Design du Monde

I will be sending many of you emails in the coming days to announce the change of venue.

Design du Monde

I feel it is time to change my blog name. This one does not go with my focus on design.

Please visit me at DesignduMonde.blogspot.com for the ongoing dialogue on the World of Design and designing the World from my Virginia  home.

Paring down inspiration folders

Do you have inspiration folders that are specific to looks you want to recreate or that contain elements you would like in your home?

I'll show you a few of my inspiration images along with how they have turned up in my house.

I wanted the painting above to be in a casual family space in my house.

my house

Can you whittle down a massive folder of inspiration pics to one or two per room?

I absolutely had to pare down the inspiration and have one file of ideas I will use and another, massive file of images I really like.

Dining room inspiration #1

Dining room inspiration #2

The images I choose offer general style cues for me instead of an exact look to recreate.

My dining room

Most of my rooms are a work in progress. The dining room needs more on the walls and perhaps an artful setting to fit the look of the inspiration pics. My living room is waiting for items to arrive but in the mean time I have put together my inspiration for the room.

inspiration from Lonny

Lonny had a wonderful image of a bombe chest with a modern painting above. 

My bombe chest

My vignette will include the painting shown, above the chest flanked with Brno chairs.

My huge file of images is still a go to when I just can't think of a way to put something together.
Keeping these photos of other people's houses helps me to define what I like, love, and absolutely hate in decor.

Slowly but surely

Bit by bit, things are coming together. My dining room is mostly back together. 

The curtains are back and a few pictures hung.

There will be more on this wall. When I hung the mirror, the first time, the old and brittle wire snapped. It hit the chair rail knocking a hunk out and gouged the wall. Luckily I was standing there and caught it before it hit the floor and shattered entirely. The wall had to be painted a fifth time! 

I was thrilled that my pillows arrived for the family room and...

The walls really are pink

the living room.

The bombe chest arrives today and nearly a year (10 months actually) after moving in I feel like my spaces are closer to my goal.

The end is never really the end. I'll always be tweaking this and that but my goal was to have a cohesive look instead of a white box with furniture in it.

How long did it take you to decorate your current house?

rose-spiration

Finally, my living room is painted. I chose SW Faint Coral which is a barely there peachy pink. In fact, it so barely that it just looks off white in my photos. I am thrilled with the girliness of it as it is very unlike me to do a girly room. I'll post it once everything is in place, Brno chairs, painting, etc. Probably first week of December. Until then these pink pictures are wonderful inspiration.

Which is your favorite? Do you avoid pink in your decor?

OKL tastemaker tag sale

Did you go?

Did you buy anything?

Shhh.

I bought these.

I think I'm going to faint now.

Friday finds

HERE

It is no secret that I have a passion for collecting art. I love art of all kinds and I am looking to round out a staircase gallery wall and add a little zing to my traditional living room.

I just love the piece above and I almost bought it but I had committed to the one below and I've been getting a little crazy in the budget department. It is painted on glass--so cool.

my new painting

I just bought this one for a small space in my living room.

Check out these faves of mine from Etsy.

Elvia Perrin has lovely minimalist etchings and intaglio prints. Some are in the $25-$40 range so there is no excuse not to own original art.

Her work is high on my list of must-haves that I am staggering into a collection.

T Kafka

Tracey Kafka has quite a few abstracts in her Etsy shop that I would not mind owning, especially the one above. The whole shop is worth a look. Go check it out.

I also like Sarah Molyneaux's shop Oatmeal Arts for very afforable, original abstract art.

Happy Friday! I am off to the 6x6x6 art opening in Fredericksburg at Liberty Town Arts where I have three paintings in the show.

Fall mantel

This is my mantel decor--for now. I am sorry but I'm just not feeling the pumpkins and gourds this year.

On the far left is one of my favorite possessions with a story. My great-grandmother grew up in a small village outside of London at the turn of the century. Nearby was a hunting lodge, on the grounds of Swakeleys, that had been built by Queen Elizabeth I and my Granny was friends with the caretaker. During some renovations some sort of cupboard was exposed and that Jacobean candlestick was on it. It was a farewell gift to her upon her leaving for America to marry.

