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.

California Safari

If you know me at all you know how much I LOVE birthdays, not just mine, everyone's! That being said, naturally I am already considering what I want to do for mine (which is April 10, FYI) even though its months away. Unfortunately I find myself starting a lot of sentences like this but...if money and time were not an issue (ha!) I'd love to go to Coachella - the music festival in Indio, CA. This year it's April 16th-17th and while I look through their website every year I just discovered the amazing safari tents that they have available to stay in with every amenity and unlimited access to the whole festival for the weekend.

Ok, now I usually would be against staying in such swanky digs while at a music festival (sleeping in the back of my Volvo station when I went to Bonnaroo in college comes to mind) but how could you resist this?? Air conditioned safari tents with air conditioning, bathrooms, showers, breakfast, golf-cart shuttles, and more.

To be honest, I'd stay in one of these beautiful tents where ever it was! But the fact it's 1. in Southern California and 2. at Coachella is almost too much for me to handle!

How relaxing does this look??

Alright, so who wants to fund this trip for me? Just kidding...but a girl can dream!

Deck the Halls

Remember when you were little and you always got the BEST idea for your Halloween costume on November 1? Then you'd swear that's what you'd be next year but you'd always forget....that's how I felt when I saw the Christmas decorations at our house this year! So I thought I'd put them up not only to share with all of you but also so I can remember where I saved the pictures and then use them next year as inspiration. She worked with Kevin Reiner of Kevin Reiner Design in Columbus who helped her with re-doing the garden before my sister's wedding as well and the house looked so beautiful. Here are a couple pictures of what they did around the house using all plants, flowers, and vintage ornaments.
The pictures above and below use vintage ornaments that are a mixture - some my mom found at a consignment store and others she borrowed from Kevin. You can find very inexpensive ones on eBay or in any antique or consignment store. Then just use regular ornament hooks to make any light fixture look festive or just put them in bowls and vases around your house.


I think this one is my favorite, above they hung really small bud vases with satin ribbon and put red amaryllis in them. Also, once the red flowers had died my mom replaced them with white which was also really pretty and could easily be done any time of year without looking too holiday-ish.
Using matching ribbon to the hanging amaryllis there were small green bunches hanging from the sconces in the dining room too.


One thing this season I really fell in love with was using dried Magnolia leaves, which I also saw at Hudson. They had a whole garland and wreath there which I'm sure was very labor intensive but for an easier and quicker decoration just put them in a vase or bowl like above and they last a really long time too. Also, don't necessarily just have to be for holiday decorations.

Well, I obviously can't take credit for ANY of these ideas or designs but thought I could at least pass it along! Some good ideas to use next year...

Lost and Found

Happy Early New Year! I'm still home in the great state of Ohio and have been having such a good holiday season and hope you all are too. Karen (my mom) and I have had 2 great days of 'exploring' and it's been so much fun to spend time with her. Two days ago we went up to Powell, Ohio which is a smaller town just north of Columbus. There was the most beautiful store called Found that I fell in love with. They had the most amazing linens by Matouk that I plan on tracking down once I'm back in Boston because it turns out their factory store in is Fall River! Which is where my mom grew up. I didn't have a camera with me but snapped a few pictures on my phone so you can see how beautiful this store is. The space was amazing and I loved literally every single thing they carried from cocktail rings to the most beautiful black and white photography of Italy. Enjoy! And definitely visit if you're in the Columbus area.

The photo of the horses on this bedside table is by the same photographer featured throughout the store.

This was their apothecary table with all different vintage perfume bottles, bar soaps, and natural sponges.

This is the upstairs of the store, it was like a 2 level home and look at how beautiful the floor boards are.