Spring Reading

[Cottage Living, March 2007]

Hits of yellow on a creamy white background. Billowy pink flowers. Unique, personal wall decor. Bowl as art.

[Decorating, Spring 2008]

More yellow. A little green. Lots of white. And pattern. Painted furniture. Bare, shiny floors. The surprise of art above a window.

[Decorating, Spring 2009]

Spring green. Apple green. Grass green. Monochromatic collections. Window as art. Weathered finishes juxtaposed with glass and mirror.

[Cottage Living, April 2007]

A cottage garden in Pasadena. Mine could look like that. But who would take care of it? Will study anyway and make notes regarding plantings.

[La Vie Claire, Spring 2009]

Open window. Fresh air. A clothesline! White towels are the best. Turquoise and yellow always look good together. Painted furniture again. I sense a trend in my current preferences.

[Southern Accents, May/June 2009]

Yellow and cobalt with a large dose of lime for good measure. Love that combination. A party out of doors should be just as nice as a party indoors. And there must be lanterns.

[House Beautiful, May 2009]

White kitchens may always be my favorite kind. Fresh flowers are always a good idea. I'd like to add corbels to the undersides of my upper cabinets. Still happy my counter tops are pale so they reflect and multiply all the light that comes in over my sink.

[Cottage Living, May 2007]

2010 will be the year I finally make this lemony dessert. Five ingredients and four steps. Even I can manage that.

• • •

These are my thoughts—on things I like or would like to do, change, make and create— as I sit on my sofa paging through a stack of magazines from springtimes past. Do you do that? Review your magazines seasonally? Images that didn't stand out in 2008 or 2007 suddenly look new and necessary. March, April and May are what I am reading now. June, July and August will come out later for a summer review. Then September, October, November for fall inspiration. December primarily for Christmas. January and February offer ideas about winter but mostly make me hopeful for spring. Which is where we are now. With so many great ideas.

Which magazines do you save and refer to again and again?

How have your old friends - your old magazines - inspired you in new ways this year?

My Husband's Greatest Fear. . .

Have a fun weekend!

I'll be back next week with actual design and decor posts. Really. I will.

In the meantime, take a look at Lonny. A new online design magazine! It looks a little like Domino, a smidge like Cottage Living and a lot uniquely its own. Beautiful photography, striking page layouts and stories that go on and on because, unlike "real" paper and ink mags, Lonny is not limited by traditional production methods or size restrictions. The best feature, in my opinion, is the format that allows you to page through as if you're viewing an actual, hard copy magazine. Click on the cover to see for yourself.

Color and Pattern Palooza

When I opened the September issue of Traditional Home, my heart did a little happy dance. I make no secret of my love for color and pattern in interiors. It's also no secret that decorating with loads of color and pattern is not always in style. So I can get a bit of a complex when everyone else is using monochromatics and neutrals while my house still looks like gypsies live here. But these days I'm seeing color and pattern galore and loving it!


The image at the top of this post is from an ad in the issue for Mitchell Gold+Bob Williams' new line. Pretty, juicy colors and fun, ancient-becomes-modern patterns. The image directly above is from the entry hall of a house in Massachusetts. Wow, right? The homeowners collect antiques and folk art and have three teenage children. They hired a fellow folk art lover (and one of my favorite designers), Gary McBournie to turn this formerly grand, formal home into a fun, casual backdrop for their eclectic collections and family gatherings. And while I think the abundance of pattern and color in this particular space might be a bit much even for me, I can't help but be charmed by it. (and I absolutely love everything else in the rest of the photos of this home, by the way)

The photo above is from the master bedroom of another featured residence. It's in the Long Island home of a single mother with a young daughter, four dogs, two cats and a virtual petting zoo of other small animals. The home itself is beautiful and classic with the kind of custom-built detailing that knocks my socks off. The homeowner, an interior designer who had been working professionally in England before her move to the States, collaborated with a local NY architect to design both the home and the interiors. Looking through all the photos, I could imagine myself moving into this one as is.

