Your Child's Artwork

is always the most meaningful, and often the most beautiful. Check out this room my friend Brooke (VelvetandLinen) did for her daughter. I always love the idea of a gallery wall of their drawings.

Brooke is also a featured Tastemaker in today's One Kings Lane tag sale!

Dressmaker Details...

...make this the dressing room of my dreams. If Sea of Shoes bedroom and closet didn't have you swooning, check out Miles Redd's design for one lucky lady in Atlanta. And for the big and glossies, check out the revamped (thank you Stephen Drucker) Town and Country Magazine, beautiully photographed by Francesco Lagnese. Let's have a look...

Above, the owner's 11 year-old daughter primps in the dressing area. My own daughters would love to play dress-up in this room. Notice the regency style door panelling at left, the detail on the footstool and the simplicity of the toned down picture frames on the original fashion sketches.

Redd created a closet fit for Marie Antoinette, with custom pony skin carpet, hand painted de Gournay paper, and the faux bamboo moldings. See them? Easy to miss, but these are the details that make the magic.

Redd's beautiful living room keeps pace with the master suite. I love the abstract modernism of the painting at left in an otherwise classical, almost baroque room. Its warm colors, as well as those of the sofas and persimmon lamps, are the perfect counterpoint to the cool blue walls. Just beautiful, don't you think?

Serious (Monday morning) Inspiration

It's Monday. Always a bit draggy for me. But I had to share my delight. Thank you so much Decorista for passing on this absolute gem you aptly called "crazy cool." I love every inch! I want to live here, get dressed here, spend a day shopping for food and frocks with these girls, then bring it all home and entertain here! What a paradise. It's a happy home tour of Sea of Shoes' digs she shares with her blogging partner and mother in Dallas, TX. Her blog is filled with even more make-me gasp images and inspiration like I haven't had in months, maybe years. (By the way, she's not exactly a secret in the fashion world).  Enjoy the deliciousness -- and now I can say, Happy Monday!

Color...

I know, we've all seen these by now, but I'm still swooning? I think after working on a very pale project for a client who prefers to be soothed and swaddled in pastels, these images were like chocolate mousse and foie gras after a long detox diet. 

Walls clustered with art, heaps of books, pink chinoiserie,

and strong contrast and juxtaposition everywhere. 

And I don't usually like purple, not even when you call it lavender. 

These are rooms in which I could live quite happily, 

        'cuz I'd rather be stimulated than soothed any day.

Images: House Beautiful (via thedecorista)

Doesn't this make you happy....

LuluDK's latest patterns

perhaps her trail of inspiration

It definitely made me smile. I'm absolutely crazy for this soon to be fabric by LuluDK. She is in the process of having it printed. I reminds me so much of Matisse's Paper Cut-out series, which I've adored since I was a little girl. There's a reason they called him "The Happy Painter." I hung the posters from the Icarus series in my preteen bedroom and thought they looked so smart with with my bold Marimekko bedding. Brights on white. Yum. I can't wait to get my hands on this fabric!!

For more about Matisse and his brilliance, check out this page on artsy.com

images: LuluDK, Henri Matisse (source unknown), Barnes and Noble