Trees of Abundance

This weekend, the temperature was in the 90's, but I was able to do a good bit of gardening in the early morning, and again during the evening. Of course, the kids wanted to help (little ones, not the older ones); which means I have some clean up yet to do. And this coming week, we are having the backyard cleared, a meaningful first step to the backyard adventure plans which are falling nicely into place.

Anyway I still need two "street trees", so I just ordered two Red Maples from a website. Because of their mission, I wanted to share this neat resource with you for free trees, shrubs and perennials. I think it's a neat mission because they save plants, trees and shrubs from the landfills, they employ workers with disabilities, and you get free plants for your garden. This is a win-win-win-win situation (the last win is for the environment).
Anyway, visit their website freetreesandplantshome and reserve some trees for your garden.

Home is where the art is...

An entry for Inspire Me Thursday :-)

Style Points: Great Rooms at any Cost

We can all be wowed by a big home with a big price tag, and a lot of expensive furniture and accessories. It's fairly easy to write a check and buy what you want when cost is not a concern. But is it just as easy to find style on a budget? I think so. When working on a budget, check out a few places I always haunt when I'm looking for a bargain...

- Discount fabric stores - I have two near me that sell fabric for 8 bucks a yard or less. I can find fabric in wider sizes, perfect for draperies and upholstery projects. Silk fabrics are usually slightly more expensive, but then I rarely buy a lot of silk fabric for windows as it tends to fade without a liner. I do buy silk for pillows and other areas where I want a small punch of opulence.

- Discount shopping - Ok, this area is a bit tricky, because as with outlet shopping, sometimes a bargain is not really a bargain. (Outlet stores sometimes carry a cheaper line than what is carried at the retail stores at the mall). My favorites are Marshalls, T.J. Maxx, Target, and Home Goods. I recently found beautiful ready to hang drapes for under $10 a panel that look like they would cost at least $80 - $100. You may have to be a diligent shopper, but you can definitely find beautiful pieces for your home. I strongly recommend checking Home Goods for inexpensive but beautiful glassware, dinnerware, and pillows.

- Furniture finds - In a previous post I talked about unfinished furniture projects. I still love this option for people watching the bottom line. Not only does this approach allow you to punch up the piece with your own artistic flair (something I strongly encourage), but you are able to match the color of the piece to anything in the room.

- Design Lines - All designers have access to various trade-only lines. A fair amount of trade accounts are for high-end products, but an equal amount are affordable for most people. Especially when you compare what the designer is able to offer to retail prices. Even when furniture is on sale, a designer may be able to save you more money.

While price is certainly a consideration, make sure you don't sacrifice quality by seeking only the cheapest or trendiest products. An interesting room is often built around quality furniture and a great mix of trendy accessories, antiques, cherished heirlooms, meaningful art and keepsakes.

Be Inspired!

Lise
__________________

Style Points: Forget Design Perfection, go for Design Reality!

So I'm talking with a friend the other day, who tells me that she wants to live in a home that looks like it came from the pages of "Pick any upscale Design" magazine. Which immediately sparks the question in my mind... "Do you really?" Because, though the homes in those magazines are really beautiful, most aren't a realistic depiction of how people live. There are no cookie crumbs, or dust bunnies, or sneakers left at the door. Homes in magazines are styled professionally - often to the point of sterility. So why bother to live up to that standard unless you want to hire your very own professional stylist?

Anyway - I say save the styling for special events and parties. But allow your design and lifestyle to be centered around a few artistic lifestyling design basics..

• Good bones - When selecting furniture, choose neutral colors, classic lines, then accessorize by season.
• Add color.
• Make it interesting - Some of the most beautiful and comfortable environments have interesting people living there. So don't hide your personality - live with what you love! Hang and display art, artifacts, photos, plates, mosaics, quilts and other eye catching details that make you smile, and other people inquire.
• Make clean up easy - When friends call to say they're in the area, do you have a place to put the every day clutter away? Quickly?? If not, storage bins, mail trays, and other totes are lifesavers. If you want clutter to really disappear, opt for storage with covers that do double duty (think ottomans, side tables and trunks).

Good home design is not about perfection, it's about reality. There is really no reason to go overboard trying to create a picture perfect, idyllic environment. Maybe this is the goal of all magazine stylists and editors. Similar to the way fashion magazines feature beautiful, airbrushed photos. They want you to see yourself in the picture - but maybe they want to keep their advertisers happy too...

Be creative,


Lise
______________________

Natural Home & Garden looking for your green home or garden!

Natural Home & Garden features 10 to 12 houses (about two per issue) each year. They are looking for homes that are built or remodeled using cutting-edge, sustainable building methods and are tastefully decorated using natural, organic products.

If your home is chosen for a feature article, they will send out a professional photographer to make sure your home is beautifully represented.

Please note that you'll need a few things like:

• A description of the home and a comprehensive list of what makes the home green.
• Photos of the home, completely finished and completely furnished.

Click here for submission guidelines.

Style Points: Eye Candy

Creature comforts - so important in my book.

In my online travels today, I discovered a wonderful website - Magnolia Casual, Inc. I love the fabrics featured here. This company makes it easy for a girl to live with bright graphic details and vibrant colors.

