jenny sauer’s line three sheets 2 the wind is clean and simple, just like her home. today she opens up her apartment located 5 minutes from downtown cincinnati to us. i’m loving the softness of linen and the pops of red that pop up in her designs. thanks so much, jenny! click here to see more of her work, and stay tuned for a second wonderful sneak peek at 12pm! -anne

[Above: The tree stump was "rescued" by my fiancé and I from a local park. We lovingly call it Log. The couch was inherited from my parents house. A true 1970's gem! I loved the shape (but not the fabric) so I sewed up a cover using the heavy weight linen from my line. The trunk was pulled out of the trash a few years back when I lived in Columbus. But... not everything I own is old. The Nama Rococo print was a gift from my fiancé last year and the Flor carpet tiles were bought to decorate the floor of my booth at a trade show. The lamp is from Room and Board and the two linen pillows are from my line.]

This medicine chest was found at a flea market near Columbus, Indiana. It has housed my cd collection for years now.

The working fireplace is the main focus in the living room. The mantle is really beautiful all by itself so I usually only have a few photos on top. The folding chair was bought on Martha’s Vineyard the summer I graduated college. It marked the beginning of my (not so secret) chair fetish.

I have a heavy weight linen throw (from my line) on my bed. It hides cat hair perfectly! I made my faux case study bed using two pieces of plywood and stainless steal legs bought from hairpinlegs.com.  The side table was bought at the store, MiCA, in Cincinnati.

The chair on the left was found on Ebay. It needed a lot of love when it arrived so I spent some time cleaning it up. The dresser is from Ikea. The screen print hanging on the wall was bought at the Renegade Craft Fair last summer in Chicago. The chair [on the right] was bought in Lexington, Kentucky. I have an Ikea faux fur on it to keep the cats from scratching it to bits.


My studio space is in my apartment. This room holds one of my printing tables and a ton of metal shelving for fabric, frames, and screen printing supplies.

it’s gloomy and overcast in brooklyn this morning so i love the idea of starting things off with this lovely nook of a room from d*s reader leslie banker. when it’s cold and the wind is screaming outside all i want to do is hide in a room like this with a good book. this beautiful bedroom was designed by leslie, who is a rhode island based interior designer (and published author). she just finished her home and was kind enough to share this beautiful blue room with us.

i’m also thrilled to welcome the lovely roséline of this is glamorous to the d*s guest blog! roséline’s focus is on the intersection of design and fashion and she’ll be sharing her thoughts on d*s all week- click here to check out her first (floral-themed) post.

it won’t take you long to figure out that dolan geiman’s chicago place isn’t what we typically feature in our sneak peeks. but looking through his images and reading through his descriptions felt like i was unlocking a treasure chest full of great stories and memories into the world of dolan geiman. it’s funny to think about where everything we own comes from and the stories behind it. and it’s very clear from dolan’s work how his surroundings inspire him. be sure to click here for more full-sized images, with complete descriptions, and you can find more of his work here (psst…there’s a sale!) and his blog here with all sorts of fun stuff he has in the works. [thanks dolan and ali!] -anne

[Above: This is the area I refer to as “the waiting room”.  This is where my pal Chris Nightengale, fashion photographer extraordinaire, does some of his shoots. The mint colored chest of drawers is entirely metal and was a gift from my friend Denny, who always has been a wonderful inspiration in my life. He lugged this heavy thing to me when I was down on my luck and living in an unheated rat-hole apartment in Virginia. Now it looks a little better, as does my luck.  I found the globe in a dumpster in Charleston, South Caroline, and the artwork, Jazz Atlas (2008), is one of my collage constructions made from magazines I found in old farm houses. [Photo credit: David Schalliol]

Yours truly at work. . . This is the Art Machine. There is a long story behind the Art Machine, but essentially I made this out of old doors and found objects from a soon-to-be-demolished house I was living in when I first moved to Chicago.  Hockshop refers to the name of my previous studio and gallery in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Under the moniker Hockshop, the Art Machine debuted in Chicago during a yacht-based art show organized by Bridge Magazine (now called Bridge Art Fair, they produce expositions in London, Miami, New York, and elsewhere). The top of the Art Machine is an old canvas tent that my granddad used when hunting in Canada and which I screenprinted with various images. The little squares of metal on the front are hand-cut signs I grabbed in a scrap yard in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. The little Panel Paintings, on the wall behind the Art Machine, are the staple of my art business. I make about 1000 of these things a year, out of recycled wood, recycled paint, and water-based silkscreen ink.  This is my carnival area, I like to say, because the combination of the Art Machine and the Panel Paintings presents a nice sideshow feel. [Photo credit: David Schalliol]

