Speaking of buttons, can I tell you how much I LOVE the brass buttons Amanda Nisbet used in the headboard she created for her Kips Bay room? I’ve been planning a DIY tufted headboard project for one of my clients and I think this little brass detail is going to put it over the top….
Speaking of buttons, can I tell you how much I LOVE the brass buttons Amanda Nisbet used in the headboard she created for her Kips Bay room?
I’ve been planning a DIY tufted headboard project for one of my clients and I think this little brass detail is going to put it over the top.
When my Grandma passed away about a year ago, her granddaughters were able to chose some of her jewelry to keep and remember her by. I picked a couple pairs of earrings and a brooch that belonged to her mother, my great grandmother, and a tin full of really old buttons. I already had a…
When my Grandma passed away about a year ago, her granddaughters were able to chose some of her jewelry to keep and remember her by. I picked a couple pairs of earrings and a brooch that belonged to her mother, my great grandmother, and a tin full of really old buttons.
I already had a few buttons that belonged to my dad’s mom, so I was excited to have a collection from both sides of my family. I’m sentimental about family things, so I knew I’d want to do something with these old buttons rather than hide them away.
After Evie went back to bed, Ali and I got busy arranging the buttons on this interesting white burlap. It’s mounted on heavy paper and I’ve never seen anything like it (I got it at Bettertex fabrics in SoHo). It a nice heavy weight and the color is interesting with the white fibers on the yellow paper. I’m sure a stiff burlap or a grasscloth would work similarly.
I visited the Kips Bay Showhouse this weekend with the lovely Caitlin. We had a great time examining all the finishes and details the designers chose for their spaces. Celerie Kemble and Amanda Nisbet had my two favorite rooms (I have snippets to share later). Here’s a little detail in the house I noticed and…
I visited the Kips Bay Showhouse this weekend with the lovely Caitlin. We had a great time examining all the finishes and details the designers chose for their spaces. Celerie Kemble and Amanda Nisbet had my two favorite rooms (I have snippets to share later).
Here’s a little detail in the house I noticed and loved. The bound broadloom carpet was tacked down to the wood floor with oversized nickel nail head trim. There was probably six inches or so between each nail head.
What a great idea to make inexpensive carpet look really pricey and custom!! I especially love it on the stair runner.
I love this image of Ellen Pompeo’s kitchen from Elle Decor. How amazing is that blown up photograph? I wonder what train station it is? I’m thinking about doing something similar with this photo that Abbey posted a couple months ago. Both my husband and I love it. The sea of bowler hats is so…
I love this image of Ellen Pompeo’s kitchen from Elle Decor. How amazing is that blown up photograph? I wonder what train station it is?
I’m thinking about doing something similar with this photo that Abbey posted a couple months ago. Both my husband and I love it. The sea of bowler hats is so graphic. And that guy smiling at the camera on the left makes me laugh. I also love that it’s on Wall Street, sort of near our downtown hood.
I’ve been using Wizard Prints for a lot of printing jobs lately and I am so, so happy with their products and their customer service. They are fast and reasonably priced — two big (unsponsored) thumbs up!
Summer vacation is just around the corner, and I’m dreaming of quiet days on the beach. One of my friends from grad school days in Boston sent me these photos of her family’s summer home in Martha’s Vineyard. It’s an old carriage house with cottage-style bedrooms. This room is named the Map Room or Chart…
Summer vacation is just around the corner, and I’m dreaming of quiet days on the beach.
One of my friends from grad school days in Boston sent me these photos of her family’s summer home in Martha’s Vineyard. It’s an old carriage house with cottage-style bedrooms.
This room is named the Map Room or Chart Room. (PS I want a house someday where the names of rooms have nothing to do with who usually sleeps there. I remember when I was a kid, my grandparents had a Butterfly Room with the *coolest* wallpaper.) Anyway, I guess more than 25 years ago, my friend’s uncle went out and bought a book of maps and pasted the cut out pages to the walls between the rafters.
He also pickled the beams. And I think they are the prettiest shade of blue! So lovely.
Thanks for sharing this lovely room, Aubrey!! xx
Spring arrived with a vengeance and suddenly I want to buy more fans and crank up the AC! Apparently we’ve all got the same problem, because I got about ten Dear Jenny submissions about ceiling fans! Here’s one of them: We live in Texas, which I think has fantastic weather, but for certain, July and…
Spring arrived with a vengeance and suddenly I want to buy more fans and crank up the AC! Apparently we’ve all got the same problem, because I got about ten Dear Jenny submissions about ceiling fans! Here’s one of them:
We live in Texas, which I think has fantastic weather, but for certain, July and August are hot, hot, hot. It is basically a requirement that the rooms upstairs have ceiling fans to try and keep energy costs down in the hot months. All of the bedrooms are upstairs in my house, and though I would love to put an amazing light fixture in every room, it is just not practical. I look through magazines and style books, and there are no ceiling fans in sight! How can a ceiling fan be stylish and work in a space?
