I recently helped a client dec­o­rate his condo. I had such a great time work­ing with him. He’s so laid back and has fab­u­lous taste– The best kind of client! We both love the indus­trial Restora­tion Hard­ware look, so we incor­po­rated leather and iron in sev­eral places. Here is a pre­view of the liv­ing room that opens to the kitchen. We just fin­ished the install, so I will post the pic­tures soon. The liv­ing room looks great and is per­fect for my bach­e­lor client!

Light­ing: Halo Styles Gyro Chandelier

Rug: West Elm Jute Boucle Rug in Flax

Hide Rug: Vin­tage

Sofa with Chaise: Lee Indus­tries — 3917 series in Pat­ton Flax

Lamps: Pot­tery Barn

Trunk: Vintage

Stools:  Pot­tery Barn Chase Sling Stool

Barstools: Halo Styles Grosvenor Barstool in Cigar

TV Cab­i­net: Go Home LTD Wem­b­ley Enter­tain­ment Center

Pil­lows: Kravet Arteme­sia Ranjani.635

Side Chair: Vin­tage and will be recov­ered in Duralee 32068– 177 Chesnut

1. Match Pewter Con­vivio Din­ner­ware Col­lec­tion — I love white plates and these are sophis­ti­cated with the pewter bor­der. The cham­pagne and wine glasses with pewter stems are to-die-for too!

2. Drans­field & Ross Place­mats — Makes me want to have a fun din­ner party!

3. Her­mes Quadrige Blan­ket — I have the orange throw in this pat­tern and love it!

4. Sferra Dia­monte Sheets — I’ve tried many sheets (Matouk, Yves Delorme, Ani­chini, Pea­cock Alley) but these Sferra sheets are the absolute best. Make sure you starch and iron them for the best sleep ever!

5. Matouk Mila­gro Tow­els — The soft­est tow­els I’ve found! In my opin­ion bet­ter than Sferra, Yves Delorme, Ralph Lau­ren, Restora­tion Hard­ware, Abyss & Habidecor.

6. Lace­field Designs Pil­lows — These are so fun, well made, and come in a vari­ety of colors!

I’m so excited to share a big project I’ve been work­ing on! I am over­see­ing the remodel of a home in Char­lotte.  It’s a tra­di­tional 6,000 sq. ft. 1950’s brick home that hadn’t been updated since the 70’s!  The house sits on an acre on a fab­u­lous wide street in Myers Park.  It has a lot of poten­tial, but needs some seri­ous updates!

I’ll be blog­ging on the progress of the home, so I will start with the kitchen this week. I met with archi­tect Sammy Gree­son of Meyer Gree­son Paullin Ben­son. He’s so tal­ented and designed my mother’s fab­u­lous NC moun­tain home.  I told him the main things I wanted for the kitchen and we were able to come up with a plan.

Here is the new plan for the left side of the kitchen.

The refrig­er­a­tor will be where the stoves were. I like the GE Pro­file  36″ Counter Depth Refrig­er­a­tor. It has french doors and a pull-out freezer at the bot­tom (with NO ice­maker– I don’t like them on the out­side of refrigerators).

The sink and dish­washer will remain on the right side of the new refrigerator.

I pre­fer the stain­less steel 24″ Recessed Han­dle Bosch Dish­washer 500 Series.

I like the Franke Stain­less Steel Manor House sink.

A new Wolf Range will be on the side wall where the refrig­er­a­tor was.

My favorite is the 48″ Wolf Gas Range. I like the idea of using a mar­ble slab for the backsplash.

Pin­ter­est

Wall of cab­i­nets across from the sink

There will be 20″ deep left and right wing cab­i­nets. The top cab­i­nets have clear glass pan­eled doors. The cen­ter sec­tion of these cab­i­nets will have 1/2″ glass shelves and the inte­rior paint color will be Ben­jamin Moore Bronze Tone. For the back­splash I am using a full height stone slab to match the counter tops.

The island will have a microwave and wine refrig­er­a­tor built-in.

I’m not a fan of microwaves in top cab­i­nets. I pre­fer them “hid­den away” in the island.

Pin­ter­est

My favorite wine refrig­er­a­tor is the U-line Wine Cap­tain® Model — 2175WCC

I’m unde­cided on the counter tops. I might go with absolute black gran­ite. My friend Will Mer­rill sug­gested hav­ing a con­crete counter top for the island. I’m lean­ing toward white cab­i­nets with black counter tops.

