House Beautiful

Tag Archive for 'columbus'

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iPhone Stream (of Consciousness)

I was just flipping back through my iPhoto; ye know how when you hook your phone up to your computer, it dumps everything in there, and then you forget about it?  I just took a trip back through mine and found a few gems to share with you guys…

Did y’all know Ali Larter has a blog?  She’s a domestic goddess of sorts.  I screen shot the above from her site because (le sigh) it reminds me of Fall – which I am currently yearning for.  And it gave me some Thanksgiving dinner table inspiration for this year, and made me wanna haul off to a few antique stores + Anthro and pull something all deep jewel-and-earth-toned-with-tarnished-silver together.

Can I be weird for a sec?  I’ve hosted Thanksgiving the past 2 years in my – er, what was our – sweet little house in Columbus.  There are a slew of reasons I miss that house, and hosting a gaggle of family and friends for holidays was one of em.  But having a blank canvas of my own place to decorate as I please was another.  Moving along…

At least the things I love most made it out here with me, into this itty bitty 10 x 10 joint (?) #silverlining

One thing I love about Cali?  The Corepower Yoga down the street, and the Hot Power Fusion class every weekday at 7:30am.  It’s 105+ degrees, 1 hour long, and I sweat my ever-living BALLS off.  But it’s been incredible for my beat-to-h*ll-from-college-volleyball joints.  It’s the only class I take.

Any calories I burn in yoga, I replace with Twizzlers.  This is what my desk looks like. Every day.  Oosie.

Rapid subject change: never have I ever seen a floral wedding dress, and I wish I remember where I saw this…  and I might love the bouquet more than anything else in this picture, but I give her props for branching out from the white strapless uniform.

How fun is this malachite screen I saw at an antique shop in San Francisco over Labor Day?

I posted up at a little French restaurant when I first got there – and it was a chilly, breezy Fall-ish day, and I had this.  Salmon-à-la-something-something, but it was heaven.

Cafe de la Presse was good for Sunday brunch – all bustly and charming, with a wall of newspapers and magazines to grab from.

Stumbled on some new John Robshaw bedding at a little boutique in San Fran…  I’ll be checking the local John Robshaw Mothership – Bixby & Ball (Solana Beach) for that soon.  So pretty.

We made wine tasting rezzies at this place – Del Dotto… which I was super pumped about, because I thought I was going to be transported to the French countryside for 2 hours whilst I sipped Pinot Noirs.  But careful if you’re in Sonoma/Napa – this shot is of the Del Dotto location in ST. HELENA, not in Napa.  So, we ended up wine tasting in a cave.  Which was also lovely.  But not as lovely as the pretend France I was hoping for.

They did have some gorgeous Fortuny light fixtures though, so I’ll forgive them for the bait & switch.

Roses I bought at the market while fiddle-faddling a few Sundays back.

Had to add this to my “Nostalgia” playlist on Spotify.  Because the late 80’s / early 90’s are the soundtrack to my adolescence.  That playlist also has Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s on it, which makes me think of my Grandparents, which makes my heart ache – and smile – so much I can hardly stand it.

Went sailing with this big hooker in San Diego a few weeks back.  I’m REAL lucky I have her as a friend.  She is one of the sweetest, most hilarious, most real people you will ever meet.  If anybody needs a good b*tch slap in the face, or for someone to show up when you need them, Karrie’s your girl.

She sent me this care package last week.  Sniff sniff.

This is what she looked like as a kid.  Just kidding.  But not really.

My new Ted Baker cami I can’t stop wearing…  It goes with EVERYTHING – I wore it with jeans and heels to dinner the other night.  With that ballet pink pencil skirt to work last week.  It’s a gem.  I strolled into the Ted Baker store at Fashion Valley after seeing this chick’s get-up.

That pic before shows how amazing my black roots look with my blonde hair.  The jig is up.  I’m wondering if it’s not time to just go au naturel…  à la Julia Hengel.  But, my face doesn’t quite look like that, so I dunno… it might be about as smart as the time I wanted cut my hair into a Meg Ryan-esque pixie cut after I saw You’ve Got Mail, and forgot for a second that I have an afro.

Kristin and I saw this a few weeks ago at Bedrosians.  If you’ve spent a sniff of time on Pinterest, or ever wanted to renovate a kitchen or bathroom, then you’ve either seen or heard about Carrara Marble.  It’s the pretty white marble with grey veining popular the world over, and it’s in every French bistro and all-white kitchen from here to Kingdom Come.  It’s classic and it’s stunning – but it’s also supes expensive. The pic above is a gigantic porcelain panel engineered to look like Carrara… porcelain = much more forgiving/resilient than marble, and also much less expensive.  This isn’t the right application for a countertop because the edge profile would be jacked, but if you wanted to – say – panel your shower walls in Carrara marble, this would save you some serious moo.

Kristin – aka my boss lady – aka the Tile Yoda – just put this Skyline Polished 1-1/4″x6″ mosaic from Marble Systems in one of our clients’ kitchens as the backsplash, and it’s stunning.

