Café Design

Decorating Consultations

Create Academy | How to Create Timeless Interiors, by Alidad

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If you, like me, can’t have enough of Create Academy and their wonderful course offerings, then today’s review will hopefully inspire you to check out what I think is one of their best classes on traditional interior design – How to Create Timeless Interiors – taught by the legendary Persian-British decorator Alidad. The promise: a home that will outlast trends and that will be just as beautiful, with minimal tweaks, twenty years from now. And isn’t that what we all want?

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This Week’s Finds

Happy Weekend, dear friends! Here are this week’s finds: 

1. The Louvre’s entire art collection is now accessible online, for free. Peruse some of the world’s most famous collections of pottery, fine art, textiles and furniture, from the comfort of your sofa. Click HERE for more.

2. A wonderful Nantucket cottage to obsess over – the home of fashion designer Veronica Swanson Beard, decorated by Michelle Holland of Nantucket House Antiques. Click HERE for a tour.

3. Indulge your love of textiles with a lovely assortment of Anatolian patterns, kilims and embroideries to choose from, via THIS Etsy shop. 

Lumbar pillow:

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DIY Files |  A Quick & Easy Peg Rail 

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If you’re looking for a quick and easy DIY project that does not require much skill or time investment on your part yet is immensely satisfying, then today’s DIY peg rail project could be for you! Peg rails are a charming cottage detail often found in colonial style homes, and their beautiful simplicity makes them both timeless and modern. A sturdy peg rail is a practical storage opportunity and a great way to coral stray coats, hats and handbags in busy entryways and mudrooms, or neatly display an assortment of hand towels in bathrooms and kitchens. They are as practical as they are pretty, and I love using them throughout our home.  

A DIY peg rail using screw-on pegs from Amazon; painted Linen White, by Benjamin Moore
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This Week’s Finds

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

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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