Pin­ter­est

I’ve pinned the best orga­ni­za­tion ideas on my Pin­ter­est kitchen board! I can’t wait to incor­po­rate these into the new kitchen.

How great are these hid­den outlets?

I’m try­ing to be patient for this long process, but I’ll be updat­ing as the kitchen progresses!

I did some orga­niz­ing today and was excited to find sev­eral adver­tise­ments from the 60’s and 70’s that I had pur­chased from eBay last year.  The ads were for my ancestor’s Denim Man­u­fac­tur­ing Com­pany, Cone Mills.  I was going to frame a col­lec­tion of the ads to hang in my office.

The tagline in many of the ads is, “Improves Your Over­all Appear­ance”. The peo­ple in the ads are wear­ing denim over­alls. How clever (took me a minute to get that!! Haha)

1977 ad for “Mom Jeans” . Denim on denim. This whole ad just makes me laugh.

I also found a post­card on Wikipedia sent from my great-great aunt Etta Cone to Gertrude Stein in Flo­rence, Italy in 1911. I might frame this and add to my new “fam­ily wall”. I did a post last year on Gertrude Stein’s rela­tion­ship with my great-great aunts and how she intro­duced them to Matisse and Picasso.

I’m on the Blue Ridge Park­way Foundation’s Coun­cil of Advi­sors, so I thought it would be nice to frame these posters of the Parkway.

I think it’s always nice to have a “col­lec­tion” or group­ing of art in your home. I’m not tired of framed botan­i­cals or intaglios yet, but I think it is some­times more inter­est­ing to have “mean­ing­ful” works of art to give your home a per­sonal touch. I like to use old let­ters from fam­ily mem­bers, ink draw­ings, keys, mag­a­zine arti­cles, post­cards from trav­els, tick­ets, or maps.

There are many great ways to hang group­ings of art.  Pic­ture rails are always very visu­ally appeal­ing, espe­cially with a vari­ety of frames.

I love fram­ing black and white pho­tos in old win­dows and doors.

It’s also inter­est­ing to use twine and clothes­pins to hang pho­tographs in a reclaimed wood frame.

If you have old hand­writ­ten let­ters from fam­ily mem­bers you can enlarge them on a copier and have them framed.

Frame post­cards sent to you, or ones col­lected while traveling.

Fram­ing post­cards in “float­ing” frames always looks great!

If you don’t have your own post­cards, you can order a col­lec­tion of vin­tage post­cards online.

You can make a col­lage out of your favorite child­hood Pen­guin Book covers.

They come in a box of 100 post­cards for $16.50 on Ama­zon. The col­lec­tion includes many iconic child­hood Pen­guin books, like Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Bronte’s Wuther­ing Heights.

Ama­zon sells a post­card col­lec­tion of 100 ground­break­ing Van­ity Fair Cov­ers “rep­re­sent­ing more than twenty years of cos­mopoli­tan Jazz Age design in one box”.

It would be fun to cre­ate a col­lage of ticket stubs from every con­cert you’ve attended.

Cre­ate fun shapes, like hearts, using mean­ing­ful items.

Make a “love map” using maps from the places you and your spouse met, mar­ried, and cur­rently live. There’s a great tuto­r­ial here.

Cut a map of a mean­ing­ful place into fours and frame each sec­tion individually.

Have a col­lec­tion of keys from for­mer res­i­dences? You can always frame them!

Kids can be very artis­tic and cre­ate inter­est­ing works of art. It’s nice to have a framed col­lec­tion of children’s art to hang on the wall in their bed­room. You can also frame pages from a child’s favorite book.

For girls, it’s fun to frame doll out­fits in shad­ow­boxes or ones from mom’s child­hood (if she still has them. I know my mom doesn’t!).

Once you frame your “mean­ing­ful art,” you can use this great resource for inspi­ra­tion on dif­fer­ent ways to hang a wall gallery.

1.Ebay  2.Ebay  3.Ebay  4.Wikipedia  5.Blue Ridge Park­way Blog  6.Topix  7.Retro Ren­o­va­tion, 8. Pin­ter­est  9.Pin­ter­est  10.Pin­ter­est  11.Pin­ter­est  12.Pin­ter­est  13.Pin­ter­est  14.Cote De Texas  15.Decor Allure  16. Tri­an­gle Hon­ey­moon  17.Ama­zon  18.Ama­zon  19. BBC  20.The State of Things  21. Min­i­moz Blog  22. Wis­te­ria  23. Pin­ter­est  24. Decor Allure  25. Trynka  26. Pin­ter­est

Last year, I wrote a post show­cas­ing the before and after of my home, and I received an anony­mous com­ment ask­ing, “Do you hate color?”.

