Café Design
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This Week’s Finds

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For this week’s finds, I thought I’d share with you some fun design books that have been on my mind lately. Some are from my own library while others are new, or about to be released. The enduring power of a great design book never ceases to amaze me. I was in a bookstore the other day and found a couple of volumes published in the 80s and early 90s on cottage style decorating (my favorite). I love old design books and pick them up whenever I can, but with these two I realized at a glance that most of the images featured were no longer relevant for the way we live & decorate today.  Why is it that some design books age beautifully while others have an expiration date? I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between timeless design and trends so I got them anyway, to study them more closely. Books are a great way to educate your eye on what stands the test of time and, most importantly, what doesn’t! 🙂 I won’t share the titles with you, out of respect for their authors, but instead I’ll share some books old & new that I absolutely love and think you will love too!

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Our Cottage Living Room Makeover | Part I

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Hey, friends! Anyone still out there? I apologize for my silence last week… I meant to have a couple of stories out but we’re in the middle of a new & exciting project at our house and it’s all I can think about these days!!! Since we bought our cottage, some three + years ago, I’ve been looking for ways to make it look, feel & live a little bit larger than its tiny footprint, without ruining its cottage charms. Some of my ideas were sensible, others downright outrageous (we won’t talk about those). But slowly we made progress. We tweaked the floor plan to improve the flow between the rooms, and added windows & French doors wherever possible to bring in natural light and garden views. You can read more about our Cape Cod style cottage HERE, HERE and HERE.

Our living room the day we moved in
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This Week’s Finds

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission on all qualifying purchases.

This week’s finds are an assortment of trending design stories and items I have recently purchased – from Amazon, of all places. I hope you see something that interests you. One of my favorite home tours this week is a feature in the current issue of Veranda magazine on the restoration of Grey Gardens, the storied mansion featured in the controversial 1970s documentary staring Jacqueline Onassis’s aunt and first cousin, both named Edith Bouvier Beale. Fashion designer Liz Lange purchased Grey Gardens in 2017 and has embarked on a complete makeover of its interiors, with the help of interior designer Mark D. Sikes. The gardens have been redesigned as well, and they are absolutely stunning – links below.

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Our Finished Family Room | Extras

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Dear friends, thank you so much for your kind comments and for your interest in our family room redesign!  As I was working my way through your messages and emails, I thought it would be easier to answer some of your questions regarding paint color, fabrics, lighting etc in a blog post rather than individual replies. This way all sourcing info will be available in one place and, if you see something you like, you can refer back to it at a later time. While I cannot always share sources for client work, I am very happy to share what I use in my own home. To add more clarity to my previous post about our family room, I also included a couple of sketches of the floor plan, just to give you a bird’s eye view of the changes I was telling you about in THIS POST. I hope they will better illustrate my descriptions and clarify some of your questions regarding the placement of the new doors and windows.

Sketch of our living room + guest bedroom – BEFORE
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Renovating a Cape Cod Style Cottage | Family Room Reveal

We all dream of beautiful homes that are comfortable, welcoming and deeply personal yet, ironically, creating a home that is easy to live in can be at times a daunting process, even for those of us who happen to do this for a living.  If you’ve been following Cafe Design for some time, then you may know that our family room has been the main object of my efforts since we bought our cottage three summers ago. We began implementing changes slowly over time and it’s taken me the better part of the last three years to bring the family room to a place where it makes life in our house considerably more pleasant and comfortable.  It has also required every ounce of patience on my end, but we’ve recently completed the final steps of this renovation and I’m excited to share the finished room with you!

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