good morning! ac and i just got back from montana and i’m trying to jump back into life with internet and phone connections (it was so nice to be without them for 10 days). after days of living outdoors and trying things i never thought i would, i’m now happily pouring through the emails and submissions i’ve missed. thank you for all your kind notes and honeymoon well-wishes.

i wanted to start today off with two pretty pieces that have been sitting in my inbox for a few days. first up- beautiful new ceramic lanterns from alyssa ettinger. i almost always love alyssa’s work and these new designs are no exception. i have a weakness for ball jars (we drank out of them every day in montana, yay!) so i can’t wait to see these hit stores- click here to contact alyssa about purchasing. [photos of alyssa's lanterns by jen sliker]

next up is a beautiful new chair from molly at chairloom. her intern, jacqueline quinn from the moore college of art & design designed and hand made the fabric for this chair, using water-based ink. her beautiful fabric sure does this craigslist chair justice. click here to shop this design and all of molly’s other furniture makeovers.

this month i am going to focus on a room in the house that needs some design love. for me, it’s my entryway. it’s the first impression for your guests and it’s the first thing you’ll see when you come home everyday, so you should love it, right? this umbrella caddy is the first step for me to organizing my entryway. it makes me smile and it is super inexpensive. good luck! - kate

CLICK HERE for the full project after the jump!

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we’ve been obsessing over some 9-hole buttons we saw online a while back, and thought we’d try to make a few of our own using some oven bake clay from the art store. a film canister acts as a great cookie cutter for the buttons, and we indented the centers with an old wine cork. with 9 holes you can pretty much embroider any letter you want, which is great for personalizing your clothes or emblazoning your favorite coat with a catchy word or phrase.

have fun!
derek & lauren

CLICK HERE for the full instructions after the jump!

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it was fun getting the email from matthew bird of the great shop, the curatorium,  and hearing that he had a revelation while putting together everything for his sneak peek:  he LOVES his house! his house and life is all about good things, not necessarily any specific kind of things. i think he summed it up best by saying, “i love being surrounded by objects i love made by people i love.” everything has a story and a history and we’re so glad we can share it with you today (click here for additional images). thanks so much matthew, and don’t miss his shop next time you’re in providence! -anne

[above: The big green painting over the mantle is by my amazing sister. The walls will someday have Pompeian fake frescoes, but ALL of the trim needs stripping and painting first, and that gets overwhelming just thinking about it. So 14 years into this project I have one painted wall, one stripped door frame, and a bunch of gray plaster. I LONG for the 80’s when American craft artists could make a living producing teapots like this amazing elephant. It is now cracked and leaky, but it cannot be replaced and I treasure it, so I just use it and put a big saucer under to catch the drips. And WHO thought Napoleon should get turned into a pitcher? Crazy. The raucous tablecloth came home from a wedding in Finland with me. ]

The sofa was my Great Grandmothers, but it is now covered in an amazing Marc Pollock fabric designed by RISD alumna Rachel Doriss. The large picture is a scarf design by a RISD classmate whose name MIGHT be Betsy Elliott. The blurred man’s face is a LUCKY trash pick. There is a small photograph of a dog’s head by John Ha. I bought it at a RISD student street sale. It is, coincidentally, a picture of my own dog, who had died the week before the sale. I paid more for the picture than I had for the dog! I spent three years aluminum leafing the walls. I love silver, and being in this room in the afternoon light is a magical experience. The house is old (1814), and I have tried to let its age show. The old plaster surface, which looked so sad unpainted and unpapered, is the perfect surface for metal leaf. I am slowly covering the walls with small artwork, which seems counterintuitive considering the time investment in the silver.

I have the world’s smallest bathroom (thus the picture from outside!), so I figured it should at least be a fancy small bathroom. The gothic revival cabinets offer much needed storage in a house with only two closets. The rug is by Meg Little. The black ceramic vase by James Aarons, the glass vase by Tracy Glover. Someday the walls above the cabinet will have a pattern from the walls at Sainte Chapelle in Paris.

I have VERY few large walls, so my freshman year chicken skeleton drawing only really fits over the bed, though it is a strange statement. The lamp is a Josh Owen Tone Know Lamp from Umbra. I WISH they sold replacement bulbs for it, because it is supposed to dim as you turn the lamp, but only with the original bulb.

My south-facing kitchen wall is awash in sunlight all day, and so the only major change I have made to the house was the addition of this boxed-bay window. The fabric is by Ruth Adler Schnee (our last living textile Modernist). The artwork is all from my best friend James: on top is a pastry wrapper from a trip to Paris, in the middle are pages from a phone-call log with 6 funny messages from days I called his office, and the bottom is a poster made for his 40th birthday party. The dog gets a fancy copper food and water stand, but really I made it to keep myself from kicking the water bowl again.

There is a small room next to the dining room which is not big enough for much, but a piano fits perfectly inside. Egyptian revival bookcases line the lower walls. The glamor shot of my dog is by NYC photographer Paul Meleschnig. The wood clock is by Emi Ozawa. I bought it many years ago to give away at the holidays, but then I couldn’t bear to part with it. So there it sits with the artist’s tag still attached, making me feel less self-indulgent because I COULD still give it away…The Victorean sewing box is below two pictures of my grandfather, Junius Bird, who was an archeologist and had amazing adventures (there is a tiny picture next to the clock of both my grandparents in the early 1930’s on a steamship in South America where they were working).

