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Our Home | Updates

It feels like a long time since I shared an update on our home… I mentioned before that a we’re in the process of buying a house and, if all goes well, we’ll be closing end of June, around the same time our current lease expires. Eeeek!!! I’m so excited I can hardly think about anything else! My head is spinning with ideas and improvements and I’m daydreaming more than usual. It doesn’t  help that our lives have been hectic over the last couple months. As first time home-buyers in the states we’re learning so much about the process, the different aspects and the people involved and I’m aching to show you images of “our new home” but will have to wait until we know for sure that stars and people have aligned and the purchase is a “go”. Inspections went well and we’re contingent on getting the mortgage approval on time. Fingers crossed! 

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Starstruck…

Doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt last night. About a month ago I received an invitation to Bunny Williams’ latest book launch party at John Rosselli Antiques on 61st Street and was beyond tickled by the opportunity to meet Mrs. Williams personally. She is a design legend and one of America’s most talented and beloved decorators of our time, and I admire her greatly. Her new book, Love Affairs with Houses is gorgeous and I’ll share more about it on the blog once I get back home and have had a chance to thoroughly read it. In the meantime, I’d love to take you with me to last night’s party. It was impressive, I felt like a kid in a candy shop! Rooms filled with treasures, botanicals, hurricanes, beautiful textiles, crystal chandeliers and exquisite furnishings, the temptation was everywhere I looked… I knew that John Rosselli’s stores are a favorite among designers and a destination in themselves but I wasn’t expecting so much beauty, at every turn. Add to that the fact that designers whose work I’ve long studied and only wrote about were actually standing right next to me. It felt humbling and inspiring at the same time. I also got a chance to meet Stacey Bewkes and Susanna Salk, the fabulous duo behind the blog Quintessence, and they were both as lovely as you’d expect them to be.

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The Search for Home | A Historic Cape

The search for home continues and it is both exhilarating and scary. Exhilarating because we’ve been waiting for this moment for so long… Scary because we have so many balls in the air right we can’t afford to make a mistake. So many things are out of our control, details have to work out, people need to align in order for things to happen for us that it is a challenge to keep cool. So I need to clear my mind and stay focused and organized because that’s when I’m at my best. Although I can’t share the exact home we are considering at the moment, I can share one lovely cottage that unfortunately did not work out for us.

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The Search for Home

Happy Spring!!! Spring has finally made it to western mass! Woohoo! (Although I’ve been warned that some years it even snows in May 🙁 ) Isn’t it funny how sunshine and warmer temps make everything look prettier!? And happier too? Isabella and I ventured on a nature walk this past weekend and saw a bunch of snowdrops on a sunny hillside. I can’t remember ever being so excited at the sight of those tiny droplets but seeing them made me feel so happy! And to think tulips are next, and then peonies, roses and hydrangeas…I hope it’s nice and warm where you are!

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An Interview with Leta Austin Foster

Today I have the great pleasure to share with you an interview with one of the leading names in American interior design, Leta Austin Foster. I have tremendous respect and admiration for Leta’s work and could not be more excited to sit down with her for an interesting interview marking the launch of her new design concept, PREtty FABulous Rooms.  Leta founded her award-winning design firm – Leta Austin Foster Interiors – over four decades ago and in the years that followed, her work has been published in all the major design magazines as well as in a great number of interior design books. She has contributed design advice to Elle Décor, Veranda, Traditional Home and House Beautiful. House and Garden magazine named her one of America’s Greatest Interior Decorators. In 2015, Gibbs-Smith published “Traditional Interiors: Leta Austin Foster, India Foster and Sallie Giordano, written by Brian Coleman and Erik Kvalsvik, a book that celebrates her firm’s stunning portfolio.

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