Verandah Days

Enjoy!

Image 1 - Stuart Membery Image 2 - Emily Jenkins Followill Images 3&6 - Unknown Images 4&5 - House & Leisure   

Fabulous Room Friday 09.30.11

I think this space may have pulled me out of my recent indifference for the majority of the interiors I’ve seen as of late. The space is part of the living room in Veranda’s recent “House of Windsor” and it is nothing short of stunning. I love the gorgeous windows and abundance of light. While the space above is just a small portion of the overall room, it is definitely more than enough for me! The minimal color palette of rich chocolate and gold is perfect against the whitewashed floors and walls. The room, from what I can tell in this image, has just the right amount of “stuff”—it is neither cluttered nor sparse. The real stars of the show are the gorgeous vintage chairs! Does anyone know what this particular chair design is called? I would love to have some one day. Can you imagine how glamorous a dining room would look with a set of these beauties?

{This is the overall living room, in case you were wondering what the full space looks like.}

Fabian and I are off to Austin tomorrow for our friend’s 30th birthday. We’re heading to the Texas Wine Country to celebrate. It’s not Napa, but it’s sure to be fun. Happy weekend!

{Image Source: Veranda Magazine}

A Big Art

Big and beautiful!

Image 1 - House & Garden Image 2 - Brie Williams Image 3 - Country Living Image 4 - Tria Giovan Image 5 - Country Homes & Interiors Image 6 - Lonny Magazine

Love .... Bedside Flowers

Image 1 - House Beautiful Image 2 - Tobi Fairley Interior Design Image 3 - Country Homes & Interiors Image 4 - Lu Jeffery Image 5 - Unknown Image 6 - Country Living

glass... shimmery shiny gorgeous glass....

Provence is resplendent with home-wares....the  côté sud kind....the grey/beige, linen, cotton look that has become a design style of the south. The natural hues work here and I think that is because the exteriors are powerful...the Provencal landscape is strong, beautiful and distinctive. Inside I seek calm away from this bold and arresting landscape.

Glassware is the other decorative element that goes hand in hand with the côté sud look. I don't think I thought much about glass before Provence but in the last twelve years I have become very fond of it in every shape and form. Very pretty glassware is sold in the local boutiques and there are many vintage pieces to be found in the weekly brocantes. Glassware dresses up our interiors....especially on table settings where the light bounces and plays with the surface.

Glass is everywhere in our home....The entrance hall has four oversized glass cylinders that are always alight with candles in the evening...The sitting room has glass bell jars as a centrepiece on the coffee table...The dining room has a pair of glass vases that hold fruit from the orchard or mercury glass boules.... And as for Christmas...I think that is best described as glass fever.....I serve our summer salads in oversized glass bowls and we eat ice-cream from old champagne glasses....

It would seem that I have an obsession......xv

my daily click HERE

image - vicki archer

Do Tell: What do you collect?

I am not a big fan of tchotchkes or clutter, but I am a very sentimental person and give certain items sentimental value. I can’t really say that I collect anything at all, unless you count the piles of design books in my home. I would really like to start a tradition of bringing home something special each time Fabian and I go on a trip. We’ve brought home mementos from all of the trips we’ve taken together, but they don’t really fall into the same category. We’re going to Spain in November to celebrate my 30th birthday and I’m hoping to have a good idea of what to bring home to start a collection of sorts.

Do tell—do you collect anything? Modern art, gorgeous Waylande Gregory pottery (I’d love to start collecting this!), Hermès Birkin bags à la Victoria Beckham, little Eiffel Towers like Suzanne Kasler in the photo above? What do you currently collect? Is there something you’d like to start collecting?

{Image via Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles}

Currently Loving: Glamorous Lighting

One of the big perks of being Director of Marketing at Visual Comfort is that I get to feed my love of good design and my addiction to beautiful lighting every day that I am at the office. I am currently obsessed with our Trillion Flush Mount designed by Joe Nye and the Sunset Plaza Sconces designed by Barbara Barry. They would each be perfect in just about any room, together or on their own. What better way to greet your guests with a major dose of glamour than to design an entryway around them? I did just that in the image above. I’ve paired the Trillion and a pair of the Sunset Plaza Sconces with the Bennett Console by Cottage Style Furniture, Shelby Mirror in Gold Leaf, Kindel’s Serafina Side Chair, and a Plum Koniya Rug by Madeline Weinrib.