This is a cabin-like installation just inside the front entrance of my studio.  I created this out of salvaged wood, found billboards, and old signs I’ve found along the road driving to and from art fairs. The raw wood slats were given to me by my pals over at Circa Ceramics who were using them as shelving. I found the deer head while exploring an abandoned barn in Ohio. I saw one of the antlers sticking out of the floorboards. The rusted milk can was used by my dad when he milked cows as a kid. The old glass bottles adorning my bottle tree surfaced outside my warehouse building when the City dug up the cobblestone street in preparation for resurfacing the road. The green bucket is full of shotgun shells I gathered from a shooting range in southern Illinois. The buoys have been collected from various coastal towns including Key West, Cape Cod, and New Orleans. I grabbed the screen door from an abandoned general store in Virginia, and I bought the lentil above the door at a yard sale here in Chicago for only five dollars. I’ve started collecting green and greenish-blue boxes from abandoned warehouses here in Chicago. [Photo credit: David Schalliol]

This is the back side of the entryway installation.  This is where I feel most like a mad scientist. And yes, in case you’re wondering, there is a whiskey flask in the bottom drawer. I found the chair in an old farm house in North Carolina and screenprinted the back and seat myself. The desk was left in the basement of my last apartment and could kill an elephant if it fell on it. I had to use a truck jack and three retired football players to transport the desk when we moved into this space. The framed oil painting on the floor was hanging in my grandma’s den when I was a kid. She was trying to throw it out when I intercepted it.  The red dolly in the corner I bartered from an old (semi) drunk barber for two six-packs of Old Style beer. I think he got the better deal, but at least it looks cool. I snagged the green metal hanging light from a warehouse here in Chicago. Above my desk is one of my inspiration clotheslines. I’ve found this is the best way for me to display various ideas and my notes to myself. The little white paintbrush holder sitting on my desk with the face on it is a ceramic mug made by my pal Ed Brownlee. Ed is about two pints away from being mistaken for a criminal, but he’s a damn good artist and has an enormous heart. [Photo credit: David Schalliol]

Our building has a green roof, which Ali helped plant, and this is where the plants were stored before they were given the outdoor penthouse suite. The equipment featured in the photo is one of our landlord’s lathes; he collects old, industrial machinery amongst other things.

This is my little shrine to Johnny Cash. On the day Johnny Cash passed away, I was getting ready for an opening at Unit B Gallery, formerly in Chicago and now in Austin. The work I was showing was loaded with connotations of death and resurrection and was called the Tombsigns of St Emmeline. The synchronicity of the event was really overwhelming and would have seemed spooky, except that I seem to attract energy like that and I am open to it. The week before I was eating pizza in St Louis and some kid was skateboarding nearby with a boom box and he was playing Johnny Cash’s last recording. When I asked him about it, he said he didn’t know it was Johnny Cash, and that he had just found the tape under a tree and liked the sound. I found the whiskey jug on the bottle tree in the dirt behind the warehouse. The butterflies are screenprinted on wood and were part of a spring window display for a local shoe store . . . I use one corner of the studio for staging photos, both for Etsy and for print brochures. The mantel was a gift from a T-shirt printer (48 Industries) in the building, a fellow scavenger. [Photo credit: David Schalliol]

Stuff I love: plastic dice, old painted nail, orange train ticket to California (1898), list of numbers in Spanish, green feed tag, hand-drawn family album for collage, Virginia text from a high school Math book cover. [Photo credit: David Schalliol]

