"I STOOD STILL, DEATHLY TIRED-"

I am both very excited and somewhat upset that the only privately held version of The Scream by Munch will be sold at Sotheby's New York on May 2nd.  Excited because I cannot wait for it to make a record-breaking sale (which I know it will, it is currently estimated to sell for around $80million), and upset because it is currently owned by a Norwegian, and will now likely be sold to someone outside of Norway.  It is always a bit sad when a great masterpiece leaves its homeland.  However, Norway does hold the other 3 versions, all in Norwegian museums.

I love that Sotheby's is featuring it so prominently on the website (as it should be), and that they include Munchs wonderful words associated with the work-
"I stood still, deathly tired-
Over the blue-black fjord and city hung blood and tongues of fire
My friends walked on-
I remained behind- Shivering with anxiety-
I felt the great Scream in Nature"

Learn more here or here.

PRETTY PICTURES

It is one of those weeks, and I will only be posting a few pretty pictures today- from the Traditional Home Red Cross Designers Show House in West Palm Beach.  In particular the Living Room designed by Mimi Masri (love the name by the way).  Love, love, love the colors, artwork and almost all the furniture pieces (of course I would make a few changes....all designers must)!  If you want to see more of the home click here.

ANOTHER KITCHEN & BATH!

I am beginning to dream in kitchens and baths these days.... while I am not exclusively working on kitchen & bath design, it does seem to play a prominent role in my design life as can be seen in much of my recently posted projects.  And it is a side of design that I very much enjoy.  It is great to work with so many hard finishes, something that designers do not always have the chance to do.  Many people do not really think of hiring a designer until the house is finished built and furniture and window treatments are required.  Another aspect I LOVE, of course, but when you get to do that as well as the tile, flooring and light fixtures, the projects are even more fun and rewarding. 

I recently worked on the below property which is now up for sale- please visit the listing here, or contact Cathy at 801.244.5827 for more info.  My main focus was the kitchen and bath, however, we addressed the flooring, lighting and paint throughout the home as well.

Now someone just needs to move in so we can get some great furniture in there!

BLUE INSTEAD OF BLACK & GRAY

It seems deep navy and indigo blues are back in, and substituting for black & charcoal.  I have to say depite my association of navy with the 1980s, I am interested in this shift, and actually quite enjoying it.  I am not really comfortable working with tons of color- don't get me wrong, I love color, but love neutrals as a base with splashes of color as needed.  I have always loved the graphic and bold quality black and white, or cream and gray, or taupe and black, and just that slight shift over to deep blue is a wonderful world of new opportunities.  And the best part is that these blues work so well WITH black and gray!  And with wood tones too.  What a great addtion to my beloved graphic color palette!

Traditional Home is doing it:

(yes, the above thow pillows and ottoman are navy, not black)

West Elm is doing it:

Apartment Therapy is doing it:

Lonny is doing it:

Mitchell Gold is doing it:

Farrow & Ball is doing it:

And well, you get the point!

WHY I LOVE HOME GOODS

I know, all you other designers out there are cringing...but honestly, I do love Home Goods, the home store extension of TJ Maxx, and I will tell you why.  Living in Utah presents some significant hurdles when practicing interior design.  One major hurdle is finding good sources for accessories.  Sure, I can purchase items online, but that is just not always convenient.  I often accessorize homes after I have completed renovations for my clients, which typically entails my going out, purchasing items, and then bring them all to the home and trying everything out to see what works best.  I then return anything that is not needed.  You see ordering a ton of things online is not exactly the easiest way to go about this. 

So I try to purchase at least the majority of items here in Salt Lake.  That means I am really limited to Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, (finally a Crate& Barrel which opened about 2 months ago), Ikea, and a few select unique boutiques that charge and arm and sometimes a leg for their cool accessories.  There are great consignment stores here, but one is not able to return anything in these stores, so I can easily end up with excess accessories.

And then there is Home Goods.  What I enjoy about Home Goods is that while yes, there is a lot of bad holiday decor and bad art and ugly furniture-

there is also quite a goldmine of reasonably priced, different and somewhat one-off (at least one-off in Utah) accessories- if you have the time to dig.  One certainly has to do an extreme search, but it can be very rewarding.  And of course the bonus is that I can return anything that does not work for my projects. 

And while many would claim that Pottery Barn and Crate&Barrel yield many more cute, stylish and sophisticated items, I must admit I prefer to keep accessories from these popular chains to a minimum whenever possible.  Not to say they don't have some great items, however, such an important part of my design philosophy is mixing and coordinating, never matchy-matchy.  And who wants their friends to walk into their newly decorated home, the home they have spent lots of time and money renovating, and have the friends say 'oh look, I saw that at Pottery Barn the other day!'  I want my clients friends to say 'wow, I have never seen any of these things, where did you get them?'  Of course in an ideal world (like New York, LA, Chicago, or San Francisco) this is never an issue as there are so many stores to mine.  But here, I must admit Home Goods has become one of my standard 'go-tos' for accessories.

Cringe if you will, but see how many Pottery Barn and Crate&Barrel items you can pick out of my design projects :)