Limiting Your Medium

I started the draft for this post a while ago and never got around to posting it. Before I got sick we pumped out a lot of yard projects (photos to come!), and I had this post in the back of my mind when I made some of the plant choices. Here’s the old post……

Someone commented here to remind me about Julianne Moore’s lovely new landscaping of her West Village brownstone. And then I was chatting with the lovely Joslyn (who was on the SF trip last weekend) about how awesome her yard is. Simple. Artsy. Pretty easy-care. This might be the right approach for us busy ladies.

So I pulled up the article from Arch Digest on my flight home Saturday night. The photos really are cool (Her whole house has a great vibe – I’ve included photos from other shoots here, too).

I was super fascinated with this part of the article where Julianne mentions that she only wears and decorates with a handful of colors. She won’t buy it or bring it into her home unless it’s white, black, gray, green or purple. At first I was like…huh. But the idea has stayed with me all weekend.

Wasn’t it was Matisse who talked about how the beauty of art comes from the struggle of an artist and his limited medium? I think the idea works in designing a home.

As a decorator who usually uses a lot of color, I think I’m making my life harder by not limited my color palette a little. When there are infinite choices, it’s easier to make a misstep.

Although, let the record show, I am not usually in favor of matchy-matchy rooms and I think what we’re talking about is a very different approach. The key here is to vary the shades and tones of similar colors. Use peach and tangerine colors rather than the same bright orange on every accessory. Try mixing sky blue with cobalt. I doubt Julianne’s house is filled with the exact same shade of plum over and over again. It looks like she mixes plum with dusky gray lavender and deep burgundy, which feels lovely and warm.

What are your thoughts about limiting the color palette in your home? Do you love for things to match in your home?

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Inspiration

More Pattern Play (and $100 L&S Give Away!)

L&S Fabrics is giving away another $100 gift certificate! (Also – did you hear they are running a sale through the end of the month? 20% off with the coupon code LSFABRICS FIRST) They have some really awesome new fabric patterns, most ranging from $10-$35 per yard. It was easy to pull together fabrics for a…

I like more neutral fabrics for this imaginary living room. Maybe a colorful rug, or some fun accent pillows? With neutral base fabrics, anything goes. PS I will always love a buffalo check!

I thought these colors would be fun for a dining room. They seem so cheerful. And if you haven’t seen the full repeat of the coral floral in the upper right, check it out here. Gorgeous.

The family room in this house would also be pretty neutral. I love toile for curtains, because the pattern is less intense and obvious. I like the gray variations in this one – it looks like an expensive Schumacher pattern. And wouldn’t that faux bois pattern be great on a pair of arm chairs? It’s a like a modern take on the traditional lodge/man den look.

For a sweet, feminine nursery, I would mix some large and small-scale stylized florals with some fun check and dots patterns.

For a little boy’s room, how awesome are the anchors? The hits of dark charcoal keep things from going too sweet.

Oh man. I just ordered some of this abstract-like fabric for pillows, and I’m hoping it’s just as amazing in person. I love it.

All fabrics, and so, so many more, here on L&S.

For a chance to win $100 gift certificate (new drapes? pillows? an upholstery project!?), please leave a comment on this post and share what you would purchase with the $100. The contest closes this Friday at midnight and the winner will be chosen at random and emailed. Good luck!

And don’t forget the 20% off coupon code, good through the 30th! LSFABRICS FIRST

Contest is closed and the winner will be emailed (so check your inbox!) Thanks for playing!

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Inspiration

More Pattern Play (and $100 L&S Give Away!)

I like more neutral fabrics for this imaginary living room. Maybe a colorful rug, or some fun accent pillows? With neutral base fabrics, anything goes. PS I will always love a buffalo check!

I thought these colors would be fun for a dining room. They seem so cheerful. And if you haven’t seen the full repeat of the coral floral in the upper right, check it out here. Gorgeous.

