finally… I’m so happy! It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of my decor projects. This has been a long and crazy week so I’m thrilled to share this project with you as a way to sign off for a long weekend. This is the home of my sweet and super stylish friend, Annie Salem. Annie purchased her townhome this spring and asked me if I would help her pull it together after visiting the Neiman Marcus event. I was beyond excited!! I love Annie and I knew her style. We knew it would be a great fit for both of us. See below for the before and after details. Hope you enjoy!! Have a wonderful holiday weekend friends!!!

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**Also –THIS WEEKEND is the one year celebration of one of my favorite little people stores, Little Bean. If you don’t know about owner Christine Visneau, stay tuned but in the meantime go here and here, oh and here.. More on her very soon… she’s shockingly talented (clearly). In celebration of their birthday, they are having a “pop-up” store sponsored with Simple Lovely highlighting Rikshaw Design (who -ps- also makes fab kurtas for women). Henna tattoo artists, bubbly, cute clothes, all fun. Friday, Sept 3, 6-8pm; 5308 Junius, Dallas**

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Disclaimer: Annie has great taste and had some great pieces to get us started…You will see that we repurposed just about everything. Down to the chandelier which found it’s way to the livingroom.

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After…

Built-in Bookshelves:
I’m leading with this because I think this was the game changer of the project. Before we had kind of an awkward ledge (see above before) and I thought it would be the perfect place to create built ins for shelving and an inviting little reading nook. I’m so happy with the way it turned out. It looks like it was there from day one. Bookshelves are high on my list of favs to noodle with for hours. Judy literally calls me Shelf-Girl. I once spent five hours working on her shoe shelves. Ok, so she’s right, I guess it’s a problem.

Lux Little Living:
One of the fun things about working on Annie’s house was splitting up the main living room to make it more cozy. It is a fairly large room so we added more presence to her entry, the reading nook, the main living and a writing desk.

This damask pattern rocks… um, ps — take a close look, it’s animals!! Annie and I fell in love with it. It was a must have. Side note: this was an old coffee table I found on the side of the road and we had it made into an upholstered bench.

Annie had these matchbooks made before we started. I just happened to be there when they delivered them and I went nuts over them. They are a great way to fill beautiful bowls.

Lovely Little Desk:
Oh, I so love this desk. Such a pretty place to write. I adore that Shine Horse lamp…

Dining Room:
It is SO hard to tell here but these chairs are my pride and joy. They are covered in a SUPER rich, dark, elegant, deep blue mohair. The are so lush. We had her table repainted with white lacquer by Again and Again. The chairs, paired with the new table, the Madeliene Weinrib rug and the KILLER mirrored three tier chandelier. Yes ma’am… it is stellar. (if I do say so myself)

These glasses… an AMAZING find at Tuesday Morning!! They are ridiculously beautiful. Annie also had this great burled wood bar. It turned out to be the perfect piece for the corner of the dining room. I gathered up vintage decanters with touches of gold and an antique mirror…this is one of my favorite little moments in the house.

I told Annie when we were done her three story townhome felt like a Penthouse. It’s very comfortable and warm but gloriously chic city living.

truly… Tadd Myers is an old friend of mine who just happens to be an amazing photographer. He has been working for the past couple of years on a personal project called American Craftsman. It’s beautiful in every way. I’m so proud of all the people involved in this project. If you are local you may have heard about it, if not, then you will enjoy. Maybe you know a Craftsman? Check it out. (and be sure not to miss the videos… they are really telling)

shhh, listen… You might here the tiniest whisper of something curious and lovely! I was so excited when Jenny from Far4 in Seattle emailed me about their new like of porcelain plates “if you talk to them…“. These snowy white little lovelies are all designs based on a world of blissful make believe — girls walking on snails, riding a turkey and sitting on a grasshopper. This one is called “Brie and her snail“. You might remember when I posted about this wonderful store on my visit to Seattle last summer. It’s truly one of my favorite places in the city — chalked full of beautiful and mostly bizarre things like a porcelain machine gun or a tattooed baby. Just sayin’.

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Alexis and her bird

Chloe and her snail

Violet and her grasshopper

Victoria and her bird

Rose and her snail

and a few other fab things I found while perusing the latest on the Far4 site.

I’m into rams at the moment… not sure where this is coming from but I’m kinda feeling the need to have.

I. ABSOLUTELY. WANT.

Funny… I pulled this monkey and then realized I posted about it when I went initially. I must love it!

start the drooling now… In the spirit of schools and libraries and such, I’m SO ridiculously excited to share this home renovation from Dana Hardy and her husband Paul, of Meadowbroke. They are tackling this house one room at a time and I stumbled on to their blog recently to find this!! I’m so jealous I can hardly stand it. Read below to see pics of this super chic, dark, cozy library all done by these two incredibly talented and creative people. The colors (or lack there of) are absolute perfection. It all reminds me a bit of Roman and Williams. Which I love.

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before, well during really… This is a shot of mid construction. They built ALL of this. If you want to follow the full story visit their blog for the scoop.

after…

I loved this door so I asked Dana for some details: they are from a local convent that was demolished. Our amaing realtor purchased the rights to the building and saved all of the beautiful things inside befor the wrecking ball was taken to it. The doors themselves were the doors to the nuns rooms and is why they have the numbers on them, in fact the #5 door has a morning prayer pasted to the back. We got 3 doors and all of our picture molding from the convent, and Paul merged 2 of the single doors and made them into the giant double door for the library. So now our library/bar is behind door 75, which is very appropriate since the french 75 it is such a great cocktail. They have crazy awesome transom windows and all of their original hardware, not sure how old the convent was but its on our list of things to investigate next time at the library.

Shut the front door over this light?!?!? It’s awesome. Love the dark ceiling. I was freaking out over how fabulous and rich the ceiling was but the light and airy feeling of the light fixture really keeps it from feeling heavy.

And I knew you would ask about the paint colors, I’m one step ahead of you — via Dana: For the paint colors, the navy is sorceror, which is the darkest navy ever. Half of the time people come in the house and say they love our black or purple ceiling, however it is in fact a midnight blue. The grays on the wall are dark granite (the darker) and ashes(the lighter) and as we were painting i came to realize that the room feels like what I would imagine being inside of a bankers tie to feel like. Its a very masculine color combo which was a nice break from all the white on white that we’re doing in the rest of the house.

just in case you missed it… kiddos are back in school, school supplies are bought, summer is over for teachers and homework is back in full swing this week. It’s sort of fun to think about going to back to school, I went to a convocation on Sunday and thought for the first time in a long time about being dropped off for college. Terrifying and exciting at the same time. I remember when I was younger getting a new “first to school” outfit. BIG DEAL. VERY important. Who knows why we cared sooo much?? Anyway - I thought it would be fun to focus this week on some good old school splendor. You might recognize this Public School poster from Joslyn’s house. I love this saying. How fitting for just about any situation, don’t you think?

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I don’t know the story on these guys but I think their collection of art, shirt :), and misc is awesome. I went to public school and I’m a fan. I think it’s good to have life experiences. Not always pleasant but there’s always something to learn. PS - I think this shirt rocks. Kinda makes me laugh. Need one.

The Keep This in Mind poster series is numbered and made in Texas, which I think is pretty groovy. I love a good limited edition. Makes me feel special.

And these two, really my favorite sayings, probably ever. Lord knows they are so true!