I Love Lamp: LA Fantasy

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When these photos were taken for Freundevon Freundevon, Claire Cottrell had moved into this LA home a mere 10 days before. She is apparently a professional mover.

Cottrell is a creative director and producer for a film company. She also has a Masters in landscape architecture and runs this uber cool online bookstore called Book Stand where she sells rare art/photography/vintage books. (I'm currently sweating this book of hers.)

She is a BALLER.

The whole thing taps into this fantasy I have where Steven and I move to LA and live in an adorable bungalow in Silver Lake where the windows are always open and we have an amazing succulents garden in our backyard that's always filled with our hip, laughing friends who surf and are in bands. In this fantasy there is of course no traffic and no smog and Brooklyn is only a forty minute train ride away.

TOTALLY possible, right? I thought so.

I Love Lamp: Studio Redo Sneak Peek

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Steven's and my work studio has undergone a serious overhaul that makes me SO HAPPY. It's not quite finished (then again, what home improvement project ever is??) so I'm just going to give a small sneak peek of the before / halfway through / after: BEFORE: Rather cluttered and uninspired...

HALF WAY THROUGH: So many dust bunnies and so much stuff piled everywhere else in our apartment...

AFTER: Pristine beauty... with a bar!

There's a lot more organizing and moving back in to be done, so the space will fill with more color as we pack our shelves with paints and books-- those photos will come soon.

So here I am feeling all happy about having a beautiful space in which to work when I read THIS is Annie Dillard's book "The Writing Life" this morning:

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark. When I furnished this study seven years ago, I pushed the long desk against a blank wall, so I could not see from either window.

Well shit.

Actually, I feel confident in disagreeing with her. I've worked in some windowless dungeons; I've stripped writing spaces bare of anything but a table, paper, and pencil; I mean, I had a studio in a radio station above a bus station in West Africa for god's sake, where I prayed to high hell that the monkish discomfort would lead to profound creativity. I'm sorry, but I WANT A ROOM WITH A GODDAMN VIEW.

Last year I wrote this piece for 20SomethingReads on this topic of the ideal writing set up.

“I wrote in bed in hotels in the desert,” said the author Paul Bowles of how and where he crafted his most famous book, THE SHELTERING SKY.

How romantic is that? It makes me want to chuck my laptop, trade it for a typewriter and head off to the Sahara to rent a simple room with billowing curtains and a quiet, whirring fan.

The only problem is, I’ve done that before. Not with the typewriter, but all the rest of it. I wrote in bed in hotels in the desert and you know what? It sucked. The heat was excruciating, the flies incessant, the food awful, and the loneliness completely debilitating. And I’m not a picky traveler.

Funnily enough, because hindsight in not actually 20-20 but all happy-blurry, rereading that here in my beautiful new studio I'm suddenly thinking, "Damn, maybe it would be really nice to write in hotels again..."

Yes, I'm nuts.

I Love Lamp: Granada Tile

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Ya'll know I love me some tiles. I've been especially in love with the simple French country style ones in my Moroccan host family's kitchen since 2004:

By the way, HOW CUTE IS MY HOST MOM AMINA?

Anyway-- before I get stuck in a caps-lock Morocco love fest: I was rather ecstatic to find the Grenada Tile Echo catalogue that not only has tiles like these but has this whole website set up where you can personalize each element by color! Yes, ECSTATIC over tiles. (Oops, there goes that caps-lock again.)

My favorite, of course, are the "Normandy" collection. I also like them softened with some grey details too:

And I kind of love the "Taniger" and not just because it's named after a Moroccan city... I went all green and blue for this one:

Naturally I wrote them to get a quote on what, say, 80 square feet would cost me and I got an oh so detailed response that essentially translated into: "Mother god, you like tiles but do you $2000 like them?"

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: HONEYMOON EDITION!

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So it turns out Tuesdays are great for... ELOPING!

Steven and I went down to Brooklyn City Hall this week and put a ring on it. Two rings on it to be precise. Then we went straight up to Graham & Co in the Catksills for a quick honeymoon. (It would have seemed weird to just go back to apartment and what, answer some emails? Rent a movie?)

Graham & Co, in their own words, is "an update on the traditional weekend away" aka it's an old motel now entirely design-ified with reclaimed wood furniture, vaguely "ethnic" textiles, edison bulbs, and mason jars upon mason jars.

To be clear, I say this with love. They're so damn on-trend it's adorable.

I can't wait to return some time this summer and get in on the pool and bonfire action!

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

(Last two photos from Graham & Co website.)

I Love Lamp: Bathroom Art

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I like how people tend to let loose with their bathroom art. It's often where you find people's quirkiest stuff. I've had a hodgepodge of crazy stuff up in there for a while but I recently switched all to photographs from our travels. It makes me so happy to have all those memories smashed up against each other in a room I use every day.

I like brushing my teeth and thinking about that strange motel in Montana, that boat ride down the Niger river trying to get to Timbuktu, that day we spent drinking beers in the plaza of Villa De Lleyva in Colombia...