It’s true. Ceiling fans are not the prettiest of room accessories. I was raised in Arizona though, so I know first hand how necessary they are in many homes.
I think the best rule of thumb for ceiling fan purchases is to keep it really really simple. No matter how much you spend, I don’t really think ceiling fans can look cool or pretty. So go for less conspicuous, like Darryl Carter and Steven Gambrel did here:
Also, I know a lot of times this isn’t an option, but if there is any way you can use a fan with no light kit, I much prefer that look. My very favorite is this fan
One trick I’ve seen used is to paint your fan the color of your ceiling (motor, blades and all). That would be easy with something simple like this fan with a light
If you have to keep the light kit on the fan, my favorite solution is to add a drum shade to cover up those often-ugly ceiling fan lights.
What about you readers, any favorite good-looking ceiling fans? Or how have you upgraded your old fixtures to be less offensive?
I like *touches* of nautical inspiration in home decor. Not whole rooms – but maybe like a little brass anchor on a stack of books. Or a bold navy and white stripe fabric. But as of late, my favorite thing has been carved rope detailing on furniture. I bought these stools a couple months ago…
I like *touches* of nautical inspiration in home decor. Not whole rooms – but maybe like a little brass anchor on a stack of books. Or a bold navy and white stripe fabric. But as of late, my favorite thing has been carved rope detailing on furniture.
I bought these stools a couple months ago on eBay (there are still some available if you are interested in making an offer).
Even though I’m planning to reupholster and repaint them, I still love the shape.
I wish mine were a little more delicate and had the nice knot detail like this much more expensive Draper bench and Meg Braff’s vintage chairs below. Someday maybe, but mine are great for now, and I think really fit the scale of our space.
Also, another rope project HERE:
Happy Easter everyone! I hope you have a lovely weekend planned. Here are some more LGN reader projects to inspire you. And, as always, if you have a project that you’d like me to share, please email jenny @jennykomenda.com. …………………………………….. Natalie, from Natty by Design, hunts for vintage furniture with good bones and then transforms…
Happy Easter everyone! I hope you have a lovely weekend planned. Here are some more LGN reader projects to inspire you. And, as always, if you have a project that you’d like me to share, please email jenny @jennykomenda.com.
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Natalie, from Natty by Design, hunts for vintage furniture with good bones and then transforms them with paint and sells them in her shop. She did a lovely job with this desk!
It was such a cute piece in the first place, but I really love the green! I could see this desk used in any room in the house.
Heidi from A Thousand Laughing Starfish has posted some great tutorials recently. My two favorites were this DIY curved headboard:
And this handpainted wall mural:
Natalie from Mint Loves Social Club has all kinds of inspiring projects going on. She wanted to share this credenza she bought at a thrift store.
The owner of the thrift store offered to lacquer the credenza for a really great price and I think it turned out amazing!
You can see her pretty credenza, which she uses as a bar (the inside is super organized too!), in these after pictures of her seriously stunning DIY Bubble chandelier project.
Lisa from Lisa Fero Interiors used my Happytape wall tutorial to transform her client’s entry.
I think it looks especially awesome looking out from the living room she also did.
Alicia from 12 Devonshire added Greek key trim to the ladder pulls on her bathroom blinds.
What an easy way to dress up plain-jane blinds! Her tutorial is posted HERE.
Jen from Organized Design used this bed from IKEA
as the base for making her daughter a really cute custom bed. Check out her really thorough tutorial HERE.
Vanessa recently redid her kitchen. She used my pelmet box tutorial for her windows and I love the look! I think she made a great choice with the fabric. Visit her post HERE for the details.
She also cleverly outlined a pretty mirror in her entry with hot pink paint on the wall. This makes such a statement – very Moroccan feeling. And what an easy, unexpected way to add color to a room.
And I love the combo with the La Fiorentina fabric on her bench!
