Garden Styling

When we finish putting our stamp on the interior design of the home, we like to venture out to our gardens and enjoy a fresh breeze.  While nothing can compete with Mother Nature’s floral and green splendor, you can still style your garden furnishings to add that personal touch. 

In choosing your garden furniture, you don’t have to stick to the humdrum rattan chairs or worse, the cheap plastic furniture.  There are many choices to turn to and we chose some favorites here, what I call Parisian Chic and British Colonial.  

Paris is well known for cafes that line up wide boulevards. One can imagine a Parisienne bicycling up to one and meeting a friend for a croissant.  In our Parisian garden, we can enjoy our cafe on delicate iron cafe furniture from Evergreen with La Mer pillow and citrusy candleholders from Crate and Barrel. And for that special chic touch, an old-fashioned bicycle turned planter to display your blooms.

If you want a somewhat more formal garden look, take a look at our British Colonial garden. We chose the Ceylon armchairs from Ballard Designs, made of weather-resistant eucalyptus wood.  The floral Catana outdoor pillow is also from Ballard. We potted our plants in a crackle-finish blue ceramic planter from Evergreen. Instead of an ordinary side table, we used a garden stool, Cathay, in a Chinese porcelain style.

Interested in learning more about furniture and interior design? Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design.  At Sheffield, you will learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories.

How to Dress Up Your Walls - Part I

One of the first things I notice in homes when working on an interior design job is the artwork or lack of artwork on the walls. Usually there’s very little on the walls – just a lonely print or photograph and that’s it. I don’t know if it’s a tight budget, fear of making a mistake or just sheer laziness, but dressing up your wall can really be the easiest and most enjoyable way to establish a style in your home.  It could even be the least expensive way to liven up your interiors.

(photographs, courtesy of Sonic Editions & from left to right: Michael Ochs Archives, Peter Ruck, Michael Ochs Archives-next two, and McKeown) The first question I get usually asked is where does one start? That’s easy - usually I begin with what the client has.  This can also be the cheapest method.  I ask what kind of collections, hobbies, artwork, and photographs do they already have. Then I start nosing around in their photo albums, their closets, and their attics (with their permission, of course!)  to see what I can work with.  Sometimes a client can overlook what’s right under their nose. 

After I’ve evaluated the available art work and accessories, then I turn to creating possible themes.  Sometimes, by just looking at what the client has, I can figure out their interests.  It could be travel, which can be narrowed down to specific countries of the world; it could be animals, nature, sports, and so forth.  The third step is determining the mood they prefer – do they want formal, casual, rustic or sophisticated? After those three steps, then I really get down to work and plan out the walls. 

If a client has portrait photographs of friends and family, I start with those and create a story around them.  Above is a version of a photo wall in a formal and elegant mood.  To invoke an elegant style, I kept the photographs to black and white mode with simple frames and interspersed it with the sparkle of distressed mirrors to add dimensionality (Dubois mirrors from Crate and Barrel). The strong photos (limiting it to close-up portraits) and the beautiful mirrors create a strong statement to any room.

A more casual and relaxed approach is to create an asymmetrical wall with different shapes and sizes that are hung in a non-linear way. This technique is great for those odd shaped art work or accessories. Since many people usually have souvenirs lying around their homes from their vacations, travel can be a starting point for dressing up a wall. Above is an example of a travel theme – that of Spain. I started with a travel poster of Madrid and expanded from there. Spain is known for their beautiful tiles, a result of their Moorish history, and these tiles have such intricate designs that they can be hung like artwork instead of just using them for flooring. The final touch is the Marietta mirrors from Joss & Main with a shape reminiscent of Moorish tile work. The muted earth tone colors ties all the art and accessories together.

Stay tuned next time for further examples on how to dress up your walls!

Interested in learning more about accessorizing? Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design. At Sheffield, you'll learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories.

Designing for Small Spaces

(Bacall settee from One Kings Lane)Small spaces are challenging to decorate not just for homeowners but also for designers as well.  But I’ve always found that you can come up with the most interesting solutions without sacrificing style or comfort. It just requires an adjustment in scale and how you shop for furniture. 

First, eliminate those visions of sectionals and oversized couches.  While they’re great to lounge around on, they’re really meant for lofts or large houses. Instead envision settees, loveseats or sofas that are smaller in scale such as those here. Above is the Bacall settee, only 50” wide, great for those small living rooms.   

(Prescott coffee table from the Foundary) (Prescott table from the Foundary)Second, you should find furniture that does double duty or even triple duty.  For instance, the Prescott coffee table above has pull-out seating that also hides storage.  When not in use, the ottomans hide under the coffee table to become one compact piece. The Avery bed from Room and Board is a lovely platform bed with a hideaway drawer underneath to store away those thick comforters and extra sheets.

