Calm and Peaceful !

Hi There . . .

Merry Christmas Eve !!!  I am over the moon that I have all the presents done, and the table is set for tomorrow.  My sweet husband is doing all the cooking too.. he loves it.  So today, I am just playing with the kids and dogs, Candlelight at 6 and neighborhood party afterwards.  Love this time of year. We've wrapped up all the big jobs just in time for the holiday, our vendors and subs have shut it down - and we are taking a break as well.  Need to re-juice for 2015 !!  

One of the new projects I have in the works for January 2015 is a master bedroom for one of my favorites, Traci Shanks. Last year I was all over her first floor (see here) giving it an entirely new look and vibe. I am fired up to start her Master Bedroom in the New Year.

This morning, while all quite - I pulled up the boards I started, added a few little details and emailed Traci in the hopes she loves as much as I do. . . Why doing this post on Christmas Eve? . . . my gift to Traci - to give her something to get excited about !!  Need a distraction and an idea or two for your master? . .  let me walk you though this one.

This space has a sitting room just off of it, so having that space (with possibly a TV) creates a nice quite retreat (or simple office space).  The master bath is large and has recently been redone in whites and greys.  My goal in this room was to create a peaceful space with just a small dose of color.  

Having one large window with a tall curve over, I chose to raise the curtains to the ceiling with functional, blackout lined panels.  On the sides, where the walls slope down - make permanent side panels, attached at an angle.  She can draw these center panels completely.  The walls are a pale grey and on the sloped portion of the walls and ceiling, I am proposing horizontal wood planking in a slightly darker color.  New wall to wall graphic carpet and a new, more modern ceiling fan.  The look is clean, calm and resort like - peaceful I think.

This bed, I love.  Fully upholstered in a vertical waffle style with small antique gold nail head along the edge.  New side tables in white with grey washed sides and top.  Love the mid-century style knobs.  Amazing lamps in lucite, nice and tall.  Simple, soft grey bedding and one bolster for a pop of color.  I have used the teals and blues downstairs, so there is a nice tie back.  If Traci wants another color as a pop... simple to switch to another color way !

Opposite the bed, a new storage piece as oppose to the tall armoire she has.  This lower piece is in our pop color, navy and has plenty of folding storage (pants, sweaters and the like).  I love that it's a painted grasscloth as well.  Texture is good !  I would like to see a piece of art over it and these two wall sconces for some really pretty lighting on that side of the room, gorgeous !

I do have a dresser on the left side of the bed, off white with the same nail head detail as the bed.  A big oversize mirror in a funky shape.

This is the nook off the master, a decent size space, perfect for hiding out.  Can't decide if I want the walls a dark navy lacquer of a dark grey.  I'll let Traci pick, but either will work with all these shades of white !  

I like the idea of the same curtains in both spaces  Two comfortable classic chairs with a floor lamp and side table.  My fun piece.  This pagoda style bookcase in white.  Love, we'll see if she does !

Take a closer look at the pagoda bookcase, side table and chairs.

I love my two fabrics. . . 

Merry Christmas Ms. Traci . . . let me know what you think !!

Opposites Attract !

Hey There . . 

For any of your reading this you must think I am a TV junkie, based on my last few posts.  Well, I am.  I have to have it on all the time, there's something about the back ground noise.  Go figure?  This past weekend I did absolutely nothing but mess around with the kids, finished shopping and wrapping, binge watched Revenge, anxiously awaiting to see what 20-something would be working with DVF and the Winter Finale of Homeland (which I know I will  have huge withdrawals now that it's over).  Another Sunday afternoon thing that happens around here is the Food Network.  Keith is particularly obsessed with it.    He is also obsessed with bacon . . and very picky about how (only he) cooks it.   We all decided bacon would be good on anything.  While simultaneously making out a food shopping list for this week we decided to make Chocolate Cupcakes infused with bacon cream cheese and topped with a little more of those crunchy, salty pieces of heaven.  There's something about sweet and salty.  Opposites do attract and odd combinations often are the best .. in design !

Now Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese comes with bits of bacon . . . where have I been?!  Not shopping I guess.  I had no idea, but am most excited !!!  I got a little carried away and started thinking of all my favorites incorporating my new found dairy product !!!

"PBCC" a.k.a. Philadelphia Bacon Cream Cheese ! 

All these are pretty easy, no brainers - however; I am not the best baker and always have to use a recipe.  Here's F and P both of which I substitute the plain cream cheese with bacon flavor !

Spotlight: Kim Keever

Hi There !

On Sunday mornings I typically receive my 1stdibs weekly email with their latest introductions. Unfamiliar?  "Is the world's leading on line marketplace for the the most beautiful things on earth" . . . according to their site here.  If you want to visit in person . . 1stdibs is located in NYC in the Design Center (200 Lexington - on the 10th floor)  . . . it's a must see.

Just taking a look today, I came across a few pieces by Photographer & Artist Kim Keever and it took everything I had not to simple click the "in cart" button.  

Offered by Kinz & Tillou Fine Art in Brooklyn, NY, this 39 x 41" piece can be yours for $3,800.

What I can't get over is the creating process . . .  using a large tank of water, he drips paint into it, cameras and lights set up,  capturing the image as it hits the water and explodes into soft, pillowy forms !!  Wow.  Now that's my layman's explanation, don't try this at home in your kid's fish tank - read more below !

So amazing - take a look at some of his other works.

