A Year in Furniture Purchases

As 2012 comes to a close, it's time to look back on the year and reflect. Have I grown this year? Did I learn new things? Did I achieve my goals?

Most importantly, does my home look better now than it did a year ago? To this last one, I can definitively say yes. As I have been trying to make interior design more than just a hobby in my life, I've been making a concerted effort toward my inevitable two-page spread in Architectural Digest (I've got double secret off-the-record unverified unconfirmed confirmation on this from a guy named Chuck who says he works at AD). Jon and I have been blessed with some generous wedding money, which has also helped the efforts. Our apartment today is more functional, practical, comfortable and beautiful, even if we are far from done.

Due to the aforementioned generosity in the form of gift cards, I am deeming 2012 the year of the store-bought new furniture, as most of our purchases came from big box companies. I always love to balance old and new, and now that our river of plastic money is finally running dry, next year my goal will be to hit the 2nd-hand markets hard. 

Below is a summation of a year's worth of furniture and home purchases. I love them all:

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You had me at hello.

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I've wanted you for so long.

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Where have you been all my life?

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Do you have any idea how sexy you are?

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You complete me.

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To me, you are perfect.

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I can't live without you.

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I will love you forever.

You were worth the wait.

The one that got away.

Outside Inside

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Today's trend is dedicated to a friend/coworker who dreams of converting his own loft one day and creating an outside oasis indoors. While I can appreciate this, my own personal relationship with indoor plants is somewhat abusive in a violating-Geneva-conventions sort of way. Define water torture, I might say in my defense.

I tried to add some Home Depot "low-light" plants to our decor a few years ago, and even those, sitting in front of our floor-to-ceiling windows, didn't last as long as a carnival goldfish. For me, gardening just falls under the same category as cooking; things that I don't feel like learning.

But that doesn't mean I can't admire the amazing use of greenery in interior design. I find indoor plants to be warm and inviting in an inexplicable (primative? evolutionary?) way. I think it's clear that the indoor garden designers tend to be of a different ilk than us straight interiors people who may throw in a ficus every once in a while. As you can see from the below examples the use of entire plant gardens command full attention, influencing and impacting every element of the room's design. The actual arrangement and design of the gardens are an art form of their own, not to mention the attention and skill to keep this mess alive. Like every day.

Here are some of my favorites:

Khoury Guzman Bunce Limited

I have just discovered the fantastic work of Khoury Guzman Bunce Limited.  Aside from truly inspired furniture design using "materials that aren't associated with modern furniture," such as fumed white oak, silicon bronze and Borosilicate and plated precious metals, they are also a full-service interior design and architecture firm. And with a name like KGB, I just can't stay away:

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The above photo is their Chelsea showroom featuring their furniture designs:

Buy This Now

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The Loeffler Randall Sophie Wedge boot is 50% off TODAY ONLY

That means it's $350 instead of $700... that is a BFD!

Buy this boot for someone you love (ME ME ME ME ME ME ME) or for yourself because it is gorgeous and timeless and at $350 your broke ass can now afford it.

Riot on!

My Name Is Burl

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Everywhere I look, I'm seeing burl wood these days. What is burl? Basically it's deformed your-momma-tree-must-have-been-hitting-the-sap-a-little-too-hard wood but damn if it isn't just gorgeous. It creates a swirling pattern that is reminiscent of a tortoiseshell or animal print. It lends a luxuriousness to even the most basic of furniture designs and brings an unexpected texture to case goods.  It's no wonder Milo Baughman was such a fan. And if Milo was a fan, I'm a fan too.

Here are some of my favorite examples of burl wood in design. Just try to go on with your life now after seeing these:

Yikes! Stripes!

I had a productive weekend- as I mentioned Friday, Jon and I painted some accent stripes on our wall as part of our office makeover.  Seeing as how I'm still alive,  you can deduct that the project was a success and I was not, in fact, murdered for my life insurance money. The office is far from done, but I am really happy with the results!

Now that I'm an experienced striper (not stripper, mind you), I've got a couple pointers if you ever decide to give it a try:

• This goes for any project ever, but recognize that everything will take longer than you expect
• Be aware that floors are not always even so measuring from the floor may not give you a good result.  A laser tool is essential for this project, as is a second person to hold said laser.
• Be crazy psycho meticulous with the first line: mark the walls every 3 feet or so and then apply the blue painter's tape as flatly and carefully as possible. It may not seem like a big deal if there are wrinkles in the tape, but this can screw you later in the process
• I measured all the subsequent lines off of the first line of tape to make sure that the lines would be parallel to one another
• Be mindful that the painter's tape is negative space, not color. That means if you want a 6 inch stripe, the space between the tape must be six inches, not 4 inches plus the width of the tape. This means sometimes you'll be aligning the tape from the bottom and other times you'll be aligning it from the top
• THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT! After you've applied the tape, take a credit card edge and run it over the tape to make sure it's completely adhered to the wall, particularly the edges. If you don't do this, paint will seep under the tape and your line will look like it was applied by epileptic donkeys.
• After you've done your coats of paint, remove the tape while it's still not completely dry. I'm not exactly sure why, but that's what other sites said to do and I think the lines looked cleaner when I did it wet than when I forgot and had to do it dry.

 For the BEFORE, go here

 The IN BETWEEN:

X marks the DON'T PAINT THIS IT'S NOT A STRIPE!

And here's the AFTER:

Happy Painting Weekend!

This is a big weekend for the office renovation! Jon and I are going to be painting the striped detailing on the wall (see my mock-up here).  I'm very terrified excited to try this out- it'll be my first foray into any sort of wall "art". But I figure I might as well try on walls that someone else owns! If it looks like ass I'll probably have to keep it for a while so that my husband won't murder me in my sleep for my paltry life insurance sum, which would cover the costs of fixing the wall and possibly little else.

Thing is, I'm really an all or nothing kind of person. And all this paint thought has me DYING to paint our bedroom area a moody, dark color. It's been on my mind for a while, and I'm hoping I can convince Jon that it's a fantastic idea to just paint the whole universe this weekend.

And finally, I'm about to complete a "simple" DIY project that I began, uh.... a year ago. It's a beaded chandelier made from a hanging planter and mardis gras beads but needs to be spray painted a respectable color. I'll give you the entire ridiculous rundown of this year-long adventure, but suffice it to say this was the DIY project that couldn't.

Here are a few examples of dark moody bedrooms that I can't get enough of lately: