Do You Love Your Bed?

The 13th moon is waning.

New Years Eve 2009 going into 2010 via The Huffington Post

The fireworks are over. The old year is gone. Time to take a little break.

Do you love your bed? Do you work on the computer there? Our furnace was out all week, and we barricaded ourselves in the bedroom with a space heater, our lap tops, snacks, and TV. It was great.

Read more about Bryan Batt HERE

Anyway we're all moving forward.

J Lo HERE
Toss me my Louboutins - I feel like dancing!

Wishing you and your loved ones all the best.

Hope to spend time with you in 2010.

Happy New Year.

Nine

Kristin from Discover Interior Design did a great series about design resolutions. She invited several bloggers to participate. I love them all, and it was fun to see how each blogger took on the assignment. One of my favorites is by new blogger Lynda who has new the blog Focal Point (please check out Focal Point and add it to your blog list).

I'm not big on making New Years resolutions, are you? But I took a stab at it, and approached mine in the vein of a dating advice column....

reprint from Discover Interior Design:

Top Nine New Years Decorating Resolutions

Resolution #1: Define what you want in a decor relationship
Before you can find what you want, you first must inventory what you need, so start the New Year off by making a dream list of stuff you want in a potential room and don’t just file it away when you’re done. Keep the list in mind whenever you see a room with potential, instead of solely relying on physical attraction. It doesn’t matter if a room looks like Domino if it doesn’t treat you well.

I have an ongoing master bathroom project for five years now – will I finish it in 2010?

Resolution #2: Assess your baggage
Be honest with yourself; if you have any residual feelings or anger leftover from your last decor project, don’t take it with you into the New Year. See a decor shrink, vent on your blog, whatever you need to do – just get rid of it!

I love big clocks and cow hide rugs – can I live without this baggage in 2010?!

Resolution #3: Get your booty off the couch
The likelihood of decorating the perfect room while you’re parked in front of your TV watching HGTV is miniscule (unless, of course, your mailman or local pizza delivery boy just happens to be a dead ringer for Candice Olson.)

Resolution #4: Get out of your decorating comfort zone
If you are the type of person who has had the same sea grass rug for the past eight years, it’s likely that you’ve been doing the same type of decor for just as long. If your past interior designs haven’t panned out the way you hoped, it may be time to shake some things up in your family room. In 2010, make it your goal to rethink the kind of slipcover you are keeping around and be more open to pursuing new kinds of furniture. For example, if you are a serial online decor blogger, try getting offline. (And vice-versa).

Just do a fabulous 2005 design mash up – It’s so five years ago so who will know in 2010 that you’re off trend.

Resolution #5: Decorate more than one room at a time
Decorating more than one room at a time helps takes that this-has-to-work-out-or-else pressure off of you that can doom many a fledgling project. So while I certainly don’t advocate written-in-stone-projects, until you get serious, try to see at least three different design styles simultaneously in one room. For those of you who are thinking “But it’s so hard to just think of one!” my advice is to stop being so picky.

Open your eyes and design more than one room at a time.

Resolution #6: Stop trying to make lemonade out of bad lemons
You can’t whip your bad furniture into tip-top shape without dumping any lingering baggage, whether it be river rocks, foo dogs, Buddha heads, or any other zen knick-knacks that you can never quite shake. If these so-called decor schemes don’t have the ability to go anywhere, than it’s not worth exerting your creative energy to maintain them. Refrain from dwelling on, or hooking up with yesterday’s bad news and instead re-channel that momentum into getting something new.

Lemonade from lemons – Yes or No?! Discuss!

Resolution #7: Ditch the deadline
Milestone birthdays have the ability to send even the most rational of decorators into a frenzy, so stop comparing yourself to your friends, sisters, and/or bitchy bloggers, and realize, with as much Zen-Chinoiserie-like tranquility as you can muster, that everyone is sitting on their own unique Ghost Chair. When it comes to credenzas, there is no right time for it to happen.

Tick-tock it’s February and you still haven’t taken down the Christmas stuff –
Forget deadlines and relax, recycle, reuse. And reinvent it for Spring.

Resolution #8: Decorate yourself
Remember that the longest relationship you will ever have is with yourself, so be your own interior designer and don’t wait until you’re room is finished to post it on your blog. Give yourself permission to exaggerate on something that’s totally not your idea and reinvent it as your own.

Why wait for fame? Make your own magazine cover HERE

Resolution #9: Enjoy the journey
Decorating is a process, not unlike applying to colleges as a high school senior. Sometimes it can be exciting (OMG, they like me even if that tacky lamp looks bad!) and sometimes disappointing (How could I have picked that fake Ikat pillow from Wal Mart!) but no matter what happens this year, remember that it is only the end-result that matters. Whatever your decor resolutions are, be the boss of them. Go public with them, if need be. You won’t regret it when you are mentioned in a defunct magazine, or get a book deal, or get on a radio show like The Skirted Roundtable, or on everyone’s blog list in 2010.

Design Resolutions!

A really great new-to-me blogger is doing a series called Design Resolutions 2010. Her name is Kristin and she has the blog Discover: Interior Design. It's one of the most well organized blogs I have ever read.



Kristin says: "Well, it is with great pleasure that I finally share with you the design resolutions of not only me, but 12+ design bloggers. From now until January 2010, these amazing individuals will be divulging their design (and sometimes personal) resolutions every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Some are short + sweet, some are cute + funny, and others are more in depth."



Anyhoo, check out this link for one of the first in the series HERE

And pray tell, what are your design resolutions for 2010?

This Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Year

Many cultures have New Years rituals. Here in New Orleans having a meal of black eye peas and cabbage (or collard greens) insures good luck and prosperity for the coming year (Beano jokes allowed).
There is a universal tradition that whatever you do on the first day of the year, will be what you do all year long. Alberto and I will dance a tango for sure.
Reading the New York Times today, I learned about Colombians and other South Americans who would like to travel in the coming year, walk around their house with a suitcase.
I have been in Madrid for New Years and was served a small Limoges dish of peeled green grapes by a uniformed maid in a very fancy house, and I was expected to eat one at every stroke of the clock at midnight striking the new year. Again luck is insured for each grape you manage to choke down.
I learned Danes jump off chairs, leaping into the new year. Does the style of chair matter? Danish modern as opposed to an antique French beauty?

from Joni

Filipinos wear clothes especially made with deep pockets, and fill those pockets with coins and fresh bills. They jingle the pockets at midnight on New Years Eve believing the noise will attract prosperity in the coming year. I myself have jangled an armful of bangles ala Auntie Mame hoping for the same effect.
Buying and wearing new clothes to celebrate the new year is common in many cultures. Red and yellow seem to be the favored colors, and in Venezuela people give each other yellow underwear to wear into the new year for luck.
Fireworks are universally used to signify the symbol of light for the new year. Here in New Orleans they are deemed illegal, but nobody told all the folks everywhere exploding them from early afternoon into next week.

Mid City New Orleans Bon Fire
Everybody drags their dead Christmas tree
to the neutral ground (that be a median to you)
and a huge fire is lighted

The Brits have one I really like: the first person over your threshold in the new year is the measure of the household's luck for the year. Apparently they like a tall, healthy, strapping, dark haired man carrying symbols of abundance (coal for the fire, bread for the table, and whiskey for the head of the household) whose foot should be the first foot in the door.
I'd like to dictate my own symbols of abundance: a pair of Swank lamps,

from Ed at Swank Lighting

...a Julie Neill chandelier,

contact Director of Sales Julie Ponze
This beauty "Cinderella 8" is in stock and ready to ship!
juliewebmail@g.mail.com

...an open ended gift card to Shabby Slips,

from Joni

...and Suzanis and Ikats and...

from ABC Carpet and Home

....decor books oh my!
In one part of Japan there is a Festival of Abusive Language. And they're not talking about all those year long Anon blog comments! Apparently one climbs a hill to a temple while screaming curses at employers, politicians, teachers (what about grouchy spouses, bratty children, snotty sales people, customer "service" phone reps?). Once purged by yelling they go into the temple to celebrate various ceremonies, free to allow happiness to flow in the next months.
So my dear bloggers, I sit here in new yellow underwear, screaming at the economy, jumping off my Ghost Chair, stuffing my face with peas and greens and grapes, setting off firecrackers (is that a fart joke?!), jangling my bracelets; inviting in George Clooney bearing gifts of abundance.
And most of all I am blogging.
And dancing that tango with dear Alberto, both of which I hope to do in the coming year.
What rituals do you partake in for luck in the coming new year?
Wishing you luck, love, prosperity, health, time, all the good things you desire for the coming year.

What Are You Doing New Years Eve?

Happy New Year to my dear bloginistas (bloggers with style!) and friends and strangers who read this humble rag.
For many years I had a business that provided decor. So when New Years Eve rolled around, I was usually engaged to decorate a party or two. Most were huge events, though some were more intimate house parties.

Valorie Hart Designs
The huge fabulous Lichtenstein always hangs in this office building lobby.
The giant pine cones were added as the seasonal decor.
The party decor took its cue from the painting.
Each table had linen color picked out from the painting.
The flowers were arranged both high and low,
and the flower choice was simple: red tulips in winter!

I never resented working New Years day into eve. My crew was a great collection of talent, and we became friends through the years, so we made the job our special party. Before I became a business woman I had a show business career, so often I worked in a club on New Years Eve.

Valorie Hart Designs
This event is at The Brooklyn Museum.
I love the glass block floor lighted from below.
The statues are the museum's, but I brought in the fountains.

On the rare New Years Eve that I wasn't working I preferred to go to a party that I could walk to from my brownstone on 15th Street. New Years Eve in New York is brutal. Everything is overpriced. It's cold, so that evening shoes and a cute little party dress gets a lot of wind up the skirt. Taxis are impossible to get, and if you do get one, you pay triple the meter. Many a time I had to resort to the subway, sharing it with puking teenagers, or worse yet standing alone on a cold train platform at midnight into the new year waiting and waiting for a train to come.

Valorie Hart Designs

The Mac Daddy of all New Years party locations: The Rainbow Room!
Gold and silver and white were the obvious choices.
We made the huge cocktail filled with lights behind the long buffet table.

The best party outside of putting on some slinky pajamas and laying out a supper of every exotic and expensive food we loved (caviar, smoked salmon, pheasant, oysters, lobsters, chocolate), was a little supper party given at a restaurant around the corner from my home called Luxe; it was given by my friends Timothy Pope and Robin Berg.
It was s sit down dinner for twelve. I decorated of course, and I recall vast quantities of white narcissus flowers and candlelight. After dinner we danced to big band music. It was an unusually warm night, and with a fire roaring in the fireplace of our private dining room, we were overheated. We threw open the windows at midnight, and tossed flowers to the passersby.

Valorie Hart Designs
This is a party at The Puck Building
It was called White Winter Wonderland
Lucite chairs, tons of white branches and lights,
iridescent table lines, white Amaryllis, lots of candle light
made this one of my favorites, and a favorite of my clients.
I revamped this look for many a wedding!

Loading docks on New Years aren't fun either. There is so much stuff that has to be schlepped to make a party. The logistics are worthy of a five star general planning a battle. There's never enough time no matter how early you can set-up, or how many magic crew people you amass. But somehow it all gets done, and we would all stand together and look at our handiwork, amazed that we did it. I always brought along a few bottles of Champagne for this moment to share with my decor squad. Glasses were lifted, toasts given, and off we went to a hot bath and a night at home.
Looking at photos of milestones usually include friends and family. Mine also include a body of work. But back then I was careless with my talent, and didn't think to document it all. The few photos I have were taken by Adam Anik and Juris Mardwig. And of course I have some tattered tear sheets I managed to save from editorials along the way.

Valorie Hart Designs
Brides Magazine Editorial
The idea was a church basement winter reception, for a bride on a budget.
Masses of red and pink mini carnations, herb topiary,
winter love birds, snow flakes, winter evergreens
were all used on a back drop of winter white.
I had to reproduce this party many times over after this editorial.

I never ever went to Times Square once. Except to decorate a party there in a now defunct restaurant called Nirvana. It was atop an odd little building on the median in Times Square. It had a perfect view below of the hoopla. Of course we were invited to stay for the party and enjoy the view, but we politely declined and scurried off home. This wasn't easy since all of Times Square is barricaded by the police in preparation for the massive crowds.

"What Are You Doing New Year's Eve"

When the bells all ring and the horns all blow
And the couples we know are fondly kissing.
Will I be with you or will I be among the missing?

Maybe it's much too early in the game
Ooh, but I thought I'd ask you just the same
What are you doing New Year's
New Year's eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly twelve o'clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year
New Year's eve

Maybe I'm crazy to suppose
I'd ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations
You received

Ooh, but in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance:
What are you doing New Year's
New Year's Eve?

Una Noche de Garufa!

Tonight's the Night!
Una Noche de Garufa
This is the time we all come together
to break bread, and raise a glass
to the passing year, and the year ahead,
to each other for having survived
another year to dance a tango!
9 PM - ???
Delish Buffet!
The Best Tango Music!
Midnight Champagne Toast!
Hats and Horns!
Woo Hoo!
Una Noche de Garufa!
Please e-mail me today
mizvthe@yahoo.com
or call
504 875-0526
to reserve.
$30. before 11 PM
$20 after 11 PM (no dinner included)
The Country Club
634 Louisa Street
New Orleans