For a sweet, feminine nursery, I would mix some large and small-scale stylized florals with some fun check and dots patterns.

For a little boy’s room, how awesome are the anchors? The hits of dark charcoal keep things from going too sweet.

Oh man. I just ordered some of this abstract-like fabric for pillows, and I’m hoping it’s just as amazing in person. I love it.

All fabrics, and so, so many more, here on L&S.

And don’t forget the 20% off coupon code, good through the 30th! LSFABRICS FIRST

Contest is closed and the winner will be emailed (so check your inbox!) Thanks for playing!

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Musings

Thank You

Hi friends, Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for all the well-wishes, comments, tweets, texts, emails and phone calls. I feel surrounded by your love and support. I am home now, kissing and holding my little ones, feeling so thankful things didn’t turn out worse then they did. I’m hoping once I’m…

Hi friends,

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for all the well-wishes, comments, tweets, texts, emails and phone calls. I feel surrounded by your love and support.

I am home now, kissing and holding my little ones, feeling so thankful things didn’t turn out worse then they did. I’m hoping once I’m recovered I can just forget about this whole experience! Not fun. I will say this though – Please, please, please check and see that you are up to date on your Tdap vaccination. I thought I was close to current, so didn’t worry about it when I was scraped by a rusty fence recently. Take my word for it that you never want to experience Tetanus, and of course we want to protect little ones from Pertussis, which is also covered by the vaccination.

I’ve got a back log of projects I haven’t posted about yet that I’ll be sharing next week while I’m recovering, so please come back Monday for regularly scheduled posting.

Thank you again. Big hugs to you all.
xoxo

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Inspiration

Update on Jenny

Hi, guys. On Saturday Jenny was admitted to the ICU for tetanus poisoning. She is hanging in there and getting a little better each day but could use your good thoughts and prayers right now. She thinks she’ll be back and at it in no time, but we appreciate your patience and support while the realities of the situation play out. I’m sure she’ll want to post an update as soon as she can in the next couple of days. I assume it will include a PSA on keeping your tetanus boosters up to date!

Thank you all so much for all the love and continued support you’ve shown Jenny throughout the years. You all mean a lot to our family.

Michael

(At least her room has a great view…)

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Accessories

DIY Whiteboard Calendar

This content series is in partnership with smartwater. smartwater, simplicity is delicious. Click here to learn more. I always think it’s a good idea to go out of your way to do or buy things that help you stay more organized and on top of your life. We’ve been chugging right along with these home projects, but for…

This content series is in partnership with smartwater. smartwater, simplicity is delicious. Click here to learn more.

I always think it’s a good idea to go out of your way to do or buy things that help you stay more organized and on top of your life. We’ve been chugging right along with these home projects, but for the past couple of weeks, the office has been a bit neglected. It’s frustrating that we finally have a dedicated, more private space to use as a home office, and we weren’t really enjoying it! Earlier this week I took a stand and started decorating without any forethought. It was actually really fun to just work with what I had on hand.

One thing that I decided I really needed and wanted this go-round was a calendar whiteboard, but just for my blog posting scheduling. It’s so helpful for me to plan out posts this way – it helps keep me on top of projects.

I looked around for some simple pre-printed calendar whiteboards and there’s not much of anything I liked, so I decided to make my own. I used this whiteboard and it is really good and incredibly cheap. I also used two rolls of this tiny chart tape.

It’s 1/8″ wide and it’s super easy and really fun, actually, to work with. I had grand plans to mark everything out and use leveling tools, etc. But the tape sort of took over before I had a chance to be responsible about the thing! It’s just so easy to use, I ended up eyeballing it all! Cutting small strips of tape to help mark out the spacing first helped a lot.

It’s not perfect but I don’t mind. The tape is totally repositionable, so I can fix it later if I want to.

