Kathryn Ireland - 1, Reese Witherspoon - 0

So this is how I spend my time some days ... completely racking my brain to remember something. Is it because I am getting OLDER?  Or is it because my mind is full of so many images ... 

Reese Witherspoon

I am inundated by all my favorite blogs and my favorite magazines ... I try to remember where I see things, sometimes I rip out pages.  But that makes me mad because then I have a stack of pages and then I flip through old favorites and they are half empty.

Organization is something I am desperately trying to work on this year.  It is not going very well.

I was reading my ED and saw this room in Reese's house in Ojai.  Oh, I Iove this room, I am thinking, hmmm.  Something is familiar ... Have I been invited to Reese's home and enjoyed a glass of wine here.  Clearly, NO!  Reese should invite me ... but hasn't.  

But the nagging.  I KNOW this room ... how do I KNOW this room?

BECAUSE!!!  Kathryn Ireland used to live in this house and this is the way the room looked when I first fell in love.  Now I will say that the painting is not my fave.  It is fine, I am just not a big southwestern fan. Still, Ireland wins this round.  I love the color warmth!  

The Room drew me IN.

So. Far. IN. That in my little brain, I think I have actually BEEN there!!  

Kids started school yesterday ... I am secretly reveling in the silence of the house.  Give me a week or two ... then I'll want their noise back!!  

xo,

kim

Rooms ... for Living

I am not a minimalist by any means.  While I do appreciate the look and have worked with clients to achieve that feel, my preference is to bring color and fabric together for a warm and inviting room ... and home. I also prefer to work with my clients already existing collections or special pieces.  I am not one to head to Home Goods just to fill the space.  I want and need for everything to have some sort of meaning to me.

This is one of the main reasons Kathryn Ireland's style is so appealing to me.  Her homes and rooms feel warm and collected over time.

 Kathryn Ireland

Kathryn Ireland Bedroom, Oberto Gili Photograph, House Beautiful

After falling in love with the simplicity of this room accented with the bold colors, which is the Kathryn Ireland look that I adore, I discovered Oberto Gili ... a photographer with great design taste himself.  The flower above the bed is one of his photographs.  Simply Stunning.

Oberto Gili

Oberto Gili's bedroom in Italy ... some bedrooms make you feel ... "Yes, I can get a good night's sleep here, and then off to my busy day" with hardly a notice.  This bedroom would wrap it's arms around me and beg me not to leave quite so early and just enjoy my surroundings before heading out to reality.

Oberto Gili's kitchen? dining area?  From what I am learning about him, he likes the collected look as well.  It is messy and beautiful in the same breath.  And in the middle of the chaos, the silver pitcher with fresh flowers.  That makes me smile. This is the way I live, what I have termed controlled chaos!  Life happens in our rooms ... and that is where the memories are made!

Our family room ... the overstuffed leather sofas which I hate but the kids and my husband adore and have threatened me to make certain they don't come home one day and find them gone!  The Duralee Fabric that brings the warmth in ... the beautiful antique Chinese Tea Cannister lamps I purchased at the Wellesley Antique Fair on a rainy February afternoon.  The French Blue ladder where I stack my favorite design books. All of these things came in their own time.

A close up of the secretary I found in Atlanta and now where the kids sit to "play" on the computer!  And the basket that holds all the crayons, colored pencils, note cards, etc. that help create a school project at a moments notice!  It is collected, it was never meant to match ... just be lived in.  

Happy Monday ... 

xo,

Kim