In this entryway installation close-up, the fresh eggs (fresh eyes) sign was a studio warming gift passed on to me from my buddy, artist Michael Merck, who grabbed it from a little Mexican street cart.  I found the paintbrush hanging on a hook in a bathroom of a warehouse I was occupying while living in Virginia. It’s the only paintbrush I own that’s never been used for painting.  Below the brush is a catfish sinker I bought when I went fishing in Kentucky last year.  The rooster painting, Dirt Road Series IX, is one of my own, silkscreen and acrylic on recycled wood available here. He’s a good pet and doesn’t eat food or make any noise.  He just sits there lookin’ pretty. The books to the left of the rooster are my sketchbooks.  I use old books for my sketchbooks, pasting ideas and collage materials into the existing pages, instead of buying new white-paged, sterile sketchbooks. I think it’s important to be surrounded by many different textures, so I started collecting the softballs over the past four or five years. Almost every time I make a trip down to a river, I find softballs stuck in leftover flood debris and so I started saving them in this locker room bin. If you like metal baskets like this one, you can find some here. The blue oar is a mystery. I found it one night in the middle of the road while I was driving through West Virginia. The strange part was that one end of the oar was tied to a tennis shoe.  I kept the oar; the shoe didn’t fit, so I left it. Above the fresh eggs (fresh eyes) sign is a wooden gun I made from a piece of billboard I found in Indiana and then adorned with little metal objects from an old trade school parking lot. Finally, the rooster painting is sitting on an old hen crate, used by my granddad to take chickens to market. Ali won’t let me get chickens yet, but I’m working on it. [Photo credit: Kara Elliott-Ortega]

Included in this shot are an Ed Brownlee mug (paintbrush holder), comic book collage materials, old picture frames found in a barn in Kentucky, a bluebird collage in progress, and a couple print proofs. Used paint cans, thrift store mugs, and Quaker Oats bins are used to hold brushes, pens, and markers.[Photo credit: Kara Elliott-Ortega]

today is all about illustrator matte stephens. you can catch a peek into his new work and studio over on our guest blog (with sarah fox), but we wanted to share a bit more of his awesome retro-inspired home right here. isn’t where he lives so indicative of his style of illustration? you can find more, full-sized images of his home right here, and don’t forget to check out the other installments of his sneak peeks in the past here and here. the home is truly always a work in progress. [thanks, matte!] -anne

p.s. click here for the direct link to his studio on the guest blog today!

[Above: We moved to Portland several months ago. We first moved into a Victorian house that wasn't set up very good for us. So we set out to find a Mid Century Modern place. We found this condo in SW Portland and just fell in love with the place and the area. The condos were built in 1956 and have flat roofs with little back yards. They are one story and are shaped in a u with a courtyard in the middle. The people who live here take really great care of the garden /courtyard.It is a wonderful place we feel very lucky to be here.]

This is a photo from the outside in you can see that we collect modern design stuff. Most all of the things we have are from the time period.

This is our living room. you can see an eames house of cards,herman miller catalogs, my accordian, George nelson clocks and lamps,Eames red plywood lounge chair,Eames Plywood coffee table,George Nelson swag leg coffee table. 1962 4 sheet movie poster.

our wedding is going to have all sorts of shades of green in it so i’ve been drawing from green interiors for inspiration lately. this series of shots from this is glamorous (which are from earlier this summer) have been sitting in my inspiration folder for a while so i thought i’d share them for fun. it’s always nice to get a dose of springy green color when it’s cold and dark outside.

when it comes to homes, i’ve always dreamed of living in a loft, so jewelry designer melissa mcclure’s LA loft is right up my alley. not every home can rock a cool old vintage sign inside or effectively turn a darkroom into a home office, but melissa sure pulls it off with ease. thanks so much to melissa for sharing today (and to amy holbrook for the tip) and don’t forget to check out her fantastic jewelry designs. click here to see more, full-sized images, and here to find all our incredible sneak peeks! - anne

[Above: There are three 1930's skylights that cast crazy shadows in the open space. The ceilings are 30 feet at the top of the bow trusses. The owner of the building is a Seattle-based architect that did all of the metal work himself while he was utilizing the space as his design office in the 1980's.]

This area was described as an “urban junkyard” by an interior designer I know. I thought that has great, but I think of it as industrial hippie. The coke machine still works and the light table lights up.

Blackboard walls frame the eat-in kitchen (I still can’t remember to buy chalk at the store!). The kitchen supply purchased table is mounted on casters so it can be pulled out from the wall to accommodate up to six diners. I also can move it into the showroom space for any other functions.

View from kitchen of the showroom area (to the left) and my workbench and tool cabinets to the right. The giant gray wall in the back left was a wall built by the photographer who worked here before me. I knocked it down, painted it and then hung it from chains from the industrial fluorescent lights like a giant painting.

