Client's Family Room Before & After

We've had a busy week so far over here & I just got photos back from my good friend & photographer, Helen Norman, who photographed a couple of our finished projects on Monday.  I'm so excited to share the before & afters with you!!  My incredibly sweet client is very laid-back and relaxed and wanted a home that felt calming, pretty, comfortable and relaxed.  She & her family love spending time on the water and when we looked through inspiration photos together, she was mostly drawn to coastal-feeling homes.  Her kids are older now and she was ready to completely redo her home and get it exactly as she'd always wanted it to feel.  Here's how the family room looked before:

And here it is now:

I really love my client's style... she loves natural materials as much as I do, so I used lots of them which makes it feel really textural and natural- seagrass, linen, burlap, jute rope, driftwood and raw woods mixed with metals...  My client really trusted me in the space and I was so excited when she decided to take a risk on the rope chairs!!  They're one of my favorite things in the room and they are sooo comfy & fun!!  The curtains also really change the feeling of the room-  they're a soft watery ikat comprised of blues & greens & chartreuse.  We had them hung above the arched windows which simplifies all of room's the lines a bit and makes it feel more classic and architecturally-pleasing.

The sea life prints are a mix of vintage and new prints that I've been collecting for a while.  Because my client's so trusting, she was comfortable with me finding all of the pieces over time and hanging them for her, sight unseen.  (This is always so much fun for me because I feel like I can stretch my "wings" a little and I can do things that might seem a little disjointed on paper but that look great in real life, which is more how I design my own home.  You'll notice that there are lots of different frames hanging up there and that they're hung pretty randomly, but I'm happy to report that she loved it. :)

And, my client is super-talented... unbeknownst to me until I saw this gorgeous painting she did for the family room:

{Pillow Fabrics: Pear Linen, "Tree of Life" by Jasper, and Squircles" by Lauren Liess Textiles}

She said she was "just fooling around" but if I could fool around like that, I'd call myself an artist!!!  I asked her if she'd be open to painting more for future projects and she said she would be, so I'm thrilled about that.  She used so many colors & there's so much depth to it... I love how it turned out.  

And, finally, one last pic of the whole room:

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my client's home...  I'll be back later this week with photos of her dining room and foyer!!  Have a great day! :)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

My Textiles & What's Been Up

So...  it's been a bit of a whirlwind year for me in a lot of ways- having our third baby, moving, my husband quitting his job to come work with me full-time, textile line launch... there might be more but I've probably blocked it out ;) ;)  

Anyway, for the past year or so, I've been in conversations with an amazing fabric company about potentially collaborating on my textile line together.  I've traveled up to New York and they've visited us... I met some really great people (and friends!!) and have a huge amount of respect for this company, but it's turned out that the partnership isn't going to happen.  

As disappointed as I was to hear that I wouldn't be partnering with this great company, I'm of the mindset that what happens, happens, and that whichever path life takes us on, it's the right one.  You go where you need to go to learn & experience what ultimately becomes your past, your foundation, your pathway.  

So anyway, after learning this (last week or the week before?? they're all blending together) I've been forging ahead with my original plan for the fabric company- which was to keep it strictly mine and more boutique- and to have the line carried by select showrooms & shops around the country.  I'm really excited about moving in that direction again and it's now really in the works, which is exciting.  

Since I first launched the line last November, I've created more fabrics, which I haven't photographed or added to our online shop yet, so I've got a lot of work to do with that.

And also... with the gorgeous SPRING that has just sprung around us here in DC, I am ready to hit the sketch pad and get some new patterns out!!!  Something about the weather and the flowers blooming everywhere, just makes need to grab a pencil and GO!!!!! :)  I can't explain it (and  you probably feel it too) but Spring just makes me feel so incredibly alive and ready to create!!!  (Trust me, I know how terribly cheesy that is... just can't help it.)  I honestly get Spring fever and have a really hard time sitting in my office working.  No joke, I might need to get tied to my chair.  

{The periwinkles on our back hill I snapped a pic of this morning}

My mom says it's happened to me every year since I was a little girl and every year, the teachers would call her in for a conference and ask what was up with me...  

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I  get my inspiration for my fabric line from nature and the things that have always given me that strong giddy feeling.  Much of it is drawn from childhood memories, ones that were revisited year after year (even now) as the new plants & weeds bloom each season.  I was always picking everything and touching it and playing with it...  I remember certain people with certain plants. { I can't see onion grass and not think of the day my best friend and I ATE it at recess.---"Don't worry Danielle, it' just like real onions!" I'd promised. :/  yuck.  It's not.  Or at least maybe eaten plain it's not good.}

And here's one other little piece of inspiration I found and fell gaga for last week:

Written in 1925 and in German, I have no idea what it's about, but it's cover is begging to be turned into a textile design.  Will keep you posted.

