HAMPTON DESIGNER SHOWHOUSE DIARY

 photo by Eric Stiffler

I'm so excited to share with you all my room for this year's Hamptons Designer Showhouse sponsored by Traditional Home. It's such an honor to be chosen to participate and I was thrilled to be asked to design the dining room for the house.

Color inspiration for the room came from the Atlantic ocean and bucolic farmland that surrounds the Hamptons. I chose various shades of ocean blue punctuated by green as the color scheme for the room.  

When it comes to designing a room for a showhouse, it really does "take a village" and I was privileged to work with some fabulous partners. Beacon Hill provided me with fabric for the room and their glamorous Sakura stripe in Neptune was the starting point for my design. I love this print! The awning stripe, a summer classic, is elevated in glamorous silk with shades of ocean blues and white.  

I covered a lucite bench in Robert Allen's Perfect Wave in Calypso blue-- a whimsical print with the perfect beachy vibe.  

The room, shown below in a "before" photo has a large bay window and a pretty coffered ceiling but it needed some color!

Phillip Jeffries Juicy Jute in Tantalizing Teal had just the right pop of color for the walls. 

 The textured grasscloth has a beautiful sheen that reflects the rooms natural light and adds depth and texture.

 Pratt and Lambert's November, a subtle blue-gray paint color with a slight glaze added dimension to the coffered ceilings. 

There's so much more to go over! Next post will feature furnishings, lighting and art-

  

Super Moon-Super Color

Last night's epic Harvest moon, with its bold burst of orange and apricot hues reminds me once again how vital nature is as a inspiration to both fashion and interior design.  

One of my favorite fashion designers, Naeem Khan, channeled a summer sunset in his 2014 Spring collection.

From salmon to cinnabar, you can turn up the volume and make a statement with orange or add subtle peach highlights to a room with the added benefit that the color makes everyone's skin look fabulous!

I'm so enamored with the color that I used Beacon Hills gorgeous Silk Lantern in a showhouse dining room earlier this year. Voluminous ballroom curtains were paired with muted gray for a fresh, modern twist.  

Amanda Nisbet paired her nature inspired tree floor lamp with lush orange curtains.

Katie Ridder's exotic bathroom features an cinnabar hued wallpaper.

A bright orange banquette plays off deep blue lacquered walls in a room by Miles Redd.

DESIGNER SHOWHOUSE REDUX

I've been having deja vu all week.  Calls from painters ready to paint but the paint is missing. The thrill of finding a spectacular chandelier and having to wait to see if it's the right size and whether the shop would be willing to loan it to you. It's all part of the roller coaster ride that is a Designer Showhouse. That's right--showhouse number 2 just two months after my first showhouse has wrapped up! I'm proud to announce that I'm participating in the Home Is Where The Heart Is designer showhouse to benefit the American Heart Association. 

The designer house is a mansion once owned by the Pratt family, one of the many gorgeous estates built in the early 1900's on Long Island's Gold Coast (think Great Gatsby). The mansion is an impressive classic colonial with gracious rooms set in a stunning park like setting.

I'm designing the dining room, a generous 21' x 25' room with four period French doors and a pretty black marble fireplace.  It's a room made for celebrations and entertaining. Right now it looks tired, papered in a burgundy flocked paper that sings 1980, the room is ripe for a renovation.

   My plan is to update the room, integrating a modern palatte of rich grays and persimmon with a sleek Milo Baughman dining table as the centerpiece while retaining the beautiful intetgrity of the space. It's a fun room to design and I'll be sharing the gorgeous fabrics by Beacon Hill and paint selections from Farrow and Ball on my next post.  Until then, happy weekend--I'm off to find some lucite candlesticks!