Tuesday, August 31, 2010

theme weddings yes or no

andy warhol theme wedding done at bash please


no theme weddings or parties please.

some of these ideas r good for home decor.





so theme weddings yes or no?
I know I said I'd be back yesterday with a real post but I'm pretty backed up right now with work & trying to figure out the childcare situation, so I need a little break.  We toured a couple of daycare/ preschools  yesterday and I'm feeling pretty good about 1 so we'll see how it goes.  For now I'll just leave you with an image I got from one of my favorite reads, Head Over Heels.    It's perfect for the beginning of Fall and I cannot get over that velvet.  So sumptuous & beautifully aged!!  (I'm not sure I've actually used "sumptuous" in a sentence before but could think of no other word!)


And some news/ details about the new store:  The Loudon Design Center plans to open a new trade-only showroom in historic Leesburg, Virginia and I'll have an office at the showroom.  On the weekends, the store will open to the public as Pure Style and we will offer a line of furniture and fabrics I'm currently designing, along with one-of-a-kind pieces and trade-only fabrics & furnishings.    The owner, Elise Seidita, is finishing up negotiations and if all goes as planned, we will open for business in October.  (keep your fingers crossed!!) 

The showroom will need to be totally redone and I'll definitely take you along in the process of designing the new space.  I am so excited to start this new venture!!  As you probably remember, I love shopping at the Old Lucketts Store & On a Whim Antiques (both in nearby Lucketts, VA) and other shops in Leeseburg, so I'm so excited to be nearby and become a part of the growing design community there. 

xoxo,
lauren

Sigh.

Thank you for all your comments, calls and e-mails, I am deeply grateful.
This month has been a roller coaster. I am getting caught back up so if you are waiting for an e-mail or call from me I promise it is coming. I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday...
Dreamy Whites


Dreamy Whites

Dreamy Whites

Monday, August 30, 2010

gossip boy does a movie

go here

Taking the Plunge

We're off today to check out a part-time daycare/ preschool for our little guys.  I'm sort of mixed about it, but mostly excited.  It will be 3 days a week and my mom will be watching them on a 4th day.   I'm attempting tp take the 5th day off so we'll see how it goes.  Christian's three years old and is dying for "friends" and loves classes and that sort of thing so I think it'll be great for him.  I worry a little bit about Justin (8 months) but I'm sure he'll be okay too.



We're really hoping that with me moving my office out of the house (and opening a store in Leesburg-  more news on that soon!!)   and with almost full-time daycare, that we'll be able to get a bit more of a separation of work & home.  I hope my expectations aren't too high but I really feel right now that "something's gotta give."  If anyone has any insight out there about all of this, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

I'll be back today later with a real post!!

  xoxo, Lauren

Sunday, August 29, 2010

A Special Quiet Time

My Grandmother passed away. Tomorrow we will be celebrating her life, remembering her kind, gentle and humble spirit. Her passing was a blessing after years of illness but it hurts...a lot. However, there is comfort in God and for that I am so thankful. I couldn't think of a better way to honor Nonny and praise God for his promise to us than the Prayer of Saint Francis...

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.**The final years of my Grandparents life were hard on everyone but especially my Mother. Watching her care for sick parents was heart breaking. I am saying a prayer for all of you who are caring for your parents. Judy Goldman wrote a wonderful article in Real Simple that really hit home for me. I recommend reading it....

"Near the end of her life, I could not see beyond my mother’s childlike stare, the confused disorder in her eyes. I could not feel anything but the ache of having to be my mother’s mother. After she died and I had finally shaken off the last shiver of the disease, I was able to remember what she had been like before Alzheimer’s.

I could see her turn her wrist to adjust her watch. There she was, at her dressing table, leaning into the magnifying mirror, plucking her eyebrows. I could see her dipping the tiny wand in the brown Mercurochrome bottle, painting my bruised knee orange. She was the grown-up. And I, again, was the child."

-excerpt "Losing My Mother", full text HERE

Friday, August 27, 2010

ballgown for your desk

a tutu for ur desk! kind of twee but kind of cool.

also would be great 2 do party tables like this, pink for little girls parties, white for weddings, u get the idea.

likee?