The AMAZING Lisa Smith made the two-headed giraffe/cat/bird sculpture on the mantle. The chair on the left was a student project by Eck Follen (who now teaches in the Department of Furniture Design at RISD), and the coffee table by her partner Charles Swanson. I used to share a studio with them, and anything they made that didn’t find a home seems to have wound up with me, which is amazing. I love being surrounded by objects I love made by people I love. It is impossible to feel lonely. I made the steel three-legged chair in the middle as a student at RISD. It is super comfortable until you lean forward to get another cracker and it dumps you unceremonially on the floor.

The ring-necked pheasant came to me  from the Norton Flee Market in 1987. The green grid painting is by my amazing sister (same one as above). The chair-on-a-rock painting by Robert Brinkerhoff, who teaches in the RISD Illustration Department. The rabbit, the giraffe, the ostrich, and a few other pictures are ALL by Kelly Murphy. I bought something from her every year she was a student at RISD, but didn’t know she was the same person each time.

it’s no secret that i’m a complete francophile, and when it comes to great french design atelier lzc is on the a-list. barbara zorn is one of the three designers that makes up the studio, and the star behind today’s sneak peek. just like the fun, bold patterns that she creates, i love seeing how the same inspirations make their way into her living space. click here for more, full-sized images. [merci barbara et catarina!] -anne

the living room is the room that is full of flowers, with a pink marble chimney.  the chairs were bargain finds and the couch is julie prisca. . . the large dining room table is covered in a table cloth by tissage moutet. the furniture is salvaged metal with lots of plants and souvenirs of our travels.

the bedroom is full of blues with spacious furniture with an oak parquet floor. the unique illustrations on the wall and the pillows complete the space.

louise’s room is full of color, calm, light filled and full of wonderful objects that range from Petit Pan to Ikea.

at this year’s bklyn designs, kai-wei hsu of kwh furniture was one of the stand out designers so we thought it’d be fun to show off a sneak peek of his brooklyn home. his designs are founded on the philosophy that beauty lies in simplicity, and is further influenced by his experiences living and working in asia. we look foward to seeing more designs from kai-wei to come, but in the meantime,  check out the full set of additional images here, and don’t miss all our fantastic sneak peeks here (we’ve posted over 20 in the past week!!!). [thanks, kai-wei!] -anne

[above: The small print by the TV is a Raf Simons print that I found in the Japanese design magazine Casa Brutus.  I thought it was cool, so I cut it out and framed it.  The piece of driftwood next to that I found on Block Island.  My friends let me stay at their house there every summer, and I had thought of turning the driftwood into a lamp, but I decided not to.]

The painting and green seat are some things I did while I was at college….I’ve stopped using lime-green naugahyde for my work.

Above the hearth is a set of castings, my friend made, from bobbleheads.  Its the canadian band Rush. Awesome.  And I clearly need to recycle those empty bottles.

The sculpture/table in the corner, I made for a show of functional and nonfunctional birdhouses.  The title of the piece is “Knotty by Nature.”  The bamboo and aluminum screen to the far left is a piece I made in college.  At that time, I was really into the caged, volume forms of Martin Puryear.   The guitar on the right is my favorite.

The file box by my desk is a found object piece.  I saw this old beat up box being thrown away. I turned it into a file box with casters on the bottom and file rails.  The photo above the desk is a photo I took of a huge Cy Twombly painting at the MOMA. The chair was another thing I found on the street.  New York is a scavengers dream.

I like to have dinner with friends and have had up to 14 people around the dining table. The two wall hung containers were made to hold a set of teacups.  They were made by my maternal grandparents in Japan. The bamboo stem vases on top were made by my uncle in Japan.

A close-up of some of the prototypes of pulls I worked on with a close friend of mine.  I made a chest of drawers for the Bklyn Designs show and he fabricated the pulls for me. He is a French horn builder and restorer, so he know his brass.  Another painting by my father hangs above the bookshelf (Ikea.)

first we had molly’s place, and now it’s harper’s (the other half of proud mary) turn. her fabulous apartment is on king street, the main drag of downtown charleston,sc in a completely charming area. the 200 year old building that was formerly a bank and hotel was recently renovated, and all i know is that i’m crazy about all the great exposed brick. don’t miss the rest of the sneak peek which continues after the jump, and click here for more images of this great space. [thanks so much, harper!] -anne

[above: Eames rocker from DWR, Striped pillow is Proud Mary and the painting in the background is from Joanna Wardell, an old family friend.  ]

My favorite seat in the house.  A perfect spot for reading and having morning coffee. The batik doll is from a recent trip to Jamaica. Pillow is Proud Mary

My dining room also serves as my office.  The light in incredible and the huge window looks out onto King Street and my neighbor whom we call “Halo Boy” (he plays a lot of video games).

My husband’s office and standard Ikea bookshelf

I had the duvet and pillows made with a purple ikat from Reprodepot and a soft pink from Mood.  The dream catcher is from a recent visit to Wyoming, my husband says it gives him bad dreams!

The drawings on the stairs were done 30 years ago by my grandmother’s friend.  They are all of Pawley’s Island and Georgetown, South Carolina.

The “Bertoiaesque” chairs on the terrace were picked up on the street in Brooklyn.  We’re trying to stick to palms and succulents … much harder to kill!