Hush is the name of the color that cloaks the walls and is mixed with metallic silver at the top of it’s arched neck, as it meets the ceiling, and glows. I have been working with this client over the past couple years, and the project continues to be a work in progress, all for the love of vintage finds, a violet palate and sweet patience.

Together, we have carefully restored an Art Deco rosewood and walnut dresser, ebonized a sleek lingerie chest, revived a vintage, Murano, leaf chandelier and created a master bath, that has become the quiet respite, every hardworking woman deserves. One of the adored pieces found for the bathroom is an antique, painted armoire from Italy, which has been repurposed to store bath towels and robes, fashioned with lock and key.

Lush velvet textiles were selected for seated stools and beige and lavender pillows, by Kevin O’Brien Studio, accessorize the sculptural club chairs upholstered in champagne silk. In the master bedroom metal accents were re-platted in a brushed nickel, adding to the hush, cooling effect.

Sometimes it can be best to allow progress in a space to come about slowly. By allowing yourself to evolve with the space, you grant yourself the time, the hours, to decide what is truly meaningful.

Here is more of Hush, Violet Hours.

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March O Magazine

Making an Entrance

Design Advice: Kids Sharing a Bedroom

You have to taste it to believe it. Later this month Rick Bayless stars in a new type of role for a Lookingglass Theatre production, entitled, Cascabel. Many people have been seduced by Rick’s passion for Mexican food, either from watching Mexico:One Plate at a Time or from one of his cook books like  Fiesta at Rick’s or have had the privilege of eating at one of his delicious restaurants such as Xoco, Frontera Grill, Topolobampo or, while at O’hare airport, Tortas Frontera. Because if you have, you would remember the mole and your day or evening quite well.

I had the pleasure of working with Rick, styling his 1940′s wardrobe and set props for Chicago Magazine’s feature on him, covering Cascabel. Listen, I don’t get overly excited about working with celebrities but I do when I work with certain exceptional chefs. Not all celebrities are down for dangling from a chandelier, made up of pots and pans. And I have to love the fact that he practices yoga too. That’s right, note to all the men out there, men that do yoga or even try it once–very sexy.

Cascabel is a Mexican boarding house in the 1940′s. Rick plays a chef, called the Cook, who tries to seduce his long-lost-love by preparing food for her. She is a flamenco dancer and actress, only, she has no appetite. During the show, as Rick is cooking for her, the audience is tasting the food, right along with her.  Oh yes, and there are acrobats and a tightrope-walking sous-chef.

Rick says in the article, beautifully, on this relationship with food: “It’s the kind of thing that food does so regularly in our lives, yet we don’t think much about it,” Bayless says. “It can tie us to a culture or a person; it can remind us of a place. Those are all memory centered. But food can also center us in the present and even open us up to the future. It can make us live in the moment and dream of what is next.”

Now, I’m seduced.

To read the full Chicago Magazine Article that I worked on and behind the scenes photos: check it out.

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March O Magazine

Peonies and Emerald Spirits

Ladies and Gentleman, Eyes Up Here Please

Baileys’ Range, one of my latest design project collaborations, opened recently on the corner of 10th and Olive in downtown St. Louis. During the same week, only a 10 minute walk away, the Cardinals played historically memorable games to win The World Series. Baileys’ Range continues to be a casual dining destination and offers a fun and unique menu including grass-fed local burgers, homemade ice cream shakes (spiked if your old enough), soda pop, local craft beer exclusively, and boozy lemonades.

The design decor includes old windows hung, separating the kitchen from the rest of the two level restaurant. A beautiful fifty foot long bar and a mirroring fifty foot long communal dining table was built by Tyson Rinderknecht, perhaps the longest bar in St. Louis and the first communal dining table for the city. The lighting consists of freezer locker fixtures throughout and large, vintage milk jugs repurposed into pendents. Commissioned photographs by Ricardo Martinez adorn the walls depicting rural and range landscape.

The result is a warm and inviting place to meet up for a beer and try out some of life’s simply paired pleasures, burgers and shakes.

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This week’s Time magazine covers The World’s Most Influential People and Chef Grant Achatz is one of them. When my agency asked if I would like to prop style and work with Grant Achatz and photographer Martin Schoeller, I was thrilled to be a part of the mix.