My Guest Bedroom

I thought this was funny, because it depends on one’s def­i­n­i­tion of “color”. Bright col­ors? Dark col­ors? Neu­tral col­ors? To me, gray and beige are col­ors, and they just hap­pen to be my favorite col­ors for inte­ri­ors.  How­ever, this could change at any point.

My guest twin bedroom

I really do like the occa­sional use of a bright color. I recently added 2 orange Her­mes “H” pil­lows in my gray guest bed­room. It gives the neu­tral room a “pop” of color.

Last year, I was bored with my gray TV room. I still loved the walls and sofa, but it was a lit­tle bland. I decided to add bold orange touches to brighten the room.

I added an orange and gray Her­mes Throw, 2 pil­lows in Schumacher’s Betwixt, and many orange books.

I placed stacks of books in shades of orange on the con­sole below the TV to add an extra “pop” of color.

I bought as many books with orange cov­ers as I could find at the BD Jef­fries store in Charlotte. They have an amaz­ing col­lec­tion of cof­fee table books. The rest I ordered from Amazon.

And what do ya know? “Tan­ger­ine Tango” is Pantone’s 2012 color of the year!  Accord­ing to the Pan­tone web­site, “Provoca­tive Tan­ger­ine Tango, an entic­ing juicy orange, is a viva­cious and appeal­ing refresher to enliven anyone’s out­look this spring”.

It’s true. Sit­ting on the sofa in my orange and “tan­ger­ine tango” acces­sorized room makes me feel refreshed!

I recently added aqua accents to my liv­ing room by paint­ing the back of the book­shelves, hang­ing aqua sconces, and plac­ing aqua col­ored pil­lows on the linen sofa. The room is still very neu­tral, but the added “pop” of color makes it feel very fresh.

I went to look at my pin­ter­est boards, and I saw that I had already “pinned” many fab­u­lous neu­tral rooms with “pops” of color.

Mas­succo Warner Miller

Veranda

Jan Show­ers

Phoebe Howard

Mary McDon­ald

Jacque­line Der­rey Segura in House Beau­ti­ful

Lor­raine G Vale

Pin­ter­est

Karen Robert­son

Martha Stew­art

Tobi Fair­ley

Pin­ter­est

WAYS TO ADD A “POP” OF COLOR TO YOUR HOME:

Frame art in dif­fer­ent sized col­or­ful frames

Martha Stew­art

Add a few throw pil­lows to your sofa.

Etsy

Add con­trast­ing bold trim to pillows.

Nest Egg

Cover a bak­ing sheet with fab­ric to make a fun (and inex­pen­sive!) tray.

Martha Stew­art

Add con­trast­ing trim to furniture.

Hick­ory Chair

Add bright pil­lows in con­trast­ing col­ors to beds.

Caitlin Wil­son Textiles

I’ve made some design mis­takes in my homes in the past using color (i.e. bright yel­low walls and red sofa in my old town­home in col­lege… liked it for about a day).

My advice would be to keep big pur­chases in neu­tral, clas­sic col­ors (sofas, rugs, bed­ding, etc). This way, you can add dif­fer­ent col­ored acces­sories accord­ing to your moods, the sea­sons, or even pan­tone color trends.  Believe me, it’s a lot cheaper this way!

So I guess my answer to anony­mous’ ques­tion is NO, I don’t hate color, but i do pre­fer it in mod­er­a­tion and usu­ally just a “pop” of one bold color.

I’m all about a good sale! Espe­cially sales involv­ing fab­u­lous home décor. My favorite time is after Christ­mas and New Years when there are amaz­ing finds at great prices on acces­sories, fur­ni­ture, and décor.

I’m so excited that Alexan­der Scott, my favorite home fur­nish­ings store in Char­lotte, is hav­ing a huge New Years Sale through Jan­u­ary 14th. There are mark­downs up to 70% off!  Many of the store’s ven­dors have 15–25% off their entire vignettes.

Donna Nor­ton of Tucker LTD. has a fab­u­lous space at the front of the store. I usu­ally can’t go in the store with­out buy­ing some­thing from her!

Right now Tucker LTD. has 20% off reg­u­lar priced items!  I love the framed intaglios, gilt mir­ror, pan­els, and ceramic lamps!

This chest is amaz­ing! Can you believe it’s on sale?

Tucker LTD. has 20% off all jew­elry as well! My mom and I have sev­eral of the sha­green bracelets and we love them!

