pile and I thought it might be fun to share some of them on the blog.

My first favorite house/ estate is called Cherryfilelds (yes, it has a name :)  and belongs to John Dransfield and Geoffrey Ross (of Dransfield & Ross) and was featured in Elle Decor's July/ August 2010 issue.  Text is by Peter Tersian.  Photography is by Simon Upton & it was styled by Carlos Mota.

{I dream of having a massive living toom large enough for multiple interesting groupings.}

Dranfield & Ross actually traded for this house with its owner, Nancy Pine AKA "Princess" (an "outrageous" fabulous widow in her 80s.)   They foudn the house but it wasn't on the market.  They would stalk the house until they finally made an appointment to meet with Princess.  "They made a deal on the spot" and just needed to wait until Princess could find a house to move to.  They waited months while she searched and finally she asked them what type of house they had.  It was an 1806 farmhouse and they ended up swapping houses.  They think of her as their Auntie Mame and she visits when they're out, leaving notes.   My favorite part is that Princess says "The best time to visit someone is when they're not at home."   

"The building is long & rambling but it's only one room deep, so all the major rooms have light on both north and south sides."---- ummm, a-mazing. 

{You know I loooove these pools}

I love the conservatory-feel in some of the rooms:

{love their pup!}

...And find myself more & more drawn to black.

Light & airy yet dramatic at the same time:

I love that the house has a combination of airy rooms & moodier rooms. 

The kitchen is so charming.  Again, it's got that fresh-deep thing going on that I love.

I love this shot of the butler's pantry: 

{Heaven}

Everything feels so authentic & collected.  It feels carefree & relaxed yet elegant.  It's a laid-back formality that's really refreshing.  I just want to be there when Iook at the pictures.

You can view the article online at Elle Decor here and I'll be posting more "Love" houses every now & then!

I'm off for the day, but hope you had a great weekend!!  Only a couple more weeks until school's out for the summer & I can't wait!!! (my husband's a teacher)  I have the window open right now & have to be honest that I'm finding it harder & harder to buckle down in the office.  Outside's calling!!  eeeeeeeeeeek

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

New Irregular Blog Series: "Love" Houses

If you've been following this blog for a while, you might have picked up that I'm not very good with doing regular blog series.  (And if you're new, well, I'm not good with doing regular blog series.)  I like to write about what floats my boat on any given day, so I'm better with irregular posts.  BUT in my mind I like to have some sort of organization so one of the new irregular series I'll be doing around here will be "Love" Houses.  These are the houses that have been featured in magazines or online that I just can't get over.  The articles I go back to for staring at time and time again.  The ones that I feel disappointed about when the text runs out.  The ones that get me dreaming & excited.  Some are old, some are new, but these houses are my favorite and go in the "love" pile and I thought it might be fun to share some of them on the blog.

My first favorite house/ estate is called Cherryfilelds (yes, it has a name :)  and belongs to John Dransfield and Geoffrey Ross (of Dransfield & Ross) and was featured in Elle Decor's July/ August 2010 issue.  Text is by Peter Tersian.  Photography is by Simon Upton & it was styled by Carlos Mota.

{I dream of having a massive living toom large enough for multiple interesting groupings.}

Dranfield & Ross actually traded for this house with its owner, Nancy Pine AKA "Princess" (an "outrageous" fabulous widow in her 80s.)   They foudn the house but it wasn't on the market.  They would stalk the house until they finally made an appointment to meet with Princess.  "They made a deal on the spot" and just needed to wait until Princess could find a house to move to.  They waited months while she searched and finally she asked them what type of house they had.  It was an 1806 farmhouse and they ended up swapping houses.  They think of her as their Auntie Mame and she visits when they're out, leaving notes.   My favorite part is that Princess says "The best time to visit someone is when they're not at home."   

"The building is long & rambling but it's only one room deep, so all the major rooms have light on both north and south sides."---- ummm, a-mazing. 

{You know I loooove these pools}

I love the conservatory-feel in some of the rooms:

{love their pup!}

...And find myself more & more drawn to black.

Light & airy yet dramatic at the same time:

I love that the house has a combination of airy rooms & moodier rooms. 

The kitchen is so charming.  Again, it's got that fresh-deep thing going on that I love.

I love this shot of the butler's pantry: 

{Heaven}

Everything feels so authentic & collected.  It feels carefree & relaxed yet elegant.  It's a laid-back formality that's really refreshing.  I just want to be there when Iook at the pictures.

You can view the article online at Elle Decor here and I'll be posting more "Love" houses every now & then!