I had to hold onto one drawing though. It's still in our shower. Most people don't even notice it at first.

And when they see it, they think, "Is that what I think that is?" And they step into our tub to get a closer look and--

Yup. That's what it is.

P.S. That's a Steven original from a playbill we designed for a production of Dorian Gray.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: I GOT 'EM! I GOT 'EM!

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I GOT 'EM! I GOT 'EM! I GOT MYSELF 4 VERNER PANTON CHAIRS!

And I LOVE them. No really, I loooooooooooooooooove them! They're so sleek and comfy and bouncy. Every time I walk by them I smile.

The other two are acting as our desk chairs in our home office but this place is such a pit right now I cannot bring myself to photograph it. We've got big plans for up here though-- so get ready for a good Before & After some time soon.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: Cozy Linen Bedding

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It's snowing/raining/slushing/being generally miserable outside so all I want to do is go back to bed and snuggle up with my fresh linen sheets that honest to god smell like summer.

And yup, that's a C + S monogram. Thank you Mom!

Here are some other cozy linen beds via the oh-so-lovely My Scandinavian Home.

Sooooooo sleeeeeeeeeepy...

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: Chair, err... thing?

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This chair-thing:

Cool? Kind of creepy? There's something both delicious and yucky about it, right? Almost like it's growing in that corner and might continue to grow when you're sleeping until you wake up in the middle of the night and it's taken over your ENTIRE house and... no? It's just a weird Belgian bean bag you say, and that's all? Oh, ok. I'll take one then.

(Photo via Style-Files)

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: Getting My Doily On

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I had a birthday tea party last week and in preparation made a zillion crustless sandwiches and strung doilies EVERYWHERE.

I told Steven I would take them down the next day.

Three days ago.

I'm sure soon enough I'll get sick of all the frilly-ness. It really feels like you're looking up someone's petticoat. Oh my, how naughty!

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

I Love Lamp: Paint That House Like a Burkinabé

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When Steven and I went to Burkina Faso we never made it to any remote villages like Tiébélé here where folks paint the heck out of their buildings.

That said, I don't feel too bad about not making it here as apparently it took this woman over a YEAR of negotiations to get in! Click through here for more pictures and stories of what it was like. I especially like the detail that they were told to not wear red or carry an umbrella as that is a privilege reserved for the most noble families. It reminded me of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, one of the my favorite books ever, which takes place mostly in a village in the Congo. Never read it? OH MY GOD GO READ IT RIGHT NOW.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

All photos via here.

I Love Lamp: More Indoor Swings

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I'm back on the indoor swing kick. How lovely would it be to hang out in one of these at the Chilean hotel Tierra Patagonia after a day of hiking around?

The only conundrum: where does one put your hard earned drink?

Speaking of hiking, this past weekend Steven and I went up to the Catskills to get our winter wonderland on.

The first day was warm and lovely, the second day was straight uphill for the length of a movie and cold as all hell, but we had SUCH a good time stomping around in the snow and getting our fireplace time on in our sweet little cabin after.

As you know, I'm a big fan of glamping. So it is perhaps unsurprising that my motto for the weekend was I Hike In Cashmere. Because I do:

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

Photos of hotel via Tierra Patagonia.

 

I Love Lamp: Getting Creepy

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How cool does this abandoned men's club turned house in Alabama look?

The owner was REALLY hardcore about working with the aged elements of the house, down to polyurethane-ing the peeling the paint to preserve that look. And while the whole thing is a lot more dark than my personal taste, I was really digging it.

UNTIL I SAW THE SHOWER.

Nothing like a little bathroom patina that says RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

All photos via Yatzer.

I Love Lamp: The Brick House

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I love swinging by The Brick House, because not only does Morgan Satterfield have a great eye for design and photography, but she's pretty hilarious. I mean, just check out her FAQ. Most of her posts detail the constantly changing interior of her own home which is fun to follow, especially because she doesn't hold back when she's frustrated or disappointed by a project or piece that isn't working the way she imagined it would.

She's also got some serious DIY dedication and some damn cute dogs.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)

(All photos from The Brick House)

I Love Lamp: Fake Fur

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Have you ever seen the Restoration Hardware holiday gift catalogue? It's a beautiful, completely over the top thing filled with linen, stainless steel, fake fur and so much uber stylized cooooolness. The fake fur part is MY JAM. It turns out, I love fake fur. Like REALLY love it. Last year I bought a "lynx" hat from them and haven't looked back since-- except to look through the catalogue and purchase a fur scarf, fur slippers , and full fur blanket.

Reading the Game of Thrones series certainly didn't help curtail this obsession. All those books are fur-this, fur-that. I suppose I'd better start bracing myself against the urge to own goblets made of animal horns...

I'm not sure where in the apartment the blanket will live. For now it wil continue to live as a cape on my shoulders.

(What is I Love Lamp? This is I Love Lamp.)