Stationery card

Colorful Joy Christmas Card

This season, send Christmas cards personalized with family photos.

View the entire collection of cards.

Our old house -- feeling wistful

I am feeling a bit nostalgic today - starting to do our annual Shutterfly album for the grandparents, looking through the year in pictures...  The incredible baby-ness of our twins, the still round-faced sweetness of our then 5 year old, has me reeling as I look back on shots of them from a year ago - but house-obsessed as I am, these shots of our old home taken January 2010 have me feeling almost as wistful...
While I love our new place - and it will indeed be the house of my dreams someday, our home of 9 years back on 27th Pl had achieved the kind of us-ness that can't be conjured up in the few months we've been here.  I long for that Viking stove too, dammit!  Anyway -- I need a place to be able to see these shots all together too as we have some new clients doing a more Moroccan themed house and some of our old rooms seem right for them. 

 The living room above and below. Old Indian door surround as fireplace mantle.

 The guest house above and below - Indian bed and breakfront, Turkish kilim on wall. 

 Out back - Indian cabinet, and antique arched window over Indonesian sideboard made with old bed panel.

Below - the breakfast nook with Indonesian daybed and Moravian star.

 Our Indonesian four poster in the master -below.

 The master vanity with it's damachiya chest, urli sink and Moroccan zellij and bone inlay mirror.  Barbara Cosgrove lamps in lieu of sconces.

 Old Indian window as mirror in guest bath below-- wish we'd done a copper sink there. 

 The master bath below - Moroccan tile. 

Ol's room - - simple - but fun -- need to redo something like this for Finny.

 The guest bath below - with Mexican tile and an old teak vanity from India.

 The guest house Doug built.

 We need to replicate the lattice arbour behind our new pool area.

 The guest house 3/4 bath below with Indonesian stone floor, open vanity and cool woven pendants.

 

House Beautiful Inspiration -- by Maine Design!

How delighted I was when my mother finally brought in her House Beautiful December/January issue and I opened it to see this incredible spread by our long-ago store manager Jason Maine!  It was over 15 years ago that he worked at Tierra - and he went on to work at other furniture dealers in Los Angeles - but most importantly it all lead to him working for the venerable Michael Smith for years.  Now he owns Maine Design with his wife Katie, and is featured in 12 pages of HB -- Bravo Jason!  

 The Brunschwig Bombay wallpaper custom printed on mylar is absolutely genius in this teen's bedroom -- the canopy and slightly off kilter Uzbek inspired  window covering are a bit much - but I love the orange and the large scale suzani on the bed. 

 Mirrored, arched window panels, overscale stone mantle and exotic accessories in this courtyard make for a dramatic garden interlude in the middle of the home.

I love the moucharabie panels in the windows of the media room as well as the Maine Design Bolster sectional - fun stuff.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving - our very first one at the house - and actually the first we have ever hosted.  All these years we have always gone to my parents' house - but now that we have the room and the setting -- it was time to really open our doors and grow up a little bit more...

I got a wee bit of time before everyone arrived to make a pretty little moment or two.

The before table.

The twins even held hands for a brief moment for the camera. :)

Finny and his Bunny

My camera was having issues - but I had to include this just because Gigi and Ol look so cute.

The after table.  

And we even made it to my sister's house after - and man, it wore us all out!  But doesn't Doug look handsome!

Obsessed with Pinterest I sometimes want to be able to place some personal photos onto my boards - thus random posts like this!  Thinking about what to paint in the upstairs bedrooms and hallways -- vivid color of course leads me to thoughts of Elizabeth's Istanbul apartment --- how I long to be back (sans kids perhaps next time... sigh...) 

Just got back from India - the only place in the world where I may actually be able to afford some of the things I need for the house...  

Gate shopping:  I found a few pair - I think for the back entry - the most affordable of which are pictured second - they are a copy of the gates at the fabulous guest house where I stay in Jodhpur - Inn Season - which a friend of mine made for some German guy six years ago who never came through.  My faves so far are those pictured first here, however.  I think they may be just the thing - although I await the measurements to be sure they will work.  

Of course I still want gorgeous wood ones for the front -  feast eyes on those below... Especially the last pair - oooo!

Ollie's b-day

Totally completely unrelated to the house - although it was our first big gathering - and almost a house warming -- but I really just want to post some photos of Linda's fabulous alien invasion brownie cake extravaganza on Pinterest and I have to have them on a site to reference -- so here they are! I am going to get back to this blog once we get through this hot ass summer and get to work on the house again. I cannot wait to plant things and work outside -- and get moving again!
Meanwhile - Happy Birthday my Ol -- 6 years old I can hardly believe it...

In a new light

Filigreed amber lace illuminates our front hall tonight for the first time -- our new Moroccan lantern hung today by Doug is making me fall in love with this house all over again. The smallest details can sometimes make the biggest impact. The vision of the house as a wanderer's retreat - a collection of our travels and tales - a place to plan new adventures - it seems attainable, in existence even, when you see the delicate shadows play over the stairwell.

Upstairs

We bought this house knowing the upstairs would be kid-land - we knew the living space up there would be perfect for our brood to play and romp and enjoy - little did we know that we would spend all of our time up there too...

It is fabulous to be surrounded by toys and cushions and SPACE to play and relax with the babes and Olv. There isn't too much up there yet except in the "kids' living room" as Oliver calls it. There are 4 bedrooms, two other "bonus" rooms, and the strange outdoor/indoor atrium up there and only a couple of spaces have any furniture in them - but we still roam about up there and really live in the whole kid floor most of the day.