I like the way the tape turned out (I wanted the design there to be very simple), but the frame was sooo boring. I had my miter saw and my brad gun handy from all the moulding we’ve been adding in other parts of the house, so it was easy to add trim to the existing whiteboard frame. If you don’t have either of these tools, a hand saw and some finishing nails work just fine! I used the pretty rope moulding I’ve always loved.

Once the moulding was cut and nailed, I filled the nail holes and corner gaps with this amazing, new-to-me wood filler. It is thicker, and just plain awesome. Recommend!

I sanded down all the trim once the filler dried, papered and taped the whiteboard, and then sprayed the frame with one of my favorite spray paint colors – Night Tide from Rustoleum. I’m sad it keeps looking black in all these photos. In real life, the color is a moody, deep forest/peacock blue color. I love it.

I let it dry and off-gas for about a day and then hung it up in my newly spruced office. I’m feeling 100% more organized already.

Going forward, all I have to do each month is fill in the date numbers, and then brainstorm what posts will go live when. It’s so helpful to have the reminder up on the wall where I will see it every day. I’m such a visual person that writing to-dos and seeing lists in front of me is pretty much a necessity. I’m thinking of making one for the girls room, too. I know they’d get a kick out of keeping track of soccer games and ballet practices.

What do you do to keep your family or your business organized?

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Inspiration

Give Away (x5!): Good Bones, Great Pieces

I met up with Lauren and Suzanne McGrath for lunch a couple months ago. I had some questions about the book-writing process and they were amazingly sweet and generous with their time and advice. And can I tell you how blown away I am with the credentials and collective talent of this mother-daughter duo? Suzanne worked…

I met up with Lauren and Suzanne McGrath for lunch a couple months ago. I had some questions about the book-writing process and they were amazingly sweet and generous with their time and advice. And can I tell you how blown away I am with the credentials and collective talent of this mother-daughter duo? Suzanne worked with Martha Stewart for years and Lauren (who is always putting together the most gorgeous outfits – such a great eye on her!) worked at Teen Vogue. They know their stuff and I am so happy to call them friends.

If you’ve not ordered their book Good Bones, Great Pieces yet, you’re missing out on one of the best design books out there. It is informative (I learned a lot from their stories and suggestions), and the photos are crazy-good. They shot a lot of their own work, but also used some designer friend’s work (hello, Miles Redd apartment!) to round out the images.

The premise of the book is that if you’re starting new or redesigning your home, you can make things easy on yourself by focusing on seven foundational pieces of furniture. Each chapter breaks down one of those foundational elements and teaches you about different styles and makes suggestions. It’s a genius concept really, and I love the pieces Suzanne and Lauren suggest.

Today I’m giving away FIVE copies of the Good Bones, Great Pieces book! Just leave a comment here to enter. But don’t fret if your name is not drawn, the book is super affordable (I’ve been giving it as gifts!).

Contest closes Sunday, September 16 at midnight. Winners names will be chosen at random and winners will be emailed. Good luck!

Congrats to the winners who were emailed this week. Thank you all for entering!

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Musings

Getting Ready for Late Summer Garden Parties

This post is brought to you by Nestle Toll House Birthday Sugar Cookies. Bake some birthday love. I have some good news to report! We’re about four days into the Great Sod-Laying Experiment, and so far, the sod looks to be thriving. Not much yellowing or wilting. I’m so relieved because we have a playhouse…

This post is brought to you by Nestle Toll House Birthday Sugar Cookies. Bake some birthday love.

I have some good news to report! We’re about four days into the Great Sod-Laying Experiment, and so far, the sod looks to be thriving. Not much yellowing or wilting. I’m so relieved because we have a playhouse to install!

It’s much cuter in person, though (and I’m sure you already guessed this) I’ll be painting it. :) The second the sod is ready, we’ll be moving the playhouse to it’s spot in the yard, which is good because we had some plans this weekend!

