Live Like You & Marmalade Interiors
  • My House

  • 22May

    3 Comments

    Our outdoor space

    Posted in: Garden, My House

    Hope you’re week is going well so far.

    The last two weeks have been a flurry of activity getting the yard to look good and “depersonalizing” the house to get ready to sell. You don’t realize just how messy your place is until you get ready to put it on the market. We all have so much unnecessary stuff in our homes!

    The crazy thing is when all is cleaned out and the garden looks great, it kills me that we’re leaving this charming Virginia house. With the wrap around terraces it feels like living in the South of France or the hills of Malibu, not outside DC!

    So I thought I would share our outdoor space, and some stuff we did to get it ready…

    Matching pots and fresh entry carpets is the simplest fastest way to freshen up. I like these carpets with a wide black border from Pottery Barn for every entrance. I like defining entrances.

    The deck got power washed. The little outdoor eating area outside the dining room got cleaned up.

    All I can think of — why didn’t we eat here more often?

    Thankfully the beautiful pink Knock Out roses started to bloom. Thank You Katia Goffin of KG Landscape for putting them in. That’s a genius idea! They bloom the entire summer, yes the ENTIRE summer. (Katia just launched her own company so if you live in DC and need your garden designed call her. She just won for best garden design Houzz)

    They frame the little area perfectly.

    And makes everyone smile when they see them.

    I spray painted a pair of rusted lanterns high gloss black.  Black always looks so elegant against greenery I think.

    They sit on either side creating an “entry” in a few areas.

    I like framing entries everywhere.

    It always simply defines outdoor areas as “rooms”.

    We are surrounded by forest in every direction.

    And the entrance…

    …to our home is a big lush Wisteria covered pergola.

    I like these formal upstanding (what is their name?) ferns in all the planted pots. They look old world chic. Pretty obsessed with this plant.  Do you use them?

    I let them frame all the seating areas.

    The outdoor Restoration Hardware furniture I recovered in Trina Turk fabric a couple of years ago.

    The back of the house has a pool….

    …and another pergola with Wisteria. And a great hill for sledding in the winter time.

    Why don’t these bloom longer?

    There is one screened in porch on the back of the house.

    We styled it for a magazine shoot the other day.

    It has a seating area facing the big green hill so I hung a mirror (Ballard Designs) a couple of years ago from the ceiling on the opposite wall. That way you can enjoy the lush view even when facing the wall.

    At the front of our drive way….

    ..is a windy country road (really suburban road!) but it looks like country.

    I’ll miss dropping Luke off at the school buy here every morning.  But life has to change and move on right now. But I’m thankful for this place, and know whomever buys it will feel really lucky gets to live here.

    Thanks for letting me share this space.

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  • 23Oct

    11 Comments

    Inexpensive design trick- adding wood overlays to my office desk!

    Posted in: Design Tips!, My House

    You might have heard of this clever company My O’verlays already. I’ve mentioned their great products on the blog a few times and they’ve been written up in a ton of places. Overlay’s are chic wood overlays in different patterns that you simply just glue on your furniture to give them an instant and dramatic makeover. They make a plain Ikea piece look like an expensive piece of designer furniture.  Danika and Cheryle are geniuses in coming up with ways to beautify just about any space in your home with them. In my case I decided my  Parson’s West Elm dining table that I use as a desk in my office  needed a makeover. I don’t like to have what everyone has so I needed to give it it’s own spin. Here are some snap shots from makeover.

    Next to the desk is my vintage leopard chair and a custom vintage cabinet I redid in orange a while back. It also has two gold lamps that are now white with black shades and my super budget find mirror.

    My desk is the Parson’s 5′ dining table that looks like this:

    Clean, nice and basic.

    I wanted to add a little more flair to it.  So when Danika came out with her new Greek key patterns, I of course  had to try it.

    They kind of feel like candy when they arrive  –  you can hardly wait to put them on.

    I had told Danika what table I was redoing so the pieces were cut to fit this desk. You can simply e-mail them and say what piece of furniture you have from Ikea or West Elm and they can custom cut it to fit for you. As I said they are genius.

    We measured the pieces just to make sure how they should glue on.

    I’d like to say I do these DIY’s myself, but my go to guy Jose generally comes in to do them for me, since I’m running in a million directions and I’m always pressed for time. But this is super easy to do yourself. All you need is liquid nails glue.

    This is the look I was after.

    First we had to lay the table down.

    You simply add liquid nail glue spots to the back of them like this….