 

{Trillion Flush Mount in Crystal and Hand-Rubbed Antique Brass by Joe Nye for Visual Comfort – Available through Circa Lighting—The Trillion is also available in Polished Nickel.}

{The Sunset Plaza Sconce by Barbara Barry for Visual Comfort, shown here in Soft Silver with Ivory Pleated Silk Shade is also available in Bronze with Ivory Silk Shade.}

{I also love this gorgeous finish combination on the Sunset Plaza. This combines a black metal frame with Soft Silver mirrored backplate and a Gray Pleated Silk Shade. The combination is the embodiment of Hollywood Glamour meets Parisian Chic!}

Shelf Image

Beautiful shelves maketh the room!

Image 1 - House & Leisure Image 2 - Samantha Pynn Image 3 - Unknown Image 4 - Elle Decor Image 5 - Pia Ulin Image 6 - Dabble Magazine

Love .... Mirrors, Mirrors, Mirrors

Image 1 - Brian Bieder Image 2 - House & Leisure Image 3 - Lonny Magazine Images 4&5 -Unknown Image 6 - Country Homes & Interiors

Style Profile: Summer Thornton

Summer Thornton is one of my favorite young designers. She has such a knack for creating luxurious spaces, blending rich colors and textures with bold patterns and classic silhouettes. Her designs infuse high-end interiors with modern elegance and a major dose of glamour. Based in Chicago, Summer has completed projects across the nation. After honing her design skills working at a high-end European textile company as well as working with several other interior designers, Summer decided to go into business for herself and founded her design firm in 2007.

One of the things I love most about Summer’s work is the fact that the spaces she designs are completely chic and luxurious, yet I don’t find them to be reflective of any specific age group. They don’t feel too young or too stuffy which is one of the defining marks of a well-designed home. I recently had the opportunity to visit with Summer about her work, inspiration, and her recently revamped website. Be sure to visit for an in-depth look at her gorgeous work. Her words of advice in her “About” section are priceless: “Reference the past, don’t repeat it. More is more. Use patterns and colors recklessly.”—I couldn’t agree more!

La Dolce Vita: What inspired you to begin your career in interior design?

Summer Thornton: Looking back it seems rather obvious that I would end up doing interior design.  I can still remember picking out my own wallpaper for my bedroom as a very young child, I was always fascinated by pretty restaurants & light fixtures, and unique furnishings, and I always loved helping my mom with our family home.  But it never really dawned on me that I could make a living appreciating, collecting, and designing those beautiful things until I was in college.

LDV: What do you love most about your profession?

SD: Where else can you get paid to shop with someone else's money?  I'm not sure what could be more fun than that.  Ha.  But actually my favorite part of the job is being able to create, to stretch my mind with new color combinations, new patterns, new textures, and weave them all together into a cohesive and stimulating final product.  My favorite days are the days where I get to just purely think of new design plans/ideas, and the days where we actually install and complete those plans - the first is where I see it in my head, and the latter is where it actually becomes a reality and everyone else can see it the way I envisioned it.

LDV: How would you describe your style?

ST: This is probably the toughest question to answer for me.  Part of my design sensibilities are to never do the same thing twice and to have every project look unlike any other that I've done before, so pinpointing a particular style is tough.  I really love being able to provide a range of different aesthetics - that's what keeps my interest and allows me to feel challenged.

One way that I tend to describe my style is "cultured irreverence".  To me that's a matter of understanding the prestige of certain pieces, knowing the 'rules' of period and style and color, but intentionally breaking those rules so as to create tension and modernity.  It's about being comfortable enough with who you are to place a $10 flea market find on top of a fine antique, or to mix traditionally 'clashing' colors or competing patterns in the same room.  Together they give a home more personality, intrigue, and unpretentiousness while still feeling chic and luxurious.  All in all, my style is about beauty and a little bit of glamour without taking oneself or their home too seriously.

With that said, my style does have a few general tendencies.  Oftentimes I use traditional shapes or architecture, particularly those with influences from France, and I contrast it with more modern patterns.  My designs are typically a bit towards the glamorous side - I love deco.  And I'm absolutely a maximalist...that whole 'less is more' thing has never resonated with me.

