spring color III (john robshaw for duralee)

john robshaw with alissa from "the goods" and myself

snagged from duralee's facebook page...

spring color II (more westweek picks)

more color and pattern picks from our westweek adventure (pardon the blurry iphone pix. i tried):

we were blown away by this watercolor stripe from harlequin, available through nancy corzine.

comes in a fabric as well.

we also loved this print on dupioni, again from harlequin, available through nancy corzine.

chic chinoiserie print, dara, from manuel canovas. crap blurry iphone photo, i know

a detail from the canovas website, so you can actually see how pretty is is. 

christian lacroix for designers guild at osborne & little. how pretty would this be in a ladies dressing room, or even a sophisticated nursery for a little girl?

here is is from the designer's guild website, so you can see how beautiful it is in its entirety. this is the sort of fabric you can't just see a swatch of, you need to see it on a wing. 

another favorite was this inkblot ikat, again by christian lacroix for designers guild at osborne & little. 

so painterly pretty, yet modern and edgy. loves it, i does.

more to come kids!

spring color! (quadrille)

this display of new outdoor fabrics certainly caught my eye at quadrille during westweek:

and i wanted to shove all these little cut up swatches into my bag and have them all sewn together- would a quadrille patchwork blazer be too much? will someone go back with me to the showroom to create a distraction while i clean off the sample table? ;-)

i dunno what it is, but i LIKE it (westweek pick from espasso)

it's billed as a "coat hanger", but it's really just a phenomenal piece of large scale sculpture (which would look TERRIFIC in my entry btw- i have the height!). currently on display in the espasso showroom, "mandacaru" was designed by carlos motta, a brazilian designer who has designed many other chic (and slightly more functional) furniture pieces for the espasso line. there is a floorlamp by motta in a similar vein that i am currently jonesing for as well.

i think it might be my favorite thing on display at the PDC during westweek. crazy cool, and i was told it might soon be auctioned at phillips-de pury so i better start saving my sheckels!

how do i feel about blogs copying other blogs? (w/ fort street studio)

sometimes, i LIKE it!

my new bff, tula, of whorange, looking ever so adorbs in front of a beautiful fort street studio rug.

me, blatantly copying, two days later.

thanks to vinh deep of fort street studio, makers of exquisite rugs, for playing along with me. btw, LOVE the two colorful abstract watercolor-esque rugs, tula & i posed in front of, but the rug below was the number that got me all hot 'n bothered. i fell for its totally modern in your face pattern, but it's so reminiscent of traditional rug patterns, i can totally see it working with antiques and transitional pieces as well as more modern pieces. try not to freak out about the intense, near op art effect of the overall pattern, because remember, when in a room, rugs have furniture over two thirds of the exposed area so the intensity would be dialed way back. i mean a big, traditional chesterfield and some club chairs on top- too chic!

more westweek market pics to come!

maison21, pressing onward... (& expressing gratitude)

we've had quite teh week here at m21, and we'd like to take a minute to say thanks to some of the people who made it awesome, including these very special thanks to a couple of press pieces that warmed the cockles of our designery heart...

first, a big old thank you to ryan jones and frontiers magazine for including both brian patrick flynn (decor demon) and myself in his fantastic article on modernism, as part of frontier's annual "home design guide" issue. ryan asked us as experts in our field (who me?) to provide 3 of our go-to pieces for recreating a modernist "mad men" sort of vibe in one's home, and we had a blast doing so.  if you live here in LA, you can go to pretty much any retailer or bar in west hollywood and pick up a copy of frontiers for free (and if you wanna swing by the atelier, we'll totes autograph it for you as it's guaranteed to be a highly prized collectible one day... um, not).  for those of you in far-flung spots, you can just click and read it online here.

we'd also like to thank houzz.com for including us in their "2012 ‘Best Of Remodeling’ Winners". we were honored to selected for the "los angeles living room category", and to make things even sweeter, we were in the company of our lovely friend, lisa borgnes giramonti, whom y'all know from a bloomsbury life.  good to be a "winner", but nicer to be surrounded by friends!

we also played at being press a bit ourselves this week, as we covered westweek, the spring market at teh PDC, and we'll be sharing some of our favorite market picks in coming posts (and a shout out to crestron to being our host); but you know us- our favorite part of events like westweek is the social aspect, and we had an absolute blast mingling with the  design glitterati (ie, our friends) at all the panels and parties.

graffiti sets a slightly edgy mood at restoration home, the finale party of westweek. this party was EVERYTHING that design parties never are:  loud, raucous, with a live band (the pierces), and plenty of hipster pretty boys and girls to offset us more geriatric designers, and even a movie star or two...