Before it gets too cold, we thought it would be fun to have some people over. This weekend we’re going to be throwing a very small and pretty simple birthday party for some of our friend’s kids (mostly girls). There will be an equal number of adults at the party, so there needs to be a little bit of something for everyone. I’m still in the planning phase, which is not good considering the party’s in just a couple days. But here’s what I have so far and I’m sure the rest will sort of create itself while we’re in the moment.

My girls have been on a flower crown-making kick this summer, so I thought it would be fun for them to teach their friends how to make crowns at the party. Nothing says garden party like little girls running around in flower crowns!

We’re going with a late summer/early fall-feeling color palate: peach, coral, mustard, burgundy, black and cream. Maybe a little mint for good measure (though that might show up on the playhouse dutch door!). I’m thinking I’ll make a couple strands of garlands to help soften the unfortunate bare wood fence situation. I want to keep the food really simple – just desserts. Probably cookies with homemade ice cream. And maybe some cute milk jars?

Have you seen any really cute, relatively easy party ideas around the web lately? I’ve started a Pinterest board with some of my ideas. I’ll be adding to it this weekend, if you want to follow along. I’m off to go buy more seating!

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Yards and Exteriors

Major Yard Progress (Pavers and Planting Sod!)

We did a ton of yard work this weekend and things are really coming along! Things might have moved a little faster if we didn’t have our little helpers, but they did provide the entertainment. Remember this is what the backyard looked like when we moved in a couple weeks ago. Overgrown and a misallocation…

We did a ton of yard work this weekend and things are really coming along! Things might have moved a little faster if we didn’t have our little helpers, but they did provide the entertainment.

Remember this is what the backyard looked like when we moved in a couple weeks ago. Overgrown and a misallocation of the usable space, I think.

For what feels like millions of photos of the during and after process of the new grass and pavers (and an antique treasure from the bushes!), please join me after the jump…

Oh, man. I’m tired just looking at these photos and thinking of all those weeds we pulled, dirt we moved and rocks we hefted this weekend! This place was a real mess!

You guys were all right about saving the pavers. They are great (and not replacing these saved us a ton of money!).

We started by pulling up and rearranging the pavers. We brought them all to the front of the yard and tried a little harder to make the gaps smaller and more uniform. They’re not perfect, but we had *just* enough stones, and I think they’ll look great once we grow moss in the gaps.

I was worried that we missed our chance to plant sod, but fall is actually a really great time to put out grass because the sun is a little more gentle. I read that even until the 1st week of October is a good time to plant. I think the species we bought (from Home Depot in Long Island) is Tall Fescue. It could be Sun and Shade though.

It’s important to lay the sod the same day you buy it, so we had to hustle through some last minute ground prep before we got to laying down the pieces.

I wanted to keep but move these mature hosta plants, so we carefully dug them up and moved them to the little ivy bed nearer to the house. The bench there was absolutely crumbling. Same story with that wheel barrel planter. The girls also found an old rusted-over birdhouse.

I however found a ground hive of bumblebees as I replanted the hostas and was stung on my stomach and face. Ouch!

But I also found this antique faux bois side table base hiding in the hostas, so all is well in my book. I want to put a marble top on it and use it on the balcony next to a chaise.

Once all the plants were moved, I used a flat-edge shovel to level the ground as best I could. We’ve laid sod once before and we rented a heavy roller to flatten the ground and that worked really well for us. This time I just used a shovel and my feet and it was a little trickier, though definitely doable. It’s the old school method.

Raking also helps to flatten and smooth the dirt.

I sprinkled a winter formula slow-release fertilizer on the ground just before laying the soda down.

Then comes the fun part!! Unrolling the sheets of grass! You should lay sod just like laying brick. The seams of the rows of 2×5′ pieces should never line up.

Which means that sometimes you’ll have to cut the sod sheets. There is a sod cutter you can rent, but that’s for fancy people. Old kitchen shears work well enough!

Don’t forget to sort of roll in and tuck under the ends of the sod pieces, so they fit seamlessly together.

