Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A Treme Treasure

The Treme is more than an a HBO TV show about New Orleans.

The uncovered old plaster walls are left as is



The Treme is the oldest neighborhood in the USA settled by Free People of Color, and remains today an important center of African American and Creole Culture.

It's location right next to French Quarter is attractive to anyone wanting to buy a house of excellent historic pedigree and architecture. As in many cases with houses nearing the 200 year old mark, there is some serious work to be done.

The hallway may be the last remaining foyer
still retaining
its original ashlar block treatment
a faux painting technique to make masonry look like stone



Will Germaine bought his Treme treasure in 2003, and found it to be a grand pile ready to fall in on itself.


He has been doing an unusual renovation. He has been trying to stabilize the house in its antiquity, bringing it back as close as possible to historical accuracy.

The old plaster walls create a livable environment without HVAC


The original owner of the house was Louise Vitry, a free woman of color, who lived a placage, in this house with one of the French Creole men who built the Treme, Achille Courcelle, and their four children. After his death, she kept the house.


The living room is charming
Slipcovers and seagrass and old plaster - Yum!



In old New Orleans, Placage was an extra legal system of "placing" a free woman of color with a white male protector in a type of common law marriage. He gave her the title to the house, and other creature comforts and luxuries, and he would be expected to provide an education (often in Paris), and an inheritance for her children.


The exterior of the house


I would love to live in house like this. I have lived in places with ruined walls and stabilized them in their glorious decrepitude. Even now I drag in chippy crappy things and use them in the house.

What about you? Could you live in a house historically restored like this?
To be fair. There is a second floor where the owner lives with comfortable amenities (like new plumbing) that are contained in an addition on the back of the house built in 1900.

The idea is to be historically accurate, not pristine. Will wants to maintain the signs of age for aesthetic reasons (kind like me in my old age ha ha). Rather than tearing down and re-doing the plaster work in the soaring rooms downstairs, he will keep much as he can secure, including the damage and the exposed lath where the plaster has fallen.

I love what Will Germaine is doing, and if I have one more house left in me to buy in New Orleans, I'd love an old crumbling center hall house in all it's decadence.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Anna Wintour's Bolthole


Bolthole. It made me smile. Had to look it up HERE

The October 2010 issue of World Of Interiors features Anna Wintour's bolthole. In fact her second one.



Table of contents from World Of Interiors


Okay okay. It's her second vacation home on Long Island, and here's how Anna describes the very un-Hamptons location of Shirley, Long Island in the article: "I just import the people I want…. I don't mind the town. It's white trash, of course, but I don't care".


Feedsack slipcovers, stripe rug, chintz drapes



It is a lovely place of course, very romantic looking, very comfortable, very elegant farmhouse.


The second bolthole living room
Toile (!) slipcover, seagrass rug, Brickmakers coffee table


More from Anna who wrote the article: "It was perhaps eight years ago that a neighbor's change of fortune resulted in my good luck. The property that adjoins my 1820 Long Island summerhouse (WoI March 2006) came up for sale when its owner left in a hurry. It had an 1834 farmhouse, with loads of additions and 12 poky bedrooms. It had a perplexing reception room with difficult, though grand, proportions. It had lawns that tumbled down toward a beautiful-to-the-eye, toxic-to-everything-else river. It had nearly 25 acres of difficult trees in deer-infested woods. It was, as we say at Vogue, challenging".


The same room sans toile


Rustic kitchen

Sweet, sweet bedroom
Can you see Anna sleeping here?


Another view of a bedroom
Love the return curtain rods


A view from one poky room into another one of the dozen poky rooms


Love the lantern with the worn zinc color finish


The library - the chairs look like ones from Pottery Barn
The lamp in the center of the table is a bit odd


Another view of the library


Collage of the property


Found all this good stuff on Curbed and The Awl. Just wanted to share it with you.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Nate Berkus Seriously Sniffing Fabric Glue




Watch this HERE and have a Happy Weekend!