I'm off for the day, but hope you had a great weekend!!  Only a couple more weeks until school's out for the summer & I can't wait!!! (my husband's a teacher)  I have the window open right now & have to be honest that I'm finding it harder & harder to buckle down in the office.  Outside's calling!!  eeeeeeeeeeek

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Pure Style Project #9: How To Make Wax Drip Candle Covers for Your Chandelier

Hope you had a great weekend!  We painted the nursery, organized it (finally!) & I started hanging things on the walls.  wahooo!!  Our washing machine broke and our house got so trashed from working on the nursery and neglecting everything else,  that we decided to head over to my parents' house and do laundry & order pizza & watch movies Saturday night.  They'd gone out for the night so we got to relax in their newly finished basement (redone after the flood.) (For those of you who haven't been reading this blog since the beginning, Dave & I had moved into my parents' last year to save up for this house.  It was one of the best things we ever did, although at the time it seemed like an eternity.)  It was cool to be back in our old "home" (the basement) Saturday night and remember all of our saving & dreaming & planning for a new house and to realize that we were there.   

Also, I've decided that because so many of our projects are decorating-related and not necessarily organization projects, I'll include both.  (BecausetTicking stuff off of my "to do" list gets me more organized even if it is purely decor-related.)

For this week's project I wanted to share with you the wax drip candle covers we made.  The stark white candle covers always bothered me on our old chandelier.  (We'd had to rewire it and replace the old damaged candle covers that were oroginal to it.)  I wanted pretty wax drip candle covers. 

So we made glue drips down the sides of the 30 cent plastic covers with Elmer's Glue.  I let a layer of drips dry before starting another one.  Here's the first layer (below).  Just start at the top with a glob of glue and let it drip down.  (As you can see from the pics it was a learning process.)  And use something better than a paper towel as the surface...  it sticks to the candles.  ;)

Once they'd dried and I had enough layers, I painted them with a cream paint we had lying around:

Here's a close-up:

I'm really way more into the orangey-aged color of the one wax drip candle cover below on the left (It adds so much to a chandelier) but I didn't have the right paint lying around. 

 So here they are for now & when I get the chance, I'll be recoating in a more orangey paint & antiquing:

But so much better for now.  (At least I don't cringe when people look up & examine my poor chandy or I put pics up on the blog.)  So if you have any chandeliers that are in need of new wax drips, please join in and link up!!  

xoxo,

lauren

ps-  This project's at your own risk.  I didn't use heat resistant paint, which I'm sure would be the smartest thing to do...  We checked our covers (prior to painting) and they don't get warm so we went for it, but that's up to you.  :)

On a Crafty Scale, I'm probably above-average for normal people but below-average or average for crafty bloggers/ blog readers/ DIYers.  I get very impatient & sloppy and like quick & easy projects.  This was sooo easy.   

*update -  also I didn't come up with this myself-- I think I must've read it in a magazine a few years ago**  :)

Pure Style Project #9: How To Make Wax Drip Candle Covers for Your Chandelier

Hope you had a great weekend!  We painted the nursery, organized it (finally!) & I started hanging things on the walls.  wahooo!!  Our washing machine broke and our house got so trashed from working on the nursery and neglecting everything else,  that we decided to head over to my parents' house and do laundry & order pizza & watch movies Saturday night.  They'd gone out for the night so we got to relax in their newly finished basement (redone after the flood.) (For those of you who haven't been reading this blog since the beginning, Dave & I had moved into my parents' last year to save up for this house.  It was one of the best things we ever did, although at the time it seemed like an eternity.)  It was cool to be back in our old "home" (the basement) Saturday night and remember all of our saving & dreaming & planning for a new house and to realize that we were there.   

Also, I've decided that because so many of our projects are decorating-related and not necessarily organization projects, I'll include both.  (BecausetTicking stuff off of my "to do" list gets me more organized even if it is purely decor-related.)

For this week's project I wanted to share with you the wax drip candle covers we made.  The stark white candle covers always bothered me on our old chandelier.  (We'd had to rewire it and replace the old damaged candle covers that were oroginal to it.)  I wanted pretty wax drip candle covers. 

So we made glue drips down the sides of the 30 cent plastic covers with Elmer's Glue.  I let a layer of drips dry before starting another one.  Here's the first layer (below).  Just start at the top with a glob of glue and let it drip down.  (As you can see from the pics it was a learning process.)  And use something better than a paper towel as the surface...  it sticks to the candles.  ;)

Once they'd dried and I had enough layers, I painted them with a cream paint we had lying around:

Here's a close-up:

I'm really way more into the orangey-aged color of the one wax drip candle cover below on the left (It adds so much to a chandelier) but I didn't have the right paint lying around. 

 So here they are for now & when I get the chance, I'll be recoating in a more orangey paint & antiquing:

But so much better for now.  (At least I don't cringe when people look up & examine my poor chandy or I put pics up on the blog.)  So if you have any chandeliers that are in need of new wax drips, please join in and link up!!  

xoxo,

lauren

ps-  This project's at your own risk.  I didn't use heat resistant paint, which I'm sure would be the smartest thing to do...  We checked our covers (prior to painting) and they don't get warm so we went for it, but that's up to you.  :)

On a Crafty Scale, I'm probably above-average for normal people but below-average or average for crafty bloggers/ blog readers/ DIYers.  I get very impatient & sloppy and like quick & easy projects.  This was sooo easy.   

*update -  also I didn't come up with this myself-- I think I must've read it in a magazine a few years ago**  :)