If the runways are any indication of what’s to be hot this spring, we’ll continue to see a lot of stripes and graphic prints and metallic, but what’s back with a vengeance? Yup, spring florals! And it couldn’t happen at a better time. Nothing says spring like a feminine floral print. The 2017 runways had all kinds of spring florals this year, both bold and daring ones and pretty and delicate ones.
Lord knows nobody but celebrities can get away with wearing the whacky stuff straight off the runway, so here’s a few of my picks for how to do floral right this spring all of which are VERY accessible and all under $100.
And I’m not sure we all need 5 pairs of floral shoes, but I saw these and had to share – one pair in our closet is ok, right? Okay, maybe two, one for dressy one for casual.
So hopefully you’ve been keeping up with the series and have heard about my family’s adventure in finding and building a vacation rental property. We’ve discussed looking for real estate, buying the land, and searching for a builder for our dream home in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In case you’ve missed any you can find those episodes by clicking the links here, here and here. Ok, now that we’re all caught up, I want to pick up where I left off. We had just sent the looooooong questionnaire to 3 builders and were eagerly awaiting their replies. Each of their responses couldn’t have been more different. Builder A, who could better be termed as a developer (which is a rarity in OBX since the community is relatively small), answered all of our questions and also took me on a tour of one of their homes and created a several-page-long packet showing us what we could get for our budget including selections of floorplan, finishes, etc. Builder B, who is known for being OBX’s “green” builder also responded by answering each of our questions thoroughly and followed up with a phone call as well. Finally, Builder C opted to not respond to our questions in full but rather called us and attempted to sell us on his services.
After reviewing these 3 very different responses, our selection was evident. We decided were not at all interested in working with a developer (Builder A) who would only allow us to select certain cabinets from a certain company in a prescribed finish. Also, when I was taken on a tour, the rep from Builder A picked me up in a dirty minivan and it was just a real turnoff. If your business is trying to win a client who’s about to plop down about a half mil to build a custom home, at least have the tour guide vacuum out their car – I would have even preferred if the rep had hopped in my car. Builder C who didn’t even “have the time” to respond to all of our questions as we had asked (even though he probably was the least expensive option) was obviously out.
The builder we did select, Builder B, not only answered all of our questions but we were also happy to have green, eco-friendly expertise available at our fingertips. He was also willing to consider any “oddball” thing we brought up, like building a pre-fab home, which he had never done (ultimately, we decided against this because of all of the strict building codes for coastal, hurricane resistant homes would have negated the cost effectiveness). He was open to us being as involved as we wanted to be or could be given our long distance during the building process. He was not at all pushy, and just seemed to be a regular, down to earth, experienced and nice guy. Above all, what we valued most was that he was responsive. If we asked a question, he answered either via email or text within hours. If we called him he called us back. You may be thinking, “duh”, since it’s sort of important thing for a business-owner to return their client’s inquiries, right? You’d be surprised. Maybe it’s a regional thing. We had high expectations. At the time, both my husband and I worked in Washington DC’s fast paced Federal Government Contracting industry in which we competed fiercely for our client’s business. Certainly, the mindset in OBX is not as competitive, it’s MUCH more laid back (as we’d learn in our dealing with other vendors). We knew we’d be most happy working with a builder who was client oriented.
We made our builder selection while we were searching for land which I highly recommend. Our builder came with me to plots of land to help us select the right one for building and met with us separately to discuss budget, pools, architects, and floorplans before we ever even signed a contract. Selecting the right builder is SO important. I think we definitely made an excellent choice. Our builder managed the project from start to finish, was responsive, provided impeccable workmanship and quality control, and gave us our dream beach house and meanwhile made the whole experience positive and enjoyable.
Next installment in the series we’ll talk about floorplans, architects and custom versus cookie cutter.
Curvy rattan, cane and bamboo furniture is all over the place these days. You can bet that retailers have been moving it to the forefront of their displays lately since spring as upon us (though as I write this there are weather forecasts predicting insane amounts of snow for the northeast in March)! Rattan, cane and other natural elements are red hot right now and you can drop a small fortune on a designer or vintage piece like this, which without a doubt is gorgeous, but yowza…it’s $1800!