I saw this col­lec­tion of framed ink prints today in Tucker LTD’s space. I’d love to pur­chase these for my bathroom!

Botan­ica has a 15% off sale on all reg­u­larly priced items.

How great is the win­ter arrange­ment in the drift­wood con­tainer? The antlers are such a fun added element!

Orpah Blan­ton, another one of my favorite ven­dors, has a 15% off sale on items over $50. She has such inter­est­ing antique finds.

I love the reclaimed wood table and the extra large dough bowl. How great would the antique valence be above a bed with drap­ery or above a window?

Orpah has a beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion of gilt mir­rors, iron pieces, glass lamps, iron­stone, and sil­ver at great prices.

There are many artists in Alexan­der Scott with great New Years sales. One of my favorites, Libby Smart, has a 15% off sale on all her art­work. I have one of her paint­ings in my din­ing room.

I love her bright paint­ings of trees and rural landscapes.

Not only does Libby paint coastal and moun­tain land­scapes, trees, inte­ri­ors, and fig­ures, but she also has a col­lec­tion of beau­ti­ful Euro­pean land­scapes (my per­sonal favorite).

Swell Décor has a 25% off sale on all reg­u­larly priced items.

Plush Inte­ri­ors has a 40% off sale on all bed­ding, includ­ing Dwell Studio!

This beau­ti­ful oak chest is even on sale!

While you’re in the store, be sure to check out Kris­ten Cone Interior’s newly stocked vignette!

Stop in Alexan­der Scott this week and check out all the great items on sale! If you are an out-of-town reader, and are inter­ested in a piece in one of the pho­tos, Alexan­der Scott can ship to you.

Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-6pm

208 East Boule­vard, Char­lotte, NC 28203
980.819.7372
www.alexanderscottinteriors.com

Happy New Year!! I just returned from an amaz­ing cruise with one of my best friends. We went to Colom­bia, Bonaire, Curaçao, Aruba, and Panama. My friend and I, how­ever, did not get the memo that it was a Span­ish speak­ing cruise! All other pas­sen­gers were from Colom­bia, Panama, or other Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries. While we have both stud­ied Span­ish before, we were totally out of our ele­ment immersed in another lan­guage and cul­ture. The whole trip was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence and I can’t wait to share my pictures!

We spent a night in Medellin, Colom­bia (pro­nounced Med-a-ian) before fly­ing to the port of city Carta­gena the next day. We stayed at the Charlee Hotel, an amaz­ing and hip “lifestyle” hotel in Medellin, which aims to recre­ate the lifestyle of guests by offer­ing lux­ury, a unique atmos­phere, and sophistication.

The Charlee is located in the lively and fash­ion­able Par­que Lleras dis­trict of Medellin. We were there the day after Christ­mas and were able to see the trees still lit with beau­ti­ful lights.

The Charlee’s lobby is an eclec­tic mix of mod­ern ele­gance and rus­tic charm. There are reclaimed wood floors and walls mixed with unex­pected red murano chan­de­liers and framed mir­rors on the ceiling.

The lobby wall has over 50 stacked antique trunks from around the world. I saw so many cool inter­na­tional hotel labels from the early 1900’s on the trunks!

The sec­ond floor mez­za­nine has sev­eral sit­ting areas and a view of the lobby down­stairs. The ceil­ing is cov­ered in dif­fer­ent sized framed mir­rors, which was an inter­est­ing element.

The lobby opens up to a hotel restau­rant. The mir­rored ceil­ings are repeated here.

The Charlee’s 5 star avant–garde restau­rant offers Peru­vian and Asian Fusion.

The two story rooftop pool and bar have lounge seat­ing with views of El Poblado.

The view from the pool area is beau­ti­ful at night.

The rooftop ter­race has one of the best views of Medellin. I love the large cof­fee tables with the built-in drink chillers in the shape of a cross.

The suites at The Charlee have amaz­ing views as well.  The out­side ter­races off the suites are big­ger than the bed­rooms! Most of the rooms have their own per­sonal large jacuzzi tubs on the balcony.

My bal­cony had a large sit­ting area with a fun glass bauble chan­de­lier. Arte­ri­ors Duke Chan­de­lier is sim­i­lar. I love that the rooms have their own per­sonal jacuzzis!

My room (Acqua Suite) was neu­tral with con­crete floors, white uphol­stered head­board and bed­ding, and beige walls. They have the lat­est ameni­ties like mp3 dock­ing sta­tions and flat panel TVs.