The 28 + chefs working in the Alinea kitchen moved fluidly like silent stage hands, all knowing their individual role, task and how to dance around one another seamlessly. Watching them all with their quiet focus and orchestration was fascinating.

Let’s make it clear here,  I am not a foodie.  But I appreciate good food and anyone who dares to be a modern, if not a postmodern, forward thinker. This chef is testing how we think of food, cocktails and experience dining. Grant Achatz’s new restaurant, Next, takes you to Paris 1906 with the current menu and then, down the road, to another time and place in the world for their Next menu. That is if you can get your hands on tickets.

For the headshot with Grant we used liquid nitrogen to harden up the full headed, Mediterranean shrimps in order to fix them onto his chef’s jacket and style the tentacles. For the chalkboard shot I copied on the board some scientific diagrams that Grant and Martin preferred and we then propped Grant with a live pheasant and then later a dead pheasant, as if he were opening up it’s wings like a book. The pheasant here exemplifying nature is indeed by design, which brings me to mention Achatz’ other new spot, The Aviary.

Regardless of when I will have an opportunity to experience Paris 1906 or the avant-guard not-so-cocktails, these projects and Grant Achatz certainly have my and the world’s attention.

Dive here to read the full article written by Grant’s mentor, Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, in Time Magazine.

Or check out the glob trotting and imaginative Martin Schoeller, talk about shooting three of the top 100 behind the scenes here.

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Dressing Lualdi Porte

Peonies and Emerald Spirits

Ladies and Gentleman, Eyes Up Here Please

Enter the foyer of one of my dear client’s Georgian Revival home, located on the South Side of Chicago in our president’s home town neighborhood. It becomes illuminated by Italian chandeliers by ITALAmps, which make an impression and set the welcoming tone. The home is stately to say the least and commonly nicknamed. “The White House,” only as you enter this house it is anything but white.

The home was originally designed by architect Benjamin Marshall in 1899, who also designed and built The Drake Hotel, The Blackstone Hotel and Theatre and the South Shore Country Club. Benjamin Marshall was known as being a big people person, witty, well dressed, flamboyant and adored celebrating. Maybe it is perhaps the reason why the home attracts like-spirited individuals.

It has been a pleasure to work on the interior of this home for the last two years with the clients, who are in a word–delightful. We have added joyful touches to breathe life into the home and the resuming results are colorful. Lighting has become an integral tool in shaping the space and flattering the client’s art collection. In my opinion, art is what makes a home feel alive and welcoming, because it means something to you personally and you are then sharing it with your guests.

So if you have an artifact, photograph or painting that you are hiding away, take it out and display it. Live with it over good conversation and a glass of something bubbly. I think the home owners and Benjamin Marshall just might agree.

Entering the dinning, an antique turn of the century, Austrian crystal chandelier found at  New Metal Crafts. The emerald and sunflower oil painting plays off the peony wallpaper by Gaetano

A yellow flower study and crystal lamps found by the client at auction.    

The painting of the horse jumping out of the dark, hung over the fireplace, was a commissioned piece by Linc Thelen

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Ladies and Gentleman, Eyes Up Here Please

Earlier this fall I was brought in by Universal Studios through my agency, Artists by Timothy Priano, as the prop stylist for a photo shoot with Vince Vaughn. It was for the movie poster for The Dilemma. The photo was shot by the talented Andrew Eccles and produced by the charming Aya Larkin. None of the props were used in the end game as Vince Vaughn can relay all that is needed with simply one shot of himself. He was intense, all business and a handsome house of a man. I am very much looking forward to seeing the film.

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March O Magazine

BBB Light and Shadows project in Interior Design Reference

Good in Bed

What is it that makes the technical beauty of Murano glass so enchanting? Years of handcrafted expertise to start and Italy as the backdrop for inspiration can’t hurt either. This vintage 60′s Murano glass leaf chandelier is the beginning of a current project in progress. Illuminated it is delicate and delightful against the Aruba turquoise walls. This room is going to be the epitome of playful with a custom deco inspired upholstered bed and hanging Eerro Aarnio swing. The concept is Bohemian chic with peace as the symbol, the message. An idea and mantra that should indeed remain timeless.

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Amazing set designer, Jamie Dean, asked me to help him decorate and style the recent March issue of O Magazine. The location, Oprah’s closet. Little secret, peonies are indeed available in the dead of winter. Cover shot by RuvenAfanador.

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Photo Set Project

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