Here are a few projects that landed in my inbox recently that I hope you like as much as I do: Hannah was inspired by this post and painted her own version of Warhol’s Rorschach. Love it! Grace, a Boston-based reader, picked this chair up for $35 from a craigslist seller. She had it reupholstered…
Here are a few projects that landed in my inbox recently that I hope you like as much as I do:
Hannah was inspired by this post and painted her own version of Warhol’s Rorschach. Love it!
Grace, a Boston-based reader, picked this chair up for $35 from a craigslist seller.
Here’s another beautiful chair makeover. Reader Sherry struggled with a problem I think many of us have. She inherited this beautiful, but very traditional channel back chair from her grandfather.
After years of contemplating fabric choices, Sherry bit the bullet and ordered fabric from (UK based company) Sanderson’s new line, called Callisto.
She said she thought it was a risk considering the scale of the print, but she loves the finished product. I think it’s a great example of how to modernize a really traditional chair, with the solid velvet on the seat and a pretty pattern on the back.
Polkadot patterns are hard to DIY. It drives me nuts when the spacing isn’t exact. Natasha from Samster Mommy came up with a clever method that uses cheap yard sale stickers to mark off a polkadot pattern.
And here’s the ‘after’ photos of her daughter’s adorable nursery. The pink and blue combo is really fun.
Here’s another fun paint treatment — Katie from A Home Blog was sort of over her brown bedroom walls, so rather than repainting the whole room, so used a can of leftover cream paint to add a chevron pattern.
I think it helps to tone down the formerly dark walls a lot. And you can’t beat a free project! See Katie’s instructions HERE.
Natalie (who is a decorator) loved these lamps from Shades of Light, but was not loving the high price tag.
She saw these vases at Michaels and picked up a light kit at Home Depot and glue some ring pulls on to the side medallions.
I think the result is beautiful! Check out her really well done tutorial with more photos HERE.
Maria from John’s Journal used one of my favorite tricks of covering bamboo blinds with fabric. The result is super sturdy window coverings that look very professional.
I like that she trimmed out the borders too.
Also, did you spy her wine rack? Maria rescued a piece of discarded furniture and covered it in python contact paper! So pretty.
I was talking to my kids about Easter a week or two ago and their little eyes were getting bigger and bigger as I reminded them about the Easter bunny and all his treats. Also there is the little matter of the dying of the eggs. Kids LOVE that stuff. (moms do, too). Grace went…
I was talking to my kids about Easter a week or two ago and their little eyes were getting bigger and bigger as I reminded them about the Easter bunny and all his treats. Also there is the little matter of the dying of the eggs. Kids LOVE that stuff. (moms do, too).
Grace went so far as to declare “Easter might be even. better. Than. CHRISTMAS. MOM!!!!!!” I feel like kindergarten has made her sort of dramatic.
Today I’m busy catching up on client work and long past due emails. But there is an end in sight! We are hopefully taking a road trip to upstate New York tomorrow morning and we’ll be gone for a couple of days. On the agenda: reacquainting ourselves with grass and trees, antiquing, a children’s museum in Rochester, and lots of together time. No computers bigger than phones allowed. I can’t wait and my fingers are crossed that Michael won’t get tied up in last minute work (poor guy works too hard – love you, baby).
I’ve got two posts lined up for Thursday and Friday that you won’t want to miss. Lots of really amazing readers’ project submissions. If you have any sort of interiors or DIY projects that haven’t been featured elsewhere that would be a good fit for LGN, shoot me an email: jenny @jennykomenda.com. I’d love to see what you’ve been up to.
Alright, back to the old ball and chain. I’m glad I had some left over yellow and pink flowers from the arrangement on my bookshelf. These little blooms and the promise of a mini vacation are keeping me going today.
Like I mentioned last week, the bookshelf in our living area is not really meant for books. It’s placed in a really narrow walkway where no other piece of furniture would really fit. This shelf works really well as a console table and storage unit of sorts. I finally styled the shelves a little bit…
Like I mentioned last week, the bookshelf in our living area is not really meant for books. It’s placed in a really narrow walkway where no other piece of furniture would really fit. This shelf works really well as a console table and storage unit of sorts.
I finally styled the shelves a little bit this weekend and I thought some of you might like to see how I usually approach shelf styling.
1) Gather up all your potential accessories, keeping in mind the dimensions of your shelves.
a) Big items – usually storage pieces. These bigger pieces help to visually break things up on the shelves. Here, I decided on a mix of colors and patterns. The emerald green vase and the ginger jar are from Home Goods. The red Chinese box is an antique and the lacquered aqua box is an old IKEA hack. The wood box with the handle is a backgammon set I didn’t know we had. I found it with our other games (it might have been a wedding present? yikes.) and it’s actually really pretty. I’m excited to relearn Backgammon!
b) Books. I decided to display a couple of the pretty book sets we have. I’m sure you know about the Coralie Bickford-Smith classics. The others simply look pretty or have sentimental meaning to our family.