The plate was made by a friend of the family in a classic Japanese horse eye pattern. I love the crack in it.

The painting was an Etsy buy by fabulous artist, Sally Kelly.

I also have a vase of rhododendron braches and a landscape that I made the other day when I was bored. It is inspired by a drive in the country near Culpeper, Virginia

I think the pumpkins will have to reside on the front porch this year.

Reality

For design junkies like me, the drive to have a magazine perfect home is is a constant. Last week I was exhausted and feeling a bit sick. The dining room was painted but not reassembled and the adjoining living room was supposed to be emptied. Laundry piled up, dinner was ignored, and I did not vaccum everyday--horrors!
Over the weekend I felt a little better and decided not to do most of what was undone as just a check with myself about priorities.
And questions...
My loquacious two-year old often asks, "Are you happy?!" and before I can even register the query she chirps. " IIIIImmm happy!
When I walk into the house, through the  (pronounced GAYR-ahzh in my head) garage, I enter the TV/family/casual room. 

I am always put off when it is a giant mess of toys. And God help the soul who has eaten in there and left evidence.

In reality, I don't demand or expect perfection in my home. I have enough space to create formal and loosely, conceptual spaces as well as functional, family spaces that do not completely sacrifice looks.
If I only had furniture to choose in life it might all be lucite and silk covered settees.

Luckily, I get to choose little and my life is blessed with children and that is the function that Mama's form must follow.

My point is that as much as I crave a perfect home to look at, I have a better home to live in because I push aside the crazed neat freak that is not a fun person to live with and hope no one rings the doorbell.

Bored?

Try this quiz on architectural styles from the Washington Post.

Friday finds

My early morning blog reading lead me to these charming bamboo tables on the Etsy shop Tweaked Home.

I might have to have these but I try not to shop before 7 am.

At $15, this tray needs to be revisited after coffee.

I don't know where I would use something like this chair but it reminds me of a vintage Lilly Pulitzer dress and of Summer that has sadly slipped away.

Living rooms to love

Yum pink!

I am in a living room state of mind since I'm ready to jump headlong into finishing my own.

Here the symmetry and eclecticism speaks to me. Love the sculpture and Barcelona ottomans.

I am not loving this furniture but the grand painting and the interesting panels on either side of the fireplace.

The persimmon fabrics against a neutral background are a fabulous look. Its a very un-Halloween orange and black combo.

sneak peek

We are finished painting the dining room --YAY!

It sucked in such horrible ways. If you enlarge the photo above you will see the painter's tape yet to be removed behind my antique chandelier, that I adore.

It beats the hell out of this boring thing

The walls are not what I had hoped. I wished for a lacquered look but got glossy paint with orange peel texture due to a bit of bad information. It all works because my inspiration photo (below) includes oodles of pictures, prints and paintings in frames.

I am totally covering as much as I can with stuff. Good stuff.

Stay tuned.. Dining room out of commission for living room paint job.

This is my liv room moodboard with the "dragonfly" chair's new fabric as a background. The wall color has changed to SW Faint Coral  (from the one pictured inthe moodboard) and the coffee table is still undetermined. Lucite...somewhere.

I have purchased the Bombe chest and wish to put a pair of modern vases or tiny lamps to complement the painting to be announced by an artist you all know!!!

Thinking rust colored silk curtains to shout "Hooray" next to all of that ivory, black, and pinky peach.

Yes?????
Anyone, anyone?

Decorating with books

I know negative sounding posts can be an annoying read, so I'll try to stay positive after saying, "I'm just not feeling the trend toward color coordinated book displays."

The internet is certainly useful when needing quick answers but nothing replaces the feel of a real live book and speedy, digital practicality aside, I like to be able to quickly and surely find a book by the writing on its spine.

Perhaps a small vignette on a side table, to lend substance and height and complete a color story.

I have this many books but doubt I could sort them in such even quantities of color

I like my books to have a more organically collected appearance, perhaps because they were.

The most lovely to me is the haphazard collection mixed with objets, photos, and souveniers in a slightly messy array.

Oh well, guess I'm old-fashioned that way.

"The best decoration in the world is a roomful of books" - Billy Baldwin