The bath­rooms at The Charlee have nat­ural ele­ments with rock tiles, wood van­i­ties, and stone sinks. The rain­fall shower head with a LED light tem­per­a­ture sen­sor is the best!!!

The Spice Suite has a pri­vate chef and tep­pa­nyaki grill for Japan­ese dishes on the terrace!

What could be bet­ter than a jacuzzi or pri­vate Japan­ese chef on the ter­race of your hotel room over­look­ing the city of Medellin?

I wish I had more time in Medellin. I know some peo­ple might have reser­va­tions about vis­it­ing Colom­bia (my mother), but I assure you, it, has recov­ered from it’s trou­bled past and now feels com­pletely safe and beau­ti­ful!! I will def­i­nitely go back soon, and stay at The Charlee, of course!

I wish I was able to attend High Point Fur­ni­ture Mar­ket this week, but I’m a brides­maid in a wed­ding in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia! Unfor­tu­nately, I am going to miss see­ing the new intro­duc­tions in per­son, but I did get to have tea with my friend’s fam­ily and their dec­o­ra­tor, who hap­pened to design Nicole Kidman’s home in Syd­ney, so that made up for it!!

I’ve already been read­ing blogs on the lat­est trends from mar­ket and I’m impressed! I’ve been fol­low­ing High Point Market’s “Style Spot­ter” Board on Pin­ter­est, with con­tri­bu­tions from some of my favorite design­ers. A few of the Spring 2011 trends include: Color Come­back, Lac­quered, 60’s vibe, Bold Blooms, & Indian Inspi­ra­tions. I’m happy to see the Indus­trial Look & Greek Details are still trending.

I was look­ing for­ward to the Hick­ory Chair Show­room (my fave!) and sad I missed their 100 year anniver­sary party. I saw that Mary McDon­ald and daahh­ling Mar­tyn Lawrence Bullard from Bravo’s Mil­lion Dol­lar Dec­o­ra­tors were at the event. I would have died. Just like I did when MDD’s Nathan Turner tweeted me back.

Hick­ory Chair is my favorite fur­ni­ture com­pany, and it’s not just because my tal­ented “men­tor” and Euro­pean antique buy­ing asso­ciate, Will Mer­rill, was their Cre­ative Direc­tor for years. I love that Hick­ory Chair has a broad made-to-order and cus­tomiz­able prod­uct range. In addi­tion, the com­pany includes col­lec­tions by sev­eral respected design­ers. In fact, Will was the per­son who brought the late Mark Hamp­ton to Hick­ory Chair to design a col­lec­tion. It’s also nice to see a fur­ni­ture com­pany that still man­u­fac­tures in the US.

I love the blog pho­tos I’ve seen from this market’s Hick­ory Chair Show­room. I see lots of bold col­ors! The hot pink chevron uphol­stered Panel Screen is one of my favorites.

Books with hot pink water­color pat­terns add a bold pop of color to the Marielle Uphol­stered Cabinet.

Another fab­u­lous uphol­stered screen and a large ver­sion of the new made-to-measure Kent Sofa.

The new Kent Sofa looks cozy in a lux­u­ri­ous dark vel­vet fabric.

I can’t wait to order Suzanne Kasler’s new Lille Bench. Two benches look great in front of the French Mod­erne inspired Mont­pe­lier Cock­tail Table.

The Mont­pe­lier Col­lec­tion also includes a Con­sole and a Two-tier-Side Table with a clear glass top or a wood top with Ane­gre veneer panels.

The Ashe­worth Cam­paign Desk with a white lac­quered fin­ish makes me want to re-do my office! I’m excited that lac­quered fur­ni­ture is a Spring 2011 trend. The Greek Key trend is seen on Suzanne Kasler’s Auburn Ottoman.

I love the bold pat­tern on the new Bex­ley Cock­tail Ottoman.

The Bex­ley Cock­tail Ottoman also has a ver­sion that comes with a remov­able wooden tray.

The gray vel­vet fab­ric looks great on the Alexan­der Sofa. I love the Bistro, Athens, and Mar­rakech fab­rics Hick­ory Chair is offer­ing from Tobi Fairley’s Home Col­lec­tion. The sofa is shown with the Rye Side Table and Sophia Mir­ror.

The uphol­stered Porter Divan looks like a comfy rest­ing place!

It looks like yel­low is going to be a big trend for Spring! I love the yel­low and brown fab­ric on the Camp Chair.

The new Eliza Set­tee from the Thomas O’Brien Col­lec­tion is con­fig­ured for use with a round table and would look great in a break­fast room.

