And the Living Is Easy

It never fails. All winter long, I slumber away in my cozy neutral cocoon, singing sweet lullabies to oatmeal and flax, linen and greige. Then summer comes and I burst the bleep out, emerging in a crescendo of jazzy trumpets, reborn as a shining neon beacon. I'm not exactly sure how this magical transformation occurs, but as the sun gets brighter, I begin seeing everything as a giant sparkly rainbow of possibility. Perhaps it's the sudden uptick in Vitamin D, or maybe it's just because it's so damn gorgeous outside. Whatever. When summer comes, I (try to) slough off my grouchy, over analytical shell, and embrace the simple truth at the heart of Emerson's idea that beauty is its own excuse for being.

After that kind of introduction, you're probably expecting rubies and diamonds to fall out of the screen, but no.

It's just some buzzy good cheer from Matthew Williamson's home, complete with a little shot of Bombay to kick start your Memorial Day weekend.

Because when summer comes, it's time to partay.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to tune in on Monday to see who won the horsey pillow giveaway! You did enter to win the free horsey pillow, didn't you????? If not, there's still time... enter HERE.

Pattern Recognition

When it comes to decorating, I can really be a schizophrenic nightmare. I am inundated with a thousand new ideas every day as I peruse the web, and while I would like to try them all out right NOW (because I am not a patient person), I'm honestly running out of space and money for these killer brainwaves. I cannot squeeze one more single thing into this modest mid century ranch house (not that I would ever let silly size constraints stop me), and if I repaint one more wall (again), the hubs will probably divorce me. So, it's a good thing I have this blog to turn to. Because if I didn't have an outlet for all my collected fantasies, I would probably go berserk and paint pink graffiti all over my couches. And while that idea is vaguely tempting, the less crazy part of me knows it would not end well.

Nicolas Mattheus

This is all a very long and protracted way of saying, Look! I like patterns! Alas, I have no room for them right now (plus I want to move so I'm in decorating limbo (which is actually, seriously more like the 7th level of hell)), but I'm going to take some mental lithium so we can hang out together and enjoy these pretty pictures that I have hoarded for a while. And I will try to restrain myself from plotting new ways of implementing these designs.

Reto Guntli

Greg Natale

Jason Loucas

Marie Claire Maison

Francois Halard

M Design Interiors

Elle Decor

SR Gambrel via Elle Decor

Francois Halard

The Boundary via Even Cleveland

Living Etc.

Maybe someone out there can put my fantasy plans into action, but don't tell me about it because I will be hatefully jealous of your decorating freedom. Just kidding, I would love to see your awesome super patterned hotness. Send me some pics and I might even post them.

Color Combinations: Aubergine & Gold

Recently I can feel a dramatic shift in my design preferences.  Where I used to bookmark white interiors like they were going out of style, well, for me, I think they might be going out of style.  Don't get me wrong, I still love a crisp, clean, white interior but I just flipped through my color combinations folder and saw a lot of this action:

As you can see, my interest in gold hasn't waned much (has it grown!!!??  good lord) but the surrounding tones have gotten significantly darker

Ok, so admittedly, that light fixture really seals the deal here.  No, not the duck one.

No fancy interiors to see here, but this was smack-dab in the middle of my color file so I figure it must be worth sharing.  Other odd images I found right along it's side include:

Love the color, love the fur, love the sparkle.  This could totally translate into a room.

And there it is again.   I would like for you to tell me how this color combination is not perfection.  Or, send me more pictures of real interiors in these tones... I want more!

PS, if I took any of today's pictures from any of your blogs and didn't note it here it's because I don't remember where I got any of these pictures.  Leave a comment if they're from your site and I'll happily give you credit.  xoxo