I'm back!

Sorry for the not so brief hiatus, I guess I took a little un-announced summer vacation! That being said, I realized I hadn't shared a new place I fell absolutely in love with when I went down to Martha's Vineyard to see my parents while they were in town for a wedding. First of all, the Vineyard is one of my favorite places on the planet...specifically Chappaquiddick where our entire extended family has gone on vacation in years past. It's truly what vacation should be - cell phones don't work and the most dressed up I get is probably a t-shirt dress...if that. Here's the view from the house we usually stay in...

This summer though my trip down to the Vineyard was just for one night and I stayed in Edgartown at one of th emost charming hotels I've ever been to - The Charlotte Inn. Even their website is adorable...I love the line on the homepage - "Behind the times on purpose..."Then within the website they have an online brochure that is all illustrations of parts of the hotel from the check in desk to the patio dining.



Once we arrived I was in love. They have every corner of every room perfectly appointed with antique silver hand mirrors, umbrella stands, stacks of leather bound books, vintage telephones, and old bar sets with high-balls and decanters.
Here's my friend Sohee, who I went with, sitting in the "Green Room" while we waited for our room. I was in love with that horseshoe cocktail table.
This was the hallway upstairs outside our room. Don't you just want to live here?
This was in our room which had 2 adorable antique twin beds with summer quilts on them and then those 2 great club chairs.
My parents room had the best little kitchenette with an antique but functioning stove that fit just right with the cabinets and counter tops.

I was lucky my parents let me piggy-back on their trip because usually I'll take an inflatable mattress on the floor of anyone who will have me down to the Vineyard but if you have a change definitely swing by the Charlotte Inn even if it's just for a drink or dinner...you'll feel like you're in a completely different time.

Collaboration Celebration

I've noticed more and more collaborations that I've been loving - especially because for the most part they make something MORE affordable! Target comes to mind first as it seems like they're really pioneered this whole movement with designers like Zac Posen, Cynthia Vincent, and Rodarte to name a few recently.

Obviously paint has been top of mind and beyond the color I chose for my room I've been obsessing over all of Martha Stewart for Home Depot's colors...


I'm not usually very into light pinks, but I think this color (Ballet Slipper) would be so pretty for a Powder Room or maybe a big closet or dressing room (if you were lucky enough to have one!)

Another collaboration that I just came across was Mike Miller for West Elm. I first fell in love with Mike Miller's silhouettes through the John Derian website and have been pining away for one ever since - now they are in my reach! There's a whole serious of prints and pillows but I'm really loving the larger sized print - especially at a $79 price point for a framed print!


Last but certainly not least - I know it's not exactly news but I'm still obsessing over FENTONFALLON for JCrew. I drool over the cases with Fallon jewelry at Barney's and while the price-points haven't changed much they have edited their look a little to fit more into JCrew's repertoire - I mean, adding pearls to anything means it could be sold at JCrew I guess.

Painted Pretty

Were you all waiting with bated breath? I did it! I finally painted my room and love the color...I did end up going with Sharkey Gray by Martha Stewart and it came out so well! It's the first time I've painted myself and I must say I did a fine job. The best part was definitely that I think it looks really good with the things I already had in my room. I was looking to go with a little bit of a darker color since my bed is white I wanted it to pop off the wall more than it did in my older apartment where the walls were really light.

The other color I was considering was kind of like a coffee ice cream that I liked a lot but I wasn't wild about how it went with this print (above) which I adore. It's a print of the tall ships coming in to Boston harbor that my mom gave to my dad when they lived here in the seventies....and then I stole it!
Also, totally unplanned it matches this Gretchen Dow Simpson print I have of a bulding in Scranton (where I was born.) The mat on the print is almost th eexact color...I also like how the silver mercury glass lamp looks with the gray.
And my obsession with lucite is proven worthwhile again...because it goes with everything!

Movin' On Up

I must say I laughed out loud when I went to pick up the keys to my new apartment and the key-tag said "Penthouse"...is that what we're calling a 4th floor walk-up these days? I guess so! Well 13 hours, 4 movers, and countless boxes later we're all in. It was seriously like putting a ship in a bottle and letting it expand and now comes the fun part. It's a Boston apartment so it's old, or in real estate terms "has charm" and it definitely needs a little TLC so you're in luck - you just get to read about it while I do the work!

First order of business is painting, here's what my bedroom currently looks like (without furniture) so I'd like some suggestions on paint colors...





Hopefully I'm not crazy and you'll agree with me that you can't tell exactly what color it is. It's like a greyish tannish white? I also am pretty sure the walls are not all the same shade. To give you an idea what it needs to match here's the bedding I currently have.


So what do you think?? My bed is white so I don't want the walls to be too light because then you lose the the bed against them.

Thanks in advance for you help!!

Urban Showcase

I've seen this house rise from the ground up over the past year and it has honestly been nothing short of amazing. I live just behind it and I've got to say Bradford has become my favorite street in the South End, it's a perfect location without being too busy and I love all the houses on it. 44 Bradford Street is finally complete and now ready to be shown off.


...and not just shown off in an open house. Local Realtor, Ricardo Rodriguez, will be presenting the Urban Showcase - April 29-30, May 1-2, and May 6-9.
Each floor will be done by a different designer and put on show to benefit the Pine Street Inn ($10 Thursday/Friday, $20 Saturday/Sunday). Need even more reason to come? One of the floors will be done by Jonathan Adler! Other designers include Terrat Elms (known for designing The 1850, also in the South End), Dennis Duffy of Duffy Design Group (designed Rocca,) and Lisa Kreiling of LTK Interiors.