Other intro­duc­tions include:

Gray­don Sofa

Lud­low Chair

Samuel Wing Chair

LeeLee Side Chair

Cham­ber Bed

Can’t wait to return to the US and place a Hick­ory Chair order from the new collection!

Photo Cred­its:

1. Pin­ter­est
2. Mar­tineau Vermillion
3. Mar­tineau Vermillion
4. Mar­tineau Vermillion
5. Mimi + Meg
6. Mimi + Meg
7. Mimi + Meg
8. Mimi + Meg
9. Hick­ory Chair
10. Mimi + Meg
11. Mimi + Meg
12. Hick­ory Chair
13. Mar­tineau Vermillion
14. Mar­tineau Vermillion
15. Mar­tineau Vermillion
16. Hick­ory Chair
17. Hick­ory Chair
18. Hick­ory Chair
19. Hick­ory Chair
20. Hick­ory Chair
21. Hick­ory Chair
22. Hick­ory Chair

I have been neglect­ing my blog lately, mainly because I have been busy with design projects, took a nice trip to Aspen, and have worked on plan­ning an engage­ment party for the past month. I love throw­ing back­yard par­ties, and I’m always look­ing for an excuse for a good party! Luck­ily, my friends Brynn & Palmer got engaged recently. My tal­ented friend Kat­rina (and one of Brynn’s brides­maids) from Come + Together in Char­lotte was nice enough to help with the party.

We asked Lynette from The Bloom Room to do the flow­ers. The idea for the gar­den gath­er­ing was to use lots of inter­est­ing flow­ers like lotus pods, hang­ing ama­ran­thus, cox­comb, swamp lilies, suc­cu­lents, sca­bies pods, poppy pods, mil­let, cro­cos­mia pods, dianthus, and zinnias.

We also wanted to use gal­va­nized con­tain­ers, col­ored glass bot­tles, votives, and chalk­board signs. We used navy, light blue, white, and char­treuse striped and a coor­di­nat­ing kaledis­cope  pat­terned linens from Party Reflec­tions. Kat­rina saw a tent from a wed­ding shot by The Schultzes, and we thought it would be fun to have only a tent frame with lots of hang­ing lanterns (lit­tle did we know how many issues we would have doing this!!). We both pinned inspi­ra­tion images on Pinterest.

Images via Pinterest

After a month of plan­ning, the party started off with a few set­backs. It started to rain while Party Reflec­tions was putting the tent up in my back­yard. I didn’t really real­ize that it was going to become a mon­soon overnight and my back­yard would flood.
Yes.
The day before the party.

On to Plan B… Oh wait, we never really had one. Kat­rina and I were on the phone call­ing rental com­pa­nies for options. I had my handy­men start pump­ing water out of the yard. We prayed for sun. Finally, we decided to put a floor in the tent and cre­ate a car­peted walkway.

It con­tin­ued to rain on Sat­ur­day as they were putting in floor­ing and hang­ing lanterns. I had my 3 amaz­ing handy­men (Gayle, Linzey, and Shane) out hang­ing lanterns along with my elec­tri­cian that was so nice to come help me on a Sat­ur­day! I’m really lucky to have such a good “team” from my inte­rior design busi­ness. These guys say they will do any­thing for me. And I usu­ally take them up on that.

I asked Gayle if they could build 8 benches for the tables and he did an amaz­ing job! Kat­rina had looked at rental com­pa­nies around Char­lotte, and no one had benches we were look­ing for to rent.

I’m so lucky to have peo­ple to come help out! Lynette from The Bloom Room was hang­ing air plants from the chicken wire back­drop my guys built for me. Christina from North Car­olina Charm came to help Kat­rina and me.

I had at least 10 girls at my house the week before hot glu­ing cof­fee fil­ters to paper lanterns. My friend Christina was nice enough to help, and she blogged about how to make them. Even the guest of honor (on the right) came to help us! When we saw the inspi­ra­tion on Pin­ter­est, we had NO idea that it would take approx­i­mately 2 hours per lantern… and we did 25! In addi­tion, I made over 50 dif­fer­ent sized pom poms out of white tis­sue paper. It sounds easy, and it is, if you have lots of free time.

It was def­i­nitely worth all our time, because the lanterns and pom poms turned out fab­u­lous!! The idea was to hang them spo­rad­i­cally from the tent frame.

Gayle and his guys did SUCH a good job build­ing these benches. The navy, white, and kalei­do­scope pat­terned pil­lows looked per­fect on them. (How­ever, now I’m stuck with 8 8ft long benches… if any­one wants them!!)

