Why Money Is Our Friend

Sure, money is great for a host of reasons: it allows us to buy food, pays for a roof over our head, and even funds an occasional date night with George Clooney (yes, along with 300 other people in the theater, but still....) But for today's discussion, it would have bought these beauties.

(Sigh.)

Tonight's dream: A message in my inbox tomorrow morning reading as follows: "Good news! An item you've been watching has been relisted." Fellow junkies know exactly what I'm talking about.

As you were.

Farr Out

Apologies if this topic has been covered ad nauseum in blogland, but due to an insane workload as of late, I am woefully behind on my blog reading, so this is news to me...but may not be to you.

In perhaps a fated coincidence, two different clients brought me the above image as one of their inspirational tear sheets within a matter of weeks, published on the cover of Australian Vogue Living several months ago. All I could think of each time was "CHAIRS! Must. Have. Chair. Fabric." Through some help from aforementioned client and a little digging, I discovered the fabric was by Christopher Farr. Who?

I pride myself on being something of a "fabulous fabric" connoisseur, so I was quite stumped by this discovery; I'd never heard of Christopher Farr, so imagine my surprise when I visited his fantastic Web site and saw these:

Glorious! Something like a marriage between Schumacher and Raoul Textiles, but with the adventurous color combinations that the Brits always deliver. Here are some close-ups of some of the wonderful patterns:

"Carnival"

"Anna"

"Curica"

(...reminds me a bit of one of my favorite Florence Broadhurst patterns, "Cockatoo," now being made by Australia's Signature Prints:

...and there's also a Brunschwig & Fils pattern that's nearly identical, but I digress... back to Christopher Farr)

"Brisa"

Part of me hates to share my fabric discovery, feeling like it's my own little secret, but I have a sneaking feeling the secret is out.

We have a big batch of Christopher Farr samples arriving at the shop this week, so come see them in person; I suspect they will be even more lovely in person.

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.