lovely, easy & festive decor

I know, Thanksgiving is tomorrow and you have either already decorated your home or you weren't planning on doing anything special. But, I'm sure there is someone out there who wants to do a little decorating for Thanksgiving — on a buffet, entry table or on the dining table. There's still time and maybe these photos will inspire you.

(Treasured copper container filled with gourds, pine cones, wheat, candles and an urn.)

Take a peek at a few things I've done over the years to set the stage for my Thanksgiving feasts. I have 2 young daughters, so my decor is limited to few places and it's simple and easy. Really!

(Same display, different view!)

I enjoy using outdoor items — gathering leaves and pine cones from the yard and maybe some fruit or gourds from the local nursery. I also gather up a few candles, containers, candle sticks, silver pieces and sprays of wheat and start playing!

(Same container, from a past Thanksgiving.)

You can do the same with items to match your color scheme or style. All cream or metallic pieces would also look lovely. You can create sophisticated and elegant displays the same way I've created my nature-inspired looks.

(The beginning of my display. I raised the urn with a box and covered that with pine cones. Start with your favorite things and build around them.)

(I turned a glass container upside down, filled it with pine cones and topped with leaves and pumpkin. Easy!)

Start with a container, platter, urn, mirror, tray or basket to hold your items. Make sure you've gathered fillers with varying textures and sizes. You'll need tall, medium and short items. Shiny and rough textures will be pleasing to the eye. You can use fabrics to soften displays or place underneath your objects. You can boost items with small books or shoe boxes and then cover with fabric (or pine cones in my case!)

For my table I like to set up several small displays that run the length of the table. We usually host 18+ people, so there's a lot of food passing going on and I don't want anything to get in the way of that! I try to do something different each year depending on what strikes my fancy in the months prior.

(Silver pitcher filled with sunflowers. I placed several of these down the middle of my long dinner table last year.)


(Fruit and wheat in silver serving bowl. I like to keep things low so food can be passed and people can see each other across the table.)

Another tip. Once you set up your display let it be. Don't keep fussing with it and obessesing over how it looks. It's lovely and the most important part of the day is that you enjoy your blessings (and pumpkin pie)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

need a quick tune up?

Our new chocolate lab, Roxy, is a sweet, affectionate and pretty well-behaved, almost 2 year old pooch. We adopted her a few months ago and she's fitting right into our crazy lives. She's great with our daughters and LOVES to retrieve. The only thing she needs help with is walking well on her leash.

(Roxy playing on the beach)

For those of you who know dogs, you know that ideally a dog should not PULL you down the street, but walk right beside you (heel), keeping up with your pace. Well, Roxy, as cute and chocolate brown as she is, likes to pull. She weighs 55 pounds, so my arm take a beating on every walk.

There's a point to this story and it has to do with decorating...promise!

We spent a lot of time training our last dog. We took her to puppy and obedience classes and worked hard to teach her to mind her manners. I say this because I've been around the dog training block before and know the basics — commands, tools, how to be the boss, repetition, positive reinforcement....you get the idea. So, when Roxy needed some training I thought I could take it on myself. I've been working on it, but finally decided I needed the assistance of a pro.

So we have an appointment with our favorite dog trainer next week and I'm hoping a one hour session will get both me and Roxy on track to better leash walking. I plan on taking her tips and tricks and implementing them myself over the next few months, without needing much more outside help.

WHY am I telling you this? It's not just because I like to talk about my dog, but it's to let you know that the same idea can apply to decorating services (not that I'm comparing dog training to decorating...I assure you that none of my clients are furry). Sometimes you just want the eye of a pro for an hour or two. You need a plan, another set of eyes, some advice with furniture choices, custom window treatments, colors or lighting.

It's a common misconception that designers only work on complete rooms with huge budgets and nothing less. I, and many other designers, offer consultations to get you started, keep you moving or help you complete a room. You don't need to hire a designer to do it all (but we wouldn't mind that either!) so the next time you wish you could have a designer's eye in your room for an hour or so, pick up the phone and ask if consultations are offered.