Which reminds me. Right before we left Delaware, I found a huge box of Reader’s Digest books for free. The spines have cool color blocking, but the patterned covers are to die for. I love that every book is different. (Check out eBay here for lots of these)
c) Tchotchkes. I know they’re not for everyone, but I love little accessories. I like to buy my travel souvenirs in local antique shops or flea markets, so all of the little things we have are reminders of places we’ve lived or visited. I didn’t spend more than a few dollars on anything here, so it doesn’t scare me if my girls want to examine items. Plus it’s fun to tell them the story behind an object.
Also in this group are some family pictures and a few small pieces of art. Jordan Ferney’s husband, Paul, painted my hometown’s Red Mountain beautifully.
2) Place your bigger storage items on the shelves first. I usually like to start out with a symmetrical arrangement and then adjust as I go. Some of the bigger items here start out in the center and then get moved later.
I put that little milk glass tray on the top shelf for corralling keys and polaroid pictures. The two wooden boxes hold stationary and the turquoise felt bins are for baby changing supplies. Also, we keep fish food in the blue jar up top. Everything does double duty in an apartment!
3) Next step: Place your bigger books and stack them horizontally. I like to push my stacks of books all the way over so that the bottoms of all the books bump up to the shelf edge rather than being center justified. Personal preference – just looks cleaner to me.
5) Add other random small books. Consider grouping by color or category. All the books in the left hand corner are antique books bought in our favorite cities, about our favorite cities. The books on the right are for night time family scriptures and some other books that are special to us, including a really beautiful book of poetry from my Grandma.
– Try to balance the colors of items used and also the scale/heights. If a grouping is all the same color or all the same height, the shelves will read as really flat.
– Remember that things meant to be examined should be kept at eye level. Don’t put picture frames on the bottom shelves.
– Also, don’t forget fresh flowers! Those $3 bags of corner store carnations and mums really help make regular days feel special. The arrangements literally last weeks if I change the water every couple of days. I usually do tone-on-tone flower mixes in bright colors, but here I used baby pink carnations and yellow mums for Easter.
There are some exciting developments happening with LGN and my decorating business this year. I appreciate all the leeway you readers give me, understanding that it is tricky to write a blog, run a decorating business, and raise three young children in the city. I feel so flattered when people email and ask to be…
There are some exciting developments happening with LGN and my decorating business this year. I appreciate all the leeway you readers give me, understanding that it is tricky to write a blog, run a decorating business, and raise three young children in the city.
I feel so flattered when people email and ask to be put on my waiting list as a decorating client. Fortunately and unfortunately, I am beyond overbooked, and because of the exciting developments I just mentioned, I’m keeping the decorating business on the smaller side for now. It was a tough decision, but I feel good about it.
I feel really bad every day when I have to turn down new clients. Then recently I realized that many of my readers are decorators trying to get their name out in to the market. There is more than enough business to go around. I liked the idea of this post, where readers were able to share their favorite fabric stores around the nation. And I thought it might be helpful to start a similar type post that acts sort of like a decorator yellow pages.
If you own a decorating or interior design business, or you are new and want to start taking on clients, feel free to post a comment here with the following information:
*Please include all of the below information in your comment submission. Incomplete postings will be deleted. You might want to copy/paste the list below into your comment as a guide*
Business Name
City and State
Blog/Website
Contact info (phone or email)
Experience (years in the business, degrees, licenses, etc)
Fee range (you can put your actual billing fees here if you want, or maybe say ‘Budget decorator’ or ‘High-end decorator’)
eDecorating and/or local clients preferred?
Any other info you’d like to share about your business (like, ‘I don’t do kitchens or renos or whatever’). Feel free to also include a little blurb about your preferred style, like ‘Modern’ or ‘Traditional’ or ‘Eclectic’ etc.
I’m hoping this can be a good resource for people with all sorts of styles and budgets, who want help making their homes more beautiful.
And for some image inspiration, here are some of my favorite office spaces for designers:
Design Offices of Suzanne Kasler, as featured in Atlanta Homes
Martha Stewart Living
Office of Anna Spiro, Absolutely Beautiful Things
Alessandra Branca Designs
Rethink Design Studios
Michelle Adams, Rubie Green
Design Offices of Betsy Burnham, Lonny
