Archive for the ‘links’ Category

ALT 2012

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Even though this may be a tad late and folks may be a tad overwhelmed by the glut of Alt recaps floating around, too bad, gotta do it. Every fiber in my blogging being demands it.

Being my first ‘blogging’ type conference I was a little bit unaware and slightly nervous about what to expect in Salt Lake. There is a reason I like the anonymity and isolation of the internet, you know, because of the anonymity and no pictures of me thing. Just casually considering the physical fact of being surrounded by a zillion sparkling smiles in cute outfits with blogging savvy, proper business cards and lots of snapping cameras made my cold little cynical heart shrink up in fear.

Hey, it’s the awesome Victoria from sfgirlbybay and some of me with a proper badge and everything. Also, according to all photo evidence, my phone is never out of my hand. Such a sad realization to find out I’m that phone person – and don’t worry – I despise me too.

I shacked up with the attractive and talented Jason Hudson of These Roving Eyes and the equally attractive and talented Laure Joliet (of all the things I do with Laure all the time) in a larger than expected hotel room that the 1960’s forgot. It was gloriously fun and boozy and the best of summer camp and art school combined into one.

But yeah, attractive people, just stop it. You can’t be good looking and charming and talented and all around kindly great people. Leave some for the rest of us.

Obviously this thing was fancy.

There were giant chandeliers everywhere like it was no big deal.

It was fantastic to hang out with some internet friends in the real life, like Emily, Lisa Congdon, Rena Tom, Victoria and hey there is me touching my boobs or something on the end. That probably was the best thing about Alt, not my boobs, but spending time with people who are creatively focused, whip smart and incredibly entertaining. Like Haily and Julie, who were a blast and somehow not blasted into pictures.

Let’s not leave out the boys, really though, this was a heavily estrogen laden event. It was a treat to spend some time with the equally entertaining and thoughtful Maxwell from Apartment Therapy, whose openness and great insights made the trip worth it.

The big reason for coming out of internet hiding was to speak on a panel with Kristen Grove, Jenny Komenda and Emily Henderson about interior design blogging. Check out that far away dark blob of me at a podium and here is me looking at my phone and sticking my hand in my mouth while everyone else is smiling and being charming.

(Kristen Grove, Jenny Komenda and Emily Henderson)

COME ON.

These girls are adorable and stylish and wear lipstick and I had my hand in my mouth. Ugh.

It was a great panel nevertheless, I had a tons of fun chatting with these ladies and all the folks who came to check it out. I ‘heard’ it was funny and super informative. You know, just saying, since there were great tips on social media, running an interior business and blog, styling tricks and fixes for interior photos.

Jason and the crowd of ladies demanded to be entertained and THEY WERE.

At some point I decided to be a girl and wear a dress.

So that happened and despite Laure telling me to stop making weird faces in every single picture, I could never stop. Never ever.

Overall there was a lot of booze and parties and food and late nights followed by early mornings, so I needed lots of Diet Coke to get me through the long days and ignored the vast disapproval from my roommates who prefer coffee and being classy.

I don’t care. I drink diet coke for caffeine. I’m kinda trashy. I live in Hemet. I feel no shame.

Everything was fancy throughout the four day conference and on the last day Laure and I sat in on Jason and Ryan’s fancy workshop on studio lighting before heading out with a motley crew of the girls for a little bit of local vintage shopping at The Green Ant that included Laure, Jordan of Oh Happy Day, Maggie Mason, Emily Henderson, Lisa Congdon, Jess from Sunset, and Victoria.

Sorry about the bad iphone photo, but shopping may have been a bad idea since somehow a simple little trinket to remember the trip wasn’t enough and instead I opted to buy a sofa. Mmmhmmm, I bought an Arne Norell leather sofa from the 1970’s in Utah knowing that I was flying home to California on a plane.

I live dangerously.

No worries though, it’s all going to be fine. Emily bought the matching set of chairs and we are getting that stuff shipped.

I don’t care. I have no shame. I love sofas.

Well, even with my poorly distributed DIY stamped chipboard cards and crippling social anxiety, Alt was wonderfully amazing. I had more than a great time with an incredible group of like-minded people all engaged and thoughtful about this whole weird internet endeavor. It was exhausting but very motivating and much more inspiring than that sad little darkly sarcastic part of my psyche would believe it could be.

2012 seems to be the year of blogging? Yes? Plans and redesign and new launches and big projects in the chute (like FINALLY adding stuff like my twitter here)? Yup.

Thanks for putting up with me.