in contrast, the veranda party at dennis and leen, one of the chicest showrooms in LA, was everything you'd imagine a design industry party to be: an elegant space, filled with industry insiders enjoying chic cocktails, and some seriously delicious catering. we had a wonderful time here catching up with old friends in the refined atmosphere- all that was missing was a harpist in the courtyard!

stay tuned for our westweek market picks!

architectural digest westweek kickoff @ jasper

westweek kicked off last night as margaret russell and architectural digest hosted a packed house at michael smith's beautiful jasper showroom:

naturally the party was a who's who of the LA design scene, and i attended with my LA partner in crime, jill seidner of the material girls blog (middle) and jill's good friend, morgan lund yen of m-l design:

 jasper carries one of my favorite lighting lines, vaughn:

though i have to say, the highlight of my evening was meeting the fabulous tula jeng, author of one of my favorite blogs, the equally fabulous, whorange. tula and i have been planning an in person meeting for, like, ever, and our dreams finally came true last night at jasper:

this morning,  i'm off to a client meeting, then heading over to the PDC, to cover the real westweek madness! hope to see you locals there, and for those of you out of town, be sure to follow along on twitter!

maison21 does westweek!

on wednesday, march 21st & thursday march 22nd, please join me in the shadow of this (the blue building of the pacific design center actually, but the red building is new, and thus exciting):

to attend cool panels like this:

one of the great keynotes during westweek- for a complete list, click here. everyone is invited, btw, so come on down!

m21'll be there of course, as the PDC invited me as part of the “best design voices in LA”, a group of LA's top social media supahstars, including these lovely ladies:

Vanessa of Turquoise

Tamara of House of Honey

Alissa of The Goods Design

Jill of the Material Girls, Los Angeles!
(who i stole all these logos from- thx jill!)

if you're gonna be at teh PDC, please say hello- i'll be the super-duper handsome, bearded, gentleman with a glass in my hand, and a smile on my face (and if you don't see me, trust, you'll hear me- imma loud one!):

remember, if you can't attend westweek in person to suck down a plastic cup of cheap fine wine with me, you can still be part of the highlights if you follow along on twitter & facebook- we'll do our best to put down our glass every once in a while, and tweet out a picture or two! ;-)

dinner at george smith...

last evening, jill seidner of the material girls blog, and i were fortunate enough to attend a glamorous sit-down dinner in the george smith showroom, complete with cocktails, a jazz singer, and multiple delish courses by chef keven lee of my world on a plate (the crab & the shortribs were particularly tasty) . now, if y'all don't know who george smith, llc is, they are *the* purveyors of fine english bespoke upholstered furniture, still bench made with traditional materials, like boar bristles and duck down; if you've ever oohed and aahed over an insanely beautiful tufted easy chair, chaise or chesterfield in house beautiful or elle decor, chances are it was made by the skilled craftsmen at george smith.

here's some pictures of our evening- don't be too jelly ;-)

since george smith offers bespoke furniture, most pieces in the showroom are in white muslin- so of course my eye was drawn to the one super colorful vignette featuring raoul textiles for george smith fabrics. juicy.

a selection of GS upholstered goods in front of backdrop by bennison, a line of chic english wallcoverings and textiles exclusively available through george smith. i know lots of you girls will be dying over those traditional english rose prints, right?

love this bubble glass chandelier by best & lloyd, yet another of the fab anglocentric lines GS carries. the best & lloyd line is kinda delicious, so be sure to click the link.

living in los angeles, i don't often get starstruck, after all you can find yourself at starbucks or teh gas station standing next to a oscar winner; but meeting pamela samshiri of commune design, one of my los angeles design crushes, left me a lil tongue-tied. damn, those kids from commune are cool...

GS made up 50 brand spanking new custom dining chairs, covered in their signature sumptuous velvets just for the party- kinda cool right? i asked to take home six of these chic 40's moderne inspired wooster chairs as part of my gift bag. they thought i was joking. i wasn't.

since i was talking home the wooster chairs, we decided jill could have a set of these glammy tufted "dominic" chairs. again, they laughed, but we weren't kidding- dining chairs make great party gifts, dontchathink?

we may not have got new dining chairs, but they were nice enough to send us home with fabulously functional sturdy canvas totes as gift bags (looks just like the tote i schlep my crap samples & stuff in every day to meetings). nice, right? though i'll gladly trade it for the dining chairs, since if i had guests over right now they'd have to sit on the floor as *my* last set of dining chairs are now in a client's home!

thanks george smith for the lovely evening! a pleasure getting to know you and your brand a bit better... and call me for the address to ship the chairs to, k? what the heck-  i'll even come pick 'em up!