Photo shoot: A special project & the Truth Behind Photoshoots

One of my favorite aspects of decorating houses is photographing them.  Something about taking photos makes the project feel fully realized.  Bringing flowers in and primping a house for photos so that it looks its best = so much fun... and a TON of work.

 {Living Room Pic}

During photo shoots, things often get rearranged and I often bring in flowers, plants, furnishings and props.  It's a bit like an install day except the client is the camera and anyone who will see the photos (like you all and any potential clients! ;)  I have some clients' whose homes I fully accessorize and style on installation day so on photoshoot days, we come in a pretty much just shoot (with flowers) and I have other homes where we're really making some changes.  (When Better Homes & Gardens photographed my house, they hid light fixtures, took out rugs, brought in rugs, lots of accessories and even furniture!!  I remember being shocked but I've adopted a similar method in certain projects of mine so that I can show my work in its best light.  I realized that magazines have a "look" that they can bring to any home they photograph, just as I have  "look" that I can bring to any home I have photographed and that if I want to bring in the type of clients who love my style, I need to show my style.)  

{The foyer chandy!!}

Having photos of your work taken is a big investment and so I make sure when I do it that I am photographing my clients' homes as I envision them.  My job is about about designing homes for my clients to love, not about designing homes that embody my personal style.  So...  often when I photograph projects, I'll put a little bit more "me" in the styling of the rooms so that potential clients can really  a feel for how I design rooms when I am the final decision maker. 

I would say my clients' styles are -for the most part- very different, but their projects all have a similar look that comes from me.   As I've been in business longer, I have more and more clients coming to me for my "look."  

{Taking pics!!}

I think this comes in part from seeing photographs of my finished work and trusting that they'll love what I can do for them. I have clients who have me fully accessorize their homes by playing with all of their existing accessories & artwork and adding in some new ones, and I have clients who - once the furnishings are in place- take their time and accessorize over time.  Both methods can yield beautiful results and I'll often  help clients with "tweaking" to get it all right.

{living room cocktail tables} 

The project we shot yesterday (and that I'm going to in less than an hour!!) is a really special one to me.  I've been working with my client for over three years now and I love her & her family.  She has been with me during my major learning curve years (haha maybe they all have!! ;) ;) and is still here now!! She's influenced the way I run my business and we've learned a lot together.  She has amazing taste, is super-involved in the design process and has a true passion for design and homes.

{the bedroom ottoman}
I can't even really describe how good it felt yesterday to take photos of this project that I've eat, slept and breathed for so long.  I am so incredibly thankful to my client who's taught me so much and who has trusted me over the years to help her create something so pretty.  (And honestly, it would have been beautiful with or without me, so I'm thankful I got to come along.)  Working with my client on her home for so long was really one of the most influential projects I've taken on, and my client's always going to be in my heart.  
wow.. Did you know you could get so emotional about a decorating project??! hahah  My husband will make fun of me later. ;)
I'm off for another day of shooting, so fingers crossed the clouds go away sometime!!


If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Organic Edible Gardens!!

This will be our first Spring in our new house & we're so excited to get to gardening!!  We've decided to do a pretty big vegetable garden... one that we can eat from, but -most importantly to me- one that we can enjoy being in.  It'll be a mix of flowers and vegetables and even fun structures like a living tee pee for the boys to play in.  To help me with the design and to actually create the garden, I've called one of my oldest childhood friends- Danylo Kosovych- who owns Organic Edible Gardens to help me with my 27' x 18' large plot.  

Danylo came over yesterday to take a look at everything and we started brainstorming together.  I was blown away by his imaginative ideas and willingness to make the garden a fun place for our boys.  You can take a look at the -not scaled- general idea we're thinking about right now.  The centers of the bed where the circles are will be potted fruit trees (lemon I hope!!) and the left side of the plan is my house.  The top of the plan shows my fence to the front yard, which opens as wide as the pathway.  We're planning on edging the gardens in chartreuse oregano.  (That's what I call it anyway ;) for a structured look that's full of mayhem and wildness inside the beds.
I'll share more as Danylo & his design team plan out the details (and create the actual design plans which are much prettier than mine ;)  and I'll be sure to share progress and after pics!!  
If you're in the DC area and are looking to get started planning an organic edible garden & need help getting started, check out Organic Edible Gardens.  (They're booking up quickly because it's Spring but it's so worth it!!!)  Danylo & his team are A-mazing!!
ps- I will be sure to show you our kindergarten pics next week!! haha


If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

More Photo Shoots and some flower love

So...  we're doing a few last-minute photo shoots for our portfolio of some of my favorite projects.  I've been working with one of my clients for about three years now and she's got a really beautiful style so I cannot WAIT to take these photos!  The other project is a newer one (with progress shots shared a couple of months ago on Instagram) and this family also has really great style.  I think in this industry we give a lot of credit to designers., but the truth is that homeowner's personal styles and tastes are what really make a home special or a project "great."  A decorator may be able to create an amazing design, but without an open-minded client who has her or his own amazing sense of style and "gets it" the designer might never get the chance to actually implement that vision.

So... onto photo shoot details:  I am truly running around like a madwoman right now.  One of the most important elements of good photos are flowers and plants.  And I'm seriously behind on it.  So, I called my go-to flower guru, Holly Heider Chapple, who has bailed me out more than once.      

