Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Our Vacay is Over. Now Back to the Scheduled Program

Our vacation to this little slice of paradise is over.



Has been for over a week, and man has it been an intense pressure cooker filled with work since our return. I think a 3-day vacay each month will be in order for me to handle the insanity.
Anywho, it's good to be back dishing with y'all.
Major thanks, hugs and more hugs to Linda at Calling it Home and Albertina at Mimosa Lane for holding it down over here with their amazing guest posts. Eternally grateful to those two ladies.
Lots to update you on in the next week or two. Projects are in full swing and so we'll have loads to share. 
In the meantime, I'm over at Houzz dishing about everyone's obsession with Chippendale and Cane chairs. Remember our dearest Tiffany Leigh drove four hours round trip to score hers? The things we do for love.


Remember our very own DIY cane chairs for this fab project?
 
 


Happy to be back. I'm now off to go see what y'all have been up to.

 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Do You Know What Today Is? It's Our Anniversary

Well, it really isn't my anniversary, but I couldn't resist that line from one of my favorite groups, Tony Toni Tone. Alas, we're still on our real life and blogging vacay, so today we'll have the amazing Albertina from Mimosa Lane dishing about wedding anniversary gifts.
 

This is Albertina from Mimosa Lane and I'm so excited to be here at Live, Laugh Decorate today.  Nicole was one of my first blogger friends.  It has been so exciting watching her blog and business grow in this last year.  I just adore her room reveals.  They are always such beautiful and dramatic transformations.   Today, I have some yummy jewelry ideas for anniversary gifts.  So many people get married in the Spring, so I'm sure many of you have anniversaries coming up.  Mine was just last week (eight years!), and so I rounded up a group of beauties to get your  inspiration juices flowing.

I divided my selection into Silver and Gold, and within these High and Low  (keep in mind these high and low prices are all relative!]  You know which pieces are my fave? and represent to me the biggest bang for your buck?  Numbers 4 , 5 , and 6 in the Silver version.  These beauties are made in silver but plated in 18K gold and of course with some beautiful stones added.  The designs are so fun and daring.  This designer, Irene Zingg, really is inspired and has some amazing pieces that can easily be passed down from generation to generation.  These pieces just make me swoon!  I hope you are pampered on your anniversaries!
 
Which are your favorites?



[ GOLD. LO || 1 , 2 , 3.  HI || 4 , 5 , 6 ]
[SILVER. LO || 1 , 2 , 3. HI || 4 , 5 , 6 ]

Monday, April 22, 2013

Take Me to Miami

Hello Live Laugh Decorator's, I'm Linda from Calling it Home.  
Nicole and Debbie crack me up big time while inspiring me to try new ideas with my decorating. I am thrilled to be here sharing ideas with all of you. It only seemed fitting that I do a vacation post. Hit play....and let's go!
 
 
We are touring the Viceroy Luxury Hotel designed by Kelly Wearstler. 
 







How many ideas will you be stealing? I am definitely feeling the yellow love. Keeping with that Miami flavor, I'll leave you with my favorite Zumba workout video....it's for beginners....I'm still working my way up to the beginner level.
 
 
Thanks for having me, ladies. Enjoy your time off.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Negril! Vacay Here We Come.....

We're off to our favorite island, specifically to one of our favorite places on said island, Negril. 


For that cottage in Negril
We'll be doing lots of this.....

And maybe some of this....
Source - Rick's Cafe Negril


Sippin on lots of this.....
Source

Playing plenty of board games like this....
Source
But in the end, we just wanna have a good time and plenty of chill moments like this.....

Source

We'll miss you guys, but we REALLY need a break and LOTS of fun.
Since we'll be hungover much of next week, we'll have some amazing guest posts from a few of our blogger besties. Stay tuned.  
Cheers.
Nicole and Debbie

Friday, April 12, 2013

Trading Spaces - Wacky Designs of Hildi Santo-Thomas


Trading Spaces!
I remember this show all so well and watched it religiously.
But do you remember Hildi?
 