I also helped her install a few things in a client’s home the other day and snapped this ditty.  Isn’t it pretty?

Beach shacks in Malibu I passed on a 7-mile trek down the beach (where I also passed Courtney Cox and Gabby Reece – neither are ugly in person).

Michael Kors score from TJ Maxx.

Helmut Lang mini sweater-skirt I tried on at Bloomies, which I would totally wear the Michael Kors kicks with.

Look at my sweet, jolly Poppa, Stevie B, playing with Gus (his favorite thing) while he was in town to help me pack up my C-bus house earlier this year.  This pic makes me so happy.  I miss home…  can you tell?

Hilarious texts – 2 of many – that I got almost immediately after the news broke that Ryan Gosling had knocked up Eva Mendes.

Subtle stunner of a rug on the right – or rugs, I should say – at the Kravet Showroom in San Diego.

Some REAL wise words…

The best white shirt I’ve ever owned (Vince from Nordstrom Rack) – I love it best paired with an itty bitty mini.  PS.  Again with the roots.  Fer *$#&’s sake.

I made Karrie’s BBQ meatballs last week, but instead of the cheesy-corn-quinoa, just made cauliflower rice (you grate a head of cauliflower with the grater, then sauté it in a pan…  I baked mine, though, with some butter, cilantro and cumin.  It was heaven.)

The prettiest little lace jumpsuit, ever, as seen on A Cup of Jo.  Joanna knows a good thing when she sees one.

Calligraphy I die over.  Why can’t this be a font on my computer?

Sunset in Del Mar last Friday.

Gus at that same beach during the day… (look at that majestical creature!)

Gus after.  Spent.  Don’t you just wanna spoon him?

xoxo!

California, here I come!

When people go through major life changing events, they usually do things like repaint the living room.  Take a tropical vacation. Chop their hair off… (oh wait, I did that).  But then I also quit my job and went all Under the Tuscan Sun and decided to move to Cali.  Cause why the hay not?

Here’s the thing:  Big scary life changes force you to re-evaluate what makes you happy and ask yourself what you’re really doing with your life.  Big scary life changes also help you grow a pair.  I had a highly coveted, cream-of-the-crop medical sales job that was next to impossible to get.  I worked with the kind of people who feel like your oldest friends after you’ve known them for 5 minutes.  It was a great gig that was feeding my bank account, but not feeding my soul.  Because there was always a lot of this stuff floating around in the back of my mind:

…all of which were amplified by Karrie shouting those poignant quotes into a megaphone next to my ear on a daily basis.  Because right after my “Boycott Tuna, Save the Dolphins” aspiring marine biologist phase passed in the 5th grade, I knew I wanted to be an Interior Designer when I grew up.  I didn’t even really know what that meant… but apparently in high school, it meant Care Bear sheets and bedroom walls wallpapered in magazine clippings.  So hot.

But seriously, here’s what I *did* know: I knew someone’s home was an artful extension of who they are as a person…  Of all the things they love, and all the places they’ve been.  I always understood – even as a tween in braces – that your surroundings have a profound effect on your psyche.  They can either inspire you or bog you down. They can soothe you, invigorate you, or make you nuts.  They can evoke melancholy, or they can envelop you in all things warm and inviting.  I always wanted to be the person who got to create the sort of haven for people that evoked the latter.  But then life took over (as it often does), and by the time I blinked, I was 32.  In a job I was lucky to have, but did not love.  I found myself envying the people who were getting to do what I’d always wanted to do. I found myself spending all my spare time refinishing furniture, agonizing over fabric swatches, repainting the powder room and helping friends redo their houses.  It took ONE serendipitous email from an up-and-coming designer in San Diego and ONE football-field-sized rug being pulled out from under me to tip the scales and prompt me to decide that – BANG – it was time to make a big change.  So… holy $#*+.  Fire up the U-Haul.  Here we go.

Today is bittersweet, because while I love a fresh start and a great adventure (!) I’m also leaving behind a life and a person that I love more than anything.  I will miss having my family so close by, and I will miss my girlfriends in Columbus terribly.  I will miss the cherry tomatoes that grow wild alongside our house in August… that even push their way up through the cracks in the driveway.  I will miss this picturesque, quintessentially Midwestern neighborhood full of shady trees and waving neighbors. I will miss this beautiful house that we became a family in, and where we hosted almost every holiday… these walls were always filled with laughter, warmth, hope, and so much love.  I will miss leaves crunching under my feet in the fall, the smell of bonfires, and football season.  I will miss the garden that we built last Spring, and the jungle of basil I used to make pesto out of in the summertime. And, my God. I will miss him every day.

But maybe Dan in Real Life said it best:

I want to talk to you about the subject of plans… life plans and how we all make them, and how we hope that our kids make good, smart, safe plans of their own. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, most of our plans don’t work out as we’d hoped. So instead of asking our young people, ‘What are your plans? What do you plan to do with your life?’, maybe we should tell them this: Plan to be surprised.”

Columbus… it’s been real.  California… here I come.

(Get in, Gus!)

xoxo,