I'm happy to take your calls — to chat about Roxy or decorating!

Happy decorating.

great floor plan = great room!

I love it when a plan comes together! In this case, I'm talking about a floor plan I prepared for a client.


I had the pleasure of helping a client, who has a great eye for style and knows what she likes, develop a plan and select color and furnishings for her guest apartment. During our initial consultation she said she wanted the room to be cozy and inviting and she wanted to take advantage of the great natural light the apartment received.


The apartment if for guests (I guess that's obvious, huh?) and would be used for reading, conversing, relaxing and winding down during a visit. There would also need to be room for eating and watching TV. That's a lot to ask of a 169 square foot space (and did I mention that the ceiling is angled on each side of the room?!).


We started with paint. We washed the room in Sherwin-Williams' Rain. It's a beautiful, warm neutral blue that started the room off on a path to "cozy."

(Sherwin-Williams' Rain)

We took the kitchen cabinet color into account when selecting the wall color, as they were a permanent feature in the room and we wanted them to coordinate. The cabinets are a warm neutral yellow-green.

(guest apartment, view from entry to kitchen, painted SW's Rain)


(guest apartment, view of entry from kitchen, notice the angled ceiling)


(guest apartment, the other side of the room, with angled ceiling)

Next the client selected a Pottery Barn Basic sofa in a cotton twill fabric. The upholstery color we selected coordinates with our existing warm neutral, cozy pallet.

(Pottery Barn Basic sofa with two wooden tables to be used as a coffee table)

Now we were ready to plan the rest of the room, keeping its end functions in mind and incorporating the sofa and tables. Everything else was to be purchased after establishing a floor plan. A floor plan is a great tool to use before purchasing items for your rooms so you know what sizes will fit best in your space before you buy.

(floor plan I created for guest apartment)

The client wanted two "fun" chairs for the space, in addition to the sofa. The space did not really allow for two, but by angling the sofa I was able to make room for one chair (and we found a fun fabric to fit the bill!). By placing a sofa table behind the sofa we made a home for lighting, the phone and accessories to personalize the space. The kitchen side of the room allowed for a low tv console and a small round table for dining.


Here's how the room turned out after all items were purchased and placed.

(View of seating area with sofa, two tables, sofa table, a sisal rug and "fun" side chair)


(This is the "Margaret" chair from Arhaus, upholstered in "Viviana Chocolate" - perfect!
The client also had a pillow upholstered in that fabric and placed it on the sofa)


(Viviana Chocolate fabric brings in the blue from the wall color and the yellow green from the cabinets,
plus, it screams "fun!")

A few more views of the room, including the seating and tv area, on the wall opposite of the sofa.

(The smaller side of the room lent itself to a round table and small tv console)


(Small, round dining table and chairs right off of the kitchen bar)


(The angled walls lend to the cozy feel of the room)

Notice the great art placed around the room — as I mentioned before, my client has great taste and together we were able to create the perfect, cozy guest apartment for her family and friends. If you are planning a room in your home remember to start with a floor plan to help make your purchasing and placement decisions.


Now onto her living room and basement floor plans!

it's all in the details

The details certainly make a difference when it comes to painting the rooms in your home. Most enthusiastic homeowners are happy to have found a color they love and get it on the wall, only to miss a few key details.

The overlooked details often stand out more than the lovely new paint and that's not really what you had in mind when you selected the perfect paint color, is it?

(designer William Powell's home, from Fall 2009 Home & Design magazine)

One thing that finishes a paint job is painting the underneath of the bulkheads in your room. The goal here is to eliminate strips of your ceiling color (often white) around your room. The unpainted "strips" break up your space and leave your room feeling incomplete. (See the beautiful brown room above; very complete!).

You'll also notice that the brown room has a painted vent and speaker cover. This prevents white "dots" from appearing around you newly painted room. You might also use vent covers with a metallic finish and coordinate them with your wall color (silver for grey rooms, bronze for brown walls). For rooms that have a decorative finish ask your painter to use the same finish on your covers.

Another often-overlooked spot is the inside your window frames. Frames set back into your wall (versus flush with your walls) should be painted your wall color. This completes your room's color and prevents your windows from being surrounded by white stripes.

