WASP Nesting

*image from the fabulous WASP tome A Privileged Life

It could be a cliche, but most southerners I know (including yours truly) love color. And we love monograms. And most of us love prints, too. Add together all of these beloved elements and you've got Lilly Pulitzer.

As a child growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, I don't know that I ever had any actual Lilly Pulitzer clothes--mine were probably just poor-man's versions--but much of what I did have was covered in things like embroidered pastel whales, pink umbrellas, and so on....surely Lilly-inspired, if not actually Lilly-branded themselves.

*image courtesy of gastrochic.com

Thirty years later, the clothes are a bit out of place for my rainy, multi-cultural Northwest lifestyle, but I confess that my two daughters have a few Lilly outfits, and her designs continue to put a smile on my face.

I think the appeal for me as an adult is more of the lifestyle Lilly Pulitzer clothes conjure: lounging by the country-club pool; outfitting my sun-kissed children in coordinating ensembles, with giant grosgrain hair bows for the girls; hosting luncheons in my toile-covered living room with gilded tchotchkes and embroidered pillows as far as the eye can see.... You know, the typical WASP-y stuff.

* image courtesy of Southern Accents (illustrating me in my fantasy life)

Though these fantastic images could not be more different from my actual lifestyle, there is something about them that stays with me....perhaps because they are reminiscent of a way of life I always envisioned as my future. But as we know, life often has other plans. And I couldn't be more thankful for that.

(Yes, those are tiny monkeys hidden in the swirls!)

I think again of Lilly today after previewing her fantastic new bedding and bath line, exclusive (unfortunately for the shop!) to catalog retailer Garnet Hill. I love the fantastic colors and patterns, especially in a young girl's room. And those towels? Well, you're never too old for pink monograms.

The best part of my discovery? Now I can indulge in a dose of Lilly without wearing a palm tree somewhere on my person. And that's, as the Northeast's version of Lilly, Martha Stewart, would say, a good thing.

All the Small Things

Sometimes in life, and in interiors, it's the little things that bring you the most satisfaction.

Take, for instance, my entryway. As I have previously discussed here, I have grand plans to paint giant charcoal and white chevrons on the walls with a little help from my friends at The Stencil Library, but the stencils still sit in their packages, right next to the cans of paint. Since it will apparently be years before I have two uninterrupted days in which to complete this project, I thought I'd tackle the rest of the room in the interim.

Last week I moved one final piece into place--the fantastic hand-blown tequila decanter (called a tupi, I think) from a wonderful local glass art shop called Vetri--and I think I'm ready to call it good...at least, on one wall.

What do you think?

This painting, called "Walla Walla Onion Field," is one of my favorite things I own; I purchased it a few years at our neighborhood art walk and paid a whopping $20 for it. The frame, however, cost me about 10 times that, but it completely makes the piece, and I still spent less than $300 for the entire artwork.

What I like most about this vignette is that it contains little pieces of me--my history. The stack of books by Faulkner remind me of my Southern roots, the yellow urns and white ceramic orb from my shop remind me of the experience of starting a business and working every day toward its success, and the glass tupi is a gift from an old long-term boyfriend, which conjures nice memories of a previous chapter in my life. And to top it all off, the wooden and iron desk on which it all sits sat in my childhood home throughout my life!

Of course, I couldn't have pulled it all together without my invaluable (and ubiquitous) production assistant, who you can catch a glimpse of below in the mirror:

Another "small thing" I am currently enjoying is a great artwork score from the local Goodwill, a petite oil painting of sailboats in happy shades of blue. Again, I broke the bank on this one, spending $5.99. It wasn't until I brought it home and put it against our glass mosaic-tile backsplash in the kitchen that I really fell in love.

The colors really pop against the tile, and it leads me to a dreamy place of oceans and sailboat races. Not bad for $5.99!

Take a Seat

For the last few months I've been working on a fun project involving significant transformations of several rooms in a gorgeous old Tudor here in Seattle, with the primary goal of infusing the spaces with more color, interest, and, well, quirkiness.

For the master bedroom, one of the action items was to replace an outdated, overstuffed "chair and a half" with a more modern (yet not too contemporary) option, with a higher back to add some variation of heights to the space. We planned to upholster the lucky winner in a canary yellow faux leather...hello, gorgeous!

It didn't take me long to find the perfect candidate, the Tom Dixon by George Smith chair shown above. The only hitch? It's $8,000. For one chair. For some of you, that may seem reasonable (and if so, please call me!), but for me and my client, that was a bit of a stretch.

Time for round two. The contenders (aka options less than $8K!)?

A few options from Ironies:

This lovely from one of my favorite designers, Victoria Hagan:

And our favorite of all, this gorgeous wingback from Duane Modern:

Still, our favorite from Duane was going to run close to $5K, not including our custom fabric.

When I presented the much-loved Astrid chair from Anthropologie in chocolate brown print as a reading chair for the Living Room, it was an aha! moment. The client had previously sat in this chair and loved it, AND it was a comparitive bargain at $1,300. Done and done.

The best part of all? I found an orange one on craigslist for $800! Since we were planning to reupholster it anyway, we didn't care what color it was.

I love making money, but I also love saving my clients money.... And thus concludes Operation Reading Chair.

Stay tuned for some great before&after photos in the next few months.

Happy Holidays

From all of us here at Revival Home & Garden, may your holiday season and coming year be filled with light. Thanks for brightening our 2009!