This weekend, I'll be attending a class of sorts on decorating with color and pattern. I'll let you know next week what these particular experts have to say about mixing it up in your home. As for my own home, it's already pretty mixed up (see the evidence in the photo above) and I will undoubtedly keep it that way, in style or out; adding and subtracting, mixing and matching my happy little heart out.

Do you like this totally mixed-up look or prefer to keep things quiet and monochromatic? I'd love to hear which and why.

No! Not that kind of vice!

Shelter magazines. Friends and family will agree, they're my vice of choice. An incurable habit. The thing I spend so much time and money on, I don't even want to think about how much time and money it would all add up to. But, see, there's this: I don't smoke anything. I don't drink much of anything. (Although, if you hand me a margarita, I will drink it. And the next one. And the next one. So it's a good thing I don't live in a Mexican restaurant.) I don't own too many shoes. I don't collect coats or expensive handbags. What I do own, hoard, subscribe to in embarrassing numbers are shelter magazines. Not surprising I suppose, considering my current profession. They're actually a necessity. Now. But this vice? This addiction? It goes way back. Before design school. Before home-ownership. Back to when Architectural Digest was a to-the-trade publication. What are my favorites, you ask? (I'm pretty sure I heard someone ask) Well, let's see. Until a few months ago, I would have said my all-time personal fave was Cottage Living.

Thanks to my hoarding tendencies, I have every issue!

But this crazy economy has caused too many great magazines, like that relatively new one, to close.* Not enough people spending their money on home decor and improvements to support the advertisers who supported the publishers. So even more senior, well-respected industry favorites like Domino, Country Home, House & Garden, and Home are gone now too.

Two kind of quirky titles I purchased at the newsstand more times than not, Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion and Martha Stewart's younger, hipper spin-off Blueprint, were a lot of fun but they too are no more.


Yes, some of my favorites remain. Veranda, Elle Decor, California Home+Design and Southern Accents top that list.

And I wouldn't know what to do without the range of inspiration I find in Traditional Home, House Beautiful, Metropolitan Home and Western Interiors.

Recently, I even crossed the border and found a couple of fine replacements for some of what was lost. They're doing the job quite nicely too.

One each from Canada and the U.K.

But the one I'm most grateful for, the one I've read continuously since high school, is still going strong. Better Homes & Gardens. Thank goodness (and Meredith Publications) it's remained so popular. Ok, maybe not "popular" like a celebrity or the homecoming queen. It's not known for being the most stylish or artful or cutting-edge. But it's real. And it's comfortable. Like your oldest and dearest friend who would never make you feel dumb for not knowing what a fauteuil** is. Reading BH&G doesn't feel as much like homework as some of the other titles I use for research and inspiration. Even so, since the closure of so many, this magazine has really stepped it up design-wise. Take a look at these images from recent issues:

Pretty great, right? I think so. And where else can you find inspired decorating, region-appropriate gardening guidelines, parenting advice, health and beauty tips and ten recipes for potato salad all in the same issue? I don't know. I don't need to know. Because I have my old friend BH&G. And all of her little sister "special interest" publications like "Decorating" and "Beautiful Interiors". Curled up on the sofa with a stack of BH&G's to page through feels the same to me as watching a favorite old movie for the fifteenth time. Cozy, comfy, reassuring, familiar. So I guess I'll call this old friend my "new" favorite.


Left to right, top to bottom: covers from 1926, 1958, 1973 and 2009

Tubbs and Crockett image from my own personal stash of memorabilia. (kidding)

*If you are a design blogger or have been reading design blogs for more than a few months, you know that the subject of "dead magazines" has been discussed everywhere by everyone. But I'm new here. And I'm still not completely over the fact that I won't find the current issue of Domino or Country Home or Cottage Living (!) in my mail box this week. Or ever. And that makes me sad. So give me a break. Thanks.

** A fauteuil is a fancy French armchair of the Louis XVI era, very similar to the more commonly familiar bergere but much more difficult to pronounce. Five different vowels in one eight-letter word?!

NOTE: After writing and scheduling this post, I learned that Western Interiors was also closed a couple of months ago. Bummer. But no longer shocking. Also a bummer.