If you’re like me and can’t make that sort of commitment then these new pieces from IKEA, yes, IKEA may be more your speed. They are beautiful and inexpensive. They have a number of great options in chairs, chaises, settees, end tables and pendant lights in several designs from their Jassa, Kungsholmen, and soon to-be-released Mastholmen lines.
Here’s how I’d style these cane pieces in a wonderful, brightly lit sunroom!
If you’re looking for accessories for your home but don’t want to spend more than like $5, you’re in luck. This easy DIY design accessory trick is so simple and inexpensive and I use it all the time. Buying actual coffee table books that look good and have attractive covers and spines is a nice idea, but they aren’t cheap and it can be hard to find those that coordinate well with your room and with each other. Also, why buy a book you probably won’t ever read cover to cover, when you can take one of those extra hard back books that is laying around and cover it to match your décor perfectly? So here’s my ridiculously easy step by step tutorial for how to cover books to adorn a shelf, coffee table, or nightstand (this is also great for staging homes).
Step-by-Step Book Beautification
1.Gather old hard back books. If you don’t own any, you could hit up a thrift store with a pocket of loose change or if your public library is like ours, they give unwanted ones away for free!
2. Buy some “fancy” wrapping paper. I find that HomeGoods usually has a great selection near their checkout aisles and most are about $3 per roll. You could even use a huge roll of brown craft paper that you can find at Home Depot (they call it masking paper and you can get 180 feet for $4) if you need to cover a whole library’s worth of books or if you want to make it into a fun project with paints or stamps with the kids. This would also work well with scraps of wallpaper. Here are my supplies for a recent covering project.
3. Unroll your paper and put your book down and open the front cover. If you have a patterned paper, be sure to orient your book in the direction you want the pattern to run and if you want consistency, be sure to orient all of your books this way.
4. Cut around your open book leaving about an inch and a half excess on all sides.
5. Fold the excess around the edge of the front and back cover creating a crease on those edges. Press down on the top and bottom edges to mark where the paper will need to be folded.
6. Remove the book from the paper. Fold the excess at the top and bottom to match the height of the book.
7. Fold over the left and right cover edges to create a pocket for the front and back cover. For the back cover be sure to account for the extra space you’ll need when the book is closed.
8. Insert the front and back cover into the pockets.
9. If necessary, (it’ll depend on the fit and if you have thin or slippery paper) tape along the edge of the front pocket.
10. Display your books artfully!
Now that is a stupid easy DIY design accessory. Do you have an easy DIY design secret? Let us know and we’ll feature it here soon!
Primarily I design and decorate homes, and occasionally refinish or repurpose furniture. But this week I branched out into somewhat new design territory. I guess I’m sorta known among my friends for being the “creative” one (a compliment and certainly not the worst thing they could call me). One friend decided to throw her daughter a huge sweet 16 birthday party and enlisted the help of her friends to do everything from catering to sweets to decorating … that’s where I came in. (Friend Colette provided catering and dessert with her company ColMoni’s Catering and it. was. fantastic!)
The party would be held in my friend’s very spacious home and host over 100 friends and family. Much like designing any other room, we began with an inspiration piece to base the rest of the design on. Our inspiration began with the gorgeous invitations which featured a watercolor floral motif with periwinkle as the feature color and splashes of other shades, deep and light pink, light and dark green and a range of blues and purples. We decided to decorate the expansive basement dance floor with streamers of tulle and tissue paper pom-poms in this same range of hues. Here are some of the material basics that we utilized.
There are about a million tutorials out there for making tissue paper pom-poms and it really isn’t that hard but it IS time consuming. We made over 125 tissue paper pom-poms of varying size and color. To say it took a long time is an understatement, but the end results were all worth it. We put pom-poms on the dance floor, we put them over the cake table, over tall drink tables, on the cake table, at the home entrance, and hanging from the balcony. All of those same areas were also adorned with varying shaded swags of blue and purple tulle ribbon and fairy lights. I think the overall effect was exactly what we were going for, transforming a stately and elegant home into a fun and whimsical setting for a Sweet 16! Here’s a few preparty shots in daylight.
These are a few evening pics during the party (please forgive poor cell phone quality).