 

LDV: Who are your style icons?

ST: In terms of interiors, I always appreciate the work of Miles Redd, Todd Romano, and Kelly Wearstler.  But oftentimes I find my style inspiration outside of the interiors world.  Tom Ford, Grace Coddington, Karl Lagerfeld, and Tracy Reese come to mind. 

LDV: Where do you turn for inspiration?

ST: Oftentimes my inspiration comes from editorial and fashion photography.  I'm an avid magazine reader and pull inspiration from Vogue, the World of Interiors, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest and House Beautiful pretty regularly.  Of course I love blogs too - there are too many good ones to mention them individually but I've got a list on my site of a few of my favorites.

With that said, I'd say the majority of my inspiration comes from travel.  This year I traveled to Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) and Prague.  The year prior was France and Italy. Before that was India.  Those deep immersions into other cultures, customs, and aesthetics really stretches my imagination.  And as much as I hate to say it, I think there's a greater appreciation for creativity, aesthetic, and impracticalities oftentimes in Europe than there is here in the states.

LDV: Which celebrity would you most love to design a home for?

ST: I'm not sure if she's a 'celebrity' in the traditional sense, but Grace Coddington, the Photo Director of Vogue magazine has been an inspiration to me for many years.  She's a visionary, she loves romanticism and etherealism but also understands pop and modernity.  I envision her home as an enchanted forest with lace and patina and unkempt wildness but contrasted with hyper-saturated colors and quirky shapes.  Call it granny-chic meets pop.

I've also thought it would be great to design for Rachel Zoe.  She throws caution to the wind, is a 'more is more' kind of gal with her fashions, and we both say 'Major'...though I can honestly say I was saying it before her, ha.  But I'd particularly love to design a home for her because I feel like her homes don't reflect her true lifestyle or design sensibilities.  They're sleek, modern, simplistic...but her life and her fashion tendencies don't seem to match that in my opinion.

For more of Summer Thornton’s stunning design work, be sure to visit her freshly revamped website!

poker straight....

And I don't mean 'four of a kind' or 'straight flush' poker straight. I am thinking about the hair kind that seems to be in all the magazines this season......The very straight, no kinks, waves or curls, kind of hair that hangs curtain-like without movement or volume. Think Gwyneth Paltrow style locks...

I did love this style of 'hair' and the truth is I have spent my life straightening, binding, pulling, ironing, ghd-ing my naturally wavy locks into submission....I have lived in 'hair prison' for as long as I care to remember and will no doubt continue to do so....I like groomed hair and I don't feel 'dressed' without it...A professional blow-dry is the best value of all for me...forget that it takes an hour out of the day or that it costs...it is worth every penny to have my locks tamed and looking reasonable. If the hair is looking good then all is well with the world....that's my mantra....

But I have noticed a little bend, a little volume, a little movement has found it's way back into my hair. Age has dealt me a cruel blow....poker straight doesn't work for me anymore....quelle horreur...poker straight makes me look like a drowned rat, a sad sack, a horror....I need the softness and the luxury of hair around my not-30-something-year-old face.....I still wear it straight but it can't be so straight that I look like I am wearing some kind of swimming cap with hair extensions...I have become one of those women who seek 'volume'....just writing it gives me a fright, puts me in a veritable crise...How did that happen? My mother and her pals were the 'volume' seekers...the added roller here and there to up the ante.....a big night out meant an extra lift, a round of teasing.....Hair nets were the hair saviours of their generation....Have I become my mother? I guess so....we all do...and I am happy about that...but it just seems to have happened without me realising....Maybe there is such a thing as the law of hair physics....a proportional relationship.....as the face descends the hair rises....Heaven help me in ten years.....

What do you wear? Can you play that poker straight hair? xv

my daily click HERE

image of 'poker straight' gwyneth from the huffington post

Black and White Pearls

Could this be the perfect colour combination?

Image 1 - Douglas Friedman Image 2 - Jonn Coolidge Image 3 - Unknown Image 4 - Lloyd Ralphs Design Image 5 - 1st Option Image 6 - Doryn Wallach