(Forbes & Lomaz's "invisible lightswitch," from Traditional Home Nov. 09 magazine)

Painting your light switch and outlet covers is another finishing detail you should not overlook. A warm, golden-colored room with 10 small white rectangles around it is not very visually appealing. If the covers are painted to match the wall color, or if coordinating decorative covers are used, your paint color, and not your boring white covers, will shine.

If your walls are covered in wall paper consider the Invisible Lightswitch (shown above; unfortunately, a lot of their switch cover products don't fit our traditional switches, but they have a fairly common outlet cover size).

Finally, if you repaint your walls don't forget your ceiling (consider using the same color as you walls or a lighter or darker shade of that color) and your baseboards and trim. A fresh coat of paint on your trim work will enhance the entire room (and cover any drips from the wall color)!

If you are going to all of the effort of painting a room (and it's work, whether you hire a professional or do it yourself) why not complete the job with the details that will show you knew what you were doing (even if you didn't). I'll never tell.

Happy decorating!

fabulous lake house color

(sun filled family room, painted in Sherwin-Williams' Totally Tan, ceiling in SW's Interactive Cream)

I love a color challenge and this client, who was building a house on Lake Anna, VA, presented a great one. We selected colors for her then not-yet-complete house in her office in MD.

Ideally I'd make color selections in the house, but that's not always possible. Instead, we worked from photos of the construction, counter top and cabinet samples. We selected paint colors for 13 rooms during an almost 2 hour meeting. The fabulous results are shown here via photos sent from the client.

(family room into kitchen, painted in SW's Harmonic Tan, ceiling is SW's Netsuke)


(kitchen, painted in SW's Harmonic Tan, ceiling is SW's Netsuke)

We selected a warm color pallet and kept the colors soothing and neutral so the lovely outdoors could be the feature of each room. To keep the rooms feeling spacious and open, we painted the ceilings a lighter value than the wall color versus white.

(from family room to entrance, the wall to the right is SW's Tatami Tan)

(lower level, with huge tray ceiling;
walls are in SW's Favorite Tan, the tray ceiling is painted with SW's Sawdust
and the remaining ceiling is SW's RIce Grain.)

There's a lot to love about this waterfront house, including the wall colors, which happily take a back seat to the fabulous views! If you are looking to create a whole-house color pallet you can save time and money by hiring an interior designer—even if done from a remote location.

Happy painting!

new online decorating magazine

Former Domino magazine editors have launched and online decorating magazine, Lonny Magazine.


If you've never seen an online magazine, they are kind of cool in that the pages "turn" when you click ahead. Many online retail catalogs have had this set up for a while and now magazines are starting to do it.

I still prefer the paper version of a magazine to the online version, but good stuff is good stuff. The fall issue is the premier issue, so click here and check it out!

Happy decorating!

stylish & pretty reusable bags

Along with my love of magazines and stationery, I also love a great bag. Whether its a purse, a tote, beach bag or something to hold work files, I love carrying something stylish to get the job done.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the mail today and found a big yellow envelope addressed to me. It was from a fellow designer, Marie Whitehill, who I "met" during a recent SDP webinar. I was a presenter during the webinar (it was on business forms—boring stuff, but important & useful for a business owner!) and sent Marie my files after the event. It was my pleasure to do so.

(Black on White Swirl collection bags from Mixed Bag Designs)

Well she went and mailed me a thank you gift. And, not just any gift, but these fabulous reusable bags (not something that usually goes together -— fabulous and reusable) from Mixed Bag Designs. They are so great that I had to A. thank her publicly and B. share the bags with you!

Mixed Bag Designs' site says they wanted to design a "great looking reusable grocery bag…a bag with no logos, a bag that could be used for groceries and a million different things..." They succeeded! I just started poking around on the site, but see that the bags come in all sorts of colors and sizes.

Now I must plan a shopping trip for today so I can use my great new bags! And I was just in Target this morning...

Thanks Marie and thank you Mixed Bag Designs for making such a great product!