Ah, Hildi. She quickly became the villain of design television. I remember hating Hildi's designs so much that it hurt. She is a genius designer, but her penchant for putting design over function and for flatly ignoring her clients wishes just made me bananas. Not to mention the homeowners! Many cringed when they learned Hildi was involved in their project. But she made for great television and I'm pretty sure her shenanigans made Trading Spaces a ratings bonanza during its heyday.
So of course when Buzz Feed unearthed these priceless Hildi rooms I had to share. Brace yourselves.
Yep, Hildi worked her way into the design by leaving behind a little art - of herself!

I think it's safe to say y'all know how I feel about fake flowers. So fake flowers multiplied by a 1000? Nuff said.

Like everyone else, I love the beach. But sand in my house and circus color stripes? I can't even see straight after looking at this one.   

Lord Jezus it's a floating table. And chairs. WTH?

Let them eat hay! Yep, walls filled with hay, in a home with small children no less.  This bat crazy decision got so testy that the homeowners threatened a lawsuit. The production company settled out of court with the homeowners to have this mess removed and their home redone.
Did you watch Trading Spaces? Do you remember Hildi and her shenanigans?
If nothing else, it was a riot. And Hildi certainly made a name for herself. She lives in Paris and remains pretty well known. 
All hay aside, I did enjoy the show and do recall falling hopelessly in love with Vern Yip's designs and was happy to see him grow and move on up to HGTV.
TGIF guys!
P.S.
Thanks for all the kind words on our family room reveal this week. You guys rock!
Shout-out to all my Instragram junkies. That thing is truly addictive.
And a major shout-out to all our new clients, and the ones waiting patiently for us to squeeze them in. We are blessed.
Have a fab weekend.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Kitchen - DIY Banquette


It's all about our client Jina B. this week, so as promised, let's dish about that banquette area that we previewed earlier this week here. This is how the kitchen looked when she first purchased the home.


If you recall, we then did a very budget-friendly update with a few cans of paint, new appliances and some accessories. You can see the complete transformation here.


Jina now wished for a banquette, which can be costly since you typically need to have them custom made. But her banquette area was very close in width to the size of an unfinished pantry from Home Depot - flipped on its sides of course. Once on its side, the pantry also had the perfect seating height - 18". For added safety and support, we added plywood atop the pantry/seating and affixed the entire piece to the wall. We then added hinges for easy access to the banquette doors so she could use it to store some party items.

 



There would be some room between the seating and the existing kitchen cabinets so adding a base cabinet made sense. But since we had no plan to install additional granite for the new cabinet to be flush with the existing counter top, we decided to turn it into something she'd certainly appreciate - a wine rack. Yes, Jina loves her some wine so this would be a bit of a surprise since ya know, she kinda lets me do my thing. To build the wine rack we simply removed the doors, purchased ready made wine inserts (called wine lattice), painted and a wine rack was born. The area then became a little drink station of sorts for all the parties she has already had this year, and will continue to have. Without further ado, here is her kitchenette with a customized banquette, super cool Tulip table/chairs et al. 

 


 



A huge shout out to Shiggaion, aka Shaggy of Circle Ten Maintenance, who executed this DIY and puts up with my crazy ideas - which usually start off something like, "Hey Shag, what ya doin? I have an idea." He never says no. As you can see, he's also our resident photographer.




Tulip Table/Chairs - Lexington Modern
Banquette seating/wine rack - Home Depot
Wine Lattice/Hinges - Unity General
 Curtains/Pillows - Titan Decor
Pendant Light - Lightology
Artwork - Home Goods
Accessories - Home Goods, Target, Z-Gallerie



Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Happy Hump Day!


It's midweek aka we're almost there peeps.
Today I'm dishing about those pesky throw pillows over on Houzz. They are my go to source for color in a room.


But just how many is too many? Hint: If you can't get your entire body in the bed at night, then there are too many darn pillows on that bed!
And guess whose throw pillows gets a mention? None other than the amazing Albertina at Mimosa Lane.