The vintage industrial work sink is held up by concrete counters and metal kitchen boxes created by the owner/ architect back in the 80’s. Simple stainless IKEA shelves were put in by me to house my bar and tableware. There is a pull-out butcher block work table on casters to the right of the sink to increase countertop prep area. . . My sturdy vintage O’Keefe & Merritt stove from the 50’s. The walls are the same gray as the canvas in the showroom lounge. I have a strange obsession with egg cups and objects that are made to resemble animals– there are egg cups in the shape of chicken feet on the top of the stove next to the spices.

This table was an editors cutting table before it was donated to me by a friend (much of the furniture I have was cast-off from friends and family). I had no idea that being cheap made me somewhat environmentally friendly. The colored rolls of paper on the far right are seamless rolls for photography, left here by the last photographer tenant. The doorway at the far right leads to the room that houses chemicals used in my goldsmithing work.

More blackboard walls divide the upstairs lounge from a room that serves as a closet.

My office once served as the previous tenant’s darkroom. I painted the walls out in a deep gray, the ceiling is next! I This is the space where I draw, read and do all the other business tasks associated with the business.

An original Eames rocker, vintage phone and clocks (batteries dying!) that are supposed to reflect the local time in my favorite cities are in front of tinker-toy type modular room divider pieces created by my good friend Mark Epping. . .  My bizarre collection of books, science and lab items, globes, mannequin parts and outdated machinery. This area is upstairs and lines the narrow walkway to the upstairs lounge.

My loftcat, Monkey, is a favorite subject for my photographer/ neighbor and has an entire wall dedicated to her. I am not the crazy cat lady, I just think it’s great to have collections of like subjects and display them together when I can. Monkey cares more for the Starck chair than any other in the loft.

our first sneak peek today comes to us from painter ruth shivley. two years ago she moved into their 1964 ranch house in columbia county, ny along with her husband (also an artist) and two children. they used this new home as an opportunity to de-clutter;  walls came down and white paint went up. ultimately a more modern look was achieved, but not without making it their own with old eclectic things and their kids’ artwork. thanks so much for sharing, ruth! you can click here for more, full-sized images of the shively home. (if you’d like to contact ruth about commissions - her primary focus is children’s portraiture - please refer to her website, or email her at ruth@ruthshively.com). stay tuned at 1pm for another fantastic sneak peek! -anne

[Above: our new home to us, invites freedom of movement with it's open space and great light, it's very kid friendly and a great place to have friends over to cook and hang out by the fire. we love it.]

Living room

Art studio in back, tv room in front

Kevin made this barn door to separate my studio and guest room from the rest of the house.

Kitchen bar stools from a school supply company.

Natural grass wallpaper adds so much warmth to the ranch house bedroom.

we always love a good tip from our friends telling us about great homes, and we have joanna goddard to thank for giving us the heads up about this carroll gardens 1100sf brownstone apartment of her friend, jennifer ward. jennifer is imagination agent and creative director of minor details, a children’s interior consulting firm focusing on commercial, residential, and recreational spaces. her blog is a must see for all parents (or kids at heart), with tons of fantastic finds for the home (with an emphasis on play). in the meantime, enjoy the sneak peek into her warm and colorful home. click here for more images. [thanks, jennifer!] -anne

[Above: since we are renting, we really wanted to create a home to suit our needs without spending a ton of money or compromising  our aesthetic because we have a child. it was important for everyone to feel a sense ownership throughout  our entire home. our style is very flea market vintage with a modern twist. . . My husband is in the photography industry and our camera collection continues to grow. ]

We really wanted to create a peaceful and calm room. The piece over the bed is from Kenneth Wingard. It was the first piece of wall art that I had gotten for my daughter’s nursery 4 1/2 years ago and seemed to work here.

This is my daughter’s bedroom. I wanted to tap into the 1950 french flea market era.

This is a little corner off the dining room that also serves as my reference library. (I have about 5 boxes of books in the attic that we need more space for!). I took an old birdcage and turned it into a pendant light.

These are vintage plant holders that I turned into a lighting fixture.

In the living room, we needed a warm and cozy vibe to read or watch tv.. . . This plastic framed floor mirror was found on the sidewalk. It was an awful dark brown made to look like wood. I gave it a white paint facelift and it now serves as my daughters “mirror, mirror, on the wall.”