As you may have noticed I have a love affair with flowers so I was very excited to also design and arrange four statement centerpieces. We selected a tall vase filled with hydrangeas, curly willow, monstera leaves and purple statice accent.
While decorating parties isn’t the core of my business, I think I’d love to take on a few more and really perfect this design art!
I’m not sure about the weather where you live, but here on the Mid-Atlantic coast it’s been feeling like spring for the last week or so. This rush of warm weather has got me on a mission to get seedlings started (inside still) and skip right over the St. Patrick’s Day wreath in exchange for a fun and bright Spring wreath. While looking for inspiration I found so many great ideas. Here’s the 25 best and most gorgeous spring wreaths, I’m definitely going to duplicate one and maybe even a second one for the back door.
My post for today is brief, more details in about a week. I’ve been busy though. What could all of this be about? I can’t wait to share the final results with you. Stay tuned.
Succulents and their use in interiors have been hot for a few years now and I don’t think they are going anywhere any time soon. More recently we’ve seen the additional surge of the use of cacti and other desert plants in high end homes. They are being paired with warm woods, and light pastel hues for a light and ethereal look that’s an alternative to the more traditional heavy, desert southwest look. I don’t know that this look has an actual name but I’m calling it “new desert casual.” This light and airy look can lean a bit bohemian or a little more modern. First, a few examples and then a few ideas for how to achieve the look yourself!
Amber Interior Design was able to even mix the desert look with some beachy prints to complete this relaxed desert boho inspired look below.
Not sure of the original designers of these that follow but they are desert casual at it’s finest… and fairly easy to recreate yourself!
Create New Desert Casual Yourself!
A few ideas for achieving a similar look yourself and where to find some desert casual items. (My eyes have now been awoken to the splendors of faux large cacti – who knew – and they look so real on the computer!) List below has clickable links to all items.
Picking up where we left off last, Dave and I had selected the perfect piece of land that met all of our requirements for a perfect beach house and was well suited for building. Next, we had to put in an offer and cross our fingers that we’d land this little slice of heaven. This particular property had been on the market for a while, was owned by the same person since the 1970’s and was a bit overpriced. We did our research. By looking at other comps and measuring distance to beach and size of other lots we felt pretty well informed about the right price for this piece of land. Our realtor had also informed us that the selling agent was “old school” and probably not as inclined to know or do all the same research we were doing and might not accept our initial offer price right off the bat. We were undeterred. We wrote up an offer that was a bit lower than the asking price and submitted the offer WITH a detailed spreadsheet that essentially reflected all of our research so that the seller (and his “old school” agent) could see that the price we were offering was fair and reasonable for the area. As expected, they gave us a counter offer and we countered back eventually settling on a sale price that was about 11% below asking. Doing an hour or so of research payed off and saved us over 20 grand! In our minds, that was more money that we could put into the building of our beach dream home.
As we searched for land we had also been simultaneously looking for builders. We were able to see who had previously been successful in the annual Outer Banks Parade of Homes (an event sponsored by the Outer Banks Home Builders Association). We selected several builders from this list of previous winners and reviewed their websites, googled the crap out of them, and stalked them on Linked-in and Facebook. I heart internet research! After we narrowed down our top 3 contenders we sent them a detailed list of questions. We sent all of them the same 47+ (yikes – we probably seemed like nightmare clients from the get go) questions. Tip – don’t be afraid to ask questions – even if it makes you feel like a pain for asking! This may be the single largest investment you ever make so you should understand it all so you can make good decisions. So, here’s our list of 47+ questions we posed to 3 builders. If you’re embarking on a custom building project feel free to use them and truth be told as an internet research nerd I probably copped a few of these from elsewhere at the time! We also talked with a friend that was building a custom home and he had a few good ideas that we questioned builders on as well. Note, we also prefaced our list of questions to the builders with some context about who we were, what we wanted to build, size, location, purpose (i.e. vacation rental) etc.
Builder Questionnaire
1. Can you show me a copy of your business license?
2. Please describe the structure of your company.
3. Do you design/build or will you work with our plans or our architect? Are there extra fees if we select one over the other?