Here are a few previews of the designers, Jonathan Adler...a private residence on Shelter Island, via jonathanadler.com

Terrat Elms...a kitchen in the 1850 building, via terratelms.com

Duffy Design...great room in Concord, MA via duffydesigngroup.com.

LTK Interiors...living room in a Boston duplex via ltkinteriors.com.

Music for my Walls

Unfortunately I think when you mention concert posters a lot of people picture a velvet black light Pink Floyd poster or something equally offensive but one of my current obsessions is band and/or concert posters either vintage or orginial by some of the great print makers our there right now.

One of the best websites for them is Poster Cabaret where I actually picked up this Band of Horses poster as an engagement present for my sister and her husband because they went to see them for their first date.

It looks so good framed and I think it made a pretty good gift if I do say so myself.

The other one from Poster Cabaret I'm loving both because I love the band Stars and because I love the artwork is this one, which is by the artist The Small Stakes - definitely one of my favorites on the website.

One great find that I cannot take credit for is a Bob Dylan poster that came folded in his 1967 Greatest Hits LP that my sister bought for her husband Peter for Christmas one year. She got in eBay and then had it restored because it was worn from being folded up in a record sleeve for so long but it looks perfect now.

One of the great thing about concert posters is they tend to come in really standard sizes so its easy to find frames at Ikea or other big stores to fit them so you can save some money on custom matting and framing.

West, Collier West

(I was picturing that in a "Bond, James Bond" kind of voice) Suzi West, of Collier West - my favorite store in Columbus - was featured on Apartment Therapy for her amazingly cozy loft in Columbus. And while my desk still looks as atrocious as it did (see below) I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this! It's listed under Apartment Therapy's Chicago tab - See how chic the midwest can be??
I absolutely love this light fixture - aka 'branchelier' and it is actually on display in Hudson's front window right now (the Boston location.)
With less than 600 square feet you can see what a good job Suzi did of using space wisely because it looks much larger than that. I love the overlapping oriental rugs sprawling from the living into the bedroom.

Aparment Therapy notes that one way Suzi opens up the small space is by not using curtains to minimize the windows, but you can see she uses large mirrors too to make the space feel bigger.I think one of the smartest design tips in the article is "evaluate your life, how you spend your time and then build around that" which Suzi refers to when she explains why she didn't redo the kitchen - because she rarely eats in.

This is my favorite. I honestly can't decide what I like the best...the sign, the headboard, the bedding, the chandeliers, the chest. It's all amazing!

Extreme Makeover: Bed Edition

My adoring sister Katherine pointed out to me my lack of content recently and offered up her recent bedroom transformation for me to share with you, so here goes...


Our bed was in a sad, sad state. We had sheets that Peter bought a few years ago from Bed Bath and Beyond. Nothing wrong with them, but they were tan and drab and boring. I used to have really pretty blue and white toile Yves Delorme sheets, but when we joined forces we kept his
bed because it's a queen and my sheets didn't fit. Anyway, one of our cats, Henri, is fascinated with the process of making the bed. When I fluff up the comforter his pupils dilate and he jumps underneath, clawing his way in...resulting in some tears that have grown bigger, and bigger. Note my fine sewing skills to patch them up.




Anyway, we finally said enough is enough and bought new sheets. I decided to buy from Garnet Hill, I've owned several sets of their sheets before. They're good quality and very affordable. I chose Fiesta Percale for the duvet (blue sky) and fitted sheet (white), Signature Hemstitched Percale for the big pillowcases (white), and Everyday Percale for the regular pillowcases (lemongrass). All those items came to only $240 with shipping. Here's some before and after
pictures. The lemongrass color looks more yellow here, it's really more of a citrus green. And that brown quilt is from ABC Home, from a few years ago. And yes, that is Henri...ruling the roost.

Boys to Men

My sister, Katherine, was in Boston this weekend for a bachelorette party and they surprised the bride-to-be by 'renting' the house they all lived in during their years at BC from the kids that live there now. Good in theory, right? Reminiscing in their old house - this huge Victorian in Brighton that was the closest thing BC ever saw to a sorority house. Yea, good in theory.

They arrived to see this....


4 hours and 7 maids later it was as liveable as they were going to get it. Now I've seen a lot of bad apartments and houses through my four years at BC and various trips home to Ohio State houses on campus but nothing like this!

It got me thinking, and I couldn't think of many male-owned houses and apartments whose interiors I really admired. With the obvious exceptions...Johnathan Adler and Simon Doonan's Palm Beach house.

Nate Berkus's Chicago apartment...

So I did a little digging, and granted these are not your average men, look at some of the beautiful homes I found! Clearly designers and filmmakers and hair dressers already have a predisposition for beautiful things but these homes are still inhabited by the same sex that was inhabiting the aforementioned house - decorated with mostly just beer and dirt.

J. Mendel designer, Gilles Mendel's bedroom...


Lambertson Truex designers - Richard Lambertson and John Truex's dining room...


Frederic Fekkai's living room...


Filmmaker and directer Brett Ratner's living room...


Images via Elle Decor