I also just wanted to thank you so much for the support.  Honestly, I would never have had the confidence to even attempt something like a fabric line if it weren't for the support and friendship of everyone I've met through blogging.

So...  in the future, you can expect to hear where the fabrics will be being carried near you so that if you're interested, you can go see & touch them in person, and you can also expect to see some new designs soon!!!  Because Spring has Sprung around here.

  To view the current collection, go to our online store www.purestylehome.co and click on "LL TEXTILES" ps- If you have any questions about the price point of the fabrics and "why they're so expensive" check out -this post here which explains it in detail.  :)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

The Prettiest Google Ever

Ok, so I know I said I'd stay away but had to pop in... Today's google was the prettiest I've ever seen!!!  

Apparently they're called "Google Doodles" (who knew?) and today's is celebrating the 366th birthday (odd day to celebrate--- hope someone remembers mine! ;)  of Maria Sybella Merian (1647-1717). 

 Merian was one of the greatest naturalists of her time.

According to India Today: "She was born into a family of artists and scholarly printers on April 2, 1647 in Germany.  Maria dedicated her life to the study and depiction of the metamorphosis of insects...

 "After her father's death, her mother married the still-life painter Jacob Marrel, who trained her as a flower painter. At the age of 13, Merian painted the transformation of silkworms into moths. Perhaps this was the beginning of her passion and her first hand observation of insect metamorphosis which later paved the way for her groundbreaking discoveries."

 Merian "published three collections of engravings of plants in 1675, 1677, and 1680. Afterward she studied insects, keeping her own live specimens, and made drawings showing insect metamorphosis, in which all life stages of the insect (egg, larva, pupa, and adult) were depicted in the same drawing...

"In her time, it was very unusual that someone would be genuinely interested in insects, which had a bad reputation and were colloquially called "beasts of the devil." As a consequence of their reputation, the metamorphosis of these animals was largely unknown. Merian described the life cycles of 186 insect species, amassing evidence that contradicted the contemporary notion that insects were "born of mud" by spontaneous generation." (wikipedia)

"...Although certain scholars were aware of the process of metamorphosis from the caterpillar to the butterfly, the majority of people did not understand the process. The work that she published was very popular in certain sections of high society as a result of being published in the vernacular, but her work was largely ignored by scientists of the time because the official language of science was still Latin.

"She is among the first naturalists to have observed insects directly. This approach gave her much more insight into their lives and was contrary to the way that most scientists worked at the time...

"The pursuit of her [government-funded] work in a Dutch Colony in South America was an unusual endeavour, especially for a woman. In general, only men received royal or government funding to travel in the colonies to find new species of plants and animals, make collections and to work there, or to settle. Scientific expeditions at this period of time were not common, and Merian's unofficial, self-funded expedition raised many eyebrows. She succeeded, however, in discovering a whole range of previously unknown animals and plants... Merian spent time studying and classifying her findings and described them in great detail. Her classification of butterflies and moths is still relevant today. She used Native American names to refer to the plants, which became used in Europe."  (wikipedia)

"Her lavishly illustrated book, the Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (The Metamorphoses of the Insects of Suriname- 1705) depicted the life cycles of insects she had studied. " (India Today)

What I wouldn't do for that book!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the foreword she writes, "In my youth, I spent my time investigating insects. At the beginning, I started with silk worms in my home town of Frankfurt. I realised that other caterpillars produced beautiful butterflies or moths, and that silkworms did the same. This led me to collect all the caterpillars I could find in order to see how they changed". (Wikipedia)

{an image of an antique book, not THE book}

Recently I was working on putting a collection of what I thought of as "botanicals" together for a client and noticed that the artist whose work I was pulling from (Merian) was using lots of critters & bugs in the flower illustrations, which I thought was so unique. (I have a botanical obsession and so anytime I find some that are different, I get really excited!!!)  I had no idea she was female (All I had to go on was "Merian") and or that the bugs themselves were her true focus/ passion.  I also didn't put two and two together that I'd used her work on other projects before because they'd been fish and not botanicals.  I was so surprised to look into the google doodle today and find so much information about this artist whose work I've loved & used in the past.

I could definitely be one of those rich old men who collect rare books in a massive home library...  (If I were an old man or rich ;)  And I'm perfectly fine smattering naturalist drawings on the walls of almost every room in my house...  There's not much I find more beautiful or thought-provoking than botanical/ nature studies and there are so many incredible sources & artists out there.  

Anyway, I'm off to my family!!!  Hope you enjoyed finding out more about this talented woman...  I've learned that it's time I start doing more research into the artists whose work I love, rather than waiting for google to inform me ;) ;)





If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Taking...

...Some time to be with my family this week for Spring break.

{They get big in a blink... This is Christian, now 5!!!}

Have a great week!!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.