I was just in LA looking at a potential project…this staccato, Spanish colonial house with tile floors and dark wood beams – a truly beautiful property. It got me thinking back to a house I saw awhile ago that was decorated with this amazing Monterey furniture. Monterey furniture ties back to the Spanish Revival movement and the romantic qualities of Monterey, Mexico, which I love. The furniture has this great sort of western, Arts and Crafts quality that’s full of character. The pieces are very well made and have a wonderful hand-made quality. I own a lot of Cushman furniture that is somewhat similar, but this is a wonderful, less expensive alternative.

I’ve found a few noteworthy pieces on eBay –

Monterey Classic Leather Club Chair Saddle

1940s Deco Monterey

I was helping a friend pick out paint colors the other day and while I love traditional powder blues and greens, I think they’ve been exhausted and there are much more interesting ways to use wall paints.

I’m starting to use a lot of deep color tones like emerald green, wine, dark slate blue, and burgundy in the homes I’m working on. These paint colors are wonderfully warm and luxurious, and serve as a great balance for grays, beiges and off-whites, which are better suited for more public areas of your house/apartment. When it comes to your master bedroom or even a kitchen I love the idea of doing something more adventurous and original. You don’t even need to ditch lighter tones all together—pairing a softer color with a dark chocolate trim, for example, can be beautiful.

It’s important to remember to be relatively cohesive. Don’t paint every room a different color or your living space will turn into one big color story of a mess!

With winter kicking in here in the North East, I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about how to deal with dirty boots covered in snow, mud, slush and all that other stuff you want to avoid dragging into your home.

I’ve started using a long skinny black tray—about three feet long—like the one I found on eBay below.  I think it’s a great way to keep your entry dirt-free. A classic Martha Stewart trick that I love is to line the tray bed with pea-size gravel rocks…the kind used for landscaping (you can find them on eBay or your local gardening shop). This allows the gravel to absorb all the snow/mud or anything else you might have dripping off your boots. :)


Boot Tray



Pea Gravel

I hope everyone had a great New Year!

I’m back at work and excited to finally report on my trip to Miami for Art Basel I went down with eBay a few weeks ago because it’s such a renowned fair and in the past three years, with the creation of Design Miami, I think it has truly become a center for design.

In short -- it was pretty amazing and completely overwhelming!

You definitely need more than a day to comb through it. There are some very well known, established artists and it was wonderful to see the work of such great talents.

One of the best things about all the attention Art Basel has garnered is that there were a bunch of little satellite shows. One of my favorites was Scope…very young, hip -- truly inspirational. They had a wonderful artist named Yong Ho Ji (showed with Gana Art Gallery), who made these amazingly weird/creepy animal sculptures out of recycled tires that upon closer inspection are unbelievably intricate and gorgeous. I also loved Vee Speers (showed with Leo Bahia Arte Contemporanea). This Australian artist had some incredibly moving pieces that I think were summarized best by a quote I read from Karl Lagerfeld who said that “she sees beauty where beauty can be terribly absent.”

As would be expected with such prominent galleries, prices are pretty outrageous, but I have to say I thought the works by the newer artists were absolutely the most exciting and for those able to afford it, they would no doubt make great investments.

When it came to trends as exhibited by Yong Ho Ji, recycled and reusable were big, as were themes of dolls and child-like references (particularly interesting I thought was Aneta Grzeszykowska, who had a hand-sewn full-scale doll sculpture she said referred back to her childhood).

I also noticed a surge in the offering of limited edition pieces, which just reiterated for me how important it is to make smart purchases. Just because something is a limited edition doesn’t make it worth the hefty price; pieces should be innovative, beautiful, and most importantly appeal to your personal style and sensibilities.