FEATURED BY ARTSY

Using Water as His Canvas, Kim Keever Creates Ethereal Images of Color in Motion

ARTSY EDITORIAL

A MONTH AGO

The abstract photographs of artist Kim Keever are almost like forces of nature. Colorful cyclones of pigment and light evoke violent explosions of energy: spewing lava, mushroom clouds, a building storm. But such powerful forces couldn’t be further from the artist’s surprising technique, one that takes an experimental—even playful—approach to watercolor.  

To create the works—which will soon be on view withWaterhouse & Dodd at PULSE Miami Beach—Keever begins with large tanks filled with water, which he carefully lights with colorful gels like a stage director. He used a similar technique in his early landscape-inspired photographs, for which he created detailed submarine worlds filled with model trees and sculpted terrain. For his abstractions, however, Keever looks to an entirely different medium: paint. Inspired by both the materiality and history of the medium, he drips paint from squeeze bottles into the water, photographing it as it disperses into clouds of pure color. 

With these abstractions, Keever manages to resist representation, while simultaneously calling to mind familiar tropes from the history of painting. An image like Abstract 6683 (2014) might immediately recall a delicate Dutch floralstill life, while Abstract 10161(2014) seems to capture the organized chaos of a Renaissance ceiling fresco, filled with tumbling gods and putti. To find these moments amid the randomness of swirling, candy-colored bursts of water and paint, Keever captures a half-dozen images per set-up—he estimates he’s shot thousands for the series—cropping them afterwards to find compelling compositions. Often, he inverts the image so the colors seem to be growing upwards as opposed to sinking. 

Though the images are produced as printed photographs, the lyrical quality of the paint remains present in the finished works. While the material is a primary concern of the series, Keever chooses to work in photography, he has said, as a way to capture the movement of the sea and all its energy in a way the human mind could never pause long enough to reproduce on its own. 

—Heather Corcoran

Just a little Sunday morning eye candy !

It Started With a Wrap !

Hi.

I have a new found love for Diane Von Furstenberg and her cool self.  She's an art lover, creator, and high on my list of strong, inspiring women.

Always on my radar for her insanely gorgeous fashion sense, use of color and pattern, but after reading her memoir The Woman I Wanted To Be,  she is even higher on my list of strong and inspiring women.  Book No. 2, released just this November  Journey of a Dress, is a fascinating look at over 200 images evolving the dress itself as well as her amazing art collection.  Diane is even hotter right now with the kids, my kids.  Her own show House of DVF is wrapping it up (no pun intended) Sunday night.   Yeah - I've been watching, who an I kidding.  While the girls on the show are driving me nuts - I am loving Diane, which prompted me to get her book.... good read !

"Journey of a Dress" celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the "dress that changed everything." Celebrated last January with an exhibit in Los Angeles 200 mannequins clad in the vintage and contemporary take of the wrap dress. 

I knew she launched her own business in her 20's and in 1974 her jersey knit wrap dress not only became a trend setting style never to lose it's appeal, (some saying it's figure clinging silhouette ushered in women's lib and more sexual freedom) but I learned so much more about her, fascinating stuff.    She doesn't know the meaning of the word dull or even defeated. Even after losing her business in her 30's, a huge comeback in her 50's and now in her 60's she continues to innovate and inspire and the classic wrap will always be in style.

Formerly known as Princess Diane of Furstenberg (Germany) after marrying into the family, she kept the name, yet could not use the title after her divorce in 1972.  Her re-launched fashion company and the re-introduced of her famous wrap dress came in 1997.  She is a global brand offering 4 complete collections each year, available in over 70 countries and by 2014 some 85 retail shops worldwide. Now headquartered in the Meatpacking district in NYC, her brand includes more that wearable fashion, her iconic style can enter your home by way of a gorgeous rug

collaboration with The Rug Company and textiles with Kravet Fabric (my wheel house).  

Being that I had Ms. Von Furstenberg on the brain when I got my Kravet samples in the mail - I started taking a new look at her patterns.  I chose her pattern Climbing Leopard in my Pantone 2015 design board inspiration.  Definitely not for the tame. I love this rug.

All of her patterns and colors are timeless I would say.

Afraid of Python pattern . . . . 

Why?

In love with this Tribal pattern.  As timeless as a wrap dress.

The Kravet launch was in May.  Textiles and trims showcasing her love of pattern and color, much like her memorable fashion look.  Take a look at my favorites in the collection (all available at our showroom).

DVF's NY home office is filled with inspiration, I had no doubt,, and I can relate - without maybe the view! A room filled with color, texture, pattern, inspiration and history.  Personal and enveloping.  I am guilty of filling my office with the same and it just helps me that much more in finding inspiration, while being comfortable !  Shot for AD, take a look.

image via AD

She moved in her West Village location in 2008.  My favorite part of town and often where I stay.  This past fall we were around the corner at the Dream and on mine and Kate early morning walk she noticed DVF right away...  On Washington Street between 13th and 14th Avenue, it draws you in with it sleek styling.  Roof top I know the view of the High Line is gorgeous!

photos by elizabeth felicella

So, House of DVF  - while full of ridiculous, inexperienced, 20-something females plagued with a sense of entitlement that make me cringe, Diane is the one to watch and I have been sucked into all of it.  The finale is tomorrow night where a 20-something Brand Ambassador will be chosen.  My hope is that one of these 3 remaining women will eventually has the polish, talent and style one should have to be included in Diane's house !

Can you tell it's a cold, rainy Saturday... all my installs are done for Christmas and I haven't moved from my spot by the fireplace.  Reading and surfing and begging the kids to bring me more tea ! Thank goodness all the shopping and wrapping is D O N E.

Holidays are beginning.