Home & Garden Blog » Design Concept

“For Maryalice Huggins, old things — particularly fine antiques — are living, breathing beings. Some radiate irresistible allure. Auctions might as well be singles bars.”- NYTimes.com Home and Garden feature article, 11/13

Maryalice Huggins, besides having a beautiful name, loves the artisanal and sumptuous quality of fine antiques and priceless heirlooms. And the heirlooms don’t just have to come from your family! Maryalice loves to mix and match from a variety of contemporary and historical artifacts and time periods, and we can do a lot to learn from her. Thank you, NYTimes.com, for bringing once again a refreshing mix of the old and the new to home and garden styling!

What if you want to recreate the aesthetic of Maryalice Huggin’s home? I suggest we start with a base layer of neutral, contemporary objects. Some standard white walls and solid colored rugs, some geometric sofas and glossy tables. From there, let’s look at some antique, rusted, inspired pieces to give your home a kick. Good objects to look for are mirrors, lamps, and table sculptures. Let’s take a look:

First, the base contemporary layer:

Zuo 900231 Fortress Sofa White: $1,322.00

And the antique lovely to set it off just right:

Uttermost 12525 Hesper Wall Art w/Etched, Antique Mirrors and Pewter Finish: $144.00

Find more contemporary style home decor at Smarter.com.

NYTimes.com article on the Home & Garden section today talked about revolutionary architect Roald Gundersen, who builds structures, furniture, and whole houses with entire branches and trunks of trees. He bends and manipulates the trees to make beautiful organic structures that liven up any home and give it an earthy and fresh quality. Gundersen likes to build with trees because they represent the outdoors and nature, where he would spend all of his time if he could. Instead of living outdoors though, why not bring the trees indoors? And not in a potted planter or desktop tree simulation. Here are some beautiful pieces for you to add to your collection that are built with wood and make your home fresh and lively:

Canopy Swing Stand: On sale from $800 to $590, this beautifully built and organically curved structure will make you feel alive!

3400 Series Wood Chair: $114.99 Brings you back to memories of the old school house with this lovely, basic wood chair.

Shop for discount wooden furniture at Smarter.com.

Hopefully you really decked out the house for Halloween. Jack-o’-lanterns, spooky cobwebs, maybe even a few lanterns hanging from the porch to light the ghosts and ghouls way in Old Hallow’s Eve. Children must have loved it, but now it’s time to switch gears and think about more mature, warm, inviting holiday lighting. Think candles in the windowsill, lights around the bare-boned trees, maybe a holiday wreath on the door with some glittering tinsel. When the temperature begins to drop, the cosiness and warmth of your home needs to rise! And that involves exterior lighting.

Some of the top hits for holiday lighting:

Electric Windowsill Candle from Piperclassics.com: $15.99

Cute design with a warm glow, this candle has an antique finish to make your home look even warmer.

Net LED lights from SaveOnCrafts.com: $11.29/sheet

This is perfect to drape evenly on trees, bushes, and shrubbery. Decorate without all the hassle!

Jason Miller, the interior designer featured on the NYTimes.com this week, talks about the beauty and simplicity of throwback 70’s style. He recommends three things: Polyester, Pop Art, and Plastic. Think Andy Warhol’s factory meets Hippie global world views. What do you do with all this throwback? A classic part of the 70’s that Miller doesn’t want to recreate is the colors–according to him, the cheap fabrics, carpets and furniture of the 1970’s made for flimsy fabric and flukey, dry colors. He recommends springing a few extra bucks and getting some dark chocolate browns and nicely hued colors instead. I like where he’s taking the modern twist.

So what do you do to recreate the 70’s charm? Take a look at these options I found on Smarter.com. Hope it helps! With Halloween coming up this weekend, why not put your whole house in costume?

Retro Modern Chair: $290.99

Momeni Shag Comfort Rug from Walmart.com: $59.00-819.00

Shop for more vintage style furniture and vintage style rugs.

Home Stager Meridith Baer knows a thing or two about telling a story through household objects. Home staging is a fad technique employed by realtors and homeowners who want to have an edge on a tough housing market. Basically you hire a “home stager” to design a lifestyle that will entice would-be buyers into focusing on the “lifestyle” designed for this home, not just the bare bones and wood. It used to be houses could be sold with the floor barley tiled, but now times and tough and people want to get the complete package when they’re buying a home. Home staging has become the best way to stand out in a tough market–but of course, it comes at a hefty price.

Meridith Baer was featured in a NYTimes.com article in the home & garden section because she knows how to be selective in her designs without shirking her responsibilities to sell the lifestyle of a home.

What does Meridith Baer recommend? Think about the story of the person who you want to buy this house. Is it a young family? A heiress? An older couple who just wants a snug home that can fit a Christmas tree in the door for the grandkids?

She also is a big fan of strong, clean white lines and stone decorative objects to make the home feel filled, but not filled with miscellaneous objects.

Recommendations for how to make your home a fairytale:

LC White Leather Sofa: $740.99

Chic and elegant, this is the perfect base layer for a clean, fashionable home.