Y'all know how much I love me some Albertina. She's been an amazing blogger bestie, and would be on my VIP list were I to throw a blogger soiree. Yep, she would. Loving her new venture and happy to see her business grow.
In other news, today is a big day for NWD. Am uber excited about a contract that's on the table because the design of this space is gonna be bananas! Wish us luck!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Hooray! Our Family Room Reveal


Here we are at last, with the family room reveal for our dearest client Jina, affectionately dubbed, Miss Whatever.
If you're a long time follower of this seasoned one year-old blog - yikes, we need to celebrate that milestone - then you know all about Miss Jina's wonderful home. If you don't, then check out all the reveals here, here and here.
She is a patient one, and so for this project we would take our time. She started this design phase last October.
After sharing some design inspirations and signing off on a plan, we headed out to shop for the key element in the room. The sectional. As in most of our furniture jaunts, she would fall in love with the first item we found, which would mean circling back hours later to our first stop to pull the trigger.  This would be a custom order. Again, Jina is never in a rush and seemed perfectly okay using her fold out chairs. And there was a snafu. A few weeks after placing the order, we found out that the fabric we'd selected had been discontinued. I think I popped a grey hair when that news came. Since Jina works out of town, her mom and I were trusted to select the new fabrics on her behalf. I gotta say, sometimes those problems turn out to be a blessing in disguise because we all adore the new fabric and pillows.
Okay, enough chatter, here's where we started when we first saw her home a year and a half ago.
Bare walls, some water damage, vertical blinds, a sad pendant light. Need I say more?




Here's where we are today.
The sectional was to be the main anchor of the room and we needed to load up on seating options because Jina and her family are BIG party throwers. I mean, seriously, they throw parties just because the sun is out. They are serious about working hard and playing hard. The banquette area provides additional seating and is quite possibly my favorite area of the space (I'll share that full reveal on Thursday, including a great trick on achieving a custom banquette for half the price).



The deep charcoal grey of the sectional would need loads of color to bring it to life. Since I'd used orange accents in the adjacent kitchen and foyer, I wanted to pull that into this space as well. I also learned from a conversation with her mom that Jina loves purple so decided to work that in with the curtains. Now, y'all know I've never met a color I'm afraid of, and am often asked how to use bold colors. The key is balance. These are two bold color choices that work because there are plenty of shades of grey throughout the room - on the walls, rug, sectional - so they would definitely complement each other and not overwhelm the space.




This coffee table is really a bench, which will again provide more seating for those parties I mentioned. I've styled it with fun mementos - Jina is following in her mom's lead with her love of orchids, she loves to cook so this cookbook by chef Hugh Acheson about Southern cooking will be a great read. The mini globe is a nod to her love of travel. The tray serves double duty as decor item and holder of many dinner plates to come.


Every sectional/sofa needs a warm throw to snuggle up with. This one from West Elm will definitely be used.The framed art are photos of the various cities of her family roots: Maine, Bahamas, Jamaica and Kentucky.


 


 
Those side tables need love too. These nesting tables have an interesting geometric detail on the side that I fell in love with. The orange candles are a nod to her alma mater, FAMU. This "Thumbs Up" item is my little shout out to her for getting the home of her dreams, and for allowing me to design said home.  The lamps were another great find from Home Goods.
 


 
The curtains are from Ikea but embellished for a custom look. Y'all know how much I love to embellish a curtain. My trusty drapery team added a black banding at the bottom, joining the two with a herringbone piping.
 
  
 
Last but not least, this sleek media console also serves double duty as a place to showcase some cool sculptures and family photos.  It's flanked by two x-leg benches, more seating for you know what. Huge shout-out to our area rug who won the battle of the area rug contest! Its graphic detailing adds some interest to the floors and is a great foil next to the white console and dark sectional. The artwork from local artist Phil Fung is the first in her collection that we plan to grow over the years. 

 
 
That's all folks. Thanks again to Jina for being such an amazing client and for giving me SO much latitude in selecting her finishes and key pieces.  Eternally humbled. Kudos too to the NWD team for pulling out all the stops to get this one done.

 


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