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SoWa Sundays Begin!

Posted in Art, Décor, Furniture, Shop It on May 15, 2009| 1 Comment »

Eight years ago, when I moved back to Boston from New York, I was surprised to find that there wasn’t an open-air art market (like the ones that you can find every weekend in nearly every Manhattan neighborhood) anywhere to be found. But just a few years later, the SoWa Open Market began to fill that void, pitching tents in Boston’s South End and filling them with local vendors offering everything from original art to handmade accessories to fresh-off-the-farm produce. This weekend, the brains behind Open Market launch their newest addition to the SoWa family — the SoWa Antiques Market, housed in the historic Trolley Barn. Dealers offering antique and vintage pottery, furniture, textiles, collectibles, glassware and more, promise to be a great addition to this Boston institution-in-the-making. And if I weren’t away this weekend I would be angling for some child-free time to roam the aisles…

SoWa Open Market, Antiques Market and Produce Market, Sundays through October; opening weekend only open Saturday and Sunday, May 16 and 17; 540 Harrison Avenue, South End, Boston.

Image credit: SoWa Open Market

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C’mon Lilly, Light My Fire

Posted in Décor, Shop It on May 13, 2009| 2 Comments »

Everybody needs a little Lilly. In my heyday as a pink-and-green-blooded prepster, I used to pull off the whole Lilly look — patchwork shift, Jack Rogers sandals, patent headband. But even though my personal style has evolved, I can still have a little of that classic Lilly Pulitzer fruit punch-drunk color in my life with her new matchbooks. At $4.50 a box, I might fill up a little vessel in my pink-tiled bathroom…

Lilly Pulitzer Strike It Hot Matches first spotted in the June issue of Country Living, available online at Preppy Princess.

Image credit: Preppy Princess

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The Well-Appointed Guest Room

Posted in Décor, Reinvent It on May 12, 2009| 1 Comment »

We have guests regularly, but for about 18 months after we moved in, our guest room/office/magazine storage facility was in really bad shape (white walls, hardwood floors, unpacked moving boxes as a bedside table, roller shades that fell down if you tugged too hard). Finally this winter, after my stepmom had put up with our spartan accomodations more than she probably wanted, she suggested sincerely — maybe you could get a reading lamp? Really, she assured us, that’s all the room needs.

Fast forward, and although it is still not the ideal space, we’re a little bit closer to creating a cozy spot for guests to relax, store their stuff and catch some zzz’s (warm walls with art, rug, proper bedside table, functional and pretty curtains from previous post). So when I came across this great checklist from the May issue of House Beautiul, I did a quick scan to be sure I was covering all the bases:

Guest Room Essentials (from Tom Scheerer, Interior Designer)

Bath and hand towels, washcloths
Fresh soap
Shampoo
Bath oil or foam (hmm…I’d replace this suggestion with a tube of 30 spf sunscreen)
A unisex XL terry robe
A hair dryer
A refillable water vessel and glass
A pad and pencil
An alarm clock
A range of magazines (!)
A range of hangers
Luggage rack
Bedside nosegay or single blossom
An orange or apple

I love this list because it seems so, well, normal. I’ve seen lists like this before that include suggestions for city maps, a list of telephone numbers for services (dry cleaner, taxi), extra toothbrushes and other items that make it feel like we should be running one-room hotels rather than providing the essentials that make a guest feel at home.

Of course, there’s one thing missing from Mr. Scheerer’s list: a reading lamp.

For Tom’s list and 15 other expert checklists of “The Essentials,” ranging from Kitchen to Barware to Fashion, visit House Beautiful or pick up the May issue (or both!).

Image credit: Women’s Lightweight Calf-length Terry Robe at Lands’ End

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Lilac Love

Posted in Décor, Shop It on May 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

I’m a sucker for fresh flowers.

Most interior design gurus will tell you that adding live, natural elements do wonders for the feel of a room, but since I have a serious black thumb, houseplants are out (honestly, I killed a cactus last year…do you know how hard that is to do?). So instead, I try to pick up fresh cut flowers whenever I remember — at the grocery store, farmer’s market, whatever — and put together a few bunches around my house.

This week, mother nature started delivering one of my favorite flowers, and a single stem needs nothing more than a simple vase (even a water glass!). Lilacs, with their intoxicating scent and gorgeous shades of lavender, blue, purple, pink and white, will peak in New England from now until the end of May. This weekend, I’ll be hunting down some blossoms to add new life to my home, and officially welcome the arrival of Spring.

Image credit: Arnold Arboretum

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Great White Towels

Posted in Décor, Shop It on May 7, 2009| 4 Comments »

Looking to replace your towels? We were this winter when we realized that the reason ours were looking so shabby was that they were over ten years old. We decided we could justify replacing them (we recycled our old ones as gym towels), but I couldn’t quite fathom spending what most good quality towels cost (mostly because I would have rather spent that dough on sassy new heels). The problem? The quality of most “budget” towels stink. But I found the exception to that rule at the holy land of designer labels at reasonable prices (that would be Target, of course). The Thomas O’Brien Vintage Modern towels are fantastic — plush, with a velvety softness that has stayed put even through a whole lot of washes.

I bought all white — simple, classic, perfect with every bathroom and best of all, bleach ’em and they look new.

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Bedside Table Solution

Posted in Décor, Furniture, Reinvent It on May 4, 2009| 3 Comments »

Last week, my husband and I rearranged our bedroom furniture. The fresh look of the room was great, but the new arrangement left about 12 inches on my side of the bed. Ultimately, this was a good thing, since my bedside table is really just a depository for stuff that gets cleared off and organized once every six months or so, but the lack of space for a table proved challenging when I got into bed that night and had no light for my wind-down magazine perusal. So I went hunting in the house for something that might serve as a good stand-in.

Using an extra child’s dining chair that we had on hand, a pretty stack of hardcovers (most of which are works-in-progress since I never read one book at a time) and the perfect little lamp from my original side table, I had a functional resting place that adds visual interest to the room – all without spending a dime.

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Family Dinnerware

Posted in Décor, Shop It, Tabletop on May 4, 2009| 1 Comment »

When my oldest son started eating solid foods, I couldn’t get enough of the adorable baby dishware covered in dinosaurs, trucks and bugs. If Target came out with a new line for Halloween, they were in my cart faster than you could say “boo.” But after years of staring at that technicolor plasticware multiply on my shelves, clashing with the hip artisan vibe that I am trying to create in my kitchen, I decided it was time to move on and have the whole family eat from the same dishes. That’s why I love this melamine dinnerware from Working Class Studios. At $6 for a salad plate and $8 for the full dinner size, I got eight of each and now they’re all we use, even for entertaining sans kids. The mix-and-match patterns work with all kinds of décor, and the sturdy, lightweight melamine means they’re not going to break if the kids drop them when they’re helping set the table. Hey, at least I can dream.

Wrought Irony Melamine Dinnerware available at www.shopscadonline.com.

Image credit: shopSCAD

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