This Week's Finds

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Thank you for your kind messages following last week’s blog post, it feels wonderful to be back! There are so many things I’d love to chat about with you, and in due time we’ll get to the juicier home decor topics, but right now there are some interesting book launches coming up this month that I wouldn’t want you to miss, plus some fascinating reads that have been around for a while, and some home tours that will satisfy our lust for travel and beautiful interiors. Here’s a glimpse at my shopping cart these days, and I’d like to invite you to share what’s in yours (books and other home & garden related items). I promise to update this list based on your finds and recommendations.

First one on my list is Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. It comes out tomorrow so make sure you are ready when that happens! (The hardcover is on sale right now!)

Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir, by Ina Garten

Interiors Styled by Mieke ten Have, also launches tomorrow, and I confess I am counting the hours for this one. Mieke ten Have is a brilliant stylist who can transform a beautifully designed room into an unforgettable one, with a sprinkling of accessories that accentuate the great bones designers work so hard to create. Mieke has the magic touch, and I can’t wait to find out more about her secrets and recipes for accessorizing rooms to such mesmerizing effects.

Interiors: Styled by Mieke ten Have

Hobby Lobby has been having a sale on florals and vases, which made me pay attention. Their terracotta vases in particular are stunning, yet affordable, so I highly recommend you have a look. These beauties caught my eye:

Earth-Tone Vase

Whitewashed Terracotta Textured Vase

Taupe Textured Terracotta Vase

The right gardening tools can make or break your work, and your back, when you’re out there tending to the never ending list of gardening tasks. Weeds, dandelion roots to be exact, have been my sworn enemy, and I hope Grampa’s weeder will give me an unfair advantage 🙂

Grampa’s Weeder

Anyway, I hope you see something you like in today’s post! And even if you don’t, feel free to share what’s on your shopping radar this fall!

Endurance, by Alfred Lansing

Endurance “one of the best adventure books ever written” (Wall Street Journal) in this New York Times bestseller: the harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole.

In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. In January 1915, after battling its way through a thousand miles of pack ice and only a day’s sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic’s heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.

In Endurance, the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton’s fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.

An English Vision: Traditional Architecture and Decoration for Today, by Ben Pentreath

Pentreath is renowned as one of the foremost designers of new traditional buildings and country houses in the world. In celebration of his London-based firm’s twentieth anniversary, Pentreath presents his authentically, yet playfully, classical approach.

This is the first of Pentreath’s books to present his own output in its entirety—from his personal residences in Dorset, London, and Scotland that brought him international fame to many old and new houses that he has designed and some of the larger, town-scaled projects that make his practice unique in the world of traditional design. Although the results range from his colorful and romantic versions of the English country cottage to traditional splendor, there are underlying ideas that inform the breadth of his output—a sense of scale, proportion, craft, detail, sustainability, and appropriateness—that have a universal relevance today.

Michael S. Smith: Classic by Design

Design icon and AD100 Hall of Fame member Smith’s highly anticipated book of interiors—the first in nearly a decade—featuring extraordinary projects across the world.

One of the most original and respected talents in design, Smith is revered for his impeccable taste and style. Informed by a deep understanding of design history and the art world, Smith’s work is the ultimate in elegance and luxury, reflecting an uncommon sense of scale and drama and a deft use of craftsmanship and materials. His interiors have earned him enduring accolades throughout the industry, as well as a devoted following of notable clients, from Hollywood mega talents such as Shonda Rhimes to former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

This book is a celebration of Smith’s design aesthetic, a flawless blend of European classicism and American modernism. The projects range from a contemporary beach house in East Hampton to a Moroccan-influenced Mallorca escape, as well as two of Michael’s own homes, including his extraordinary apartment in a nineteenth-century palace in Madrid. Smith shares his inspirations and design process, and explores what makes a room truly comfortable: Can people relax on the seating? Is the furniture arranged to encourage conversation? Is there enough light, and is it flattering?

The Art of Gracie: Handpainted Wallpapers, Timeless Rooms

A glorious celebration of America’s most storied hand-painted wallpaper company, family owned for 125 years, featuring dozens of rooms by today’s top interior designers.

The story of Gracie wallpaper, founded in 1898 and still family owned by the sixth generation, is one of the great untold stories of American interior design. Best known for their exquisitely detailed designs, Gracie papers have been installed at the White House and many of America’s most notable homes. They are a go-to resource for interior designers including Mark Sikes, Summer Thornton, Ellie Cullman, Brooke Giannetti, Suzanne Kasler, Michael S. Smith, Alexa Hampton, Alex Papachristidis, and Amanda Lindroth, and Gracie can be found in the homes of celebrities including Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Cameron Diaz.

This volume, featuring hundreds of color photographs of contemporary rooms by leading interior designers, shows the range not only of the papers themselves—from beautiful florals and birds to panoramic landscapes of American folk scenes and French pastoral hillsides to hunting and maritime scenes—but also the imaginative ways they can be used to create truly transporting spaces. Designs in every imaginable color, from metallics to lush greens and cobalt blues to dramatic reds and blacks, show that with Gracie, any room in the home can become a true, custom work of art.

Forever Beautiful, by Mark D. Sikes

In this third book of the Beautiful trilogy, Sikes celebrates a full year of beautiful interiors inspired by nature. Colors, patterns, and textures, including his favorite blue and white, chinoiserie, rattan, gingham, stripes, and more, came from the world outside these rooms. In twelve chapters, he shares inspiration and advice from homes he has designed across America and abroad. There is a house for every month of the year, inspired by the seasons, from April’s leafy green Gardens of Versailles–inspired French Chateau-style home outside of Chicago to crisp navy in East Hampton for June, August’s homage to the pink sands in Bermuda, and holiday reds for December’s Swiss-style chalet on a sweeping horse ranch near Sun Valley, Idaho.