I envision these colors on my back porch or in my family room. I am especially fond of the Iris Garden, and Fine and Dandy patterns. For whatever reason they make me connect back to my childhood summers at my grandparents house. I think of vintage lawn chairs and dappled sunlight through big oak trees.

Magnolia Casual - this line definitely wins my style points for the week!

Be Well & Be Creative,

Lise

Style Points - 4 Reasons to Live with Empty Rooms

Moving up to a larger home can often leave you with an empty room or two. Living with an empty space can be so unsettling for some. But I am an advocate for feeling the fear and doing it anyway!

Here are four good reasons for living with empty rooms for a while...

• Bravery!!! Living with empty rooms makes you that much tougher. Please disregard what others might think of your empty room! Ignore your guest's strange stares. Push on past awkward silences and by all means don't offer up any excuses. Just be.... still... and be comfortable with your decisions.
  
• Empty rooms inspire creative thoughts and new ideas. I was able to put a sofa and bookshelves in a client's dining room because it made for a great reading room when formal dinners were not served - and it just made good sense. When parties were scheduled, the dining room was cozy and inviting. More guests remained in the dining room than in the kitchen! But the most unused room in the house was now a great getaway.
  
• If the room remains empty long enough - it might inspire a thought or two about your true functional requirements. Resist the urge to make the empty room a catchall room for old furniture. PURGE. You'll be delighted that you waited to collect what you love instead of just filling the room up in order to say "it's done."
  
• Allow yourself to be BOLD! Linger a while at the paint store. Select three bold colors you love, and three more subdued colors. Paint an art canvas with the colors you love best and hang them in the room. Observe how the colors change throughout the day. Decide to use one or more in the room only after you've lived with it for a while. Make furniture selections afterwards.
  

Creatively yours,

Lise

--------------------

The Big Comfy Couch Store

Interior Design is Dead!

And no, this isn’t a trend. In fact, I am emphatically “anti-trend”. Basically I believe that the bar has been raised for interior designers, because these days it’s just not enough to study design in school and sell furnishings from your favorite vendor. The overall process appeal is lost. And it definitely doesn’t come across authentically to those clients wanting a unique home and lifestyle. I strongly believe that great home styling is done through careful behavioral analysis, psychology, planning, development, study, tracking and flawless delivery. In other words, you need a great eye for detail and the overall process takes time and effort.

To illustrate my point, just look at how many divergent interior design shows are on television today. Some focus on color, others on furniture arrangements, and some on simply recreating a picture of a room on a budget (low cost/high style). What we sometimes fail to consider is the real impact of the design on the people that live there. Do we ever know the details about how they want to live or feel when the design job is finished? What happens when the cameras are gone and people use the space? I’d love to see a show where they revisit a home that was done on the cheap to find out how it’s really working (or not).

In my opinion, what makes a house a home is being able to enhance or remove something from your surroundings until you feel the way your surroundings encourage you to feel. For example, I want my studio to encourage creativity and I want my bedroom to encourage rest and relaxation. I’ve said it before… great designers don’t just decorate; they style a room around a style of life.

A really awesome designer is able to help people reach into their memories and pull out details that will recreate special places and times. Resist conventional, mainstream ideas about how you should furnish your home. Create unique and interesting living spaces for yourself; both at home and at work. Work with a design team that specializes in you. Defy the nonsense about quick makeovers. And don’t work with people who are out to turn a profit quickly and leave you with a bunch of trendy new accessories and rearranged furniture. In the end, make sure your home makes a connection to you and your lifestyle.

People in the design field must do more to elevate the overall idea of creating a lifestyle at home. To do anything less than this is to ensure the death of interior design as we know it today.

Garden Design for Kids

I often use my home as one big canvas for experimenting. (Thank goodness my family is used to me and my creative ideas.) As the weather warms up here in North Carolina, I'm ready to dig into my next big project which involves creating a garden room for my kids.

I've already started on sketches of the outdoor space, and the functional aspects - for what a one and five year old might like to use. This is usually the first step in my design process - just getting the ideas out on paper and figuring out what really works. This way I also have something to show my son, and see if it meets with his approval. So far, he's my toughest client, but he's coming around.

Last weekend, we agreed on creating a small garden and play area within view of my kitchen windows and back deck. Since it is really hot here in the summer months, it is important for me to create shady areas. Right now, there are no trees in the area to offer this shade, so with my husband's assistance, I'll create a tee-pee like structure out of bamboo or willow to support the growth of large vines. We have also decided on a sunflower room with giant sunflowers.
I think both of these areas will offer some shady spots.

The kids garden will also have these key elements in the overall design:

- Garden Art (of course)
- A shallow water feature
- Edible plants to learn about gardening
- Sand for play
- Some sort of hand-built fencing material around the garden
- Transitional spaces for next year

I've also decided that this is a multi-year project. The kids aren't old enough yet for the tree house I've designed. But maybe in a few more years...

To get them in on the idea, we started with a book A Child's Garden: Introducing Your Child to the Joys of the Garden


After a few evening stories, we decided on some plants. We are currently considering:

- Lamb's ear
- Tomato plants
- Giant Sunflowers
- Pumpkins
- Carrots
- Small potatoes

Right now my yard is completely blank so I'm hoping that this project will take root pretty quickly.

I'll keep you all posted :-)

Creatively yours,

Lise