What a Long, Strange Trip It Has Been

This could be a lot of things: A wistful, nostalgic post about the evolution of the store over the years. A depressed, pitiful post about the ending of things. A "remember when" post about all the exciting (and not-so-exciting) things that have happened since we opened our doors.

But it's not. Instead it is a time to look back and see that the meandering path led us to the exact place we wanted to be from the beginning, without even knowing it. While perhaps naive, I like to think this is how most of life works...it just takes some time to see it.

Enough with the cryptic philosophizing -- after four years, we are closing our retail storefront to focus on our interior design business. And we couldn't be more excited! The world of retail has been a wild ride and has opened doors to so many people, places, and things we would never have otherwise known, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

But most of all, it has helped to build a flourishing design business, a passion for which has always been the underlying driver of the storefront. And it has connected us with hundreds (thousands?) of people who would become customers and clients--even friends--and that has been the most rewarding part of the entire journey. Since opening four years ago, the city has become a different place to me, filled with familiar faces everywhere I go. What an amazing gift. Thank you for being a part of that, and for sticking with us as life continued to get crazier with more kids, new locations, different business strategies, and more.

We aren't going far -- just to a second-floor spot down the street (1205 East Pike Street, to be exact) where we will have a by-appointment design office that will house all of our wonderful fabrics, wallpaper, product catalogs, and more... We hope you'll continue to follow along on our endeavors; heck, maybe now I'll *finally* have time to blog again!

The good news? We have to clear the decks here before our big move in a few weeks, and there are still some goodies to be had. All remaining inventory (not including already sold pieces --duh, right? -- and artwork) is 50% off.

Stop by Thursday - Saturday from 10:30 - 2:30 to scoop up some bargains and say hello...we would love to see you. Plus we really don't want to move any more stuff.

Thanks for hanging in there with us through thick and thin. We wouldn't be here without you.

Art Obsession

As many of you know, we recently relocated to a new neighborhood in Seattle -- we're now in Capitol Hill, in what has become dubbed the "Pike/Pink Corridor," home to a wide range of new restaurants, residential developments, and independent retailers and creative types.

One such creative type has since become a minor obsession with me. Conveniently located adjacent to the local cupcake bakery (which, as you might imagine, I see an awful lot of), artist Cassandria Blackmore's studio has a streetfront gallery of sorts to show off recent works.

She practices reverse painting on glass, which she then shatters so that it fragments in unpredictable ways. Tackling both figurative and abstract subjects, I am blown away by the beauty and intensity of her abstract work, which lines the showroom walls:

Her figurative work is equally impressive:

...but it's those shots of color, woven beneath the shiny, fractured glass, that make my heart race. I haven't unearthed any prices in my investigative work, so I'm inclined to reference the old adage: If you have to ask, you probably can't afford it.

I'd love to use the orange or blue over the fireplace in a current project, in which we've done two oversized slipper chairs in this, Quadrille's "Contessa," flanking an orange ostrich-print ottoman:

If (I mean WHEN) I am published in House Beautiful or Elle Decor, one of those is going up on my wall. Budget be damned!