Poor Gayle. After build­ing the benches I asked him to build 2 8 ft tall chicken wire back­drops to go behind the food and dessert tables. From the top, Lynette (Bloom Room) hung air plants and mason jars with tea lights from twine.

Gayle and Lynette did a fab­u­lous job! Kat­rina found this cute “grown with love” ban­ner off Etsy to hang above the dessert bar.

Dessert bar Preview!

I’ll blog about some of the foods and where I found the var­i­ous con­tain­ers in the next post!

There were gal­va­nized water­ing cans from Pot­tery Barn with var­i­ous flow­ers on the stairs.

Lynette replanted sev­eral of my very very dead plants.

I bought these gar­den stake torches from Gra­cious Nest, a ven­dor in Alexan­der Scott, where I sell my French antiques!

I bought a wood arrow at Michaels and stained it, and then used my new wood burn­ing tool (also from Michaels) to draw the couple’s ini­tials. Then I hung this from one of the gar­den stakes at the front of the path.

As you walk down the path toward the tent, you see the guest book table. I used a bistro table I bought in L’isle Sur la Sorgue, France. I found it at a mar­ket with no top, but my brother made a reclaimed top with wood from his barn, and then told me that was my birth­day present. Very nice of him.

Kat­rina found this cool thumbprint guest­book and I ordered it from Love From the Thumb on Etsy. You leave your thumbprint and name on a tree with the couple’s names and party date. The stamp pads come in cute wood boxes with ini­tials on the top and the date on the bottom.

I found this cute chicken wire bas­ket for cards off Etsy.

The suc­cu­lents in mini water­ing cans are from So Suc­cu­lent Etsy.

The “B” and “P” brass branch let­ters are from Anthro­polo­gie.

I bought the recy­cled glass votive hold­ers at West Elm.

I have to lay every­thing out before I can do any­thing with inte­rior design, and this is clearly the case with events too! I brought out all my gal­va­nized serv­ing pieces from Pot­tery Barn. The idea was to use lots of bite size food and to put them on pots, trays, in lit­tle clear cups and tin buck­ets, etc.

I took over my din­ing room with con­tain­ers. Before I set any­thing out, I like to make post-it notes for each one I’m using and see how much can fit in one container.

I made a spread­sheet with types of food I wanted and the kinds of con­tain­ers I thought would work for them! Most of the food ideas came from Pin­ter­est.

I bought these chalk­board stakes off Etsy from Mack­ens­ley Designs.  My friend Christina (North Car­olina Charm) wrote food names on all the chalk­board sticks. The con­tainer for the fruit skew­ers is a triple condi­ment gal­va­nized con­tainer from Pot­tery Barn (no longer available), which I filled with sty­ro­foam and moss to hold the melon skewers.

I also made cap­rese skew­ers with two dif­fer­ent kinds of moz­zarella, toma­toes, and basil and put in an oval tin bucket with moss from Michaels. The chalk­board labels are from Braden’s Grace Wall Art on Etsy.

Start­ing to get every­thing together in my Din­ing Room a few hours before the party! My amaz­ing friend Rachael is in the back­ground mak­ing mini sandwiches.

I found these cool bark tree trunk rounds with moss at Alexan­der Scott. They already had holes for flow­ers, but I thought it would be fun to stick waf­fle cones with caramel pop­corn inside! My mom’s friend was so nice to drive 2 hours to bring me my favorite pop­corn from Kil­wins. I put blue­berry and vanilla yogurt pret­zels on clay pots. On the rec­tan­gle tiered tray in the back are oreo brown­ies Christina made, and I’m sure she will post her recipe soon on her blog.

My friend Rachel is an amaz­ing chef (and help in gen­eral) and she made lit­tle sand­wiches. I bought “B” ‚“P” and heart cookie cut­ters at Sur La Table. She used a dif­fer­ent cookie cut­ter for the dif­fer­ent types of sand­wiches– roasted veg­gies with goat cheese and mini croque Mon­sieurs. I put them on an over­sized bread board from Pot­tery Barn.

Christina made veg­gie and ranch cups and put them on my gal­va­nized metal 3-tiered serv­ing stand from Pot­tery Barn.

We decided on Vodka Lemon­ade with Basil for the sig­na­ture drink. I thought it would be fun to make ice cubes with blue­ber­ries (to go along with our navy theme.… but they taste great too!). Since it was a “gar­den” theme, I used a flower brioche molds from Sur La Table to make the ice cubes.