Corolla & "my" Beach House


We're finishing up our week here in Corolla, North Carolina and I DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE.  I love this place.  we've been coming here for summer vacations ever since I was a kid and I even spent a summer working here with one of my best friends, Alissa, at the local sports bar, Sundogs.   

Here's a picture of Sundogs and its appearance is deceiving.  It's so much fun!!!  (If you ever come here, it's in the front of the Food Lion Shopping Center and gets going late night.  There's a huge tiki bar inside.)



During the 4 months that I worked at Sundogs (a college summer) I made some amazing friends who we get to come back & see every year...



It was a late night...  Nat Hall (on my left) & Jerry Cooper (on my right) used to bartend at Sundogs and play music all over the Outer Banks.  (Jerry's since moved & is now living with his wife in SC)...  I worked there 8 years ago and I've never looked at Corolla the same since.  It was interesting to get the "local" perspective after vacationing there for so long.  Honestly, I'd recommend having kids work at least a summer at their vacation spot because you really just do get a whole different flavor for it.  You respect it in a different way.  You see all that goes on behind the scenes and you appreciate it more.  (And, you always having friends to come back to!)

...The only types of pics Dave & I usually get together are the hand-holding the camera kind:


So, as I was saying, I do not want to leave this place:


Here's our beach house this year:



I'm not going to show you the inside BUT I'll show you what I wish it was:
Check out the lower level entry:

{Image via House of Turquoise)

And the dining area:

{Image via Head over Heels}

And the living room- oh my goodness!!!

{Design by SR Gambrel}

And "my" bathroom:


I LOVE this hammock which sits on the deck:  (really)



The bunk room:


{image unknown}

And my bedroom:


{Design by SR Gambrel}

Here's the walk up to the beach:  (Now back to reality ;)


Christian's having the best time.  He & my grandmother built this fortress:


Dave & my little sister Morgan (13 years old) enjoying the surf:



And Justin relaxing in his stroller:


I could literally dedicate an entire post to my son's thighs.  I CANNOT get over them.  They are so insanely squeezable and kissable and...  I'm going to spare you but it's hard for me to stop ;)

So anyway, have an amazing weekend and we will be enjoying the rest of ours right here:




xoxo, Lauren

TGIF

I am not going to lie, it was hard to get the ole brain working this week after a long vacation. It was one of those weeks that called for a diet Grapico...every...day. I love D.G. So, I can't muster up a full post but I did want to share with you my newest love along the Grapico line....Essie Bahama Mama.Looks great; it is not purple, not pink, not deep red, it is somewhere in the middle. Also, I love this room is different than most you see, on the fun side to get the weekend started...
Image Houzz

Thursday, August 26, 2010

what decorno has been doing

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
like michael corleone, decorno has been pulled back in. sort of.
she shows us what she's been doing here

1. this fugly chair

2. this fugly stool.

& they weren't even diy. she paid someone to do them.
let's see, she quit in april & it took her until august 2 do a comeback post from "hibernation".
& do these two projects.
u can't go back darling decorno. & u can't decorate either. go back 2 sleep.

Inspired

I am 99.9% sure I have posted this picture before but I came back across it and it is inspiring me today...Image Midwest Living

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Decorative Memories in our Core

I often think about patterns from my childhood... Fabrics, tile, wallpapers, even linoleum patterns.  Many of them have really stayed with me over the years and I remember them fairly clearly.  For the ones that are no longer around... I wish I could just have a piece...  A yard or a square foot to look at and remember perfectly. 

The sofa in the photo below was upholstered in a beautiful chinoiserie floral in orangey-pinks, cream and green and was in my grandparents' living room in Honolulu many years ago.  I've seen the photo below of my grandfather & me over the years (and I'm not sure at what point I started consciously thinking of the fabric) but it's just sort of always been one of those fabrics filed away in my mind that I think of every so often and love. 


{My "Geedaddy" & me}

Below is another photo of me in my muumuu on the beloved sofa fabric.


My mom and I moved in with my grandparents to McLean, Virginia (just outside of Washington, DC) when I was 4 years old.  My grandmother has an amazing sense of style and we lived with them for 6 years before moving only a few minutes away. 

