West Elm or Bust

Last Tuesday I woke up with a wild hair to drive to San Antonio and pick up two of these Step Side Tables from West Elm (brown ones):



I called my friend Lynn, who's from San Antonio. She was fully on board with the idea of a spontaneous road trip, so I headed over to her house to pick her up.

When I arrived at Lynn's at 10 am, I went ahead and gave the store a call so they could set aside the two tables for me. Wouldn't you know, they did have the two tables...but someone else had already paid for them.

Shoot.

Well, we were all buffed and puffed and in the mood for a field trip, so we decided to just go anyway for fun. And boy, was it fun. That was one of the nicest shopping experiences I've had in a long, long time.

I've always been a fan of their merchandise (although I did discover their seating isn't comfortable to me) but the store itself is just a pleasure to be in. It was very spacious and well-designed, very light and airy. Very California. I could've stayed in there for hours.

I highly recommend the excursion...and if you go, be sure to save some time to hit the McNay art museum, as we did. They have such an incredible collection, it made me feel closer to my old haunts in NYC.

P.S.

Clearly, I should've also mentioned this:



It's late. I'm tired as hell but bored and too rebellious to go to sleep. I thought I could get by with a quick little shout out rather than waiting until I'd collected three things (my little rule)...but that was just plain wrong now that I see this dresser listed, wasn't it? Who knew the Interwebs were going to provide such a bountiful harvest on Thanksgiving Day?

If I find that third thing that is too cool for school, I'll letcha know.

Love Mid-Century?

If you are a regular reader, you probably know I've sworn myself off of more mid-century furniture for my living room. I want some modern stuff to balance the mid-century pieces I already have, lest the place starts looking too themey. But if you're not in the same restriction mode, you're gonna love this:



At $15, it's a steal even if it's all scarred to hell.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My Holiday Short List

I typically don't like to use standard red and green for my holiday decorating...but our new house and new decor beg for red. Here's a smattering of what I'm going for this year:

Home Decor by Larry

I realize we've been in this house for (over?) two months now, but I haven't taken the time to select decorative pillows to go with our new decor.

Apparently frustrated by my procrastination, my cat took matters into his own hands today...

Mini Makeover

How many times have you looked at your built-in entertainment wall unit and thought it was just too much? Too much wood, too heavy-looking, too much of the same 'ol same 'ol? Here's a project I recently completed that will illustrate one easy way to transform that area of your room:

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Lining the back of the bookcase area with grasscloth broke up the mass of dark color and added a textural element to the built-ins. What you cannot see in this snapshot is that I didn't even permanently adhere the wallpaper to the wood. My client wanted to give this idea a trial run as well as protect the wood finish, so I simply mounted the wallpaper to tightly-fitting foam core and let the adjustable wood shelves hold it all in place.

The beauty part is that if she wanted to, my client could easily create another look by flipping the foam core around and mounting a different wallpaper pattern to the reverse side.

Presto, change-o.

Cool Toys

If kiddos are on your shopping list this holiday season, check out this line of stylishly simple wood toys by Plan Toys. If they made all toys (and judging by their product line, they soon will), it wouldn't be so nauseating to hang out in the playroom. Oops...is my anti-Disney-Princess showing?