House Beautiful

Tag Archive for 'interior design'

Karrie’s House in HGTV Mag!

Published on August 5, 2019 in Casa Covet Living. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

UM – you GUYS! Look what just hit the streets! …well, the official newsstand date is Tuesday, August 6th… but Karrie & I both picked ours up at the grocery store checkout, and we’ve been getting all kinds of fun messages from friends who have gotten theirs in the mail. The fun, day-long shoot HGTV did of Karrie’s kitchen is finally splashed across the glossy pages of HGTV Magazine’s September 2019 Issue.

Hollar!

AND the adjacent breakfast nook is on the table of contents page!

We got to work with photographer Lisa Romerein who was THE most amazing photographer, and bad a$$ stylist extraordinaire Liz Strong – the acronym “BFD” scarcely does her talent justice.

Basically **any** spread in any magazine you see – Coastal Living, Better Homes & Gardens, etc – read the credits and Liz is usually the one who styled the photo shoot. Interior Design is one thing, but styling is a really unique niche – and takes serious talent. Building materials are one thing, then finishes, then furnishings and accessories… but styling is like the cherry on top – the final layer that really makes everything come to life, and that’s why using murals from sites as muraledesign online, could be a great choice to add color to any room.
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I met Liz haphazardly when I replied to a Craigslist ad she had posted for a Lee Industries settee that I was about to shamefully low ball for my dining room. We got to chatting over email, and I quickly discovered that she’s a stylist and works with tons of national magazines (what are the chances?)  She asked if I had any work I thought was magazine-worthy and I promptly sent her Karrie & Tim’s freshly finished digs (we had JUST completed their renovation)… and you know the rest. Liz is one of the most laid-back and coolest chicks you’ll ever meet and so fun to work with. Karrie and I both have girl crushes on her… I even ran into her on the street in Harbour Island last year (Bahamas) – we passed in golf carts when I was on the way to a rehearsal dinner, and she was on the way to – you guessed it – a Coastal Living shoot. Anyway – Liz brought her own amazing gaggle of photo shoot props to the house that day, but also sent me on a Crate & Barrel run for… you know… just a few things:

If you’ve watched any of my Insta stories prepping for photo shoots – or any other designers’ – you know they are WERK… in the form of weeks of prep, car loads of accessories, usually hundreds of dolla dolla bills at the florist, and then lots of agonizing over things like scooching this vase 3 centimeters to the right, etc etc. We spent a super fun day with Liz & Lisa shooting JUST Karrie’s kitchen and nook (still totally need to shoot the rest of the house) – here are some behind the scenes snaps:

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And here she blows in glossy print!! Run out to the groc and getcherself one!

Um… the most hilarious part of the article is this quote from Karrie.  BAAHAHHAHAHAHA – they don’t even know how right they got it:

She’s not kidding.

Special thanks to my home skillet Nick Gonzalez and San Diego Custom Cabinets, who built ALL of the cabinetry in the house! At the time of this reno, I had just gone solo with my own Interior Design biz but was also working for Nick, designing custom kitchens, baths, closets – all things cabinetry. He was the best, and I learned an ENCYCLOPEDIA’S WORTH of cabinet knowledge from him – which is, to this day, a pimp tool to have in my arsenal as a designer. Nick isn’t only a great friend and trusted mentor, but his WHOLE TEAM is amazing. They also made the gorgeous built-ins in my current office in Crested Butte and are the ones I trust to do all my SoCal projects. Best in the biz!

If you weren’t a Covet Living reader back in 2015-2016, we blogged through the entire renovation – here are the throwback links to the project!! And the hashtag on insta is #casacovetliving if you want to peruse more pics there!

1 – Casa Covet Living: Karrie & Tim’s Gut Rehab – December 17, 2015

2 – Casa Covet Living: Brainstorming a New Layout – December 30, 2015

3 – Casa Covet Living: Kitchen Finishes – January 23, 2016

4 – Casa Covet Living: The Close Overtime Thriller of the Kitchen Island – January 27, 2016

5 – Casa Covet Living: People, We Have Liftoff – January 31, 2016

6 – Casa Covet Living: Plumbing & Lighting & Tile, Oh My! – February 24, 2016

7 – Casa Covet Living: Wanna Help Us Choose Lighting? – February 25, 2016

8 – Casa Covet Living: World War III of the Master Bath – April 17, 2016

9 – Casa Covet Living: She’s All Done, Folks! – June 20, 2016

10 – Casa Covet Living: Guest Room Plan – June 26, 2016

xoxo!!!

Steph & Karrie

 

 

 

 

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California, here I come!

Published on February 28, 2014 in Love, Motivation and Wise Words. 30 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

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,

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