The sig­na­ture vodka lemon­ade was served in these mason jar drink dis­pensers Pot­tery Barn just started car­ry­ing. I put it on top of a gal­va­nized twig flower pot I already had to give it some height.

I found these wood wine troughs at Pot­tery Barn! The one in the back is sit­ting on a moss platform.

For the vodka lemon­ade I used dis­pos­able crys­tal cut glasses from Party at Lewis, added chalk­board labels and striped straws from The Party Fairy on Etsy.

I ordered the nap­kins from For Your Party. Kat­rina found the cute gar­den inspired quote online.

The pic­tures of the party don’t do it justice! The hours of hot glu­ing lanterns was def­i­nitely worth it!

The flow­ers from The Bloom Room were amaz­ing! My favorites are the Lotus Pods, Catscomb, and Scabiosa Pods. We used flow­ers in reclaimed wood boxes for the tables, along with recy­cled glass bot­tles and vases from West Elm, which just hap­pened to be the exact col­ors of the linens!

Can’t wait to show part 2 of the Gar­den Gathering!

Con­grats to Brynn + Palmer!

I planned my buy­ing trip to France in Jan­u­ary around the bian­nual Mai­son & Object inte­rior design trade show in Paris. The show is aimed toward the high-end of fur­nish­ings and next season’s trends. I hadn’t been before, but my asso­ciate, Will Mer­rill, had been many times and sug­gested we check out the lat­est design trends, along with 85,000 other design­ers, jour­nal­ists, and retail­ers from around the globe!  The show is over­whelm­ing with over 3,000 exhibitors and 8 build­ings of the lat­est home tex­tiles, table­ware, home acces­sories, and global designs.

In honor of the Sep­tem­ber 9–13 show in Nord Villepinte out­side Paris, I thought I would post some of my pic­tures from Jan­u­ary trip (even though pho­tog­ra­phy is a big no-no!), since I for­got to blog about the show. Unfor­tu­nately, I can’t make it to Paris next week, but I can’t wait to read the blogs and see what the design trends are for next season!

Thank good­ness for the Elle Decor Cafe. We were def­i­nitely in need of a pick-me-up!

The Cafe was dec­o­rated with a com­mon trend: Black and White

The food was excel­lent, but the ser­vice was a lit­tle slow!

Black and White Vignette

A selec­tion of black and white wallpaper

I saw the Black and White trend at Ralph Lau­ren Home

Mod­ern Black and White

Diane von Fursten­berg Home was a new exhibitor with col­or­ful bed­ding and table­top acces­sories in her sig­na­ture prints. I love DVF’s home col­lec­tion and her lat­est endeavor as inte­rior designer with her recent re-design of rooms at Claridge’s Hotel in London.

DVF’s fun bed­ding makes me want to branch out and redec­o­rate my neu­tral bedroom.

I saw lots of col­or­ful textiles.

Moroc­can decor is always fun. I hope every­one saw the first sea­son of Mil­lion Dol­lar Dec­o­ra­tors on Bravo! Kathryn Ire­land and Mary McDon­ald both made recent buy­ing trips to Morocco.

African ele­ments were a com­mon trend.

Inter­est­ing tusks

I’m a fan of antler decor, espe­cially for moun­tain homes.

Of course I loved all the painted fur­ni­ture and neu­tral col­ors. I’m still using this trend, but I won­der if we will see a lot of it next week at the Mai­son & Object show?

If you fol­low my blog, you will see that I fre­quently use botan­i­cals! I loved this Louis XVI repro­duc­tion com­mode, and saw a ven­dor the next day at the Paris Flea Mar­ket try­ing to pass a sim­i­lar one from the same designer as an antique!

I love to dec­o­rate with antique maps. I’m work­ing on a col­lec­tion of Euro­pean maps in dif­fer­ent frames for a hall­way in my home.

Grays and reclaimed wood. My fave!

Neu­trals were big in Jan­u­ary. I still love them!

One of my favorite com­pa­nies, Halo Styles, was an exhibitor.  I was able to meet and com­pli­ment Halo’s main design­ers on their lat­est col­lec­tion. I love these slip­cov­ered chairs! I just ordered them for my mom’s Florida break­fast room.

I saw lots of inter­est­ing shelves with parch­ment books and dif­fer­ent objects on stands.

There is an added ele­ment of drama by paint­ing the backs of book­shelves black.

Loved these out­door chairs!

Laven­der with crys­tal accents would be fun for an event!

A huge safe with tons of watch winders and jew­elry draw­ers! One of my favorite finds!

Can’t wait to hear about Mai­son & Object next week!