Two blonds in love-
photo taken by another blond I love Renae Moore



I can't get this tune out of my head.
Thanks Jenny! You rock.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

I Heart Fabric.com


Fabric.com is a great resource. They have the most reasonably priced fabric, much of it on trend.
Even though I work at a wonderful home furnishing store with access to every designer fabric, I often cannot afford it even if I can get it at cost.
And sometimes I have a client who is on a very tight budget, and I need to find great looking designer fabric really really inexpensively.
Fabric.com is my go-to source.
The customer service is great. There is free shipping if your order is $35. or more.
I have personally used their ivory burlap for drapes, their heavy white cotton for slipcovers, their solid color silk and linen for drapes, their lining and interlining.
When trends first break, prices are high, and it make take a year or two for them to trickle down to the mainstream. If you aren't stuck-up about a designer name, and you can use your creativity to get the gesture of what you see in a magazine, Fabric.com will be a wonderful resource for you.

Fabric trends


Here is a round up of some of my favorite fabrics at Fabric.com based on looks you all once drooled over. I for one, still appreciate them.

One hot fabric is the Lee Jofa Confetti Dot designed by Kelly Wearstler. Lots of you drooled over this, and I have used it for clients. But it hovers around $100. a yard or more.

Lee Jofa Confetti Dot


Fabric.com has something in the same vein, and in many different color ways (gray, orange, black).

Fabric.com Togo print HERE


The very talented Nicole Cohen from Sketch42 used the Lee Jofa fabric in her home.



She added the beautiful trim, no doubt from her family's fabulous store M & J Trimming in New York. I found some very cute zebra print ribbon at Fabric.com for only $1.24 a yard that would work just fine for a girl on a budget.

Zebra print ribbon from HERE


Skirted console by Nicole Cohen


Madeline Weinrib has some of the best Ikat fabrics, but they are very pricey. I wish I could afford them!

Fabric.com has some prints that really have the feeling of some of the Weinrib dot Ikats.


This dot Ikat-like fabric comes in pink, orange, black, yellow HERE


Madeline Weinrib Ikat pillow around $400.



Of course Fabric.com has Suzani too. Again in many color ways HERE
This black and white one really looks like a Weinrib Suzani.


Black and white Suzani HERE $6.98 per yard!


Madeline Weinrib Suzani chair


There's been alot of flak about trellis like fabrics, but again I still think they are very cute.

Trellis print on Lucite stool


Trellis print from Fabric.com HERE
It comes in so many colors!


Another trellis style print HERE



Greek key style fabrics are fabulous. We all loved what Jonathan Adler did with them.

Jonathan Adler stool


Maybe you have a chair seat or a little stool that you can recover.


Fabric.com has this Waverly Cross Section fabric in several colors HERE





For all you black and white lovers, there is a huge selection of black and white designer style fabrics available. And you have to remember that all these fabrics start at $6.98 a yard and go no higher than $12.- $15. per yard!


Trellis style print drapes


I just ordered a yard of this black and white fabric to cover a couple of Saarinen stools.

Get this fabric HERE - $10.98 a yard!
It reminds me of Windsor Smith


The chevron pattern is great, and beloved by many of us.

Chevron print drapes


Chevron fabric HERE
Again it comes in many color ways


And if you want the carpet to match the drapes ha ha, get over to La Dolce Vita to see these very affordable Flor carpet tiles(!!!!), and enter a giveaway to win a rug! HERE



And some more Ikat - I think this one is as beautiful as any Weinrib fabric. I love the painterly quality of it.

Blue Ikat from Fabric.com HERE


Blue Ikat furniture is so pretty


Have you ever used laminated fabric? It was a big thing to cover dining room chairs in laminated chintz in the 1980's.



Fabric.com has quite a few good looking laminated fabrics that would be wonderful for chairs.


Laminated fabric HERE
It reminds me of Trina Turk


Trina Turk fabric on a chair from perch.


I also love a link pattern.

Links from Fabric.com $12.98 per yard HERE


Windsor Smith links print fabric from Kravet about $150. per yard
See a great DIY project from Nest Egg HERE


Here are just a few images to remind you of how great print fabrics and wallpaper are.



And the use of color is pretty great too.


This images are of the Redbury Hotel.


Hope you can use Fabric.com for a source to get great inexpensive designer style fabrics!