{My grandmother whom I called "Beautiful Grandmother" (she told me that was her name ;) and me...  Again, the blue & white Hawaiian print that I'm wearing...  that's one of those fabrics that's so ingrained in my memory that it just feels good to look at.  If I ever had a little girl and found an outfit just like that one, I'd be in Heaven.}

When I find things that remind me of pieces  my grandmother's had over the years, I often buy them on the spot.  They just give me this good feeling. It's almost that feeling you get when you first wake up and you can't quite remember a dream but then you do and it just feels so good.  Does that make sense?


{I bought this Chinoiserie ginger jar flea market lamp the second I saw it because it reminded me of my grandmother's lamps}

It's what it would be like if you could actually grasp a cloud.  (I remember being little and scraping the inside out of an oreo and just holding the white part...  It was strangely satisfying in that same weird way.)  It's the intangibles in life.  And when you finally have them clear in your memory or physically in your hands, its's so oddly satisfying.  I feel this way about prints...

Another one is this vintage blue peacock flower fabric on my Grandma Maestranzi's (my Grandmother on my dad's side) dining room chairs in Antioch, Illinois:


Lucky for me she was a little old Italian grandma who protected everything under oh-so-chic PLASTIC.  It's still perfectly preserved to this day.  (Thanks Grandma!!) 


I'll never forget the cloud wallpaper in my nursery or the pale green vine fabric on my first big girl bed - a canopy bed- at my dad's house.    I remember picking it out at the store. (My parents divorced when I was really young and so I had a bedroom at my mom's and a bedroom at my dad's.)





My mom had this vintage butterfly quilt in cream and earthtones...  I wonder if it's still around?  My Aunt Josephine had these beautiful japanese gardens with stone pagodas that I'll never forget...  My grandmother has a beautiful blue and gold floral throw blanket made by my great grandmother (I think?)...  Terrible linoleum in the kitchen (not picked out by her I don't think) that I used to love & stare at...  It was fun finding shapes in the linoleum and I'd always show people the "two dinosaurs" I'd found throughout the pattern. It's since been replaced and looks so good, but I can't help but miss that pattern.  





...Anyway, I could go on & on (and seriously it's so satisfying recounting the patterns) but I guess what I'm getting at is that these patterns are so ingrained in my mind.  These choices made by my grandmothers & my mom and the people who decorated & accessorized the homes I spent time in really did affect me.  Even at that age, I recogized beautiful & interesting things.  (Some of them were even plastic flowers so I'm not saying they're necessarily beautiful today...  but to me they are.)   I loved looking at them.  The same goes for a lot of the artwork and accessories around the house- things my grandparents had picked up on their extensive travels, knickknacks and china my Grandma Maestranzi collected...  I remember going from tabletop to tabletop in both houses playing with the accessories... 

 

I was an only child for 15 years (my little sister, Morgan, was born 15 years after me when my mom married my stepdad, Tom) so I guess before that, I spent a lot of time alone, exploring the houses, observing everything in them.  To this day I like looking through my grandmother's linen closet at her sheet sets and still get a twinge of excitement when I see the vintage leafy green printed futon being pulled down from the garage.  (This happened when my closest cousins came to visit us and - just like a memory-inducing smell- the sight of that futon still gives me a childish excitement.)





Even as I write, I'm struck by the flood of memories & feeling that seeing or remembering patterns and objects from my past elicits in me.  I am so happy when Christian asks to be lifted up to see something on a shelf- like the little froggy limoge box that sits on our bookshelves.  He gets to hold it and play with it for a little bit before we put it back, just like I used to be allowed to do. 

What we put in our homes today affects our  not only our present, but is also the backdrop for our future memories. If you have kids around noticing the things, you just might be helping to develop their taste, style.  The fabrics and patterns from my past are so ingrained in my memory that I know they've influence my design aesthetic.  As I work on fabrics for the my upcoming fabric line, I'm amazed by how many of my ideas spring directly from the patterns of my past.

To some people, picking the fabric for a throw pillow may be as easy as running to Target and choosing a color that works with their rug...  to me, it's way more than that...  (although the pillow could be from Target! ;)  It has to elicit an emotional response from me or my client.  A fabric I choose is typically somehow tied to the past, memories or a feeling -although I (or they) might not even know it at first...   Designing a home's a big deal to me and those little choices are all a part of the equation.  Your thoughts??



xoxo, Lauren

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