    …turn them over and glue them on. That’s pretty much it. It’s such a super easy and clever product!!

    We added these beautiful corner, but we actually took them off later. Think they are great for a table but for a working desk they tale up to much space. But so chic!

    Now the desk feels more at home in this little playful space. I’m adding a black and white cowhide in here, but for now there’s a brown zebra printed cowhide.

    All the items in this room have been made over, the white cabinet the black chairs, the yellow lamp all have a whole different before look that I will share in another post. The Regency curtain in here is from my label – it’s a white linen curtain with black silk border and can be ordered online here.

    My rule for this room was that every thing had to be given some kind of makeover.

    I want to make sure my office feels really creative.

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  • 21Sep

    12 Comments

    Here’s what happened to my foyer chair!

    Posted in: Before/After, Furniture makeovers, My House

    Remember a while back… I was redoing the foyer chair?

    Many of you probably won’t like this makeover, but it’s funny how you plan on doing one thing, and then you do something completely different.

    This is where I started out…

    I had so many fabric choices I couldn’t make up my mind.

    I needed it ready for a photo shoot on a certain day, so that ruled out a couple of my front runners like the yellow bamboo.

    I then decided I didn’t want anything too cute.

    Here is the chair originally.

    Enter…

    Martin Lawrence Bullard fabric. He is a design genius. But yep, everyone might not agree with this print as the first thing you see when you enter.

    But I wanted the chair to be it’s own entertaining vibe. And I wanted all the colors to tie in with the three rooms you see when you enter the house. I also want to be able to move it soon to another room.

    Hello lively chair?

    The outside and the back of the chair I covered in black velvet. The legs got high gloss white paint.

    That way the print is only busy from one direction.

    I added contrasting black velvet piping to add some definition.

    Is it the perfect look with the wall and floor?

    No. But it entertains me.

    And I can’t really see anything wrong with that?

    After all, our home is a place we should be who we are….or perhaps figure out who we are?

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  • 3Sep

    8 Comments

    How to pull together an outdoor dining space

    Posted in: Design Tips!, My House

    I don’t know about you, but our outdoor space has never been completed.  Some pieces are there, but nothing has been pulled together. It’s been one of those…oh heck I’ll get to that later. The “later” which of course never comes….you know what I’m taking about right??

    There are HUGE changes approaching in the coming months (more on that later), so I’m not making any more major design efforts at home.  So to enjoy the last few days of summer here in Virginia I pulled together an impromptu outdoor/indoor dining space with existing items. It’s not perfect, but it works.

    Here’s my approach:

    I like to bring the outdoors in, and I like to bring the indoors out!  I like to add elements we would never normally have outdoors. On our screened in, but open porch, I have an indoor mirror hanging from the ceiling to reflect the beautiful view. Adding items from indoors creates the feeling of a “real” room.

    An outdoor carpet with just a black border defines the area and invites you to use the space. It also makes it cozy and feel like a room.

    Nothing matches? Things look drab? Tablecloths are always the simplest and most inexpensive item to come to the rescue. They instantly cheer a space up.

    This particular one is from Sweden. It was too colorful for our summer house there, so it came back with me.

    Perhaps nothing creates a cozier atmosphere than a bunch of pillows. If you have guests coming over, bring out any indoor pillows you have and mix them up. The more the merrier, the more color, the more vibrant the feel. Mix and match with abandon!

    This temporary mix is Black velvet regency pillow, Fancy Greek Key pillow, mixed with Ikea,Trina Turk and a suzani.

    They will change depending on day and mood. Of course they come in if it rains.

    Don’t buy all your outdoor pieces from Restoration Hardware or whatever big retail place you are shopping! Make the look more interesting by adding a vintage set, even if it’s just a chair.  One of the things I purchased last year was a really glam shell inspired dining set. For now it’s here on the porch to add it’s own special flair.

    Love the detail!  This set I didn’t even want to paint.

    No outdoor room is complete without lots of plants and planters. Who doesn’t love one of those old orangeries? I like a mixture of different planters, new and vintage. Pick a color and spray paint them all in one tone. In my case I went with vibrant red.  One of my favorite plants to repeat all over the place is ferns – just love the color, the leaves and fullness.

    Make your pieces work double time. To create as much seating as possible, use a sofa mixed in with chairs.

    The original plan for this outdoor space was a long table with la large chandeliers and lots of hanging plants. But this temporary solution will have to do. At least we have somewhere inviting to sit for the next few weeks and enjoy the outdoors.

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