4. How many members of your team can I expect to work with through the process?
5. How many homes have you built in the Outer Banks?
6. Can you provide home owner referrals for recent builds we can contact?
7. How many homes have you built dealing with the Southern Shores or Chicahauk Property Owners Associations?
8. Are there any HOA covenants that will affect building in these areas?
9. How many homes are you currently involved in building?
10. How many homes are you currently bidding to build?
11. Of the last 10 homes you have built, how many have been awarded based on a competitive bid?
12. If we decide to use a stock plan we find on the internet, what format would your company require the plans be in for use (reproducible master, CAD, etc.)?
13. Could you specifically explain what quality control measures you will implement to ensure the highest standards of excellence throughout the building process?
14. Who will be assigned to my job?
15. Will my job have a job site manager? Would you provide the name of that person and describe their educational background and experience?
16. Will I be given one single point of contact throughout the construction of our home or will have I have to deal with subcontractors and separate installers individually?
17. What role will you play once my house is under construction?
18. How often will you be at the job site?
19. Will you have sub-contractors working on my job that you have never previously hired?
20. How long have each of your sub-contractors been working for you?
21. Do you have preferred pool installers you have worked with in the past?
22. Have you ever worked in conjunction with a prefab company? Would that be something you’d be willing to do?
23. How do you protect damages to building materials, appliances, plumbing fixtures, stone, tile, glass, etc. during construction?
24. How do you maintain temperature/humidity control inside the home during construction?
25. How will you keep me informed during the building process considering we will be in Virginia?
26. When will I be required to be present at the job site? Historically how accurate are you at coming in on budget?
27. Once a budget is established, how will you keep me within my established budget?
28. Do you offer any form of plan modification, design, or construction credits or discounts for Military Personnel?
29. Would you be able to provide a working timetable of this project prior to an agreed start date?
30. Do you include a timetable as part of your contract?
31. Would you expect to be penalized for not completing the job on time?
32. How do you want to be compensated? In a Cost Plus – Fixed Fee Contract, what is your fixed fee?
33. Do you have a bank you are familiar with and have worked with in the past that is located in the Outer Banks?
34. What is your billing schedule?
35. How will I be billed?
36. How will change orders be managed?
37. How is home plan modifications and landscaping designer paid?
38. How much liability insurance do you carry?
39. Can you show me a copy of your Builder’s Certificate of Insurance?
40. Do you provide workman’s compensation?
41. Do you carry fire insurance? What other insurance do you carry?
42. What protection do I have if your business fails?
43. We are focusing on lots found in “X” flood zones – what are unique building ideas you use to still try and give the homeowners a water view?
44. What are your pet peeves when it comes to dealing with homeowners?
45. How open are you to allowing the homeowners complete certain home finishings (such as painting), as long it does not interfere with the build schedule, as a way to reduce costs?
46. How can we be your best client?
47. What have I forgotten to ask you?
I’ve been seeing a lot of advertisements recently for the Florida Keys. The visions across my TV include gorgeous seascapes that look serene, tropical, relaxing, warm and inviting. This is not the Florida Keys that I remember driving through in our red mini-van as a kid. Honestly, back in the late 80’s, I remember the keys looking pretty dumpy. No offense Keys, I may have been moody because it seemed like the longest drive of my life! I’d love to go back and see if the Keys could prove my 11-year-old brain wrong. I decided to take a more immediate approach for seeing what the real Keys may have in store by perusing some real estate. Two things are certain, beautiful homes and land are available in the Keys, and they don’t come cheap! Check out these beauties.
These first 2 homes, one a traditional colonial, the other a edgy modern number are in Islamorada.
This next lush tropical palace is in Key Largo and offers a bit of seclusion which is a rare luxury on the Keys which are so super skinny that there’s not a lot of room to be a land baron.
And when you’re secluded on Key Largo, this is how you get around… wonder if they are included in the purchase of the home? Is that one on the left a golf cart or the old Pope Mobile?
Key West, all the way at the bottom of the Keys, is the one part of the Keys that I recall being quaint, historic and having a lot of personality in a small package. There are a ton of homes that are really cute Hemmingway-esque British Colonial cottages in Key West.
Now that I’m seeing images of present-day Florida Keys, I’m thinking they’d make a wonderful escape from winter, maybe for a long Valentine’s Day weekend. Do you have a favorite not-to-far tropical getaway?
