Café Design
Decorating Consultations

Aging Terra-Cotta Pots

Had a little free time on my hands today (not a common occurrence lately) and I decided to refresh the paint on our mantel. The massive pinecone garland Isabella, my mom and I made for Christmas last year had scratched the wall and top shelf a bit so I took some leftover paint and wood putty and gave everything a fresh coat. (I also played around with some new trim we’re adding this weekend, hence the tape). As it always happens, one little project sparks another and so I took advantage that my brush was wet and tackled something else that’s been bugging me for a while. I gave our terra-cotta pots and saucers some age and patina!

View Post

“Your Order Has Shipped!”

Don’t you just love those four little words? Me too!! Especially when they represent triumph over indecision and procrastination. You see, after weeks of deliberations I’ve finally made up my mind and ordered new hardware for our living room French doors!! Big day! I’m so excited because as minor & insignificant as the choice of door knobs and hinges may seem (although I know many of you are just as design-obsessed as I am, if not more, and know the importance of the right hardware & finish in setting the mood in a space 🙂 ) figuring this out and making a decision is huge for me. It means I’m one step closer to figuring out our living room puzzle which is inextricably linked to our library/family room puzzle as the rooms are connected and most of the times open to each other. I’ve made other decisions in the meantime, decisions that are being scheduled right now, and hopefully executed within the next couple of weeks, more about that later, but this detail has been driving me batty and am so glad to have it behind me. I can’t believe it took me two months to decide!! “Should I get these cast iron ones?”

View Post

Power Tools & A Birthday Wishlist

So my birthday is just around the corner and I couldn’t be happier or more grateful for the many blessings in my life. When it comes to birthday gifts, my approach to receiving has always been of humble appreciation. That someone cared enough to go out of their way and get me a present matters more than the actual thing I got. (Although flowers, jewelry, chocolates, a bottle of my favorite perfume… are all winning combinations my darling husband and daughter have successfully used in the past, hahah. Thank you!) This year however I’ve adopted a more pragmatic approach to receiving gifts and I’m trying something different. No more jewelry, no more chocolates. Instead, I made a short list and what I badly want/need right now is a cordless 60V chain saw! ( If nothing else, a 40V would be fine to! That, and a beautiful oil on canvas I’ve been looking at for months now, in the display of a local art gallery 🙂 )

View Post

Voles In The Garage & What We’ve Been Up To

Disclaimer: No voles were harmed during the events that inspired this post.

A relative of the hamster and just as cute, voles have made our lives over the last few weeks a living nightmare. I’m too upset to show you a picture of how cute they are, you’ll have to ‘google’ them yourself if you’ve never seen one 🙂 It all started with my mission to get us organized and have every inch of our home shipshape. Not an easy task but over the holidays Ivan, my mom and I made huge progress and even tackled the garage. We recycled what felt like a hundred cardboard boxes, finally finished unpacking our things and got a good handle on garage clutter. In the process I found Cordelia’s kibble (our sweet woodchuck who lives under our deck that’s been in her slumber since last November) and made the mistake of leaving it in the garage, uncovered in a plastic box without a lid.  The temptation of chicken-flavored kibble must have been tremendous because apparently voles don’t usually get into people’s garages (or so we were told) but they broke those rules and made a mess of everything. They were sneaky too, and managed to steal kibble unnoticed for several weeks before we realized what was going on and what attracted them in the first place. Long story short, we’re now vole-free (knock on wood, it wasn’t easy) and have made a plan to keep the space in perfect condition. We ordered wooden shelves from Ikea and a dozen storage boxes (with vole-proof lids!) from Walmart. And lesson learned, no more kibble lying around!

View Post

Create Your Perfect Home – A Create Academy Course by Rita Konig

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

In December of last year Create Academy launched an intriguing course called Create Your Perfect Home, taught by renowned British decorator Rita Konig. Like many of you, I’m sure, I was very excited at the idea of having Rita Konig pull back the curtains on her projects and share a glimpse inside her processes. We’ve seen her genius at work in one of the most talked about and admired homes ever published – a Mill Valley camp turned family home by architect Gil Schafer in collaboration with Rita Konig, so this Create Academy course definitely has us paying attention. I have just finished watching the entire course this weekend and I thought I’d share a short review here on the blog, in case you are interested in taking the class but unsure of whether or not it’s a good fit.

View Post