Holly owns Holly Heider Chapple Flowers, an amazingly successful boutique flower studio in Leesburg, Virginia.  As I called Heidi this morning, she was preparing for a booked-up seminar and workshop she's hosting in NYC, where she and other flower experts (including a Martha Stewart Living editor) will be speaking and teaching, getting ready for multiple weddings this weekend, welcoming a new employee on board today... yet she still agreed to help me. (!!)    The woman is a true whirlwind.  In a good way.  My hero.

Her floral designs are so good!!!  Going to her website and blog just makes me want to have a party.  

Holly & I went over what I was thinking about doing for flowers in my clients' homes, and of course she had even better ideas.   She gets that I like a loose, casual, relaxed arrangements that look as if they were just picked from a home garden.  (She also knows my favorites are green and white and that I like my own flowers a little wild. ;) ;)

If you're a decorator, when you style your clients' homes for photo shoots- what's your flower philosophy and do you have a go-to flower stylist??

 ps- Holly's company also does floral arrangements for homes on a weekly basis if you're into something like that.  (Sounds like an awesome gift to someone you love- hint hint maybe your spouse if you are reading this and your name starts with a 'D'??- ;) ;) 

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.
*All images in this post are Holly's*

Open Up & The Chicago Tribune

A couple of months ago, during our renovation whirlwind, I was contacted by a writer, Elaine Markoutsas, who wanted to interview me about the choice to do open shelving in my kitchen and living with it.  We had a good chat about open shelves in the kitchen and about why I love it...  Things have been so busy that it totally slipped my mind & I was so surprised to see an email from my friend Debra this morning congratulating me on being mentioned in an article in the Chicago Tribune yesterday!

{The photo used in the Chicago Tribune of the kitchen in our last house... That's Christian, who's now 5!!}

I'm originally from the suburbs of Chicago (I moved to Virginia with my mom when I was four) and I have lots of family and friends there (most importantly, my Dad!! :) so it's really cool to have an article mentioning me in Chicago.

Open shelving in the kitchen is a concept I feel strongly about (not a joke, though it should be ;) and I feel like it really changed my view and outlook on other rooms in a home too.  The notion of functional beauty is one that I've now taken all over my home (and clients' homes) and just seems so natural to me.  There are things I'm okay hiding and things I like displaying, and I sort of draw the line here: 

1)When things functionally make sense in a room and 

2) When things have some aspect of beauty to them or can be displayed in a way that makes them beautiful

...that they may as well be exposed for me and others to see.   

In our new (old) house, I've opened things up pretty much everywhere I can.  In a small hallway leading from the garage to the house, we're in the process of creating a mini-mudroom out of a 4 foot wide coat closet.  We've removed the doors and taken down the closet rod.  We're adding hooks for coats and bags, a shelf up top for baskets, and a storage bench.  We now see our "junk" every time we walk in the house, but it's displayed in a way that looks as good as it can and it makes life more functional...  Now, my 3 year-old can hang his coat up by himself instead of needing us to hang it for him.  I COVET a mudroom like this:

{I looove these cubbies...  we don't have enough space for any in our house.  Image from here.}

Ours will look more like this:

{Except without the pretty sunshine streaming in ;) ;)  Image from here. }

The same goes for our loft family room...  We're in the process of lining the entire room with shelving for books, toys and randoms stuff.  I'll leave the books exposed and then do baskets for the not-so-pretty stuff like toys and games.  Here's the loft before we moved in:

Right now, the loft is a MESS...  It's half-pinkish-beige from when we moved in and partly primed and exposed studs from where we tore out the paneling and desk you see in the pic.  I have BIG plans for this room and will be sharing soon. BUT the biggest feature in the room will be its open shelving.  I'm so excited to be able to be surrounded by our books (We've been living with them in the garage this whole time and I can't even tell you how many times a week I want to grab a book to reference it or read it to the boys or whatever and I just can't.  I am so excited to be able to have any book we need at our fingertips.)  Most of my books aren't very pretty so I'll be working on some creative ways of displaying them to make them look better.  (wish me luck ;)  I love a mix of vertical and horizontal stacks like in this picture:

{image from here}

In our dining room, I follow the same line of thinking and have more open shelving for serving ware and our nature finds.  I love the simple utilitarian stacks of dishes in this dining room below:

{image from here}

In my office, I display my fabrics, magazines and client binders on large open shelving.  Don't get me wrong, I love cabinetry and hidden storage too- but- I reserve the cabinets and drawers in our house for the ugly stuff, trying to minimize it as much as possible,  and use open shelving for the useful pretties.

The concept of opening up and surrounding myself & my family in the things we use on a daily basis is one that fits the way we live.  We're very casual people, and in this new house, my main goal- besides making it something I love to look at & be in- is making is incredibly functional and easy to live in.  Opening up our storage and seeing the stuff we have is so freeing.  It forces us to ditch the stuff we don't love or use all the time and keeps us disciplined.  (And now I just need an empty room in my house to hide all the other stuff ;)

Anyway, I know it's not for everyone...  what are your thoughts on opening up and exposing your stuff?

To read more about my thoughts and readers' comments & experiences on open shelving, go HERE.


To read the Chicago Tribune article, Full Exposure, by Elaine Markoutsas, go HERE.




If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.