Dale Tiffany Marble Vase: $162.00

Stunning piece that captures the light and brightens a room. Imagine it in a dining room or on top of the fireplace–gorgeous!

Shop for affordable sofas and discount vases at Smarter.com.

The NYTimes multimedia slideshow this week gets in touch with Paul Taylor, the founder of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, to discuss home decor and style tips at his house in Long Island. For Paul Taylor, design is all about the idea of the home space, heritage and family heirlooms. Nothing is less “homey” than all store-bought materials, but of course you can’t live solely with inherited furniture. Therefore, modernization is all about striking a balance between the rustic, traditional decor and design and modern necessities.

Let’s take a look at the Paul Taylor shingle-style home decor:

The Staircase: (what we can take from this: Dark wood, dark green accents, picture frames and bright airy windows without a lot of grid)

The Homemaker Image: (what we can take from this: Paul Taylor is an eccentric guy that fits the bill for this house. He likes worn wood and stone fireplaces, benches to sit on and beaded antique lamps. Green, again, is a very important accent color)

How you can recreate your own look:

Rustic Adirondack Log Pole Bench: $59.99

Walnut Bench with Storage: $121.05 (marked down from $225.00!)

Jubilee Green Lamp: $404.80 (you save 12%)

No need to outsource the designs for your home: Remodelista.com is a blog that helps you be the interior designer and decorator for your own home! Self-described as the “sourcebook for the Considered Home”, Remodelista.com is hear to bring you the latest insider scoop on modeling, design and color coordination.

Top style trend for this week: the Color Yellow. Described as “modern yellow”, the color is used in only one accent item to bring a punch to an otherwise stark room, bringing a great contrast. It reminds me of a bright yellow jacket I own, which I only wear on the dreariest of days to bring that punch of much-needed sunlight.

Here’s how you can get your own “Modern Yellow” accent:

Contemporary Curve Yellow Desk Lamp: $34.91

Yellow Livestrong Medium Teapot: $18.00

Yellow and Orange Spotted Vase: $33

Shop for more yellow home decor at Smarter.com.

New York Times online home and garden section features interior designer Grant K. Gibson this week in their On Location article. Gibson, a San Francisco inhabitant with his own design firm titled, creatively, Grant K. Gibson Interior Design, loves an element of luxury with a taste for thrifty design. He often shops at online stores such as 1stdibs.com to get the best luxury antiques from around the world. 1stdibs.com is designed for the elite, as you even have to subscribe to the website just to see the prices on the beautiful furniture, lighting, and decorative designs.

What to take away from Grant K. Gibson: Luxury, antiques, brass, cool white and gold lighting and light fixtures, and sumptuous carpets and walls. Here’s how to get a start on luxury:

Glass Candle Sleeve: $12.00-$16.00

Buffalo China Dinnerware Set: $30.00-$60.00

So everyone is in tough spots right now with money. I read an article this morning about how even Conde Nast’s most privileged and elite magazines, Vanity Fair and Vogue, are going to have to cut back on their thousand-dollar dinners and car service just to make the bills. If Anna Wintour has to start thinking frugally, where does that leave the rest of us? According to Washington Post-interviewed interior designer Barbara Barry, it leaves us with the simple pleasures of warm silk sheets and a beautiful cup to drink tea out of in the morning.

While the Washington Post heralds Barry as being more than an interior designer but a “life coach”, I think there is some truth to the statement that “simple pleasures” are the way to live, but I don’t think Barry coined the phrase. Simple pleasures are defined everyday by people like you who want to enjoy some special and treat themselves with small graces instead of material gluttony and excess. Look for sumptuous fabrics or blankets to make you feel warm and toasty, or a certain beautiful cup or dishware for those lazy Sunday brunches that make you a little less haggard about the thought of work the next day.

Some simple pleasure items:

Colored Water Goblets: $34.98

French Press Coffee Maker: $34.99

Satin Sheet Sets: $39.99-49.99

Do all your discount shopping at Smarter.com!

If Jane Austen makes you swoon and The Frog Prince is still in your top-five stories of all time, then you need a home that reflects your inner princess/damsel-matron of the house. Before we go too medieval and musty, let’s look at the fresh and fabulous styles of the Victorian-era that are being re-interpreted today, as shown in the NYTimes.com photo gallery spread on a family home in Connecticut.

How to emulate this look: think wood, majesty, and patterned silks. Wood ball-and-claw tables and chairs for the dining room and a grandfather clock for the living room to chime the midnight hour. Special details should be paid to the floor and wall papers–no carpets, though rugs can be tolerated. Wood floors and light wood chair-runner panels on the wall give a classic look. Buying big show-stopping Victorian pieces is a pricey endeavor that often requires a few loots of the local antique store.  You can find the Victorian look for less by checking out Smarter.com’s featured selection.

Top picks of Victorian-inspired furniture and home decor:

Victorian Strip Console-Butler: $910.25

Victorian Crochet Bedding: $24.93-99.93

Victorian Floral Petit Pillow: $105.00

Shop for more Victorian style decor.