Back in Business (or, Stephen Drucker Made Me Do This)

Followers of our little blog will recognize a few things about us:

1. We love design magazines as if they were our own children...okay, more than that. A LOT. And we are down to a select few that we actually open the day they arrive: Elle Decor and House Beautiful. (And then there were two.)

2. We try not to devote too much attention to projects featured in said magazines....there are lots of other blogs who do a much better job at this than we are likely to. But the last time we did, it was of that insane House Beautiful cover spread with the pink chairs and the discontinued Kravet Ikat pattern everywhere. You know the one. And can we discuss the recent red, red, red Miles Redd HB cover project???? When can Miles Redd have his own magazine, full of nothing but Miles Redd projects? Who's with me?

3. I have been ridiculously infrequent in my blog postings as of late.

Until today. Because something happened to bring all of these factors together into a single unifying force that compelled me--nay, DEMANDED me--to crank out a new post. What happened was this:

Stephen Drucker, editor-in-chief of House Beautiful magazine, former editor of Martha Stewart Living magazine, and former something at basically every publication serving as an arbiter of style in modern society, walked into my shop.

Thankfully, I was wrapping up a transaction with a customer (good to look busy and somewhat successful, yes?) when he entered. I immediately recognized him as familiar but couldn't quite place him until he approached me and said, "Hi, my name is Stephen and..." He had me at "Stephen." Stephen Drucker! House Beautiful! Can't. Breathe.

I'm happy to report that he couldn't have been more charming. I immediately begged him not to go under for fear of depriving me of one of my few remaining reasons to get out of bed every morning, to which he replied that House Beautiful isn't going anywhere.

(Collective sigh of relief.)

I inquired as to what brought him to Seattle, to which he replied that he had never visited before and wanted to see what it was like. Isn't that a wonderful way to spend a weekend? I think I may have a new life goal.

He spoke highly of his time in Seattle thus far; let's hope he returns with cameras in hand. Stephen, I'm ready for my close up.

Waking the Dead

If anyone is left out there reading this sad, neglected blog, let me be the first to applaud your perseverance! With more than a month since my last posting, I'm shocked that you may be out there, still checking in now and then for a pulse.

Well, today your persistence pays off: a faint pulse beats on!

Since opening in our new location a few months ago, we have been a bit...well...overwhelmed. As you know, one of the primary motivations for relocating was to scale back while shifting our focus to our true passion: interior design. Not that we don't love lacquer boxes and classic children's books as much as--heck, probably more than!--the next person, but what wakes us up at night are thoughts of lacquering 18th-century oak chairs (gasp) and reupholstering womb chairs in Trina Turk indoor/outdoor fabric. Not so much the boxes.

The good news? Our plan is working! Lots of new clients and projects. So much fun. So many great people. So many great finds.

The bad news? Our plan is working! So few hours in the day. So many kids waiting at home. So much laundry. (Seriously, where does all the laundry come from? I really want to know. Is my family screwing with me?)

We're not complaining, mind you. Just trying to rationalize our absence from the blogosphere. If it's any consolation, I have written some AMAZING posts in my mind. Here's hoping they will be transferred to reality soon. One of them even mentions *you*. Yes, you.

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at some our new inventory soon to be hitting the Web site as part of our New Year's Resolution. Almost none of our new store inventory is on the site (kind of the point of a Web site, right?), so obviously we are excited to mark this one off our to-do lists.

Thanks again for bearing with us through our growing pains. We promise not to be such a fair-weather friend in the future.

*Images courtesy of the fabulous Dorothee Brand, of Belathee Photography (gratuitous fame-dropping: she photographed the wedding of design*sponge's Grace Bonney)

Behind the Scenes

Primarily because of the insanity of my life (I know, join the club, right?), I am not as good as I should be about documenting my design projects--a goal for the New Year is to create an online portfolio of professional project shots--but I have a nice (though not yet complete) visual story of one to share.

This project began, in a sense, about a year ago, when a husband...let's call him "Chris" (since, well, that's his name) bought my favorite table ever for his wife as a Christmas table. Wouldn't you like to find this beauty under the tree?

Now, with a new fabulous table, a new and equally fabulous set of chairs was needed, which led to a need for some other new and fabulous items, and thus, a project was born.

The first matter of business? Selecting a new exterior paint scheme. I drew up some options (most traditional, a few more outlandish) using Benjamin Moore's great Color Preview program (incidentally, a great way to lose at least 4 hours of your life). Here were a few of my favorites options:

Here's the winning scheme, a combination of a few suggestions:

Classic and timeless, as well as a great representation of the schemes being incorporated inside. I put together some concept boards for various rooms; here's a peek at the Dining and Living Room inspirations:

Here's a peek at what made the cut in the Dining Room:

Most of the final selections are represented here--the Jonathan Adler greek key rug in the Dining Room (being made as I write), paired with affordable red-lacquer chairs from Pottery Barn sassed up with some colorful indoor/outdoor fabric on the seat cushions, and the stunning chandelier from Arteriors.

Compare the new light to the old (unelectrified!) fixture:

What an improvement. And now they can see what they're eating, too! (When I cook, dim lighting works in my favor.)

A few pieces, like this graphic bookcase from a local design showroom, were happy surprises:

And I unexpectedly scored a great (and gigantic) piece of art, a print made with a steamroller (!) by one of my favorite local artists, Tina Randolph.

We're still awaiting the arrival of a number of pieces, and there remains more work to be done, but I thought I'd share our progress thus far. Stay tuned!

*First image from the fabulous Conde Nast archives, a vintage House & Garden photograph by Herbert Matter