Beautiful Baths

I rarely see bathrooms I really love. But these four are all dramatic, chic, and elegant. Which is your favorite?

Miles Redd's gorgeous and infamous floor to ceiling mirrored bath holds a particular charm for me as it was salvaged from the Armour estate blocks from my childhood home in Lake Forest, Illinois. The home was built in 1931 and was the estate of Lester Armour of the meatpacking fortune. It was a collaboration between the brilliant architect David Adler and his equally brilliant sister interior designer Frances Elkins. The house was gutted in the 1990s by eighties pop icon Richard Marx and the bathroom languished in a salvage yard until rescued by Miles Redd.

Miles Redd's powder room-very art deco glam with its black, white, and Lucite. I love the little pop of color on the monogrammed hand towels.

I love this Cowtan & Tout Manuel Canovas wallpaper, the monogrammed towel (always make your monograms large, they are much more elegant), and the silver leather cube. The perfect woman's bathroom. This glamorous and feminine bathroom featured in House Beautiful is by designer Amanda Nisbet.

I have no idea where I originally found this photo, but I love the unexpected use of blue and white porcelain and the chopstick monogram on the towels-I would guess Leontine Linens. This is a great way to glamorize a white bathroom. I would have used a blue and white garden stool instead of the large vase on the floor-a perfect perch for a towel or robe.

Miles Redd Interview

Question-"What is your No. 1 design rule?"

Answer-"Buy the best and you only cry once."

(Photo and quote courtesy of  Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles-April 2009)

My New Labor of Love

Please visit my new adventure Chinoiserie Chic where each day I will be featuring wonderful examples of my favorite style Chinoiserie. People have been fascinated with the arts of the Far East since the days of Marco Polo. Travelers to China and Japan have always returned with treasures of silks, porcelain, and lacquer work. Asian objects and decorative motifs have also served as inspiration for fanciful styles in objects of purely Western form, such as pagodas, mandarins, exotic birds, and flowers. Many of my favorite interior designers of today like Mary McDonald and Charlotte Moss use Chinoiserie frequently in their work. The lovely photo above is a dining room featured in House Beautiful by Ruthie Sommers. My finds will be antique to modern, from West Elm to 1st Dibs, so there will be something for every lover of this style. I plan to have some wonderful Chinoiserie giveaways to help launch this new blog, so please stop by.

A Fresh Spring

The magnificent hues, shiny fabrics, and chunky jewelry have me anticipating the day when the rain stops and the sun decides to show its face again. 

Glamour May 2009 

photos by Patrick Demarchelier 

Mary Jane Pool

Perhaps my favorite article in Domino Magazine was the piece they did in March 2008 on the apartment of Mary Jane Pool. Pool is one of the best magazine editors of the 20th century. She worked for both Vogue and House and Garden, and served as editor in chief of House and Garden from 1970-1980. House and Garden was never better than under her perfect eye for detail. I love these photos of her place-the wonderful colors, Venetian antiques, sumptuous fabrics and wallpaper, and the keen mixing of antiques and 2oth century pieces. Notice the split photos showing earlier and later versions of the same space. She incorporates perfectly all of my favorite things-Chinoiserie, lots of books and magazines, painted furniture, mixing of antiques and modern, hand-painted wallpaper, blue and white porcelain, leopard, wonderful mixing of pattern, yellow, silks, oversized lampshades, needlepoint rugs, pillows, tufting, coral pink, I could go on and on.... This is my dream apartment.

Dreaming of this Dress

I found this stunning photo on Flickr entitled "Dreaming of the Streets of Paris." If you look closely, it is a mannequin dressed in Alexander McQueen. Wow!

The Gray Wedding Dress

This year, all the buzz in bridal wear seems to be about gray wedding dresses. This tulle tiered 1000 layer fairy tale gown by Versace Couture is from Season 6 of Sex and the City-An American Girl in Paris: Part Une. Most of the gray bridal gowns I have seen pictured are more of an icy gray which don't seem to work. This color is more celadon-a green gray that I find stunning. My dream dress. Period.

A Hat for the Derby

I can't decide on which hat to wear for my Kentucky Derby Party today....

Perhaps I should just wear them all!

(Last photo courtesy of Rodney Smith)

Neon Shy

You may already know that neon is a very trendy statement this season. I actually prefer a splash of neon because it's more subtle. You have to own the neon look if you're going all out. I spotted this headband (patent, of course) over at J. Crew this afternoon and thought the pink and green could really spruce up a dark ensemble. It'd accent the highlights in your hair as well ;).   

Chinoiserie Walls

What impressed me most at the Washington DC Design House was a little tiny but drop-dead gorgeous space by Draza Stamenich. He used Gracie hand-painted wallpaper to create the most lovely and luxurious laundry room ever. I hesitate to use the word wallpaper because I agree with Draza that paper like Gracie and de Gournay are really works of art and shouldn't be called wallpaper. This wonderful space, as well as a recent post by Nick Olsen on accent walls, reminded me that although I am not a fan of painted accent walls, I really adore the look of gorgeous Chinoiserie paper on one wall. These wonderful rooms pictured here use the paper like it is a work of art which is exactly what it is. 

The laundry room with Gracie.

Ruthie Sommers' lovely dining room from House Beautiful with its wall of vintage Chinese wallpaper found via Style Court.

A chic kitchen dining nook with a wall of Chinese wallpaper from Domino Magazine.

A great example from Domino Magazine with its wall of de Gournay wallpaper. Nick Olsen made the observation that the designer used a black molding that looks like bamboo to frame the paper, turning the wall into a framed work of art.