And then you water the sod till it’s super soggy. It will need two or three heavy waterings every day for about a week.

I sort of messed up on the edges here, but we were losing steam and daylight at that point, so I’ll have to trim it up and fill with seed later. Overall, we’re super happy with the way these two projects transformed the yard.

Oh, and did you notice the gap in the back against the brick wall?

Future home to a playhouse for the girls! We ordered one a couple weeks ago (post coming!) and we’re about a quarter of the way done building it, but decided to give the sod at least a couple of days to take root. Technically we’re not supposed to walk on it for a whole week, but we’re just so excited to let these girls play in the yard again. There are so many earthworms that need to be set in flowers!

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Art

Making a Wall Mural

I was so lucky to get to work with amazing Abbey Nova last year on her Upper West Side apartment. We did a lot of really fun DIY projects together in her lovely home that I’m so excited to share with you! First up, a wall mural for her bedroom! (Pssst – if you want a…

I’m pretty much crazy for landscape murals (in the right context!), so I was over the moon that we could put our version of that in Abbey’s bedroom. We wanted something really unique and show-stopping in the master since you can see it from the entry if the bedroom door is open.

Abbey is a decorative arts historian and had access to this amazing scan of an antique Zuber mural. I had the scan printed on removable adhesive-backed paper using Wizard Prints. You can actually see in these photos that we just pinned up the panels of the mural rather than sticking it up on the wall. We knew Abbey was planning a move, so we wanted to save the adhesive for a more long-term application. (and actually! Abbey is moving this month and is selling some of her furniture, NYers!)

I love how the mural turned out! What a conversation piece if a visitor saw it peeking out from behind Abbey’s bedroom door! If you want to do something similar, you can blow up your own images, or scan something in, or you can find large images online in public archives galleries. Those will most likely be a little grainy, but it’s still a really cool look I think.

Another favorite part of the room – the antique brass scissor-arm sconces I found at the Chelsea flea salvaged from an old yacht!!! (you can see them best in the first photo). And also I think the pink euros are great. I made them using peachy-pink linen and neon pink nylon (you know that sort of wind-breaker material?!) for the piping. I love how they work with the greens in the mural.

Top photo by Seth Smoot, styling by Kendra Smoot, for Cup of Jo. Bottom photos are mine.

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Why Don't You

Reader DIY: Faux Snakeskin Console Table

Emily submitted this genius DIY recently that I just can’t get out of my mind. She wrapped a cheapie plastic shelving unit with quilting weight cotton fabric and covered the whole thing with mod podge. I love the snakeskin pattern she used! It looks amazing with the other colors and patterns in her space. Check…

Emily submitted this genius DIY recently that I just can’t get out of my mind.

She wrapped a cheapie plastic shelving unit with quilting weight cotton fabric and covered the whole thing with mod podge. I love the snakeskin pattern she used! It looks amazing with the other colors and patterns in her space.

Check out her tutorial HERE.

If you have a project you’d love to see on LGN, email me.

Have a great weekend!! xx

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Living Room

Dentil Moulding

I couldn’t love dentil trim more! I love the textural element all those little teeth add to a room. Since all the mouldings were removed from our brownstone in the 70s (boo!), we are planning to replace as much as we can, one room at a time. Arch Digest Elle Decor Domino Jeffrey Bilhuber So…

Arch Digest

Elle Decor

Domino

Jeffrey Bilhuber

So far we finished hanging dentil crown in the living room and have started in the entry and dining room. You GUYS!! I had no idea it was this tricky to hang crown moulding! I feel like I need a degree in math to do this! I am getting the hang of it though, and will share tips and tricks after I finish setting the nails and caulking in the living room. Thank the sweet heavens above for this 3 in 1 caulk tool. It has changed my life (and has saved my fingers a lot of wear and tear!). I’m going to go on a caulking spree in the bathrooms when I finish up the moulding.

Off to climb my scary-high ladder!

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