**Special thanks to Laure for all the photos she is letting me use here and being my roomie and flying buddy.

SLING

Friday, January 13th, 2012

One of the big design type projects Laure and I have been working on so diligently is a very stylish (come on, obviously) salon in Laguna Beach that’s just recently opened up called Morrison Hair. Located in an older Spanish style bungalow, Rachel and James wanted the space to remain cozy, comfy and inviting like a great house, but still be stylish and modern for getting your hair did.

A particularly important and big need furniture-wise for the waiting area was a pair of chairs that were unusual, comfortable and made you desperately want to sit in them. So of course my first thought was these slingy bad bays that I have always wanted to reupholster.

Yup.

THOSE slingy cantilever bad boys. Pictured above in the BEFORE situation of upholstery hell.

For sure these were living in Ugly Town, USA and must have seemed like a complete stretch, so trust that it took a lot of convincing and begging to get anyone to believe they could be comfortable and stylish and awesome and not just a hot mess of browntown disgusting.

BOOM.

Reupholstered and reimagined.

I always knew they had a kind of Max Gottschalk or Paulistano type vibe buried deep inside their tubular chrome frames.

For the new slings, I decided to go with a bit of an unusual material. Any guesses? Hmmmm?

Screw that nonsense since I can’t shut up about it and am way too impatient. So, these slings are actually made with vintage wildfire tarp! I know. What?!

These tarps are used by my local Park Rangers and Firefighters in the San Jacinto mountains – located just a few miles from this Brick House. When the forest catches on fire, these giant heavy duty waxed canvas tarps are used to move burning brush and burnt up timbers or whatever else is on fire and needing moving. Eventually they get beat up and decommissioned and end up in retirement with this local canvas fabricator type guy I found.

I loved that the material already had this amazing patina and color and was this super heavy duty weight that I couldn’t find with newer fabrics. Plus, who has wildfire tarp chairs? Who?! No one.

Well wait, I guess Morrison Hair does now, BUT come on, don’t you just want to sit in them?! They turned out super sexy and are shockingly comfy to boot. Like a big hug from a firefighter.

Oh man, I can’t wait to show off the rest of the salon. Sorry about these few quick snaps I tried to grab.

We have a few finishing touches and a photo shoot to do, but I’m desperate to post the rest of the space. It turned out pretty much spectacular with a few custom features that are killer and was an overall great project to work on with some truly outstanding folks.

MMMmmmmmmm. Slingy time. Sneaky sling peek. Sleaking.

Now I totally want some slings for my house again. That is not how this works, right? I can’t be jealous.

Dang.

More soon.

 

MAKEOVER

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Apparently this is Hazel’s house? Or maybe Hazel is a bit of a camera hog? Is it possible that this kitty likes to work it for the camera? Hmmm.

I have no excuse and will not apologize. I cannot resist photographing pets.

Anyway.

I had been crashing on Laure’s couch while we worked on the home makeover portions of Extreme Clutter this past summer. Production hours can be nuts and after a full day of creating pure magic and transforming cluttered homesteads into places that were both organized and stylish, we would stumble into Laure’s pad and pretty much pass out. So, when the second season wrapped up, it definitely felt like time to tackle Laure’s 450 sq.ft apartment – which might have suffered it’s own touch of the neglect style clutter. You know, seeing as Laure was working all day, every day for months on end and I was making myself at home in her living room.

Check out some of this BEFORE action for reference.

Now scroll back up to those afters. I’ll wait.

See? That was amazingly fun.

Over the course of a day or so I helped tackle (what my terrible with names brain is calling) a No-Cost Makeover of Laure’s living room and bedroom. We reused the furniture and things she already had in the apartment, pulled a couple things out of her storage and then fairly quickly the whole apartment functioned better and felt way more cohesive with just that basic rethinking of the floor-plan and restyling of her accessories. So, in total, we spent about $40 at Home Depot for a smattering of plants and a couple light bulbs. Cheap, quick and good-looking to boot. In the end everything came together so well that I’ve been testing out this makeover idea and love how quickly a space can transform with a couple layout tweaks and careful editing. Sometimes it takes someone with a fresh pair of eyes, ruthless ability to edit down all your crap (with fantastic taste, obviously) and style it all up to pull that space together.

The No-Cost Makeover : One room. One day. Solving those big design problems with the things you already own.

Sound like fun? Maybe something you might need at your house? I think this could be kind of amazing, but need to figure out the having time issues. I’ve been super slammed and now my house is suffering the neglect clutter. To the EXTREME.

Maybe if I can get past the shame of it all, I might share my dirty secret. The clutter. All that clutter!