(Avery Bed from Room and Board)Another way to furnish a tight space is to lift the furniture off the floor and have them hang on the wall. If you need a desk, take a look at Prepac's floating wall desk.  With the advent of flat screens or laptops, you don’t need as much desk top. 

(Floating desk from Prepac)Also look out for furniture that can expand and contract to a small footprint.  The Span Gateleg dining table from Crate and Barrel is a great example of expanding furniture. When folded partially, you can use it as a desk and when you unfold it, you have a dining table for four people. It also folds completely to a small case that can be stored away if you don't need it.

 (Span Gateleg Dining table from Crate and Barrel)

Interested in learning more about space planning? Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design. At Sheffield, you'll learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories.

mood board: Tropical Style

As humidity and heat soared to tropical heights outside, I naturally turned to some indoor relief.  How can I enjoy the exoticness of the tropics without the wilting heat?  By doing a little tropical restyling of my interiors, of course!  Continuing our mood board series, this July we head south for our Tropical Style. 

When I imagine the tropics – I think of the Pacific islands of Fiji and Bali or Southeast Asia – Thailand, Burma and the Philippines. Furnishings tend to be simpler – natives use many of its native plants and trees to create their furniture, such as rattan, abaca, and bamboo. In contrast, many of the Southeast Asian countries were colonized by the French, British or Spanish and their influence is reflected in the heavier, yet sturdy wood furniture of mahogany, rubberwood, and teak. 

Our first mood board shows the tropical island theme: the tall peacock chair, called the Crinoline from B&B Italia, presides over a cocktail party. The bench is made of ebonized mountain pine from the Philippines and is available from Tucker Robbins. We also have a small side table called Driftwood Flats from Stanley, great for moving around the room and for serving food and drinks.

To complement the exotic tropical flowers throw some Thai-themed pillows from Koko on the bench for that pop of color. All plants are housed in rattan baskets from Crate and Barrel. For lighting, we have the Kata lantern made of walnut-stained bamboo from Oriental Furniture. 

Our second mood board above reflects the colonial influence in tropical countries.  The Fiji lounge chair from Padma’s Plantation is made from a combination of rattan, abaca, and tropical hardwoods.  The stool or accent table is from the Royal Kahala collection from Lexington and is made of bent rattan and coco shell.  Our desk – Poets Crossing from Lexington– is designed in the British campaign style with brass fittings.  To light the room, we have from Palecek the Ikebana Sphere lamp.  For the floor we have the rust Lotus rug from the Foundary, providing color and warmth to the dark wood furniture. 

Interested in learning how to create mood boards?  Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design.  At Sheffield, you will learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories.

Crate & Barrel Launches iPhone Wedding and Gift Registry App

If you're thinking of great wedding and event planning inspiration for this summer or early fall, look no further than 100 Layer Cake - one of our favorite wedding and event blogs. They cover a variety of weddings and feature top wedding vendors, from the best photographers to the best florists. The folks at "the Cake" are serious about showing us the latest wedding news, and they just tipped us off about a new bridal registry app.
 

Everything you love about the Crate & Barrel Wedding and Gift Registry, you know ... the scanning of your favorite items in-store and seeing which items have been purchased ... it’s now all manageable from your iPhone! Crate & Barrel recently launched their Wedding and Gift Registry App for iPhone, and it’s making life a whole lot easier. You can now view and add to your list anytime while on the go.
 

Fun features you can expect in the new mobile app:

* Create and edit your registry
* Scan barcodes in stores to add items
* See purchases made from your registry in real time
* Search products using voice command
* Find store locations, hours, and maps

Ready to check it out? Download the Crate & Barrel Wedding and Gift Registry App for iPhone now and get scanning!

Items Above: 1. Marimekko Pillow  2. Frida White Glasses  3. Max Pool Blue Dinnerware  4. Marimekko Napkins  5. Candleholders

Bonus

Click here to read Wedding Planning Basics: The Budget.

Thanks to 100 Layer Cake for their beautiful photographs, posts, and wedding and event inspiration. 100 Layer Cake is a unique, comprehensive wedding and event planning resource for and by thoughtful, crafty modern women. Their vendors, projects, weddings, resources, sponsors, and marketplace are hand-picked and thoroughly researched with the hope that every single one is a truly unique addition to both your wedding and your planning process. Visit the 100 Layer Cake website today.

If you're interested in learning more about wedding planning, we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

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